Levelling up?

Dated: 31 Jul, 2026

On discussion forums I often see the age-old conundrum regarding whether to give XP for gold.

The original BX and Advanced rules seem to suggest yes, and the characters then accrue gold to afford to invest in things like castles and magic item production. But it does mean they tend to go up levels very quickly and why should they just get better at everything just because they are richer?

Or you could NOT give XP for gold; the characters still get XP for killing monsters and finding magic items, so they still go up, just slower. It gets less exciting: the reward/effort ratio diminishes. This often means the players start trying to kill EVERYTHING. Often, only giving XP for kills send people murder-hobo, which is kind of less fun after a while.

So how about handing out XP for avoiding combat? XP for creatures rescued? XP for making peace with the encounters, or even bonuses for setting up trading or diplomatic links? More XP than simply killing them, perhaps, to encourage less destructive approach?

But this still, generally, means slow progress. As you go up levels you need to do more and more to keep progressing at any speed. This can be frustrating, unless the DM gives extras here and there – for good ideas, good characterisation, better strategies, or just making everyone laugh or coming up with a great speech. But how do you do that consistently?

Or you could reject the idea of XP altogether! Milestones allow progression to be controlled, measured, fair even. But should it be fair? Should Magic-Users progress as quickly as Thieves? Should there be some differentiation?

It’s a debate that will run and run and it’s not one that we have any simple answer for, BUT I do wonder if we are asking the right kind of question:

What are your players’ motivations?

Really, this is the crucial question you need to answer before you start planning the campaign. Are they following a story-arc? Do they have a mission? Vengeance? Power? Justice? Retrieve/destroy/steal the MacGuffin? Or is the aim simply to get loot? To get filthy rich? Or is the aim power? To go up levels as quickly as possible and seek out the most powerful adversaries? Or found a kingdom?

Do your players even all have the same motivation? In a diverse group you might have the role-player, who is sworn to the quest and has a fate they need to pursue, playing alongside a hack and slash murder-hobo and an aesthetic who wants to explore the rule options and feed their imagination. How can you keep all your players happy?

When you have answered that question then you can pick the XP solution that fits that plan. Good luck with that.

As I write this, I am wondering if you could have different XP strategies for different players? The purist would get milestones, the murder-hobo wouldn’t get XP for treasure, the experimentalist would, and so on. It’s perhaps the perfect solution, although that sounds like a nightmare to administer. And if it starts getting unfair, can they change strategy?

There is no single answer, and there are many opinions. If you do have a preference you don’t have to nail your colours to the mask – you can change them! Maybe even mid-campaign.

So, there you have it – all the solutions and no solution. Thanks for coming!

For the record, here’s how we do it:

In one group I am a player in a 5th ed monthly game. We do Milestones in that. It works. We’re more bothered about role-playing than roll-playing, or even power-gaming (although we still do) and Milestones keep things ticking along with lots of housekeeping on XP totals for the DM, who doesn’t enjoy that stuff.

In my other group I am the DM of a 1st edition/Osric group meeting every Monday night, and we use our own hybrid system which has evolved to suit us well over the years but still has one, major problem, which I will get to…

First, we don’t give XP for Gold. You get XP for monsters slain, avoided and made peace with. You get XP for magic items identified (not just found, they have to be identified), and the DM gives bonuses for cool stuff.

That last bit has evolved into me keeping a tally-sheet for each character. Whenever they do anything cool, like coming up with a good plan, figuring out some of the plot, doing a great bit of role-play or just making everyone laugh, then they get a tally-mark. Each tally is worth a certain number of XP; 10xp at low levels, up to 50xp at medium levels, and 100xp at high levels (most of the party is currently 4-6th level so I am giving 50xp). As normal, at a break in the adventure we count-up and hand out XP to see if people have levelled up.

If you have read the Dunromin Guides, you will know that on Barnaynia loot can buy you training – you can exchange GP for XPs at your Guild, train new weapon proficiencies or Life Skills (non-weapon proficiencies but better) or even buy training to raise your stats (this is all carefully controlled and there are limits), and that all works fine and dandy.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, this means that the characters are always skint. They spend all their money on training and feeding themselves while they are training and end up with nothing to buy a castle with, or invest in magical research.

That’s the problem at the moment. As the characters go up levels, they are looking for different things for their character to take an interest in; one even wants to retire! But they’ve got no gold to feather their retirement nest…

So no, I don’t have any answers. We have our solution, but it’s got a massive hole in it…

And it’s still changing!

Recently I have noticed people favouring Multiclass PCs, which is fine, but a Multiclass character gains a lot of advantages, which should be balanced by slow progress. But with XP working the way it does, this usually means multiclassers are only a level behind the pure classes – is that fair? Perhaps, but we are trying out a new innovation: Pure Characters, those with only one class, gain an extra +10% on all earned XP, in addition to any +10% for having a high prerequisite. It rewards specialism. It doesn’t carry on for Characters with 2 classes. It’s a new strategy, too early to judge how effective it is, but it’s something fun to try…

Dunromin is the product of all our little experiments since 1986, and you can pick and choose what suits your table.

If you want to know more about how XP works in Dunromin, how we use percentiles on every stat to allow limited stat progression and some really cool ideas on character aging, poison, hit locations, Undead, Thief skills and lots, LOTS more can I point you at the Barnaynian Bundle? This hugely discounted bundle gives you 2 detailed city guides, new classes, new monsters, new magic items, NPCs galore, dozens of campaign ideas and a world-setting that is like no other but flexible enough to accommodate any playing style in pretty much any Tabletop Fantasy Role-Playing game you can shake a stick at… All for $20 !!!

Next blog I am starting a series on Humanoids on Barnaynia because I want to get them clear in my mind and answers some thorny questions: Like what’s the real difference between Hobgoblins and Orcs? Or are Kobolds dogs or lizards? Or when an Orc complains about only having Maggoty Bread to eat, are they saying they don’t like Maggoty Bread or that they are tired of eating Maggoty Bread every day, even though it’s quite nice?  Stay tuned to find out…