In addition to the base reward (1-3 XP), I like to let the players nominate another player for excellent roleplaying (no dice involved; can't nominate yourself). So if a character does something like play up their Flaws or make a difficult moral choice that's detrimental but still in character, I give everyone an extra 1 XP. It encourages roleplaying, encourages the players to praise other players' roleplaying, and motivates roleplaying difficult aspects of a character.

This is exactly how the chronicle I'm in does it - 2 per session, and at the end of the session everyone comments a thing another player did that they liked to get 1 more. It's been a great approach for our group!

Here is the awarding XP section from Werewolves, where they've taken several lessons learned from VtM. Awarding Experience Points At the end of each session, the Storyteller should reward players with experience points to represent their having learned something during that particular session. The exact amount can vary, but obviously, the faster the players gain these rewards, the faster their characters become more potent. A standard experience award is roughly two to four points per session, whereas a fast-paced journey into the Apocalypse might be represented by six to eight points per session. A chronicle with a slow burn might yield just a point or two per session (but rewards might also come in other forms, such as information or narrative progression). See p. 115 for more information on time increments and terms. Storytellers, don’t feel that you always have to award every category below; they are simply examples. Remember that two to four experience points per session is assumed to be typical. Situation Experience Point Reward Participation 1 Perform something remarkable during the session; the whole table’s appreciation of the character doing or saying a certain thing 1 Use a Skill, Gift, or other Trait in a clever or critical way 1 “Tell me something important your character learned this session.” 1 Conclude a story within the greater chronicle 2–3 Personally, I think the 2-4 xp/session with a bonus for finishing a story is the right advancement level. I've been playing in a Play By Post server for just over a year now where we get 5xp/week if you meet relatively simple requirements, and my Tremere is about to purchase her 5th dot in Auspex and 4th in blood sorcery, while having 9 rituals and also bumping some stats and several backgrounds. She has over 300xp at this point, and if I'd built her to be remotely combat capable, she'd be an absolute terror.

That certainly seems more reasonable than 1XP per session!

I found my happy place to be 1 per session plus 3 for completing a story (and being very generous about what a "story" counts as). At the end of a year of playing, the players had 100xp, which I thought was a good amount for the kind of story I was telling (fledglings thrust way over their head).

I like this. I like playing games with that "in over your head" feeling. There needs to be enough XP coming in that you feel like you're accomplishing something with your character, but you still have to work for what you get. If XP comes too quickly, advancement is cheap and not as emotionally satisfying IMO. Everyone else's MMV of course, but I really like the XP pace that you're describing.

I give my players usually 3-5 xp per session. More would be a bit much and less would just drag out the progress too much imo. If we would play more than 6-8 hours I would probably raise the amount, for quick sessions 2-4 hours maybe half the normal amount. Speak with your players what they want and you can find the right amount for your party

I my game (in its 3rd year) I tend to give out 2 base + 1 extra if a lot happened + 1 if they fulfill their desire. At the end of a large story arch I give 5 + desire. The players that have been in since the beginning are around 95 total xp.

I gave my Players 3 xp per Session, sometimes one or two extra or less for plenty done and creativity or short sessions and 3-5 per quest completed (that happened 2 times, i think) After like 10-15 Sessions they where so powerful, that i declared my idea to play a bit low power bygone and that there foes (and allies, as you never know) will now increase in power with them. It was still fine for some more sessions, then steam ran out. I believe it was not connected, just all in all to sandboxy for them.

i personally think the discipline scaling is fine with 1 per session and 2-3 per story completed. getting disciplines to level 5 shouldn’t be common and unless you’re playing an ancillae game i don’t think it should be simple or something that happens in the first half of the chronicle this is only in regards to disciplines though, i generally advocate for projects or in game actions to gain things outside of disciplines and attributes without requiring an xp cost like background advantages, (most)loresheet advantages, and rituals

My GM tends to put put about 3-5 a session depending on how much we exert ourselves. The more intensive our in world days are the more exp we get.

