#RPGaDAY – August 30, 2025 (EXPERIENCE)

 

#RPGaDAY – August 30, 2025 (EXPERIENCE)

Experience - The obvious thing to talk about today would be the way handling experience points and leveling have changed throughout the years. We used to track experience individually, with every action generating experience for that character, which we passed out at the beginning of every session.  Each player was responsible for recording and keeping track of their own experience. Back then, you received experience for gold collected, each monster slain, each spell cast, etc. I used to give everyone the same base experience points, which increased in value as they increased in levels.  Then I would mark tick marks for anything a character did, including non-combat role playing and interactions, and mark check marks for each spell cast, with the higher the spell level the more experience earned.  I would announce the MVP for the last game session, emphasizing who gained top experience out of the players and highlighting anything specifically memorable.  Using that system, it penalized any players who could not make each game session, with some falling behind in levels gained, which was exacerbated because each class had its own experience point tables. It took mages much more experience to level up, than all the other classes, likely to compensate for how powerful the high-level spells were.

At some point, we switched to milestone leveling, usually after some big adventure was completed. It was a much easier system, then individually keeping track of everything, although it did lessen the rewards for better more creative game play. Now I work to make leveling make sense with the story and use it to periodically reward and motivate the players.

 

Experience – How about a more interesting example?

For the Godlings campaign, I created an interesting NPC based around the 7 Deadly Sins and 7 Heavenly Virtues, known as the Collective.  The Collective was basically 14 divine beings that embodies the best and worst qualities of man. The party was seeking information on an ancient city, long lost to the sands of time, where one of the pieces of the Crown of the Gods was hidden away.

 

The group was told that:

Together the Collective have all the accumulated knowledge and experiences of mankind.

The group teleported to the middle of a barren desert, where there was an obvious pair of tracks leading away down a sand dune, a set of humanoid footprints and tracks of a large hooved animal.  With the blazing sun high overhead, they rushed to follow the tracks and after hours of dealing with the blistering heat, scorching metal armor, sink holes, and exhaustion from walking up and down the sand dunes, they finally saw in the distance a man leading a loaded camel.  They also saw a storm with ominous dark clouds with odd lightning off in the distance, pushing the wall of a sandstorm rapidly towards them. It was questionable if they would be able to catch up to the figure before the fury of the storm was upon them. They managed to find a way to contact him and as they raced the oncoming storm, they saw him stop and set up camp, with a large multicolored tent, with a shaded canopy entrance.  They managed to make it to the camp, just as the storm hit and were able to take shelter in the man’s tent.

 

The inside of the tent was much larger than it appeared from the outside, with rugs and pillows everywhere, a small camp fire, and several braziers with thick incense haze hanging in the air. Inside the tent was very warm and the smells nearly overwhelming, as the fire was obviously burning dried dung creating an undertone of shit smell, partially masked by strong cloying perfumes and spices.  Additionally, the intensely musky smell of the man’s camel, also sheltering from the storm inside the tent.

 

The man introduced himself as the Keeper, was a frail looking old human, who seemed to presented with a strong sense of hidden power and radiated all alignments equally when they checked.  He said he was a modest traveling merchant, who collected stories and sold trinkets, potions, and other junk, although no merchandise was visible anywhere in the tent.  He also introduced his camel, Clyde and advised they were welcome to be his guests to wait out the storm, if they remained police and respectful.  They told the truth when he asked them why they had sought him out.

 

The Keeper told them he was the caretaker of a powerful group of 14 beings, known as the Collective, who together have all the accumulated knowledge and experiences of mankind. To gain their guidance and information, they would need to interact with which ever persona presents themselves to them and through bartering, begging, or doing whatever is required to gain the information they seek.  He suggested that always dealing from a place of respect and deference is usually the best policy, but warned some of them are and can be helpful, while some will not. They may demand sacrifices or challenges outside of reality and advised to never say no or outright refuse them and instead offer other things as something better.

 

They would need to deal with one persona for each one of them and as a reward for dealing with the Collective, everyone can ask any one question and demand an honest truthful answer of the group. Other questions may also be asked, however there would be no guarantee the answers given will be honest and true.

