Dungeon World XP System
This alternative experience point system is an attempt to adapt Dungeon World's into D&D 5th edition. This system revolves around character alignment and motivation and encourages players to engage with their characters and others'.
Levelling
When a character takes a long rest they may spend the required XP to level up. The amount of XP required is equal to 7 + your current character level. XP can be gained in a number of different ways detailed below.
Milestones
The DM can award XP for reaching narrative milestones or overcoming challenges. The pace and specific criteria of awarding XP this way is left to the DM's discretion.
Alignment
When creating your character (or adopting this system) choose one the following principals, or work with your DM to create your own. Your principal is based on your alignment, for example if your alignment is Chaotic Good, you should choose a principle from either the Chaotic or Good lists. Your principal describes a behaviour or course of action associated with your alignment that your character is pre-disposed toward.
Good
• Ignore danger to aid another
• Lead others into righteous battle
• Give up powers or riches for the greater good
• Reveal a dangerous lie
• Show mercy
• Defend those weaker than you.
Evil
• Take advantage of someone’s trust
• Cause suffering for its own sake
• Destroy something beautiful
• Upset the rightful order
• Harm an innocent
• Kill a defenseless or surrendered enemy.
Neutral
• Make an ally of someone powerful
• Defeat a personally important foe
• Learn a secret about an enemy
• Uncover a hidden truth
• Avoid a conflict or defuse a tense situation.
Lawful
• Uphold the letter of the law over the spirit
• Fulfill a promise of import
• Bring someone to justice
• Choose honor over personal gain
• Return treasure to its rightful owner
• Deny mercy to a criminal
Chaotic
• Reveal corruption
• Break an unjust law to benefit another
• Defeat a tyrant
• Reveal hypocrisy
• Eschew a convention of the civilized world.
• Spur others to significant and unplanned decisive action.
• Free someone from literal or figurative bonds.
• Leap into danger without a plan.
Flags
All characters demonstrate foibles and eccentricities which serve to complicate their lives. These are represented by flags. Your flags define behaviors that other players enable. By selecting a flag, you signal what sorts of interactions and complications you are looking to explore, giving other players permission and encouragement to complicate your life by incorporating your flag into play.
When another player follows the instruction indicated by your flag, (called “hitting” your flag), they're rewarded a the end of the session for doing so. This means that players should be aware of the flags of the other characters at the table, and think about how they might hit them in play. Note that hitting another player’s flag usually means confronting them with a tough choice that pits their personality against a situation. They may choose to embrace their personality or compromise it for the situation. Either way, just setting up the choice means you hit their flag.
Each character should choose two flags (some games may wish to have characters choose more). As flags are intended to represent deep-seated personality traits, they tend to resist change; however, if it makes sense to drop a flag and/or gain a new one, go for it.
Example Flags
Good/Lawful
• Offer me an easier solution I must refuse on principle.
• Cause/encourage me to duel somebody one on one.
• Ask me to give you a weapon at a time of need or desperation.
• Give me a reason to explain/demonstrate the folly of avarice.
• Side with me on a course of action which does not involve bloodshed.
• Put us in situations I can justly complain about.
• Harm or threaten to harm an enemy that I can step in and care or show compassion
Knowledgeable
• Seek my help in finding information on how to .
• Help me to unearth hidden lore about .
• Ask me to examine an important object.
• Ask me about the history of a place.
• Ask for and take my advice on a difficult matter.
Secretive
• Tease out information about from me.
• Get me to speak of my life beyond our mission.
• Call me out when I express knowledge or manners that are different from my every day behavior.
Chaotic
• Participate in wild and unlikely schemes with me when we’re in a pinch.
• Allow me to cause undue harm for your own benefit.
• Allow me to challenge your faith in a deity or an institution.
• Reveal a personal weakness so I can address it.
• Believe and act on a lie I’ve told you.
• Give me an order so I can refuse it.
Eccentric
• Interrupt me when I’m speaking with someone no one else can see.
• Ask me about some sort of obscure history and then suffer through my, probably wrong, answer.
• Attempt to dissuade me from solving a problem through the use of force.
• Attempt to use finesse so I can barge right in/through.
Vengeful
• Assist me in destroying someone’s most treasured possession or in dealing the death blow to them.
• Try to pull me back or rein me in so I can pursue vengeance at any cost.
Charismatic/Famous
• Defer to me when dealing with polite society.
• Believe and act on a lie I’ve told you.
• Go incognito so I can mess it up by being easily recognizable.
• Tell someone else about my exploits.
• Follow a plan that benefits me while believing it’s your idea.
Ignorant/Gullible
• Convince me to cause undue harm for your own benefit.
• Tell me a lie I believe.
• Cause/encourage me to fight someone for your own gain.
Outsider
• Refuse my aid because I’m different.
• Offer me some civilized convention so I can refuse to use it, even if it would make my task less difficult.
• Point out a great achievement or belief of the civilized world so that I may mock it.
• Allow me to break a rule, law or custom of the place we are in so that I might learn more about the world through my mistakes.
Leader
• Allow me to make a decision so you can criticize it later.
• Suggest a journey to a forbidden/dangerous locale so I can lead the way.
• Take my order to do something that seems stupid or reckless, regardless of whether it actually is.
• Let me lead you into a battle, even if you might be the better choice to be in front.
• Challenge my leadership if I make a decision that goes poorly.
Daredevil
• Ask me to do something daring and acrobatic.
• Make it dangerous for me to help you.
• Allow me to go headfirst into danger even though the odds are against me.
• Offer me a high-risk, high-reward plan that I can’t resist.
Cowardly
• Offer me an opportunity to go into danger that I can refuse.
• Put us in situations I can justly complain about.
• Give me something important so that I can give it away at the first sign of trouble.
• Call me a coward to get me to follow you into a dangerous situation.
Greedy
• Offer me some treasure to get me to do something I normally would not do.
• Point out a treasure that is in a forbidden or dangerous place so I can try to get my hands on it.
Devout/Loyal
• Offer me an opportunity to achieve a goal by going against my comrades that I will refuse.
• Offer me an easy path that would break my vow so I can refuse.
• Give me a reason to explain/demonstrate the folly of one of your sins.
• Ask me to listen to your sins or confession so that I might petition my deity for their forgiveness.
• Trust me with a secret you would never tell anyone else.
• Interrupt me when I’m ’communing’ or meditating so that I can ignore you.
Protective
• Get into a dangerous situation that I can protect you from.
• Ask my advice in making a place defensible.
Notorious/Criminal
• Attempt to reassure someone so I can make it clear how dangerous I really am.
• Call attention to something valuable or useful that would be missed so I can steal it.
• Seek my help in finding a way into a well guarded facility.
• Ask for my help in ’interrogating’ someone.
• Ask me for help in covering up a crime you have committed.
End of Session
When you reach the end of a session, if you hit a flag of any other character during the session at least once, mark XP. If anyone hit at least one of your flags this session, mark XP. Once flags have been updated look at your alignment. If you fulfilled that alignment at least once this session, mark XP. Then answer these three questions as a group:
• Did we learn something new and important about the world?
• Did we overcome a notable monster or enemy?
• Did we loot a memorable treasure?
For each “yes” answer everyone marks XP.
Homebrew by Finn Ahern,
Flags by Rob Donoghue & Scott Selvidge,
Dungeon World © Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel
Image Credits
- Nate Marcel, Dungeon World cover