Updated from an original article published Nov 19, 2018.
An easy way to stress the three pillars of play (combat, exploration, interaction) in Dungeons & Dragons is to award experience points in a different manner. Older editions awarded them based on gold piece values of treasure procured (or secured in town after selling off loot), and other games have tables you can reference that provide XP values for different tasks performed, goals achieved, and so on. Unearthed Arcana addressed this with the Three-Pillar Experience system, a set of variant rules that intersects with the Challenge rating system and the different tiers of play: first tier (levels 1–4), second tier (levels 5–10), third tier (levels 11–16), and fourth tier (levels 17–20).
Here’s a simple system that uses a series of questions and answers to award experience. Based on the questions you use — the lists presented below, or something of your own devising — you can easily tweak the system to stress different types of conduct during play, and thus stress the pillars of play in different ways.
Read on!
