There are a variety of ways to earn xp in ASSH.  There is no preferred % from a given source in which xp should be awarded by the rules.  I believe the most xp will be earned by defeating monsters and earning loot.  The %'s would depend on how generous you are in handing out treasure.

I have always struggled with awarding xp.  In the early days I would track every single enemy and coin earned to come up with exact totals.  Nowadays I give a session xp total based on my gut as to how well everyone played and how clever they were.  I'm still tinkering but record keeping is not fun for me so I keep it simple.  Characters still earn bonus xp based on stats regardless.

mabon5127 wrote:

The %'s would depend on how generous you are in handing out treasure.

Yes.  As I was typing the initial question, it was on my mind that I was asking, in a backhanded way, how generous others are with treasure.  Apparently I forgot to explicitly mention that detail.

mabon5127 wrote:

In the early days I would track every single enemy and coin earned to come up with exact totals.

Have you ever played Rolemaster?  It awards XP for just about everything a character does, with multipliers for whether it was that character's first time, second time, or if it had become routine.  When I finished running a session, I'd typically have 2-3 pages of all the things that would go into the evening's XP awards - not just every kill and coin, but every hit delivered or recieved (XP per point of damage or critical hit inflicted or received), every unusual combat maneuver (maneuver XP), every mile traveled (travel XP, at different rates depending on mode of transport)...  Simply tracking every single enemy or coin is nothing to me!

Yora wrote:

However, it still rewards the taking of treasure. Which is fine for a classic dungeon crawl, but doesn't seem to be that important in a campaign where money does not buy you a lot of actual benefits. Why bring home a load of treasure if it's all wasted next week and the armor you bought gets discarded while being lost in a desert?

Interesting.  I view these same details in exactly the opposite light:  Because the loot will be wasted before the next adventure, I feel more free to let the PCs find a priceless gem or mountains of gold, since I only need to weigh it as a source of XP and not worry about whether it will cause problems down the road for them to have access to immense wealth.

Yora wrote:

What I am currently doing is to award a Progress Percentage to all PCs who have participated in this days session. Any time a character gets to 100%, he advances to the next level. Usually it's 20 to 25% depending on how much was achieved, with a 5% bonus for characters who contributed in an outstanding way.

I don't particularly like that method because it flattens progress out too much.  Unless you re-weigh the progress percentages for each character individually (at which point you lose the simplicity of the system), a Thief (1500 XP for level 2) and a Warlock (3000 XP for level 2) will gain levels in unison and characters who fall behind in level will never be able to catch up.

I've yet to run a game but, as your question makes me think about it and based on the games I'm used to GM, I think that I would just estimate a basic XP amount for the scenario, according its difficulty, plus some extra sources (treasures, interactions with NPC or such) to reward the curiosity of the players. Stat bonus would still apply.

Also, I'd be curious to try one of those arbitrary system such as "gain a level every X scenarios", with a coefficient to keep classes leveling at different pace.

Yora wrote:

Though thid probably is a topic by itself, why is advancement at different paces even desirable?

Some classes are inherently more powerful/advantaged than others. Staggering advancement is one way of making a bog standard fighter or thief (for example) a possibly more desirable choice for a player.

I do it by the book, as demonstrated in Table III.27:

Slaying / Capturing Monsters = Variable per monster type
Gaining Treasure* = 1 XP per gp value (coins, gems, jewellery, etc.)
Clever Use of Ability = 25–50 XP
Problem Solving = 100–500 XP
Adventure / Campaign Goals = 500–1,000 XP
Attendance = 25–50 XP per hour

* Note that magical treasures have separate XP values

Ghul wrote:

I do it by the book, as demonstrated in Table III.27:

Slaying / Capturing Monsters = Variable per monster type
Gaining Treasure* = 1 XP per gp value (coins, gems, jewellery, etc.)
Clever Use of Ability = 25–50 XP
Problem Solving = 100–500 XP
Adventure / Campaign Goals = 500–1,000 XP
Attendance = 25–50 XP per hour

* Note that magical treasures have separate XP values

Personally I don't object to any of that if administered objectively (e.g., the key says "each PC gets 1000 xp if the party solves the riddle").  I'm very much opposed (for my part - other people can do whatever they want, of course) to anything that smacks of post hoc awards or DM fiat.  I basically never give XP awards that can't be justified by specific objective criteria decided in advance.

