XP Per Year for Darkening of Mirkwood

[Arthur Fisher]

I give 2-3 XP per Adventure. Sometimes 4 if it's a particularly difficult adventure. 2 Adventures per year. 1 Adventure per session.
So 4-6 XP per year.

[guver]

Be very careful with this.
I sadly noticed this too late maybe and we are on 2955 (only 8 years since start of the campaing) and the character with more XP has 107XP.
I think that may be too much. Although we played the adventure in the Core book as well as some custom made adventures and 3 out of the 7 aventures in TftW.

[Kirppu]

We have definitely gone in the direction of less is more in our group. Awarding per adventure rather than session and much prefer it that way. More cautious and attentive play plus when someone does do something worthy its easier to see it as rewarded. It does have an element of personal taste though, we happen to like a more miserly rate of advancement, it squeezes our particular group and gets the most from us. It also keeps the threat level of monsters quite pertinent in many cases for much longer which feels truer to the source material. Gauge it by your group really, everyone has slightly differing tastes and gearing your awards to your group's requirements is the main thing.

[aramis]

I can see how ditching the 1 XP per session rule might be completely reasonable and especially desirable in an extended campaign. Players could be compensated by the Loremaster being fairly generous with XP awarded at the conclusion of an Adventuring phase.

The other method is to define a session by hours of play instead of sessions.

XP per session is a longstanding industry tradition, tho'... WWG used it, TSR used it (but not in D&D), SJG used it... T&T used it, too, starting in 1975... (T&T dungeon penetration is awarded for levels penetrated that session, and the presumption is that it's at least 1 - it's "how far into the dungeon or module did you go?"...