RolePlay Wiki

The default in most people’s minds is leveling. A player accumulates experiences points doing whatever it is that the game wants to reward, and when she hits a particular break-point the character suddenly increases in abilities across their entire spec.  The important thing here is to understand what sort of behavior players are rewarded for doing most often.

Alternate Systems could include

• Incremental Leveling [same as above, mostly, except increases happen along differing linear paths. ]
  
• Advancement through Failure [Hard to advance something you're already good at... without pushing yourself beyond your existing capacity.]
  
• Ongoing Point-Buy  [ As incremental BUT the player chooses which path is 'paid for' first.]
  
• Advancement as Currency [A subset of the point-buy system - this adds a layer of decision-making for the player, since they can either have the immediate payoff of spending a point in-game, or the quick payoff of spending the point on some small incremental advancement, or the delayed gratification of saving up for a powerful ability.]
  
• Advancement by Use [systems take a bit more tracking than the ones above, but you don’t have to worry as much about pricing abilities or tuning the leveling system... the challenge being player ability-spamming - the use of every conceivable skill all of the time.]
  
• Milestones [ The milestone could grant a level, or merit points, or a milestone could even be when the players have used a certain number of abilities in-game]
  
• Adjustment rather than Advancement [In this system, the character doesn't actually advance... they evolve becoming more adjusted to the immediate requirements of the story at hand... but not necessarily more capable. ]

While I'm certain there are other ways to reward players... my systems utilize a few of these... specifically,  the 'Standard XP', but also 'Advancement by failure', 'Milestone', and 'Advancement as Currency'.