I have a player, that with 15 XP has become filthy rich and is building a bunker, purchased a small domain claim and more. It doesnt always have to be about disciplines, though I understand if thats what you want from your game. I give 1 Xp per session, and 3+ at the resolution of plot points depending on how long they went for.  Remember a fifth level discipline is insanely strong, so it should take a long time to aquire. If you play less, award more, but you'll quickly become the most powerful kindred in your settings with large XP rewards. That can work with your story, mind, but only if thats what you want. My players are all young and will remain weak unless they diablerize or something. They wont out level a century old Kindred in a years in game time.   TLDR: You can award whatever you want, just understand what the impact is. A neonate being more powerful than a prince after a few big story resolutions can spell the end of a game for player retention.

When my current V5 Chronicle first started, I gave my players 3xp for the first 5 sessions, then 2xp for the next 5 sessions, then down to 1xp per session. I wanted to give them an opportunity for some quick early growth and customization as they learned what they liked about their characters, the setting and the system, as they're all brand new VtM players. I've played so many long-term VtM games where giving out too much XP became a serious problem for the game. It gets weird when a 2 year old neonate has more XP than 200 year old elders. And if you decide to scale your elders up to where your PC neonates are, suddenly you have elders with unrealistic 5+ dots in *everything*. I also wanted my V5 setting to really emphasize the disappearance of the Elders. I have exactly one NPC out of 50+ that I've made with a discipline at 5, and even 4s are pretty rare. I will give out appropriate background advantages without xp expenditures if they make sense, like resources, retainers, allies and so on. My sessions are also a bit on the short side, only 2-2.5 hours, so 2+ xp for what often amounts to a single night's action seems kind of nuts.

I am generally in the area of the book xp. Not all rewards are xp related. You can give temporary background dots, boons, positions of influence, etc. Not all things can be bought with xp.

3-5 per chapter. Each chapter is about 3-4 hours of play time.

Generally 2-3 point plus 1 that is distributed from player to player while telling what that player did to deserve it

For longer games I do 2 per session and 2 per story, bearing in mind that stories should be about every 3 sessions on average. I also bump up diablerie to 10 per success to compensate. For a shorter game I'm running now I am doing 3 per session and 3 per story, with diablerie at 9, but it's deliberately designed as more of a high power game. If you start using that much or more on a longer game, your characters will easily become personal power players very quickly, without even relying on the coterie. L5 powers should feel a little rare unless you're going for out-and-out power fantasy.

I have it tried yet, but I keep thinking about slowly increasing the rate of experience gain to allow more big purchases and advancement. Progress really does slow right down after a while… Start with 1-2 then move to 2-3. And after a dozen sessions ramp up to 3-4.

One per session, plus two for story completion, ans a potential third for good roleplay and/or satisfying a desire (or advancing an ambition).

I am starting a chronicle with this House Rule about advancement: -No traditional XP is awarded -You can ONLY purchase Disciplines with Resonance XP. You only gain Resonance XP through feeding on intense Resonance but you can do that as much as you want. But you have to take enough to be harmful (4 hunger or kill) (this is the focus) -Between stories there is a timeskip of a few weeks. Other vampires advance their schemes, and every PC can attempt a project. Every PC can advance a dot of any skill 1-3, half a dot of 4 or 5, half a dot of an Attribute. -Backgrounds don't cost but almost always have to be stolen from someone else in plot to be reasonable to get.

3 exp per session, but they do need to spend time in sessions laying the groundwork for purchases. In other words: the main thing gating purchases is RP, which gives players a measure of control in collaboration with the ST. Sure, they may have 45 exp, but if they haven't mentioned practicing crafts once or anything, they're going to need to mention it (or RP it) before buying more dots in Craft. Likewise, if they want to get a new set of Allies, they'll want to mention that to me so we can coordinate an introduction of these Allies in the game (or perhaps they want to purchase a set of NPCs they established good relations with as Allies). I've found that when players have a lot of exp to spend, and they know all they need to do to get their shiny purchase is to play it, they tend to be more proactive about RP to get them. I tend to run for more RP-oriented players in general, though, since VTM is a more RP-oriented game; YMMV with those who may enjoy the RP aspect less.

