Yesterday we had our regular D&D 3 session. Our dm had a really good idea regarding the awarding of individual xp, e.g. for good role playing. I usually find it hard to award those because you may easily award them wrong and xp are important for keeping (or destroying) the game balance. So I usually hand out action points in my D&D 4 games that are not reset when the party does their extended rests. But the idea of our gm is much better.
We have had a fierce discussion between Mixu, a neutral good female halfling ranger and Darvin, my lawful neutral hospitaler. Our horses were stolen and we found them in the next village in the pen of the local horse dealer. He assured us that he had bought them from some stranger passing through and had no idea of a theft, despite my warhorse having a branding. But he didn’t seem to lie about it. Darvin had acused of him being a fence but finally offered to give the money back to him once the thief was found, but Mixu insisted on giving him the lost gold right now from the groups resources. Finally after what felt like 10 minutes of discussion Mixu payed the gold from her personal stock and the argument ceased without real agreement.
Afterwards the dm awarded each of us 100 xp for acting it out. But he didn’t hand them straight to us. Instead he put them in a pool that was shared among all group members at the end of the session when handing out all xp. I really liked the idea. It encourages players to strife for those extra xp but at the same time avoids the imbalance they may cause. And it surely awards the players that earned them with a bonus. I also just realize it strengthens a kind of team spirit among the players, as some of the players earned something for all of them. In contrast to a competition when handing those xp out to single players. As a fan of doing team sports that’s an additional fact I totally love about this idea. The discussion about the topic of individual xp is now definitely over for me. I hope.
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Nice solution. I usually give minor in game bonuses and occasionally more significant bonuses (feats, skill points) for excellent roleplaying as I try to keep level advancement even between the characters.
Yeah, I sometimes award feats and such things, too. But that is more of a quest reward than for good rp. But those things are a lot of fun, too. As with 4e its mostly magic items though.