Some Thoughts on My Experience Point System
This was originally written so that I didn't just sit there and stare at the experience point stuff for half an hour every time I got ready to give experience points.
This is all done in Excel.
First, I have a worksheet for each PC, somewhat like this:
| | A | B | C | D | E |
| 1 | Item | Pts Ttl for Grp | Individ. Pts | ISY Rate | |
| 2 | | | | 1 | 1 |
| ... | | | | | |
| 19 | Subtotal | = SUM (B2 : B18) | = SUM (C2 : C18) | = SUM (D2 : D18) | = SUM (E2 : E18) |
| 20 | Average Insanity Rating | | = D20 | = D19 / E19 | |
| 21 | Total | | = C19 / C20 | | |
For those not familiar with the wack-ass mathematics of Excel, "=SUM(X1:X28)" adds everything from cell X1 to cell X28. The = has to be at the beginning of any equation... even if you're just copying the info from one cell to another.
Some other clarifications:
- Item - What they did to get experience
- Pts Ttl for Grp - Total points the group would get - this gets divided by some number between the number of PC's (3) and 10, depending on just how much I feel like giving at the time; the result is in the next column...
- ...Individ. Pts - Individual points. Figured it out, huh?
- ISY Rate - The "Insanity Rating". How crazy I think they were to actually do this.
- The Untitled Column - Just a basic count of how many items there are.
The 1's in cells D2 and E2 are just there so I don't have to stare at "#DIV/0!" in half the columns.
The Subtitle row (19):
- B19, Pts Ttl for Grp - Adds up the group, undivided points, mainly to keep track of them until I start with the individual stuff.
- C19, Individ. Pts - Adds up all the divided out individual points.
- D19, ISY Rate - Adds up the Insanity Ratings.
- E19, Unnamed Column (E) - Adds up all the items.
Average Insanity Rating row (20):
- C20, Individ. Pts - Actually just being used as a convenient storage space for the info from the next cell...
- D20, ISY Rate - Divides the total insanity rating by the number of items. i.e., averages the insanity rating.
See that little cell at the bottom, labeled C21 and filled with "=C19/C20"? That's the actual points that player gets. C19, if you recall, is the total number of individual points; C20 is the average insanity rating for their actions.
The next spreadsheet is arbitrarily called "EXP". Looks something like this (the names listed are not real NPCs).
| | A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R |
| 1 | Name | Spent | 0.50% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 7% | 8% | 9% | 10% | 11% | 12% | 13% | 14% | 15% |
| 2 | Conan the Gimpy | 200 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 22 | 24 | 26 | 28 | 30 |
| 3 | Sidney, Dworkin's Brother | 1000 | 5 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 110 | 120 | 130 | 140 | 150 |
| 4 | Brand's Mutated Clone | 280 | 1.4 | 2.8 | 5.6 | 8.4 | 11.2 | 14.0 | 16.8 | 19.6 | 22.4 | 25.2 | 28.0 | 30.8 | 33.6 | 36.4 | 39.2 | 42.0 |
Basically, all this sheet does is give me the total points for all NPCs in one place and a general idea of what starting percent I want to use (soon).
Now we come to slightly more interesting stuff. This sheet is called "Deaths". I'll use an actual example this time - Chaosite Guards that were wiped out pretty quickly.
| | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M |
| 1 | # K'd | Name | Spent | Base % | PplInv'd | + WF | = WF | - WF | Diff. (1-5) | End % | % Used | per | EXP |
| 2 | 4 | Mearaways Guards | -40 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | = D2 - F2 + (0.5 * G2) + H2 - I2 | 2 | 0.8 | = A2 * L5 |
How this works:
- A, # K'd - Number killed. In this case, there were 4 guards.
- B, Name - Who/what was killed. Mearaways guards.
- C, Spent - Total points of the killed person/thing. The guards were average for Chaos, with no stuff... average of -40 apiece.
- D, Base % - This is kind of an arbitrary percentage that I adjust according to how I want the final points to come out. Usually I stay between .5% and 10%. In this case I ended up using my default of 8%.
- E, PplInv'd - Number of people involved. This includes any PC's. In this case, 2 PC's and 2 NPC's were attacking, thus 4.
- F, + WF - Number of party members with Warfare higher than the killed person/thing. All four in the party had at least Amber Warfare.
- G, = WF - Number of party members with Warfare equal to the killed person/thing. All party members, as I noted above, had at least Amber Warfare.