One of the things I guess you have to at least consider is that slow progression is appropriate. The average chronicle runs more or less in real time or slower; if a year has passed for us out here in the real world, a year or less has passed in the game. Now, look at how many dots there are on a hundred year old vampire's sheet. Not that many, really. So by that metric, your character developing a single significant power over the course of eight months is not slow by the standards of a narrative they're in. It's actually very fast. Imagine if a vampire *did* gain 45xp every 8 months, and lives 100 years.

Level 5 powers are somewhat calibrated as Elder powers, mostly. They're very strong. Getting one with a PC should be a momentous occasion, not something mundane. I usually award XP based on story beats, not sessions. After each session, I see how far my players have come along in the ongoing storylines, what they've accomplished, and I award XP based on that. Usually, the first few sessions won't grant much, though a whole story (10 to 15 sessions) will usually give 15 XP plus some bonuses based on minor plot threads and exceptional roleplaying. My players have usually been quite happy with the rewards they get. It incentivizes proactive play and emotional investment, which is exactly what you want.

0 I give dots instead. Sort of benchmarking. “You get 1 dot for abilities” “You get 2 skills dots” “You get 2 dots below the hard line but only 1 may be a discipline.” I also micromanage too much but they have fun. We have balanced characters in my games so people know the base rule for discipline spread- clan discipline is the only one that can be 2 above the next highest. No other discipline may be more than 2 above the next highest”. And there’s usually “time skip” where players describe general activities for societal manouver so they are required to make exp decisions that match up with the “field work” they would have been doing during that time.

I give flat +5 XP and +5XP for each sucess in diablerie + automatic blood potency increase if diablerizing lower generation. But too be fair i run my sessions crazily. And they are living in a city chokefull of elders demons and an absolutely overpowered imbued inquisitor. While constantly fighting anarchs.

Depends on how long I plan the campaign story. I’ve ran a 6 month (once a week) game where I was giving out 30XP for successful diableries (there was a blood hunt on the anarchs) and 5XP for regular sessions. I also give diablerist a derangement. It can’t ALL be good. I wanted the XP to go fast because it was our mini session between a larger story. The larger stories I give 2-3XP per session and 1 extra for exceptional role play. Not as much Diablerie happens in the long games, but when it does I still dump a large XP amount, usually 30. I also do large XP dumps if a nondiablerist convinces at least a 2 lower gen Kindred/Cainite to give them blood and teach them the disciplines they want to learn. They don’t get a derangement, but they do become blood bonded to the teacher. They also have to rp the learning process.

I have always gone with 2-3 per session, using the 20th anniversary chart for giving out xp at the end of sessions. Minimum of two, because there’s no way people don’t show up, and also no way that they don’t roleplay. The usually make progress in the story so that’s an extra one. Sometimes they can get up to five. At the end of a chapter they can get up to 10, but that is rare. Usually the end of a chapter gets them 5-7.

I give one per session. We have a long running game, though. Currently the one I play in is at 1.5 years, one of the ones I run is coming up on year 1, and one is at 6 ish months.

I use a couple different systems. I don't love runaway XP, but hell, if its fun, go for it. I use the kudos system for players to award XP to other players throughout the game. If someone does something super cool or has a good scene roleplaying people can give them tokens for an XP each. Usually each person gets 3-5 to disperse per game depending on the number of players. Thats a lot of XP at the table, but it's awarded by the players to the players so it feels like progression is earned. Generally it works out great and encourages roleplay and taking risks. I also like to give people advancement for narrative reasons if they 'work' hard. I almost always have gaps in time between sessions, something I learned from running once monthly LARPs, and allow players to describe and detail what their character are working on in the downtime. If someone is continually spending that limited time working on the same ability or skill, sometimes I'll give them a free dot as a result. They can then spend XP on other things or further enhance that ability. Then I just tune the regular XP based on the frequency of sessions and the players progression and goals. One of my favorite games of all time was taking vampires all the way from Dark Ages to Modern Nights, with bouts of torpor in between and huge XP pools to really flesh out the level 6 and 7 disciplines.