 

The Collective consisted of each sin and their counterpart:

 

Lust and Chastity

Gluttony and Temperance

Greed and Charity

Sloth and Diligence

Wrath and Patience

Eny and Kindness

Pride and humility

 

I created a chart and listed their name (in Latin and what they were called), and some basic information of how they appeared, but mostly made it up as they came up.  A D30 roll would be made to see who first showed up and then that personage could summon one of the others, or randomly roll to see who showed up.  There was a 10% cumulative chance per round of the Collective changing to a new persona.  Most of the 14 personas had a 2 number chance to appear, although others had more or even less, for example Sloth was less likely to show up.

SIN	NAME	INFO	VIRTUE	NAME	INFO
Lust – 1-2	Luxuria / Lux	Female? – slutty red skin tight dress- 22 CH…	Chastity – (Purity/abstinence) 17-18	Castitas / Cas	Male ½ elf– plain friar robes, balding head
Gluttony – 3-4	Gula /Ula	Female – sharp teeth- 900 lbs- naked- falls to ground – bowls of food all around- kittens / fruit	Temperance – (humanity/equality/moderation in action, thoughts or feelings) 19-20	Temperance / Pera	Female teenager– skinny, but not skeleton- healthy -
Greed-5-6-7-8	Avarita / Rita	Female drow – furs/jewels/ finest clothes – gold goblet- offer to buy	Charity (will/generosity/sacrifice/goodwill towards all/love) 21-22	Caritas / Cari	Male child– good quality clothes
Sloth - 9	Acedia / Ace	Male human – dirty clothes/sweaty – slow down/chill / weed pipe	Diligence (persistence/effort/ethics) 23-24	Industria / Indu	Male gnome – working clothes- tool belt
Wrath – 10-11	Ira / Ira	Male ½ ogre– eyes burning fires- Plate mail – who dares?	Patience (forgiveness/mercy) 25-26	Patientia / Pat	Androgynous dwarf- kind, forgiving non-judgmental
Envy – 12- 13	Invidia /Idia	Female elf– green skin & hair, dress of peacock feathers	Kindness (compassion /satisfaction) 27-28	Humanitas / Anita	Female human– white dress – nice quality- calming/safe touch- food
Pride – 14-15-16	Superbia / Up	Male orc – 7’- no shirt/skin tight pants- ground mounds up, so standing higher	Humility (bravery, modesty, reverence) 29-30	Humilitas / Mili	Female human– plain male armor – striking beauty, but not assuming

 

I did not keep track of everyone they dealt with, but do know they encounter Cas (Chastity), who appeared as a good looking bald headed half elf male, wearing plain robes who agreed to help them if they showed good self-control and could defeat/resist his nemesis, Lust.  They agreed and he summoned Lux (Lust) who appeared to the group as a divinely attractive female, who was a perfect match to whomever was viewing her, appealing to their every whim and desire, so all parties saw something different, but always female.  She immediately demanded gifts and tokens of affection from the players, requiring a DC 24 + 1 for each round cumulative if the saves were made, with consequences for each failed save.

They plied her with gifts, mostly powerful magical items and appealed to her vanity and ultimately managed to appease her, so that both she and Cas answered one question each.

They also encountered Ula (Gluttony) was appeared as a fat 1000-pound filthy naked female, of an unknown race, with pointed ears and teeth and sunken black eyes.  She fell to the ground and began eating from food bowls with various things as they appeared around her.  There was a strong smell of rotting/decaying flesh, along with a sweet and sour sweaty undertone.  Her arms seemed to grow and shrink as she reached for whatever she desired to eat and stuff her face with. She talked with food in her mouth, some falling out and covering her with filth.  At one point, she attempted to grab one of the characters who luckily managed to avoid her.

Some of the bowls had normal food, like a large bird’s leg, fruit, bread, stuffing, but was also eating from bowls of blood, gravy, sour milk, live insects, eye balls of various sizes, kittens, a live black pudding trying to escape the bowl, and decaying/rotting animal parts.

At one point, everyone had to make a DC 18 Constitution check to keep from vomiting, which when they did, slid across the floor to an empty bowl for her to consume. Luckily, they didn’t have to deal with her long, before she randomly switched to another persona.

They also had an arm-wrestling competition (skill challenge) with Up (Pride) and met Mili (Humility) who rewarded them for some of their past acts of bravery and help to others. All in all, it was a very interesting encounter with a unique and challenging NPC.