- H, - WF - Number of party members with Warfare less than the killed person/thing. Did I mention the part had at least Amber Warfare?
- I, Diff. (1-5) - Difficulty level for the actions. This was barely a challenge; I mainly put 2 because they were in close quarters.
- J, End % - What a lovely equation... or something. It's Base Percent minus the number of Warfares above the killed person/thing plus half of the number of Warfares equal to the killed person/thing plus the number of Warfares equal to the killed person/thing minus the difficulty. *pant pant* Basically, if you have 2 party members that have higher Warfare, 2 with lower, and 2 equal, you're only actually adding 1. It kind of compensates if there are party members more inept than the person they're trying to kill. But this party was all higher; the final result was 2.
- K, % Used - Percent used, when you come down to the very end. It's 2, just a copy of the previous cell.
- L, per - This is what you get if you multiply C2 times K2 (Spent points times percent used). This means it was 0.8 pts per guard.
- M, EXP - Experience points finally given for this killing. The final result, for those interested, was 3.
All that work. The next step, after filling out the chart, is to take that final number in M2 and 'port it over to the PC sheets. That part's easy. Remember the chart from earlier? It should now look like this:
| | A | B | C | D | E |
| 1 | Item | Pts Ttl for Grp | Individ. Pts | ISY Rate | |
| 2 | Killing Mearaways Guards | 3 | .75 | 1 | 1 |
| ... | | | | | |
| 19 | Subtotal | 3 | .75 | 1 | 1 |
| 20 | Average Insanity Rating | | 1 | 1 | |
| 21 | Total | | .75 | | |
My default Insanity Rating for killing people is 1 - this is Amber. And the Group Points are divided by four because 2 PCs and 2 NPCs were involved.
This one is called "Rescues". I'm going to use another made-up example for this one.
| | A | B |
| 1 | Name | Sidney |
| 2 | HeldBy | Rothschilde |
| 3 | Pts | 320 |
| 4 | HeldBy | Marietta |
| 5 | Pts | 211 |
| 6 | Held In | Elysium |
| 7 | Pts | 9 |
| 8 | TPts | = B3 + B5 + B7 |
| 9 | NPC Aid | 0 |
| 10 | NPC | n/a |
| 11 | NPC WF | 0 |
| 12 | NPC | n/a |
| 13 | NPC WF | 0 |
| 14 | TTL off. Pts | 540 |
| 15 | TTL aid Pts | 0 |
| 16 | PC Pts | 450 |
| 17 | Difference | = B14 - (B15 + B16) |
| 18 | Base | 7.5 |
| 19 | #R'c'rs | 3 |
| 20 | P's K'd | 0 |
| 21 | NC's K'd | 1 |
| 22 | Diff./(2*R'c'rs)/10 | = B17 / (2 * B19) / 10 |
| 23 | Complexity (1-5) | 2 |
| 24 | End | = B18 - B19 - B20 - B21 + B22 + B23 |
| 25 | Per | = B3 * (B24 / 100) |
| 26 | G'ds K'd | 0 |
| 27 | GdEXP | 0 |
| 28 | Exp | = B25 + B27 |
This is one of those "stare at it for half an hour" sheets. And I did, as I wrote this, and I still can't figure out what "P's K'd" means. *shrugs* But here's the other stuff.
- Name - The person who needed rescuing. Gee...
- HeldBy - Person holding the rescuee. 2 repeats, for those multi-kidnapper groups.
- Pts - Points of person holding the rescuee. 2 repeats, for those multi-kidnapper groups.
- Held In - The Shadow the rescuee was held in. Or the Way of Chaos. Or whatever.
- Pts - Points of the prison, be it Shadow or whatever.
- Tpts - Total points of the kidnappers and the prison.
- NPC aid - How many (if any) NPCs helped the PCs.
- NPC, NPC WF - Name of the NPC and their Warfare. 2 repeats for those pesky multi-NPC rescues.
- TTL off. Pts - Total offensive points. This is just a repeat of the Tpts cell, for convenience.
- Ttl aid Pts - Sum of the Warfares of the helping NPCs.
- PC Pts - Total points of the PCs.
- Difference - Offensive points minus the sum of the NPC and PC pts
- Base - Base percent. I arbitrarily decided on 7.5. I do that sometimes.
- #R'c'rs - Number of rescuers.
