Experience point
Experience points, abbreviated as XP or exp, are a unit of measurement used in tabletop role-playing games and role-playing video games to track how much a character has grown. The idea sounds simple enough: do something hard, earn some points, get stronger. But the system that underpins nearly every RPG ever made has a surprisingly specific origin, a few competing philosophies about how it should work, and an entire vocabulary of behavior it has generated among players. What does it mean to level up? Who invented the term XP? And what happens when a character reaches the very top?
Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson introduced the term "experience point" when they created Dungeons & Dragons. Arneson had already developed the seed of the idea while playing a modified version of Chainmail, a miniatures wargame for which Gygax was a co-author. That modification introduced a level-up system, and it carried forward into D&D.
The abbreviation almost did not become XP. The team needed a short form for "experience point", but EP was already taken inside the game. It stood for "electrum pieces", part of D&D's currency system. Lawrence Schick, one of the first people hired by TSR, solved the problem. He suggested XP to help Gygax finish the game manuals before their release deadline. That two-letter choice would echo through decades of game design.
In level-based systems, which descend most directly from D&D, experience points accumulate until a threshold is crossed and the character gains a level. A level is a number representing overall skill and experience. Crossing that threshold typically increases a character's maximum health, magic, and strength, and may open access to new spells, combat techniques, or areas of the game world.
Most systems attach levels to a character class, and many allow combinations of classes so players can shape development to their own preferences. D&D 3rd Edition built a system of experience expenditure for crafting magical items, a practice called "burning xp". The d20 System added prestige classes, which introduced a second tier of advancement with its own requirements and mechanics.
RuneScape illustrates how far level-based systems can scale. No player in that online game can exceed level 120 in any skill, a ceiling that requires exactly 104,273,167 experience points to reach. The total experience cap for any single skill is 200 million points. Some games set a dynamic level cap instead, adjusting the ceiling based on the average level of the current player population.
Not every game funnels players through fixed levels. Several classic tabletop games, including Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, and Basic Role-Playing, base progression on individual statistics that grow through use. Role-playing video games in this tradition include Dungeon Master, Final Fantasy II, The Elder Scrolls series, the SaGa series, and the Grandia series. Skills and attributes improve simply by being exercised.
Free-form advancement, used in GURPS, the Hero System, and the World of Darkness series, lets players spend points on specific abilities rather than receiving preset bonuses. Each attribute carries a price: raising an archery skill by one notch might cost 2 points, improving overall dexterity by one might cost 10, and learning a new magic spell might cost 20. Players spend freely, though some games offer templates of pre-selected ability sets to simplify the process.
Cash-in advancement is a third variant. In this model, experience points function as currency spent on discrete improvements such as class levels, skill points, new skills, feats, and base attribute upgrades. Each purchase has a fixed cost and a limit on how many can be made at once, usually once per game session. Once spent, those points are gone. Final Fantasy XIII and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay both use this approach.
The 1997 role-playing video game Fallout was the first to use the word "perks" for special bonuses unlocked through accumulated experience. The term is short for "perquisite", its everyday English meaning. Perks are permanent additions to a character and become available progressively as XP accumulates. The mechanic spread beyond RPGs into first-person shooters. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, and Killing Floor in 2009 all incorporated perks, as did the action game Metal Gear Online in 2008.
Remorting addresses what happens after a character reaches the top. When a character hits the level limit, some games allow the player to start over with a fresh version, trading away all accumulated levels in exchange for an advantage not previously available. That advantage might be access to new races, classes, skills, or otherwise locked areas of the game. A symbol typically marks a remorted character to distinguish them from first-time players.
The term "remort" originated in MUDs, text-based multiplayer games. In some MUDs, reaching the maximum level turned a character into an immortal, effectively a member of the administrative staff. These users were generally expected to step back from gameplay and limit their interaction with regular players. When an immortal chose to give up that status and return to playing from level one, the community said they had remorted, meaning they had become mortal again.
Grinding is the act of repeating a single activity over and over to accumulate experience points. Players may run the same quest, battle the same enemies, or complete the same event repeatedly for the rewards on offer. Some use the neutral term "XP farming" or "optimization" to describe the same behavior without the pejorative weight.
Power-leveling is a related practice where a stronger player helps a weaker character gain levels far faster than would otherwise be possible. Some online games limit the experience awarded from any single encounter specifically to reduce the effectiveness of power-leveling. MUDs and MMORPGs are particularly associated with this restriction.
At the edge of these practices sits leeching, where a player joins a group and collects experience while contributing little or nothing to the effort. In games that allow kill stealing, that too qualifies as leeching. Some players take automation further by running bots to grind or leech on their behalf, often in violation of a game's terms of service. Bots also appear in commercial operations, where accounts are power-leveled either to raise their resale value or to use the character for gold farming. The sharing question that makes leeching possible in the first place has no universal answer: the Fire Emblem series awards experience only to the character who delivers the killing blow, D&D distributes it among everyone present, and Final Fantasy Tactics awards it based on each character's individual actions.
Continue Browsing
Common questions
What is an experience point in role-playing games?
An experience point (XP or exp) is a unit of measurement used in tabletop and video role-playing games to quantify a player character's progression. Characters earn XP by completing objectives, overcoming enemies, and successful role-playing, and accumulating enough XP causes a character to level up and grow stronger.
Who invented experience points and the XP abbreviation?
Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson introduced experience points when creating Dungeons & Dragons. The abbreviation XP was suggested by Lawrence Schick, one of TSR's first hires, because EP was already in use for "electrum pieces" in D&D's currency system.
What is the level cap in RuneScape and how many XP does it require?
In RuneScape, no player can exceed level 120 in any skill, which requires exactly 104,273,167 experience points to reach. No single skill can accumulate more than 200 million experience points total.
What was the first video game to use the term perks for character abilities?
The 1997 role-playing video game Fallout was the first to use the word "perks" for special bonuses unlocked through experience points. The term is short for "perquisite" and refers to permanent character bonuses that become available as XP accumulates.
What does remorting mean in role-playing games?
Remorting is a mechanic where a character who has reached the level limit starts over from scratch in exchange for an advantage previously unavailable, such as access to new races, classes, or locked areas. The term originated in MUDs, where reaching maximum level made a character an immortal administrator, and choosing to return to regular play was called remorting.
What is the difference between grinding and power-leveling in RPGs?
Grinding is the practice of repeating the same activity over and over to accumulate experience points, sometimes called XP farming. Power-leveling is a related but distinct practice where a stronger player helps a weaker character gain levels much faster than would be possible alone.