Are You Experienced? Experience Points in Dungeon Crawl Classics

Poag Rock!

I've been working my way, haphazardly for those of you following at home, though the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG book.  To be brutally honest, I didn't much like the DCC Beta that was released last summer, but boy, has my opinion chanced upon actual release.  I find that there is a lot to like, even if someone may not desire to run a game of DCC.  Tonight, I'm looking at the Experience Points section.

One thing I've never been totally happy with is experience for loot.  I understand the need in earlier editions of D&D for the 1 GP = 1 XP rule, but it doesn't mean I like it.  Similarly, I'd like a system that doesn't only reward combat and defeating your foes, because it such a system, retreat, even when it might be the better part of valor, also robs one of needed experience.  You find your players start gaming the experience system.

Now, DCC RPG does things a bit differently.  The following paragraph is pretty much the core of the whole system.

Each encounter is worth from 0 to 4 XP, and those XP are not earned merely by killing monsters, disarming traps, looting treasure, or completing a quest. Rather, successfully surviving encounters earns the characters XP in DCC RPG. A typical encounter is worth 2 XP, and the system scales from 0 to 4 depending on difficulty.

Holy shit!  How sweet is that?  No worries about gold looted.  If the party flees for their lives and it is the right choice, they get rewarded.  That trap is now worth expo.  Damn this is good.


I might have to run this past my ACKS group on Saturday, because I really do think it has the possibility to enhance out gameplay (which would be amazing, as the gameplay is already at the highest level)