- P's K'd - I have no idea right now. Players killed? People killed? Combatants killed? No clue at all.
- NC's K'd - Noncombatants killed. Happens sometimes, y'know. *g*
- Diff./(2*R'c'rs)/10 - Difference divided by twice the number of rescuers divided by 10. Why 10? Totally arbitrary; otherwise the numbers get a bit too large for my tastes.
- Complexity (1-5) - How difficult it was. 2, because there was probably a bit of puzzle-solving involved, but it would have been pretty much straight in-and-out.
- End - The Base Percent minus number of rescuers minus whatever P's K'd is minus noncombatants killed plus difference divided up plus complexity. The end percent used.
- Per - Group experience subtotal.
- G'ds K'd - Guards killed.
- GdEXP - Experience for killed guards from the Deaths sheet.
- Exp - Number from the Per cell plus Guard Exp. The total Group Experience. It ends up being 22.4.
More work. Now you port it to the PC's page again, thus:
| | A | B | C | D | E |
| 1 | Item | Pts Ttl for Grp | Individ. Pts | ISY Rate | |
| 2 | Killing Mearaways Guards | 3 | .75 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | Rescuing Sidney | 22.4 | 7.46666667 | 1 | 1 |
| ... | | | | | |
| 19 | Subtotal | 25 | 8 | 2 | 2 |
| 20 | Average Insanity Rating | | 1 | 1 | |
| 21 | Total | | 8.21666667 | | |
The individual points for the rescue is simply group points divided by number of rescuers - 3, in this case.
Next sheet is "Locateds". It's people they've found, but haven't had to rescue. No freebies this time; I made these people up!
| | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M |
| 1 | Name | Pts | Found In | Pts | Base % | Combat | Extra Jobs | Other In | Complexity | End | Per | Kill Exp | Exp |
| 2 | Maxwell | 300 | Vallhalla | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | = E2 + F2 + G2 - H2 + I2 | = B2 * (J2 / 100) | 0 | = K2 + L2 |
Right. It works this way:
- Name - Hmm...
- Pts - Points of the person located.
- Found In - The Shadow, usually.
- Pts - Points of the location.
- Base % - I ended up with 3, simply because this was so straightforward.
- Combat - Was there fighting? A simple 1 for yes, 0 for no
- Extra Jobs - Did they do anything else? Again, 1 for yes, 0 for no.
- Other In - Other insanity. Basically the insanity rating of what they did. It's a 3 because they waltzed in out of sheer curiousity.
- Complexity - It's a 1. There was almost no complexity involved here.
- End - What comes out after taking the base, adding combat and extra jobs and subtracting insanity and complexity. It came out to be 1.
- Per - Points before adding any kills made. Came out to 3.
- Kill Exp - Just the values for killings from the Death page.
- Exp - Final experience, adding the Per column to the Kill Exp. In this case, it comes out to 3.
Once again, you port the numbers and info over to the PC's page. This one will have an insanity rating of more than one - take the number from the Other In column. And there was only one PC and no NPCs involved, so I didn't divide the group points. So now things should look like this:
| | A | B | C | D | E |
| 1 | Item | Pts Ttl for Grp | Individ. Pts | ISY Rate | |
| 2 | Killing Mearaways Guards | 3 | .75 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | Rescuing Sidney | 22.4 | 7.46666667 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | Locating Maxwell | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| ... | | | | | |
| 19 | Subtotal | 28 | 11 | 5 | 3 |
| 20 | Average Insanity Rating | | 2 | 1.666667 | |
| 21 | Total | | 6.73 | | |
This section is the "Misc Insanity" one, with what I sometimes call chutzpah points. They certainly further the character, occasionally further the plot, but sometimes I just can't believe they actually did it. I'm not even going to try to give actual examples here... there are too many examples to choose from!
| | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P |
| 1 | Item | MPC | NPC | Pts | NPC | Pts | Sum | St | Lgth | CX | Sxs | NR | End | EP1 | EP2 | TtlEP |
| 2 | Stealing Sidney's Artificial Foot | Rae | Rotheschilde | 320 | Simulant | 30 | = D2 + F2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | = H2 + I2 - (0.5 * J2) + K2 - L2 | = D2 * (M2 / 100) | = F2 * (M2 / 100) | = N2 + O2 |
Works like this:
- Item - What they did.
- MPC - Main PC involved. Can easily be more than one; you just have to abbreviate and squeeze things in.