Blackadder23 wrote:

In my opinion, XP for money and treasure was one of Gary's most brilliant design decisions: 1 XP for 1 GP, and a set amount for each monster.  All very cut and dried, nothing left to chance or DM whim, and best of all objective.  I am thoroughly unimpressed by alternative systems that substitute DM fiat and subjectivity - e.g., "roleplaying awards", DM judgment as to who "contributed" the most, reaching some point on the DM's railroad "plotline" - for Gary's simple, elegant, objective system.  Most alternative systems basically replace skill and cunning in battle and garnering treasure with sucking up to the DM.  No thanks!

You must have had some suck-ass DM's because if I wanted to screw with you as one then xp reward would be pretty far down my list, and as a DM I'd have news for you sunshine, outside of your character's actions the whole world and all the people in it belong to me.

Gary was genius at some things but XP for gold and treasure was the lamest thing he ever came up with including the cartoon series. Gold and treasure are their own rewards and tying a game mechanic to them does nothing but rip the curtain aside to show off the limitations of the great and powerful Oz.

Blackadder23 wrote:

mabon5127 wrote:

Can I ask Why?  I have a xp figure in mind for finishing a session and an adventure but if they do something thats so cool that it makes the game memorable I add some for that and let them know.

However you want to handle it is fine (obviously).  I personally prefer to be as "neutral" as possible.  To me it would be a breach of referee "neutrality" to reward the players for taking specific actions.  It would seem that I was trying to guide their behavior.  I'm very much opposed to that.  I don't (and in my opinion, shouldn't) care what they do.  They tell me what they do, and I tell them the outcome.  If the outcome includes treasure chests emptied and body bags filled, they get XP.  Simple.

I am very much anti-story and anti-railroad, so I probably take a much harder line than most DM's.  Even for a "story DM", it appears that most alternative systems are both less simple and less objective than "XP for blood and gold".  It seems like a disservicable trade to me.  But what do I know?

No harm no foul!  I am really interested in other theories.

Blackadder23 wrote:

mabon5127 wrote:

Can I ask Why?  I have a xp figure in mind for finishing a session and an adventure but if they do something thats so cool that it makes the game memorable I add some for that and let them know.

However you want to handle it is fine (obviously).  I personally prefer to be as "neutral" as possible.  To me it would be a breach of referee "neutrality" to reward the players for taking specific actions.  It would seem that I was trying to guide their behavior.  I'm very much opposed to that.  I don't (and in my opinion, shouldn't) care what they do.  They tell me what they do, and I tell them the outcome.  If the outcome includes treasure chests emptied and body bags filled, they get XP.  Simple.

I am very much anti-story and anti-railroad, so I probably take a much harder line than most DM's.  Even for a "story DM", it appears that most alternative systems are both less simple and less objective than "XP for blood and gold".  It seems like a disservicable trade to me.  But what do I know?

Have you tried boardgames? I hear parcheese can be quite enjoyable, perhaps cards. Old Maid maybe?

Honestly, I know what you are talking about, but as long as a DM doesn't suck it doesn't matter if they are neutral. And storyline isn't a bad thing. Hell, even boardgames and video-games have story-lines. I hear they are even trying to add it to television shows but I think they should stick to well-crafted commercials myself with a judicious amount of gratuitous sex and violence, and maybe some sparkly bits so they can call it sci-fi. There is no objectivity and no one is neutral, and as long as my players 'think' that I'm being remotely fair they seem happy with the funny-voiced characters, evocative use of scenery and fortutous encounters with wandering strangers. Believe me story-line is not a bad thing and with the right DM you don't even feel the tracks when they want to railroad you. It is like it is all open range.

Nothing is simpler than making it up as you go along as long as you are drinking the right potion, smoking the right kind of pipe, eating the right kind of cookies or were just wired that way to begin with, but you can use crib notes. In general though keeping the players from seeing or becoming emeshed in the mechanics of the game opens up the dark and imaginatively inventive corners of their mind (as much as possible without a good whack with a sledgehammer) and allows them to get into the game, while even thinking up X number of GP gives them Y number of XP is more in line with balancing your check-up or doing your taxes. Unless you are already an accountent and then I can only suggest lion-taming as a cure.

Gold in D&D obviously represents a proxy for all the activities undertaken to gain it.  Instead of handing out dozens of little awards every time the thief picks a lock or the magician casts a  spell (activity that surely only an accountant could love), the DM makes one calculation one time that subsumes all of that activity.  That's why Gary's system is both simple and elegant, and all the bluster and unnecessary verbal abuse in the world won't change that fact.

But some folks just have to do things the hard way.