Experience

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After each session of play, the Guide awards the party experience points (XP)—typically 2–5 points per session. These points function as a currency that players can spend to learn new abilities.

All abilities have a base cost of 5 XP. You can learn any ability from your calling or your known lore, as long as you can meet the ability's attribute requirements (see below), Shinarians and Zordin also have special abilities linked to their origins.

On your hero sheet, keep track of your total XP earned along with unspent XP remaining.

Attributes from Abilities

You can increase your attributes by learning abilities that use them. You can’t spend XP directly on attributes. Instead, you can spend 10 XP on an ability (double the base cost) that requires 1 attribute point more than your current value.

For example, the ✪ Sword Mastery ability (from The Sword lore) requires Intellect 2. If your Intellect is 1, you can spend 10 XP to increase your Intellect to 2 as you learn this ability.

You can only increase attribute points 1 at a time in this way. Thus, you can’t learn ✪ Sword Mastery if your Intellect is 0. You’d need to first spend 10 XP on another ability that requires Intellect 1.

Gaining Experience Points

The Guide awards XP at the end of each session. Players can “spend” their XP at any time.

These guidelines for awarding XP ensure players gain new abilities at a steady cadence:

Award 1 XP to each player for each battle or other tense situation where numerous action dice were rolled.
Award an extra 1 or 2 XP to each player if a situation was particularly challenging or momentous—for example, a “boss fight” or an incredible caper.

If all players are on board, the Guide or the group collectively can award extra XP for other reasons. For example:

Award 1 XP to the player who did the best job roleplaying. “Best” doesn’t mean acting ability. Rather, reward the player who did the best job embodying the ideals and other aspects of their character—especially if doing so made for less-than-optimal choices.
Award 1 XP to the player who suffered the worst setback, defeat, or stroke of bad dice rolls.

Your Hero, Your XPIt's up to you how to spend your XP. There are no "levels" in WSSWNN. Some things to consider: Calling or Lore? Your calling and your lore both serve as buckets of abilities to learn. You can focus your XP on one aspect of your hero, or you can spread your XP around. Abilities or Attributes? Saving XP to raise your attributes takes time, but can greatly increase your hero's efficacy. Each extra attribute point you gain raises two of your defenses—and potentially increases an action die's size.

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