Gaining Experience, and Skill Progression (v2.2)

[Raellus]

As both GM and player, I consider character growth, in terms of abilities and competence, to be a reward/incentive. IMHO, skill improvement in the T2k v2.2 mechanics seems to be an afterthought, at best .

Originally Posted by BYB

"...the character spends experience points to buy levels in a skill. To buy a level costs points equal to the numerical value: to buy Mechanic: 5 costs five experience points (assuming the character has Mechanic: 4 already). A character must already have achieved the level immediately below the one sought, although a character can advance more than one skill level at a time (to go from Mechanic:3 to Mechanic: 5 would require 4+5=9 skill points which could be expended at the same time."

Twilight: 2000 v2.2 manual, Skill Improvement, p. 138

Under this system, it takes a really long time to bank enough skill points to buy higher levels. And it requires a GM that actually awards and tracks SP. In my campaigns, I've handled it as follows:

Originally Posted by Twilight Cruise Posting Guidelines and Char-gen

From time to time, I will award players with XP which may be used to boost their character's skills. XP can be awarded for the following IC and OOC actions:

• Exceptional role-playing
  
• Successful completion of difficult and/or impossible tasks
  
• IC Problem solving

Maybe my perception is skewed by the fact that I've never played T2k in any other format than PbP. Even with a fairly robust posting rate of 2-3 turns per week, relatively short firefights and conversations can take ages to resolve vis-a-vis real time. So, it often ends up taking months or years of play time to bank enough XP to raise a skill that starts at more than first or second level. When I started out GM'ing PbP, I awarded skill-specific XP as well as generic XP, but since it took so long to bank enough to actually boost a skill, I just awarded generic XP so that players could use it for whatever they liked.

Another way to improve skill levels through training, but I find the v2.2 rules concerning same to be rather convoluted.

How do you handle XP and skill progression in your campaign?

-