Experience

 

Characters in Mythmaster are not static - they grow and develop over time, learning new skills and abilities over months, years or decades. Much of this progression will happen during the course of play, as you take your character on exciting adventures, but a lot of it also happens during the character creation process.

As in most RPGs, progression in Mythmaster is measured in experience points. In Mythmaster, however, experience is not something that just accumulates over time, it is something you spend in order to purchase upgrades for your character, such as increases to your stats, attributes or derivatives, or rolls to learn or improve your abilities in skill or spell fields.

Earning Experience Points

Experience points are the consistent currency that fuels all character progression, and they are awarded both during the character creation process and during play.

Experience Earned During Character Creation

During character creation, experience is awarded at a fixed rate of 8 experience points every three years, however, some Life Events may result in your earning more or less experience. This experience can be saved or spent, however you may not save more than 15 experience points at once; if at the end of a given life cycle you have more than 15 experience points, you must spend some before continuing.

Experience Earned Through Play

During play, experience points are awarded by consensus of the players and the Director at the end of each play session. The Director should set aside a few minutes at the end of each play session for all of the players to collectively reflect and talk about their favorite moments of the play session. Each player should point out what they found most exciting or inspiring, and the other players should each chime in to affirm, emphasize or elaborate as they see fit. During this discussion, the Director should take quick note of which players’ actions had the biggest impact on the overall experience.

Exceptionally, 4 experience points might be awarded to a player who had a transformative impact on everyone's experience of the game, and who exemplified the way the members of the group would like to play together. As a general rule, such a recognition should be specifically nominated and unanimously agreed, as it is the open celebration of this kind of play that will most make it flourish at your table.

As a player, you should record the experience points you are awarded on your character sheet, and save them up until you have enough to purchase the next improvement for your character. There is no limit to the amount of experience you can save once you are finished the character creation process.

Spending Experience Points

Experience points can be spent on a wide range of things, giving you all kinds of ways to improve and customize your character to develop them into the very best version of themselves.

Purchasing Skill Rolls

As noted above, instead of spending earned experience points directly to increase individual skills, you use earned experience to buy rolls in the various skill or spell fields. As you age - whether during the character creation process, or during the course of play, the dice you roll to determine the number of skill points you get to spend will bring diminishing returns.

Before your 10th life cycle, purchasing a skill roll for 5xp allows you to roll 2d4+3 to determine the number of skill points you get to spend in your chosen skill field. On average, this will give you eight skill points. By your 30th life cycle, you will roll 2d2, which will return an average of only three skill points.

Some Things, Experience Can't Buy

Certain benefits that might be gained during character creation or by advancing in Factions or skill fields cannot be directly purchased using experience points. These include:

These things can all be increased indirectly by improving stats or skills, or by accumulating wealth, property or rank within a Faction.