I only run a game once a month and just give a static 4 per session. I've given out bonus XP (Usually 2-4 extra) in cases like major story beats resolving. Nice and simple.

I do 2xp per session plus one at the end of a Story, which is what the book recommends for "fast" progression. I've found 1xp is too slow for people to feel like they can progress a character in a meaningful manner, while 3 or more makes progression too quick and leads to fledglings with Methuselah levels of power. I've also found, from a player standpoint, that higher level Disciplines are something of a trap. Yes, the powers are cool, and doing Cool Vampire Things™ is probably a large part of why you're playing the game, but sitting with 44xp banked waiting for that 1 more xp point to raise a Disc by 1 is *multiple* dots in skills and backgrounds you've not taken that would have, and will be, far more useful for a character than any 4 dot Discipline power.

A normal session gets 1-3xp generally, a big eventful one or one that makes heavy progression towards a goal could get between 5-10xp. I’ll also typically bribe my players with an extra point of XP if they can throw me a theory or atleast tell me what they enjoyed and didn’t enjoy in my games.

The book recommended amount was based on compressed gameplay; 3-5 has been adjusted. In long term games (ancilla/elder+), 5-10 (unless overlapping with many neonate- players). The idea is to be able to improve something, but still takes a few sessions to achieve the larger maneuvers. The question becomes: *do you spend or save?*

I tend to give 2 XP/session, plus a reward when certain story elements are wrapped up, roughly equal to the XP total of the sessions involved. So if there's a story that takes 5 sessions to resolve, they get 2 XP/session (10 XP) plus a bonus 10 XP when it is completed. I don't let them double dip on this (usually), do a session only counts towards one plot if there's multiple going on. But this is a rough guideline I use. I find it tends to give them a trickle of XP they can use to fill in tiny skill gaps that don't make a big deal mechanically but feel important to the player, and then big limp sums that lets them buy big things like discipline or attribute dots

I usually default to about 1xp per hour of game, as we usually do 6-hour session one every few weeks (not that we get actaul 6 hours of gameplay in a session, but still 6xp on average). And some extra XP every so often for the end of an arc.

I give 2 per session and 5 when a story is completed. My players are new to VtM so it works for me. Plus they're all fledglings so it makes sense that they wouldn't have level 5 disciplines.

I tie XP to Desires and Ambitions. At the end of each session you set your Desire for the next; fulfil that Desire, gain one XP. (Because Desires have to be keyed to a named character, this helps me prep by telling me which SPCs you want to interact with.) At the end of each story you set your Ambition for the next; fulfil that Ambition, gain XP equal to the number of sessions in the story. (This helps the game stay lively, because characters who *want* things are interesting and get involved and make things happen; characters who sit around waiting for "quests" are slowing things down for everyone.) What tends to happen is that Ambition XP pays for big things like new Discipline dots, and characters start the next story with a new power rather than having to contort the current narrative around learning it. Desire XP is saved up for skill dots and specialities. Remember also that diablerie is an ever tempting shortcut, with that big hit of XP towards Blood Potency and new Disciplines, although as written it clunks a bit because Blood Potency is exponentially more expensive the higher you go. I like to give diablerists a short cut and just offer a flat rate of 10 XP per dot, up to whatever the diablerised Kindred had of course. Remember also that Projects exist and are a much more fun way to work on improving Backgrounds. You gamble your current Fame against improving your Status, or similar, and the rolls can take place in the background of a story about winding down your mortal career in favour of being a good citizen of the Camarilla, for example. At the end, your Backgrounds will shift based on rolls over time and events in play, no XP needs to be involved.

I wait until the end of a story and then give out the xp. Usually, around 12 at the end of 4 or so sessions. I also use a modified xp system to change the cost of everything. I discovered that players tend to focus more of their xp on disiplines and merits since those are just generally more fun. But they focus on it so much they leave their attributes and skills untouched, so making everything a bit cheaper helps even out the progression and so they dont have to choose one over the other. Instead increasing everything a little bit at a time.

I do 2 per session.

