Powering Up

Question: I wondered how many experience points you are assigning per session and what sort of degree of powering up this is causing. I've been following the guideline in the Hero rulebook that seems to suggest about 6 experience points per normal session is a good amount - however, this seems really tight to me. So far my PCs have been able to buy one skill point and a knack so far after several sessions - I assume this will get even worse later when they are saving up to buy a Demigod level of a purview.

While the 6 XP the book suggests can work early on for low-Legend Heroes, it becomes very quickly obsolete; you're right, at a Demigod level the progression would become pitifully slow with such a small amount of XP coming in. The best thing to do is to look at how long it would take a PC to purchase a new trait and adjust XP accordingly; the best rule of thumb is to plan for Scions to be able to buy something new every game if they choose something small (like an Ability or low-level Boon), something new every other game if it's middling in size (like a mid-level Epic Attribute or Boon), and something new every three games if it's a maximum-level trait. That way, players always have the option to have some buying power and never feel like they're being left behind the curve as they gain in power, but they also get to enjoy the feeling of saving up for something important to them instead of just having it handed over easily.

Our games have typically granted somewhere in this ballpark:

Legend Rating	XP Gained per game session
2-3	5
4-5	8
6-7	10
8-9	12

Keep in mind, however, that our Fatebond system means that many characters Legend 6 and up are actually receiving twice that number of XP, with their Fatebonds spending an equivalent amount on them, so at Demigod there's a distinct upswing in the number of powers that characters begin to develop.

The XP curve can also be affected by how often you play; our games meet either every week or every other week, and as a result their PCs will end up with more powers under their belts over a period of six months than a game that only meets once a month. If you're running your games further apart or for longer sessions, you may want to up the XP a little bit so it doesn't feel like it takes forever in real-life time to get anywhere; if you're running them every day, you might want to drop them lest characters start running out of things to buy before they go up in Legend.