>>5649269>How is experience handled in this? In Calli's game? I'm betting she'll just give them a chunk of experience whenever she feels like it and not bother with much more past that.
By New World of Darkness Rules? See attached as it's easier than explaining it. Those rules are also basically the same as Old World of Darkness rules, which I think she's more familiar with because she was using those dice rules initially.
In Chronicles of Darkness? Its XP system changes things up. 1 Experience Point is now split into 5 Beats, and you gain these Beats through play (Notably each way to gain a Beat can only be triggered once per scene, so you can't really just farm them.). The point of this change is to push and rewards drama, risk, tension, and playing to the game's theme. So all about being incentivised to make interesting RP happen. Firstly, there are a some more generic ways to gain Beats. At the end of each session you get a Beat. PCs have Aspirations (goals a player sets for their character) if a short-term Aspiration is completed you get a Beat. Any significant progress on a long-term Aspiration gets you a Beat. If you fail a roll you can opt to make that roll a dramatic failure, which makes things worse, for a Beat. When a PC is met with a "Breaking Point" you gain a Beat, for Mortals these are things like encountering the supernatural, moral transgression like killing people, or general traumatic experiences. Taking damage in the one of the last 3 boxes on your Health track is a Beat.
A major way it does this is Conditions, a universal mechanic for afflictions, injuries, states of mind, or narrative devices. When you resolve them you gain a Beat. The resolution of these Conditions typical involves something bad happening, or is bad to have. For example, Shaken means you're scared but has not mechanical effect. You resolve Shaken, and earn a Beat, by opting to fail a roll out of fear. Your shaky hands make you miss, but you gain a beat for the failure as well create fun drama. Notoriety represents the general public thinking, correctly or incorrectly, that you've done something worthy of scorn. It penalises Social rolls against people who know about it but you gain a Beat when you manage to clear your name. You got stuff that covers a really wide range of effects, including things like Inspired or Informed which grant positive effects. Some are persistent and don't resolve easily but provide you with a Beat if the Condition creates a serious setback. Splats have unique Conditions for various things too. Conditions don't tend to effect combat as there is a seperate system for just the combat stuff to keep that quicker.
Lots of other little bits grant Beats too. For example, there are optional rules for surrendering and if you get your ass handed to you and choose to surrender you get a beat. NPCs might request things as part of the social system, completing a request is a Beat. Some Merits will have Beat triggers on them too, typically for having something bad happen.
So interesting RP has an instant tangible reward, which makes it happen more often, and as it's typically tied to thematic elements of the splats you get rewards for playing to the theme. Along with player to your characters desires, and risks having a solid reason to take them, the best way to gain XP is to just play your character like you expect and engage in the game, but you can often say no if the consequences might be too dire.
>How is leveling up handled in this game?For both games every new dot in an Attribute, Skill, Merit, or other power costs Experience, as well as things like Skill Specialties. The big difference is that the costs in nWoD scale based on the dot you're buying, but there are the same for each dot in CofD. So in nWoD a new point in an Attribute is 5 x new dot XP, if you want to get your 5th dot in Strength that's 25 XP. In CofD every dot of an Attribute is 4 XP. This is the same for Skills (3 in nWoD, 2 in CofD), Merits (2, and 1), Morality/Integrity (3 and 2). Skill Specialties don't have dots, so they cost the same all the time. In nWoD you're looking about about 1 - 3 per session, In CofD you're looking at about 2 - 6 Beats a session, or 2 - 6 Experience over 5 sessions. So, in CofD you're generally improving quicker and have more freedom to improve how you like. nWoD has you improve a lot slower and because XP is as slow as it is spending it on stuff can feel sort of bad because it can mean another handful of session before you get that cool thing you're saving up for. Especially in splats, most Disciplines (vamp powers) in Vampire costs 7 x new dot. So saving up takes forever which oft leaves you a little stagnant. CofD fixes this, and also made the stuff to buy more fun to boot.
You spend XP whenever narratively appropriate.
>Are they going to be able to put more points into skills they need within the first session or two?Super depends on Calli, but I'm sure she'll be generous.
