ranks and tiers

rule

You advance first with ranks, then with tiers. Ranks improve a skill or add a new one or small stuff like that. Tiers give you big stuff: templates, dice, etc.

To gain the next rank, earn [x] experience points. (Alternatively, everyone gains a rank every session that they make it through. Or accomplish something meaningful in.) Your tier depends on your rank:

Ranks	Tiers
0	1
1-2	2
3-6	3
7+	4

why?

Standard character advancement has a logarithmic pace (which sometimes tapers off or sometimes gets smoothed out, but let's stick with the logarithmic part); the amount of experience needed to reach the next level is as much as you needed to get where you are over again. That means that your level is essentially a logarithm of how much experience you've had so far.

There are some very good things about this. It means that a character who joins later will probably catch up to your level minus one by the time you gain another level. That's neat.

What's less neat is that if amounts of experience don't inflate, you need to put exponentially more time into a game in order to get the new stuff. Everyone likes the new stuff (that's why we have advancement mechanics at all).

The idea here is that you gain dice (big chunky numerical advancements like hit dice) and templates (new game-changing abilities) at a logarithmic pace. Don't inflate experience rewards (or use one of the real-time based awards). Instead, you parcel out little things. Improvements to the skills you've been using. Maybe a new spell. Maybe you learn how to use that weird new weapon you found. Nothing game-changing but something to keep you coming back.

Why does this level off after 7? It doesn't have to, but four tiers should be enough to take you out of that basic starting-out mode of play. You could have advancement level out there, or open up new options, but I'd have the mode of advancement change significantly.