RPG Talk: New School Experience Rewards

Some role-playing games, like the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG I'm ramping up to resurrect this spring, are just New School enough to have done away with any real Experience Point system. DWAITAS has Story Points, which can be used to affect game play and refill automatically at the start of the next adventure or session. Players can be rewarded IN play, when they do something cool, funny or self-sacrificing, but these points aren't used at the end of any given session to improve the character in a permanent manner. Such improvements are made in-story, when something life-changing happens to a character, or when events in the game justify a change (for example, Turlough might help defeat the Black Guardian and lose his Obligation Bad Trait, or Martha could train with UNIT and pick up a few skills). It's suggested players might be given a few chargen points to spend in between "seasons". And that's all well and good, I agree with this narrativist/simulationist approach.

But game in, game out, I'd like to be able to reward players a little more by... wait for it... allowing them to make life more difficult for ME. Here's the thing. Having run one season already (now a couple years ago), I think I've got a good handle on the game and its relatively free-wheeling style. I'd like this NEW season to be a lot more improvisational (it's in all our skill sets, improv is how we all know each other). One of the ways I'm going to accomplish this is by using the Anniversary sourcebooks and generally poach from the classic episodes, with various twists even though my players aren't Classic Who-conversant. That makes it a bit more hands-free. But in addition, I'm creating special rewards to be handed out at the end of each session that give players more power over the game's plotting. In short, the ability to throw a wrench into my plans and force me to improvise, just as they are. Here's how it would work:

At the end of each session, I will ask each player to vote for their favorite performance, be it sustained or in a particularly memorable moment (I also get a vote). The winner will receive a Reward card that allows them to influence the story in some way (see below). It might be given randomly, or it might be tied to their particular performance (That Interests Me! for play-acting one's Insatiable Curiousity Bad Trait above and beyond the call of duty, for example), depending one what I have on hand. This is flexible; I give myself the right to give two cards in a session, or give everyone a card for a stellar game. Just as flexibly, players would be allowed to give their cards away, or trade them among themselves if they wanted to. Each card still requires some Story Point expenditure to trigger its effect, but the way the game works, a particularly cool use of the card might well refund the points immediately. Here are some of the Reward cards I've come up with.

Please, don't be shy about suggesting others. As you can see, some of this stuff has appeared on the show, and damn my simulationist eyes, I had to find a way to make them work in the game. The Reveal, for example, provides for the Doctor and River's banana confrontation in Let's Kill Hitler, and Narrator has been used by both Amy's and Rose's players. More are coming to me all the time, and my players will likely find new rewards replacing tried and trusted ones as the campaign progresses. And of course, Old or New School, any game could adapt this concept to make things more interesting for the GameMaster and players alike!

Edit from the future: Five more cards and the printable pdf later posted.