History Main / ExperiencePoints

[[folder:Edutainment Game]]
* In ''VideoGame/WolfQuest'', you get experience points when you kill coyotes, hares, elk, etc., and also when you do things such as mark territory. With enough points, you earn rewards: the ability to name your pups, easier to mark territory, a bonus den choice, or even a pure white pup (despite the parents' colors).

** The ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'' uses the ''HeroSystem''... um... [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment system]].

* [[ProseDescriptiveQualities PDQ]] system games, as a rule, do something unusual with character advancement. In ''Dead Inside'' you have to find ways to regain soul points which can go to improving your Type (sort of your race or class), and then Type ranks can be traded for Qualities (skills and abilities). ''Truth & Justice'' offers Hero Points for suitably heroic actions, and you can decrease the maximum size of your Hero Point pool to buy extra Qualities and Powers. ''Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies'' gives you Training Points which can be spent towards new Fortes (Qualities) - but you can only earn Training Points on ''failed'' rolls, since succeeding means you didn't have to learn anything from the effort.

** ''FinalFantasyTactics'', instead of giving experience to the whole team based on the enemies defeated, gives individual characters experience based on each action taken, and who it was taken against. To the inattentive player, this can lead to a team full of front-line fighters who are over-leveled (from taking constant action in attacking) and mages who are under-leveled (from taking only occasional action that's not certain to work). At worse, it can lead to your whole team being under-leveled--if you try to play efficiently, and take out enemies in as few turns as is necessary, you won't get nearly the same experience for it.

* The ''HeroSystem'' is different from most games with ExperiencePoints in that a player will earn only one, or maybe two if he did a fantastic job roleplaying his character, ExperiencePoint per session. Also, he can [[PointBuy spend those points on his character]], making it more powerful.
** ''{{GURPS}}'' copied this system.

** ''{{Exalted}}'' has a similar one, in which, with a full day of play and a great deal of acting skill, you ''might'' be able to afford a new Charm at the end of the session. A common criticism is that, due to quirks of the character generation and advancement chart, chargen in ''Exalted'' is a kind of minigame in which you can win dozens or hundreds of free experience points simply by having a build that gets a lot of XP-intensive stuff at chargen at a huge discount, then buys the cheap stuff with XP.
* ''ScarredLands'' gives this an in-setting justification/handwave--you're slowly increasing the size of your "thaumaturgic field," which provides a power source for superhuman abilities.

* {{Numenera}} assigns zero points for combat. It's a world AfterTheEnd and discovering artifacts from the worlds that came before is worth experience points. Additionally, about once per session per player, the GM is encouraged to use a GM Intrusion to make the game a bit more difficult for players. A player can refuse the intrusion by paying one experience point, or accept it, winning them two points. The player must then assign one point to another player. The number of experience points in the game rarely hit double digits.
* The WorldOfDarkness, old and new, assigned points for surviving, role-playing, and achieving. Rarely was combat rewarded for its own sake - though if combat achieved an objective, it might be worth a reward.

* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' had a particularly bizarre method of giving experience, as it was altered by your companions. In weird, arbitrary ways. Killing alone gave you more experience than if you had an NPC ally, but less experience than if you had a summoned creature. A wizard or sorcerer's familiar gave you more experience than alone, but less than using a summoned creature. Using a familiar and a summon in concert gave you more experience than using only a familiar but less than just having a summon. A druid's animal companion on the other hand, made you gain less than you would alone, and summoning a creature made you gain even less. Oh and barring one or two areas where enemies can respawn infinitely, there's a limited amount of experience available, so this matters.
** It's actually both a bit easier and more complicated than that. As a rule of thumb, you really do get less XP per kill the larger your party is; NPC henchmen, summoned mage familiars and/or animal companions, and other summon creatures all reduce the amount of XP your character gains by a small amount. However, enemies don't just simply spawn when you enter an area. Instead there are so-called "encounter triggers" placed throughout an area that spawn the enemies when the PC runs into such a trigger, and not necessarily next to the trigger - they can spawn somewhere completely different in that area. Now the thing with these triggers is that they determine the number and strength/level of the enemies that are about to spawn by taking into consideration the whole party at the moment the trigger was activated. So if you are running around solo, enter a trigger and then summon you creatures afterwards, you do get less XP than you had if you would not have summoned them. Of course this also works the other way around; enter an area, summon as many creatures as you can, command them to stay put, turn yourself invisible or use stealth, activate as many encounter triggers as possible without fighting any enemies, unsummon/dismiss all your creatures, and you'll get considerably more XP because you're now fighting more and/or tougher opponents all by yourself.

* On ''DiscworldMUD'' (and possibly other Multi-User Dungeons) the players do not gain levels with experience. They have to [[PointBuy spend that experience on skills]], and this ratio of points in certain skills determines level. If the player dies, XP drops to zero, although getting resurrected can bring some back.
* Similarly, in ''UrbanDead'', how many 'levels' you have is as many skills as you've purchased. Certain classes have increased EXP cost for specific types of skills and reduced cost for other types. Notably, if someone is level 45, [[InterfaceSpoiler you can immediately tell]] which side they're likely working on, as one of the skills required to reach that level makes it much harder to be pulled back out of un-life.

