San Francisco by Night
Experience Rules
Our intent is to align our Chronicle rules as closely as possible with the official WW rules. In other words, for the same amount of effort and skill, you get the same amount of points. Obviously, we have to make adjustments to reflect the differences between a small Table Top troupe and a massive 100 player online Chronicle.
White Wolf has suggested that a player will normally earn between 1 and 5 experience points per game session (evening of play), with 2-3 being most common. In our Chronicle, a person can earn up to 3 experience points per day of active participation.
Send a new copy of your sheet to both the Master Storyteller and your System Storyteller whenever you change it (e.g., spend exp).
1. One automatic experience point/day after character creation.
2. One experience point for each in-character post. Each post should be entertaining and/or informing (and both if possible). Poorly written, very short posts made just for the sake of garnering experience will not accrue experience. Your total experience points for posts cannot exceed your total experience for days played (#1 above). Posts need to be at least 300 words in length.
3. One Experience point/day for spending 2 hours in character in the Capulet Towers Casino (The Main Gaming Room) or any of the System Theme rooms from the hours 7 p.m. - 2 a.m. EST. Please note that you must be in character and interacting with the other players (i.e., not lurking or watching other people play). And this is capped at one point per day (i.e., you don't get 2 points for four hours).
4. Storytellers may offer 1-2 additional experience points for active and skilled participation in scheduled scenes. These scenes must occur in one of the approved game rooms for SFbN. There are no extra experience points for gaming in Private Rooms. For example, if a Garou attends the scheduled pack meeting in the Presidio, he might receive 1 additional experience. If he made significant contributions, he might receive 2 additional experience points. These extra points are only for scheduled ST coordinated role-play. In other words, an ST should not award extra experience for just a log of a scene that was not an official meeting. If an ST could not make a scheduled scene (e.g., the WtA ST is out of town and can't make the weekly pack meeting), then he may use logs as a tool for awarding experience.
5. Instruction Ability. To inspire quality role-play and to acount for the ongoing 24/7 gaming environment of SFbN, the Instruction ability shall be implemented as follows: A character with instruction may intruct one or more characters. The instructed characters shall receive one experience point for the scene to apply to the ability taught. A character can only receive one experience point per day via this method. Also, for realism, each scene must be dedicated to one Instructor and group of students. Characters are allowed to teach each other skills, but they must alternate days to do so (e.g., Bob teaches Alice "Law" on Monday and Alice repays Bob by teaching him "Linguistics" on Tuesday).
6. Posted logs do not garner experience. You get 1 experience point per day for your role-play. Please don't try to garner "double-counts." However, if you had a really good scene you want to share with the rest of the group, you can use substantial portions of text from a log as part of your post. For example, you put the log in the post. Then add additional lines that explain your characters thoughts and feelings at various times during the scene, which weren't actually part of the logged scene, but were things your character was thinking or feeling. To summarize, logs can form the basis of some really good posts, but a log posted just by itself does not garner experience.
7. Bonus experience awarded for helping new players, story-line creation, and general betterment of the game.
8. Ten bonus experience points awarded for each new player you recruit into the game. This is for a new unique player, not a new character from an old player. The award will be given when the player has maintained a presence in the game for 30 consecutive days. In games like ours, there will always be continuous turnover. To replace players who depart for school, work, girlfriends (boyfriends), and a variety of other reasons, we need a constant influx of new players to maintain our player base and ensure constant role-playing is available. A few possible ways to find new players: Post story lines in the Gamers Wanted folder, IM people in White Wolf member rooms and ask them if they are trying to find a new chronicle which might accept their characters, email friends from other chronicles, and so forth.
9. Characters using the age background option in Elysium to create their stats should also use the Elder Experience Chart for future expenditures. These higher costs for Elders will level the playing field over time with characters who did not take the age background.
10. Current Rating times XXX means the current rating you wish to achieve, not your present level. For example, if you are at 2 dots and wish to advance to 3 dots. The books says the cost is CR x 2. Then the cost for you to go to 3 = 3 x 2 =6. This is the new Revised Edition method for spending experience points and has been confirmed by Justin Achilli (of White Wolf) as applicable for all systems. See Vampire Storyteller's Companion p. 15, Guide to the Sabbat p. 98, and Guide to the Camarilla p. 82 for confirmation.
11. Experience should be tracked on your character sheet by category. Expenditures should also be tracked.
12. Characters placed in "Inactive" status by ST will no longer accrue experience from their inactive date.
13. Experience points should be spent on areas that actually reflect the characters actions and attitudes. They should not be spent in just combat areas. For example, the Prince and Primogen should buy levels of "Camarilla Lore". Sabbat Leaders should buy "Sabbat Lore". Graceful, stylish characters should buy "Style". All Vampire characters should buy "Masquerade". Please be mature and reasonable in your expenditures.
14. Secondary Abilities cost the same as Primary Abilities. If a Secondary Ability is used instead of a Primary Ability, the degree of difficulty is lowered by two. Your rating in the Secondary Ability cannot be higher than your rating in the associated Primary Ability. For example, for a normal carousing roll, a character rolls Charisma + Empathy. However, the character can develop the Carousing Secondary Ability if he chooses. The difficulty would be at -2 with Carousing instead of Empathy. And the character may not develop a Carousing Ability that is higher than his Empathy Ability. All secondary Abilities need to be from WW literature.
15. Backgrounds may be raised only if role-playing experiences make it seem appropriate. The System Storytellers are responsible for approving any changes to backgrounds and what, if any, costs are required. As a default, CR x 3 is used to reflect any time requirements to pick up the background.
16. We want to encourage people to develop detailed Biographies because they are generally reflective of character depth. To encourage this practice, the following experience shall be awarded: A Biography with a Picture 10 experience points. A Biography with text 10 experience points. A Biography with a Picture and Text 20 total experience points.