As characters adventure, they gain experience, measured in experience points. Each of the characters here started the game with zero experience. They were first-level characters. As characters gain experience, they increase their level. Higher-level characters can do more things, and improve their odds of successful actions.
At the end of each adventure, the Adventure Guide adds up the experience that the characters earned during the adventure. In this adventure, each of the characters gained 1,125 experience points from conflict and other interactions. Most of the experience came from day six, when they fought the goblin skeletons. This provided the bulk of their experience because it hit all three of the ways in which conflict provides experience:
1. They defeated ten goblin skeletons. They gained experience for defeating opponents in a fight.
2. Each of the skeletons was a first level monster. The characters were also first level, and so the characters gained experience for defeating opponents who matched their own level.
3. The total levels of defeated opponents during day six was ten. The total levels of the adventuring party was four. So the characters gained experience for defeating opponents who, in aggregate, were more powerful than they were.
As the characters go up in level, goblins, even goblin skeletons, won’t be worth as much experience. The characters will need to defeat tougher opponents, opponents that match (and exceed) the characters’ rising levels.
Besides experience for fighting things, they also gained experience for talking to the goblin that they captured back at the beginning of the adventure, and for talking to Burwell Cooper.*
Sam and Will, who used mojo to turn failed die rolls into successful rolls, gained experience from that, and Charlotte gained from taking part in a group effort with Sam, when Sam used mojo to pick the lock on the tunnel door. Sam thus had 300 extra experience, and Will and Charlotte fifty extra experience, for using mojo to modify die rolls.
Players add mojo experience to their character sheets immediately. If they gain enough experience to reach a new level, their level increases immediately. Other experience is calculated by the Adventure Guide at the end of the adventure. The Adventure Guide’s Handbook tells the Guide when and how to make these calculations.
| Conflict | Talking | Mojo | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte | 945 | 180 | 50 | 1,175 |
| Gralen | 945 | 180 | 1,125 | |
| Sam | 945 | 180 | 300 | 1,425 |
| Will | 945 | 180 | 50 | 1,175 |
Since it takes one thousand experience points to reach second level,* they are all second level now. Will can fight more effectively. Charlotte is a stronger psychic. Sam’s a more adept thief—and warrior.† And Gralen can cast more powerful magic. In each case, their chance of success when using their skills improves. And they often gain new skills or other abilities, such as Gralen gaining the use of new, more powerful, spells.
Perhaps, now, they can take on that tentacled creature of the mist… but I doubt it.