- NPC - NPC involved in the action (not necessarily the one the action happened to!). 2 repetitions; I usually use the second one for any animals involved.
- Pts - Points of the NPC. 2 reps.
- Sum - Total points of NPCs involved.
- St - Starting percent, base percent. I really had to abbreviate to fit things in.
- Lgth - Length of event; 1 is a whole session.
- CX - Complexity.
- Sxs - Success. Whether the PCs were successful or not. 0 is no, 1 is yes, 2 is very much so, extremely so, etc.
- NR - Insanity rating. These can range anywhere from 1 to 10, although 1's are pretty unusual (on this page, at least).
- End - The base plus length minus half the complexity plus the success minus insanity rating. *pantpant* In this instance, it would be 3.
- EP1 - Experience from NPC 1.
- EP2 - Experience from NPC 2.
- TtlEP - Experience from both NPCs. It ends up being 1.75.
Then you go back again and port the information to that PC page... like so:
| | A | B | C | D | E |
| 1 | Item | Pts Ttl for Grp | Individ. Pts | ISY Rate | |
| 2 | Killing Mearaways Guards | 3 | .75 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | Rescuing Sidney | 22.4 | 7.46666667 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | Locating Maxwell | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 5 | Stealing Sidney's Artificial Foot | 1.75 | 1.75 | 3 | 1 |
| ... | | | | | |
| 19 | Subtotal | 30 | 13 | 8 | 4 |
| 20 | Average Insanity Rating | | 2 | 2 | |
| 21 | Total | | 6.48333333 | | |
Unless more than one PC is involved, it's not really necessary to divide the group points up. The insanity rating, of course, comes from the NR column.
Almost done! See why I stare at this for half an hour? Anyway, this is the "PC Interactions" page - well, less interactions and more physical confrontations...
| | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q |
| 1 | Act | PC | Pts | PC | Pts | PC | Pts | Sum | Start | Lng | IR | CXY | Dgr 1 | Dgr 2 | Dgr 3 | End | Exp |
| 2 | Confrontation | Nicolette | 197 | Rae | 193 | | | = SUM (C2, E2, G2) | 1 | 0.1 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 0.1 | | = I2 + J2 - (0.5 * K2) + (0.5 * M2) + (0.5 * N2) + (0.5 * O2) | = H2 * (P2 / 100) |
Let's see:
- Act - Well, just a keyword as to what they did.
- PC - The PC's involved; just leave the unused ones blank. 3 reps.
- Pts - Total points of each PC. This DOES NOT include any already calculated experience points for this distribution.
- Sum - Sum of the total points of the PC's, 390 in this case.
- Start - Base percent, start percent. Pretty low for this one.
- Lng - Length of the event; .1 is a tenth of a session (roughly).
- IR - Insanity rating.
- CXY - Complexity.
- DGR 1, 2, 3 - A rough numerical measurement of the danger a PC was in from the other PCs.
- End - Final percentage used; base plus length minus half the insanity plus half the danger each PC was in. It finally comes out to be .59 points.
And it all gets ported over.... like so:
| | A | B | C | D | E |
| 1 | Item | Pts Ttl for Grp | Individ. Pts | ISY Rate | |
| 2 | Killing Mearaways Guards | 3 | .75 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | Rescuing Sidney | 22.4 | 7.46666667 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | Locating Maxwell | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 5 | Stealing Sidney's Artificial Foot | 1.75 | 1.75 | 3 | 1 |
| 6 | Confrontation: Nicolette/Rae | 0.59 | 0.295 | 5 | 1 |
| ... | | | | | |
| 19 | Subtotal | 31 | 13 | 13 | 5 |
| 20 | Average Insanity Rating | | 3 | 2.6 | |
| 21 | Total | | 5.10064103 | | |
Since there were 2 PC's involved, I went ahead and divided it by two. I might go back later and not divide it by two, but not necessarily.
Some final thoughts:
You might have noticed that the overall total of points shrank somewhat. They do that; it's because of that column labeled "Insanity Rating". When there's a larger number of murders, rescues, and locatings than there are crazy things, the number doesn't shrink too much. If the case is reversed, the shrinking number serves as a check to make sure the crazy stuff doesn't get too highly represented.
I know, I know, I can easily keep the chutzpah points down if I use a little self-control. I guess the thing is, that's just too easy. Besides, this system works for me.
Only, laugh when you call it a system...
