In RPGs, every action has a corresponding experience value (exp). As your experience points accumulate, you are easily able to see your progress and understand how much more you need to reach the next level. Wanting this ability for myself, I made a way to calculate experience in the real world.

How It Works

There are four categories by which I calculate real experience points for actions: excitement, ability to share with others, options you gain by doing, and options you lose by not doing. As mentioned in a previous post, motivation comes from being excited and is maintained through sharing with others. Doing something that pumps you up is instantly rewarding.

Aside from utility gained from performing an action, there are also consequences to every action. Motivation is temporary, while the results of your actions are usually longer lasting. An action that increases opportunities or decreases harm in the future is also worthwhile.

Calculate Your Experience Points

There are 5 steps in calculating your real experience points:

• Step 1: Start with 1 experience point
  If an action is worth doing at all, then it has some kind of value. That is why we start with one point.
• Step 2: Is it exciting? If so, add another point to your total.
  Since excitement is fleeting, we add the value to the total.
• Step 3: Can you share it? If so, add another point to your total.
  Since the excitement gained from sharing is also fleeting, we add the value to the total
• Step 4: Does it give your more options in the future? If so, multiply your total by 2
  Your ability to do things (aka freedom) is very important, so gaining more options in the future is weighted multiplicatively.
• Step 5: Is it costly if you don’t do it? If so, multiply your total by 2
  On the same spectrum of gaining freedom is preventing the loss of freedom, which is also weighted multiplicatively.

Your end total is the experience point value for that action. This point value is useful for recording, which creates a quantitative way of tracking your progress. The point value is also useful as a quantitative way to prioritize your actions.

Prioritize!

For all you people who are into figuring out the possible point combinations, but don’t want to mess with the binary calculations, don’t worry; I’ve done it for you already:

Like all game designs, the point values are probably going to need some tweaking to get the balance right. For now, this seems like a good place to get started and actually figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Download the Experience Point Calculator 3×5 (PDF)