Editing Experience point

'''Experience points''' are a common method of measuring a [[character]]'s increasing skill and power of the course of a game.  Experience points, commonly abbreviated as '''XP''', are earned by [[character]]s as they overcome challenges in the course of their [[adventure]]s.  This most obviously includes combat encounters, but also includes social intrigues, stealthy infiltrations, and other situations where a favorable outcome is not assured.

This abbreviation is where the version of Microsoft Windows got it's name.

Experience points reflect a character's advancement in two main ways, depending on the game.  These are not exhaustive, but they cover the majority of games.

In the first style, a character accumulates experience until he reaches a preset threshold.  Reaching this threshold signals an increase in power.  Usually, this manifests as the character gaining a [[level]] in an appropriate [[class]].  A single experience point in this style of advancement is relatively small. Characters may need thousands of experience points to reach the next level, but a character may be rewarded with hundreds or thousands of experience points per game [[session]].  As examples, this type of advancement is found in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' and [[Decipher]]'s ''[[Star Trek]]'' [[RPG]].

The second style uses experience points as a kind of currency used to purchase increases in a character's abilities.  This allows a smoother increase in power compared to level systems and often allows a player to have greater control over her character's advancement, but it is often more difficult to gauge the relative power of a character at a glance.  A single experience point is typically more precious in these games; a character will usually earn fewer than ten per session.  ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' and [[Silhouette]] games such as ''[[Jovain Chronicles]]'' use this kind of experience points.

For comparison, ''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'' is a game which does not use experience points in the usual sense.

Some games use different terms for experience points.  For example, ''[[Shadowrun]]'' refers to experience points as [[Good Karma]] and ''[[Blue Planet]]'' uses [[ChIPs]] (Character Improvement Points).

[[Category:Terminology]]