* ''LordsOfMagic'' has you gain experience from killing enemies, with the experience being shared among everyone on your side in the battle, and enough experience points level you up. What's interesting is that if a champion goes to their corresponding unit building and stays there they start training the units that can be created from it, giving them a fraction of their experience points each turn, most efficiently when training units of the same faction and least efficiently with those of the opposite, and maxing out at a maximum fraction. Also, while the level cap is 10 or 12 for lords, experience points don't max out. A lord who's just reached level 12 can only train champions to 5 or 6, but one who's been 12 for a long time and has been fighting ever since may be able to not just train them to 10, but can give them so many experience points that they could go to an untrained barracks and train those units to max themselves.

* In From Software's Shadow Tower series, you don't get experience points. Instead each breed of demon gives automatically gives a stat increase of specific type and number once you kill it. So you are always improving every battle that you win. Since there is no dynamic difficulty, if you play a New Game + enough times you'll soon become a virtual god.

* In VideoGame/{{Undertale}}, you may think you're being rewarded for defeating enemies with ExperiencePoints. [[spoiler: Nope, in this game EXP actually stands for [[KarmaMeter Execution Points]].]]

* ''BubbleTanks'' has… bubbles. These are produced when enemies are defeated, and are actually the bubbles they were made of. Once enough bubbles are collected, you level up, and can choose an evolution path for your tank. Careful– if you get hit, you ''lose'' experience points, and if they go below your level, you will de-evolve to a lower stage.

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* In ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series, starting from ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'', XP is only earned via StatGrinding. Killing bandits and wolves won't get you XP but killing enough with a bow to rank up your Archery will. Likewise, making a bunch of weapons/armor at the Blacksmiths, making potions via Alchemy or even selling a bunch of stuff will also get you closer to leveling up.

->"[[MeatOVision Food!]]", thought the dragon.
->"[[CharacterLevel Levels!]]", thought the knight.

!!!Due to the ubiquity in {{RPG}}s, please only list aversions, inversions, or particularly interesting uses.

* ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'' lets you spend the experience, or [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly praise]], to level up your stats (health [[[ThePowerOfTheSun Solar Energy]]], MP [[[ArtInitiatesLife ink]]], wallet and [[VideoGameLives astral pouch]]). Unlike most, if not all other examples, you get praise by [[VideoGameCaringPotential feeding animals, reviving dead plants, and restoring nature wherever you go, or just by helping people.]] In fact, killing things is one of the only things you can do in the game that generally ''doesn't'' yield experience.

* ''VideoGame/SystemShock 2'', ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' and ''VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' all award fixed amounts of XP not for slaying enemies but for particular achievements on the way towards the next major objective. The two latter ones also grant additional points for solving the problems in a non-standard way or finding hidden routes.
* In ''MedalOfHonor: Airborne'', you earn weapon upgrades for frequently killing enemies with a specific weapon, as well as for getting headshots or other specific hits.
* The ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: ModernWarfare'' series has this for its multiplayer, alongside a military-rank-themed CharacterLevel system. Earn XP from kills and from completing challenges.

* The ''VideoGame/{{SaGa}}'' games don't use experience points. Human characters simply get an increase to stats related to what they did in each battle--cast a lot, max JP and intellect increases, use melee attacks, Strength and max WP goes up. Monsters and Mechs get stats based on what form they're in and what they're wearing, respectively. Mystics change based on what monsters they've absorbed.
* ''VideoGame/{{Quest64}}'' increases stats just by your in-game actions. Also, the strength of your melee staff attack is based on the sum of your four elements' levels.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' uses AP points that allow you to move across a character grid and use power ups on it.
*** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' has the similar Crystarium system where Crystal Points earned in battle are used to connect to a system of nodes for each of the classes a character has. It's possible to spend a small amount of CP on ability or stat increase and change to another node as long as it connects to a previously unlocked one.

[[RPGsEqualCombat The most common method of getting experience points is through killing monsters]], but there are other ways.

** The ''GlobalGuardiansPBEMUNiverse'' uses the ''HeroSystem''... um... [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment system]].

* ''{{Minecraft}}'' has [[ExperienceMeter experience orbs]] that you get from [[RPGsEqualCombat killing monsters]]. Unlike other games that use EXP, the only use for EXP in this game is [[SpellBlade enchanting weapons]] and tools. These enchantments range from [[CriticalHit higher critical hit rates]], extra damage to the undead and [[FlamingSword adding fire damage]]. Some [[GameMod mods]] add more uses for EXP, as well.

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' hangs a lampshade on this in a rather chilling deconstruction: [[spoiler:the main character possesses the ability to gain strength from the force connections of everyone you kill, which means you're basically feeding on their deaths.]] It's a [[HeroicBSOD very disturbing revelation]] for a light side character.

* The second ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' game hangs a lampshade on this in a rather chilling deconstruction: [[spoiler:the main character possesses the ability to gain strength from the force connections of everyone you kill, which means you're basically feeding on their deaths.]] It's a very disturbing revelation for a light side player.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' explicitly states that Karma is a representation of the ability to choose your own life. You can trade this commodity with some supernatural entities as well as using it to power magical effects.