Rethinking XP for Gold And Why You Should Too (or not)

I love XP for gold. I especially love the effects this rule has on game play, game design, and theory behind much of what we know of the OSR. I am a firm believer that the way the game rewards play seriously influences the way we play the game (yeah, we play to have fun too, but it’s still there, nudging us in the right direction). Basically, earning XP is like “winning” in an RPG that uses them.

However, I’ve been reading a superb book on Game Design called Theory of Fun by Raph Koster (y’all should totally get it), and one of the insights I had, and one of the big lessons in the book, is that games teach us stuff in a controlled space. That’s mostly its main function. Most of the time we don’t even realize it’s happening, but that’s where the “fun” comes from in games, from learning and figuring out solutions to problems/challenges. And game designers can purposefully create games to change specific things. And that’s what I would like to do.

XP for gold is great because it teaches us to find better solutions to tough problems. PCs won’t always resort to violence. Violence might very well become the last resort, as we all know our style of play isn’t big on balancing encounters perfectly.

But looting places to accumulate gold, and even taking it from others for this very purpose is not something I actually want to continually encourage with a rule in my games (at least not on all of them). Not for Primal Quest. I want the game to reflect some of the issues that are most important in our world today, but adapted to a fantasy mythical stone age. Don’t worry, we won’t lose any of the cool stuff this kind of setting can get us, but we can also incorporate other issues that I think could be very interesting and bring different approaches too, in the style of OSR play.

And I think this can be an exercise for designers who want to explore the possibilities of the OSR play without adhering completely to the letter if it, but still being faithful to its spirit.

So here’s a few ideas I am having for implementing alternate XP systems that encourage other behaviours besides hitting everything with a stick.

• Reward PCs for simply surviving hostile situations and environments (the PCs must be adventuring – this encourages a bit of proactivity on their part, which is great for a sandbox game).
• Reward PCs for significantly impacting the game world (this can be something from defeating a big threat to the region to becoming a big threat in the region, or simply helping a small tribe that is having a problem with a large predator and thus making allies).
• Reward PCs for some act or behavior (as accumulating gold earned you XP, maybe if you save that many people you earn thar many XP, or if you fully explore a 6 mile Hex you earn that many XP, or if you do something iconic of your archetype in a meaningful way you get some XP).
• Reward XP for when the PCs redistribute the riches they took from the filthy rich. Not buying stuff. Doing Robin Hood stuff.

Well, you can extrapolate this in many directions and I am always interested in finding out new ways OSR games can explore other systems of XP that encourage a more subtle and challenging style of play.

XP for gold is such an iconic elemento of the OSR play style, that I feel almost heretical to question its use or wanting to use something else in its place. I want to make it clear I don’t think anyone is wrong for using such a system of XP. I use it myself when running OSE, for example.

I just like exploring new ideas and seeing where they can take us. I hope you do too.

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