Hey all.
I’m currently preparing to run my first session of Blades this week; I just had a quick question regarding XP and Advancement, both for characters and the crew.
I’m a little confused as to precisely when all the XP should be tallied up?
Is it best to go through a cycle of play (Score+Downtime) and then talk about the triggers etc.?
Or is it literally at the end of every play session, regardless of where we get up to?
Reason for the confusion is that it’s unlikely a full score and downtime will get done in each session, particularly the first. Also, if there are ‘XP check-ins’ after every session it seems likely that the progression would be faster.
Cheers in advance!
It’s each session of play. The xp triggers are as much about character role play opportunities as they are actions to kill mobs or whatever so it’s at the end of a session. Even if you spend 4 hours in downtime if the players are playing their characters complicating their livee and addressing challenges they get xp. If they spend 4 hours in the biggest score of their lives role playing their characters they get xp. If they spend 4 hours gathering information (please do not spend 4 hours gathering information) role playing… They get xp at the end of session.
What Chris said. Per page 48 in the handbook,
“At the end of the session, review the xp triggers on your character sheet. For each one, mark 1 xp if it happened at all, or mark 2 xp if it happened a lot during the session”
The exception is desperate XP. which gets marked into the appropriate attribute at the moment when it is rolled.
If you’re worried advancement might end up too slow or too fast, speak with your players. Since you allocate yourself XP based on how you think you did with your triggers, how slow or fast characters advance is more in their hands. Besides, the odds are stacked against them almost all the time anyway. The difference made by a couple of upgrades is noticeable but not gamebreaking.
Thank you for the replies gents.
It’s all well and clear.
I’m excited to get going now!
For people who have played more and understand the pacing, where would you put it if you do a longer session. This makes perfect sense for a weekly game, but if you do the occasional gaming weekend, what would be a good time frame to consider a session
Jacob Kriegisch how long are you talking?
Start at lunch, go until we’re tired with a break for dinner. 10ish hours? I guess the dinner break makes a logical time to do it and I answered my own question.
Jacob Kriegisch yeah lunch session and dinner session. Sounds like a winner.
I’m in a play by post game and so sessions doesn’t work so well there either. We’ve been doing it at the end of the score, during downtime. If your group are ending up too many scores in your 10 hours, you could always sprinkle them in more often. Otherwise, your before and after dinner break idea session split sounds good.