Level-Up and Gaining Experience

When a player creates a character, the character begins at level 0. A level is a measure of a character's overall experience and can be spent to add uprades to a character—more on this later. There are no limits to levels--no cap nor maximum. Ten experience points are needed to gain a level--or simply, "level up". Experience can be gained in several ways:

• Completing a Quest
• Overcoming in-character Challenges
• Revealing or Using “Secrets”

Doing each of these awards one point to the party. Leveling up in Chimera means that a party has becoming more powerful; note here that all players level up together; this is because the only way to level up in Chimera is to gain experience, which is a cooperative effort. Below are descriptions of each of the experiences.

Quest Completion

A quest, in terms of Chimera, is an objective proposed by the GM and agreed upon by the players before or during a game session. A quest can range from a player-specific quest to a GM-made quest; the difference between the two is that one directly involves a player character, and the other interests the party. A side quest then is something that is related to the main quest, but does not complete the main quest.
Quest Completion can award this number of experience points: 0, the quest was failed or abandoned; 1, the quest was completed, or a side quest was completed. Notice that 0 Experience can only be earned here if the quest is not completed or acted on.

Challenges Overcome

Challenges are anything that stand between the characters and completing their quest or side quest.
Challenges overcome can award this number of experience points: 0, the players avoided challenge, no challenges were undertaken, or the characters failed to surpass a challenge challenge; 1, the challenge or challenges were overcome. Notice again that the only way to earn 0 Experience is to not engage in any challenges.
This kind of system also encourages a party a) to keep seeking out greater challenges, because, as written, a party cannot earn Experience for completing an easy challenge, and b) to work together to complete challenges, for reasons similar to point A.

Revealing or Using “Secrets”

A GM can come to a player at anytime and give them a secret pivotal to a quest, the character, or another character. These secrets serve the story and allow the player to take hold of the narrative in some way.
For example, the party is traveling to a town to undercover a local thieves guild, ad a secret is given to a character; they are wanted in this town for a crime they didn’t commit. How they use this secret or act on this secret is up to them: can this secret be used to get them into the thieves guild? Sure! But it is up to the player to determine how, thus giving the player narrative control in driving the overall story forward.

Leveling Up

When a character gains 10 Experience, a character levels up. When they level up, their level shows them how many upgrades they can take. A character may hold onto their level-ups as long as they like, but cannot spend their Level-Ups while in a Combat, Travel, or Social Scenario (I see you, Dovahkiin). Advancement Points can be held onto in bulk to be spend on upgrades that cost more than one point, and are therefore more potent upgrades:

• 1 Level-Up: the player chooses between a) gaining a new skill proficiency, b) learning a new language, OR c) increasing one of their Scores by one.
• 2 Level-Ups: the player chooses between a)gaining an ability b) gaining a free item from the Equipment OR c) removing one Point of Corruption, b) gaining an Ability.

Optional Rule: Rest to Level Up

When a the party levels up, GMs, you can impose that they must take a long rest before they can acquire any more experience or can gain any new advancements.