So we innovated our Pen & Paper games (Pathfinder, not house rules - I think)


Homebrew and House Rules


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Some years ago, we started having a parallel in character storytelling online, off-session. We found that this was greatly enhancing for the immersion and fun for our pen & paper sessions, so we tried in different ways to enhance this.

It would appear that after a lot of trial and error, we found a method that works for us, and I would like to share it with players and DMs for your inspiration.

We are running a campaign loosely set in the Golarion setting (we are new to Golarion, so we are learning about it as we move forth).

The campaign has Slow Progression, and our sessions are typically only 3-5 hours (we are all in our 40ies). This means that the kill-XP is very slow.

How the players gain a lot of XP is by writing in-character stories, recaps, "pre-caps", prequels, background, etc. This then becomes "rpg-xp", which falls within the domain of the DM to dish out. This gives a subjective perception of fast progression, there is typically generated more than 50% of a level combining these two main XP-sources.

We have developed a basic scoring system, I will describe it later.

The result is that the characters are a lot more like a character from a movie or book to us (of course we are amateurs and the quality corresponds to that). We are thickening the narrative layer on top of the pen & paper mechanics, and our immersion in the game increases a lot.


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The stories a quite free, we call them recaps, because a simple recap of the events in a session is sufficient. But the players have full creative freedom, and sometimes tell the story from the perspective of the monsters.

A wonderful example was an orc raiding party that the players encountered in a session, where one of the players decided that his recap would tell the story of these valiant warriors whom where tracking and hunting down the heroes. Suddenly the orcs had names and motivations, intentions, ideology or morale, and the encounter in retrospect was about much more than some level 2-3 characters killing another group of orcs.

This leads to co-creation. The DM shares the power to create with the players, and the players are rewarded both with game-mechanics and with the empowerment this brings.


Sorry to disappoint you, but story development contribution by players, including writing in-character stories is quite an old idea in pen and paper...

It's a great tool to develop and expand both characters and the world, and the modern internet tools, such as blogs or forums enhance the player's ability to contribute to and share the experience.


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A session typically leads to between 1.000 and 2.000 words (sometimes more) pr player. That means a sum of something between 2.000 and 10.000 words... Everyone are allowed to recollect the event from the session, the stories are always a good read, even the basic moves are the same.

Players typically add dialogue: they are allowed to freely create dialogue between the characters, without the consent of the other players. Of course this has to be done with a tad of tact.

Players are also rewarded for writing extensive background stories, as well as anything that they can dream up that relates to the fictional universe we are co-creating.


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Our system is as follows:

1250 words equals 20% of a level.

The DM scores the text, and every time the DM feels something (smiles, is carried away, thinks that something is cool etc) he makes a count. We call these "wow"s. A picture counts as a "wow". Each wow gives 3% accumulative XP bonus. A perfect text (use spell-control, re-read and fix) gives 5 "wows", subject to DM discretion.

Minimum is 470 words (7.5% with no "wow"s).

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