Experience for death in Shadowdark

In Shadowdark, experience points are awarded for treasure and carousing. This incentivizes exploration and spending by rewarding these behaviors with advancement. This contrasts with modern D&D, which awards experience points when players "overcome challenges and complete adventures"^[1], and most video games, which award experience points for defeating enemies.

For a long-running Shadowdark campaign, the players and game master decided to award one experience point to the party:

1. When a dying character is stabilized
2. When a player character dies

The motivation was both pragmatic and idealistic. Characters die easily in the early game, and it can be difficult to earn enough points to advance to levels 1 and 2. But it also felt more diegetic. Characters who successfully save a dying friend or party members who witness a player character die gain experience that will inform future decisions. Awarding experience points for brushes with death has the dual consequence of increasing the speed of early game advancement and narrative realism. The impact tapers off as the characters level up and individual experience points matter less; this isn't going to have ripple effects in the late game.

But what of incentives? At face value, this hack might incentivize players to be reckless. A player character could charge into an ill-advised combat, get knocked down, then get stabilized or die — earning an experience point for the party either way. This is a legitimate concern for some tables, but in practice has not been an issue. The players in this game are naturally cautious and reluctant to lose a character, so they won't intentionally put a character in danger for the possibility of one experience point. If that would be a concern at your table, then I'd advice against it.

Awarding experience points for brushes with death feels more immersive and helps characters navigate the early game without incentivizing undesired behaviors. I recommend that you give it a shot in your next Shadowdark campaign.

Sean McPherson works as a software engineer at Khan Academy, and enjoys playing games and watching soccer. He lives with family in Pittsburgh, PA.