See part two here.
Look at the images below; they are cut from the XP sheets of Shadis and were posted by Greg Gorgonmilk. I didn't know about the game before I saw these, but look how they are focused in driving players to play their characters in a certain way.
- Treasure: 50% for clerics (but double if it's a religious artifact)
- Killing: 50% for clerics (normal if the enemy is of opposite alignment)
- Treasure: 50% for magic-users (normal if it's a magical treasure, but must be investigated)
- Killing: 50% for magic-users (normal if the enemy has special abilities, double if magical)
- Killing: 50% for thieves (normal if the enemy is not killed but negotiated past)
- Treasure: 50% for thieves (normal if treasure did not involve killing or force, double if stolen)
- Killing: 100%(?) for fighters (not clear if this is normal, 100%, determined by the GM)
- Treasure: 100% for fighters (double if treasure is armor or weapons etc.)
- Points for leading the party through danger (pushing the "leader" role)
So with all the other design notes about the XP rewards, we could add this: different XP reward according to the character's class.
There is one way to put it, which is to reduce the XP for those actions considered to be not perfectly aligned with the character's class (i.e. a thief is discouraged from killing monsters - 50% XP - but instead encouraged to find other treasures, perhaps unguarded - for a full 100% XP) and another way to increase the points when the actions fit the archetype of the class (i.e. for the thief is better to steal treasures - for 200% XP, double).
I didn't know Shadis but actually I found in other games a similar approach (i.e. I am thinking of several modern indie games which encourage players to hit "keys" or use their character's abilities to gain XP). So when I worked on the Black Dogs 'zine and made my own XP system, I used something similar...
There is the traditional silver-for-XP (for treasures and rewards) and HD-for-XP (for killing or defeating enemies), but there are additional sources of XP, as by the image below.
They are not divided by class, but of course different classes would pursue certain goals more easily than others.
Something more, though, still from the Black Dogs, that I haven't seen formalized as such in other games: give XP for actions done by the players which mirror those of the characters.
(I am sure someone can post a link with someone else using this or something similar as an house-rule 10 years earlier than me... there is "nothing new" in the OSR... but I still like that I came up with this on my own, independently.)
In the Black Dogs the characters fight monsters and explore the wilderness, and I guess if that fantasy world was real, there would be some accumulated knowledge about how to fight monsters, about how to overcome certain obstacles, and there would be maps, and there would be tales of previous members of the company of the Black Dogs (think of the Black Company annuals, yes).
And when I think back at my time playing RPGs when I was just a kid or just a little older, I remember drawing and writing a lot, and enjoying the feeling of having multiple notebooks full of ideas, stories, characters, monsters, maps...
So, this is actually to encourage players to get their hands dirty with ink.
Basically, players are encouraged to make maps, drawings, and write reports (diaries), with a 100 XP reward per session. Anyone working on that material to polish them up and make beautiful maps, drawings or writings, gets another 200 XP.
So a map could be worth 300, for example: 100 for mapping during game night, and 200 for polishing it up at home, between sessions.
Note that there is a reward for physical, not digital products.
This also encourages players to keep in touch with their fantasy world even when some time passes between sessions... Having a map to re-draw, an illustration to polish, some pages of a diary or report to edit or copy in a nice calligraphy, is a great way to reduce real-life stress and to earn XP!
You don't need the full Black Dogs 'zine to introduce these XP rules in your game. Just the images above are sufficient. But if you want to support the Black Dogs 'zine and me, the XP rules are in issue number 4: https://www.rpgnow.com/product/241075/Black-Dogs-zine--issue-4
So, design notes:
- different XP reward according to the character's class
- XP for hirelings or leadership
- XP for HP loss or wounds
- XP for critics
- XP for searching, discovering, curiosity, for facing dangers
- XP for players' actions: maps, drawings, writings (with bonus for physical products, not digital)
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