Character Progression and XP

In the days of Chainmail, character progression originated when pieces within the wargame started gaining experience through combat and survival. Experience earns these pieces the ability to more easily defeat enemies and sustain more attacks. D&D and other early TTRPGS attempted to emulate sword-and-sorcery fiction to create similar stories and characters. I think the methods of character progression present in a game are hugely influential upon the style of game that is then adopted by the play culture of that game setting/system. There's not a single right or wrong answer, but I think that any game designer should think about the options available to them. The following list is not exhaustive in the different methodologies, nor the examples of the specific methods. But here are five common methods of character progression that you’ll find within most TTRPGs.

1. Gold for XP

This is the way of classic D&D, its many retro-clones, and various OSR systems. For the uninitiated, each piece of gold is worth 1 experience point. But you don't level up in the middle of the dungeon as soon as you find the dragon's treasure horde. You have to spend this gold. Different GMs account for this in various ways, sometimes its an overnight payment to the church, while other times this is done through months of training. For some character classes, this may also be tied to quests. Ye old D&D monks could only get up to a certain level before they had to fight the "next best" monk to claim their title of "X-level monk, 5th best in the world".

But gold for XP is, from my perspective, also seen in a great variety of other systems. In Traveller, you need money to train up your skills . Similarly, in Call of Cthulhu, having money may mean that you can train skills or recover sanity at nicer spa. Traveller has this system be the focus of its level up mechanic and many fans of the system can offer stories describing how they became space merchants because the money was better than being space mercenaries. The "money for downtime training" is more of a secondary option or sub-system within the context of Call of Cthulhu.

What type of game, gameplay, and play culture does this encourage?

Gold for XP encourages players to adventure deep into dungeons where they can plunder the wealth of lost civilizations! Or sometimes it means that they become merchants and business owners. Classic D&D does try to somewhat transition into this with domain level play. This difference is created by the type of setting in which the PCs explore, what kind of story hooks are baited, and the maturity of the players. Teenagers are much more likely to murderhobo their way through the world than your average 40-year-old.

However, I would be remiss in my duties unless I mentioned that you need not kill for gold, as the act of killing does not gain you anything. It is the plunder of treasure that nets XP. PCs often become liars and sneak-thieves as often as they do murderhobos. Similarly, a setting full of chaos-serving pig-faced orcs is different than one of advanced space faring culture. So this method of character progression does inform the types of games that are played, but it does not have a monopoly of influence.

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2. XP for Overcoming Threats

Later D&D, its descendants such as DCC, and countless other games have characters gain experience points when they overcome a threat. The amount of XP rewarded is generally associated with the threat level that is thrown at the PCs. This threat usually comes in the form of a monster or a trap, though sometimes its a puzzle or social encounter. I use the term "overcoming" because different systems have different approaches to what counts for purposes of gaining experience. In some games, you must slay the monster, while in others you could also bypass the encounter without combat.

What type of game, gameplay, and play culture does this encourage?

This rewards adventurous parties and thus tends to create stories filled with adventure. However, a "threat" can come from social and political experiences so sometimes you see that kind of narrative but I've found it uncommon. PCs may still decide to use their gold to start businesses, but this is now comes out of a purely narrative aspiration.

3. Diegetic Skill Progression

This method of character progression is more common in levelless/skill-based games. For example, in Call of Cthulhu (← free link), when you attempt a skill roll, you get to mark that skill. At the end of the session (or sometimes adventure), you get to roll to see if you can increase that skill's overall chance of success. So only skills that are actually used are ones that see progress.

A completely different method of diegetic skill progression can be found in Frontier Scum, in which skills allow rolls to be done with advantage. Characters have skills like "lying to people" and "handling horses". These are free form in their creation. The game has suggestions of skills but also encourages players to just make up ones themself. And you can only have 5 skills at a time. When you roll a natural 20, you can add (or replace if you already have 5 skills), or get an Ace card (a meta-currency) if you're satisfied with your current skills.

What type of game, gameplay, and play culture does this encourage?

This style of character progression really encourages PCs to be active participants in the story. Though sometimes it does lead to players trying to find contrived opportunities, or at least I've seen that in a few Call of Cthulhu games. You'll notice that each of my examples are skill-based games. This kind of character progression isn't really seen in level-based games such as D&D.

4. Progression Through Near Death

Electric Bastionland (← free link) and some other ItO inspired games such as Cairn (← free link), offer little in the way of mechanical character progression. Most progress comes from collecting useful gear. Instead, these games offer "scars" or the same thing but with a different name. When a character drops to exactly zero hp and doesn't die, they get a permanent scar. These scars increase hp or an ability score. Depending on the game it may be more natural or supernatural. But it should always be interesting.

What type of game, gameplay, and play culture does this encourage?

I find that this form of character progression works in games that expect little mechanical character progression. This generally results in a more cautious play style where PC protection and capability is more derived from capable hirelings and magical items.

5. Milestone Leveling

You level when you accomplish something noteworthy, whether it took a single session or a whole year of gaming. The PCs may have completed an adventure module, or done something worthy of a title (example: Moira the Warrior, Slayer of the Frogmen). Games like Mork Borg and the Black Sword Hack do this, but it’s also a popular method in D&D 5e. Games that use this method tend to be level based systems and the pace of leveling is dictated very much by the style of game.

What type of game, gameplay, and play culture does this encourage?

This puts the story first, though sometimes "completing the story" can almost feel like a meta-currency. I think this tends to encourage more episodic game narratives. That said, these milestones can easily be chapters within an overarching story (ex: clearing floors in a megadungeon or defeating the evil overlord's eight lieutenants). This kind of character progression pushes players to seek exciting stories and minimize mundane activities such as shopping for gear.

Summary

Sorry, "system doesn't matter" folks, the system informs gameplay style! But character progression is a super easy thing to house rule! When making a new game system, you should think about the kind of stories that you want to see within your game. I'm certain that one could dive much deeper into this subject and apply unique labels to the different styles and sub-styles, but I'm not that interested in taxonomy. I'm just interested in creating fun and interesting stories.

What’s your preferred style of character progression? Any unique character progression systems that you love? Or any games that absolutely nail this in an interesting way?

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