Roleplaying game

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Chapter 2: Creating a Character
Chapter 2: Creating a Character
Experience Points and Character Advancement
Over the course of play, characters gain experience points (XP), which 
their players can spend between sessions to make the characters more 
potent. XP can be spent on the following character advancements:
•  Increasing ring values
•  Increasing skill ranks
•  Purchasing techniques
•  At the GM’s discretion, acquiring advantages or “buying off” disad-
vantages in accordance with narrative events
Awarding Experience Points
As a general guideline, GMs should award about 2 XP per hour of play. 
GMs can award additional XP at their discretion, as discussed in Chapter 
7: The Game Master (see page 178).
Purchasing Advancements
Within the walls of a dōjō, a samurai will fail countless times before per-
fecting a new technique. As a samurai pushes themself past their limits, 
their skillfulness grows. As they study the texts of those who came before, 
they widen their breadth of knowledge. As they meditate upon the na-
ture of the universe and themself, they unlock new insights about their 
capabilities and approaches. With these improvements, they can grow as 
individuals and become better servants to their lords.
Advancement Costs
Different advancements have different costs, as described in Table 2–2: 
Advancement Costs. Additionally, some advancements have restrictions 
on when they can be purchased.
Prerequisites
In addition to the listed general restrictions in Table 2–2: Advancement 
Costs, some individual advancements have prerequisites. To purchase 
an advancement, a character must meet all of its prerequisites or the ad-
vancement must be listed in the character’s current school rank.
Advancements that appear in an earlier school rank than their usual 
prerequisite limitations would allow are marked with special formatting.
Advancing Within Your School
Each dōjō has developed a curriculum over the centuries that represents 
its tried-and-true method of training its samurai. This curriculum in-
cludes a set of skills, techniques, and approaches that all its students must 
master before they are tested and allowed to proceed to the next rank. 
Some of these skills deviate from the expected purview of the school, 
but in such cases, it is because the sensei have determined that its study 
enriches the samurai and expands on certain philosophies espoused by 
the school.
Not all samurai may agree with the requirements laid down by the sen-
sei, which is why some leave to develop their own schools. Samurai are, of 
course, permitted to pursue other studies as they see fit, but in the school’s 
eyes, these extracurricular pursuits are extraneous and do not count toward 
advancement. By contrast, samurai might focus solely on their school’s cur-
riculum and advance through the ranks more quickly, but in doing so, they 
will not have time to pursue their own interests and studies. Most samurai 
take a balanced approach, following the path of their school and supple-
menting their studies with their own hobbies and interests.
When purchasing advancements as usual, check to see whether the 
advancement is listed on the school advancement table for your specific 
school. If it is, record the amount of XP spent on the advancement in the 
blank area to the right of the technique or skill.
Table 2–2: Advancement Costs
Advancement Type
Cost
Restrictions
Ring value +1
3 XP x value 
purchased
Cannot increase a ring to a 
value greater than lowest ring 
+ Void Ring
Skill rank +1
2 XP x rank 
purchased
None
Technique 
(Opportunity 
activation)
2 XP
The technique’s category 
must be listed among your 
school’s Techniques Available
Technique (Action 
activation)
3 XP
The technique’s category 
must be listed among your 
school’s Techniques Available
Real-World Experience versus School Secrets
A little bit of practical experience can be as potent as years of training. 
Characters in any campaign should be allowed to spend their experi-
ence on skills and rings during play as they desire, as one can learn 
through practice no matter their circumstances.
In the fiction of the setting, a character is usually taught school 
secrets, like techniques, by an instructor in their school or another 
individual who knows the technique. Advancing to the next school 
rank might be a more involved process, requiring the character to 
undertake tests or visit specific locations and meet with particular 
instructors of their tradition.
In practice, many campaigns are not conducive to having characters 
return to their dōjō as frequently as they would like to spend experi-
ence or increase their school rank. As a result, the game’s default as-
sumption is that characters can learn techniques and increase school 
rank wherever they go, presumably receiving foundational methods 
to practice on their travels or scrolls containing deeper mysteries for 
them to decipher during their journeys. A character might need to 
return to their school to formally verify their newly elevated rank 
within their school from a thematic standpoint, but they can use its 
mechanical benefits as soon as they earn it.
If you, as a GM, want to maintain the narrative element of learning 
techniques and advancing school ranks, you can do so by specifying 
that a character must use a downtime activity to visit their dōjō or 
search for an NPC who knows the technique. School ranks can only 
be increased after visiting the proper dōjō and passing the requisite 
test or training under an individual who has attained a higher rank in 
that school. If you decide to take this route for your game, be sure that 
you inform your players before the game begins and provide the PCs 
with sufficient opportunities to spend their hard-earned experience 
on techniques.

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