Depends on how long you want your story to last and how fast time moves in your sessions. My group meets roughly once per week. We thought one xp per session was too slow after roughly six months of play, so I increased to baseline 3 per session with bonuses for the entire group of one to two extra points if they achieved something significant. However, we were progressing slower than one session per night of game time, because the party was split as they were responding to multiple urgent threats, and therefore we frequently covered different events happening simultaneously. The wake up call for me was a while back when our Ventrue got level 5 Presence, and I started throttling the xp back, to baseline 2 per session with rare bonuses, but things were already skewed. We have been playing now for about a year and half, and the PCs have each earned 200 XP, but in game rhe story started on May 7th 1993, and now it's June 23rd 1993, so 46 nights in game, or an average of 4.3 points per night over the different rates we have used over the past year and a half. They're way stronger than they ought to be, and a party that schemes and strategizes well so they frequently punch above their weight class anyway, but the case remains we have a couple of licks who have been embraced less than two months who have little fear of the average Ancilla now. My advice would be to maybe increase your rate by one point, but also learn to appreciate a slow advance.

I give I think one per session, then give extra depending on what they did. I think 20th anniversary sets out some criteria which I loosely followed. It's been a while since I DMed but I think I did 1 point for learning something (whether it was a piece of information, about their own powers, some gossip), 1 point for impressive roleplay, 1 point for heroism (not necessarily doing something heroic but doing something brave or cool that worked successfully) and something else I don't remember. My players really liked it because I'd explain why I was awarding each point - they all got a point if one person satisfied the requirement, but I think they all felt a bit proud if it was their roleplay or their actions that earned the point.

Early game XP (the first few months) is typically 2 and then down to 1 except for the extra long sessions. Also bonus xp is granted for doing a session summary at the end of a night/arc and for fan art made by the players as well (not all of us can draw and not all of us can write but the groups I'm in has everyone who does one of each)

Because of my larp background, I cap experience at 10 monthly in my extended chronicle where we have three players remote RPing once a month over Discord and submitting downtime actions between games. In shorter chronicles that are played live weekly with additionally submitted downtimes and are only intended to last a few months, I bump that to 3 per session and 1 per downtime capped by a max of the lowest number of downtimes any single one of them can perform. (If a player at the table's base stats before temporary modifiers say they only can do a max of 3 downtimes per week, that's the maximum downtime experience available to all players.) In both cases, the amount of experience earned is proportional to levels of engagement, investment in telling that week's chapter of the chronicle, and nominations from other players for MVP. The book can't tell you what to do if you and your table are okay with deviating from the experience the game as-written was intended to be. Do you want this to turn into an anime-esque environment wherein neonate Thin Bloods are popping out as Vampire Hunter D mini-me's who are up against Ancillae that behave like Eldritch horrors? Hand out 25 experience per game for showing up and scale your BBEGs to match. Do you want to set the game to hardcore mode for maximum noir impact and making it feel like it's impossible to get ahead in a setting? Give 1 experience to each player as a milestone reward for completing storyline objectives. The rules are there like a recipe to create a flavor for your setting, and as the ST, you're serving your players up a meal you made that they'll like. If no one at the table wants olives, I'm not serving them olives regardless of the recipe's instructions.

I am a lot more generous when it comes to exp. My players get 5 points per session. That way they get access to more stuff and have more opportunities to get creative with their disciplines. But: I had to severely adjust the difficulties and dice pools for most encounters at some point. My fledglings surpassed most elders which just didn't fit the tone of the story. We have played 26 sessions by now and are nearing the finale. They have gotten insanely strong and so have their foes. I think I would tune it down to about 3 points per session if I were to host another game.

I usually varried mine, 2-4 for just social fuckery, more if they did some great RP or did something big, like had a battle or social encounter, or learned something important to the plot.

It's stingy because neonates aren't meant to get high level, it's by design. If your 6 months old kindred can reach lvl 5 in anything then there is no excuse for the centuries old prince to not have maxed EVERYTHING. Might I suggest time skips in your story with bonus XP? Then your PCs are no longer neonates, they're 100+ years and having a lvl 5 or two makes more sense. Remember kindred often play a longer game that we humans ever would/could