Alternate Leveling, Artha in D&D

This is an alternate leveling system for D&D that is focused around leveling up through roleplaying. These rules allow you as a player to determine when you level up without being reliant on experience points or milestone leveling, and also gives you some meta-currency to spend. These rules are not required to play in this world, but they are available if the group decides to try them out.

What is Artha?

Artha is a Sanskrit word that means something equivalent to a person's power and success in their community or immediate surroundings, but it's also the game term for the point system I have stolen from The Burning Wheel, another roleplaying game. In relation to this game, Artha is a sort of meta-currency that players obtain by roleplaying their characters well and putting their characters in tough positions. Think of it as a measure of both how often you are roleplaying your character, and how much your character has grown.

Inside of Artha there are three different kinds of Artha, Fate, Persona, and Deeds. Each type is unique and different from the others, and is necessary in order to level up your character and help you perform heroic feats. For the moment, just think of Artha as "money", and Fate/Persona/Deed the different types of "coins" that you will want to earn as a player during the game. Also it is good to know now that everyone at the table votes at the end of each session to decide who earns what type of Artha, but this will be elaborated as you read further.

How to Spend Artha

Before we talk about how you gain Artha, let's talk about what matters most: What do you do with it once you have it? Well the most important and often use for this will be leveling up. The method for having your characters level up is roleplaying and growing your characters through the pursuit of Artha. While that is the most common use of Artha, we entice the players to use their Artha during the game in the form of advantage, +d4, and automatic successes.

Leveling Up

Artha is the method of leveling up. Gone are the days of experience centered around killing monsters, and relying on DM grace with milestone! Now you have complete control over how long it takes to level up, and it revolves solely around roleplaying your character and pursuing character growth. That is not to say that you can't go and kill a bunch of monsters to level up(people grow when confronted with challenges!), but if you're not doing it for a reason then your character isn't going to grow. In order to level up, a character must have:

• Fate points equal to 3 times their current level.
• Persona points equal to 3 times their current level.
• Deed points equal to half their level rounded up.

When Artha is spent on a roll instead of leveling up, the Artha point is consumed and the character gets one step further away from leveling up. Once a character obtains all the Artha needed to level up, all their saved Artha vanishes and they level up.

Spending on Rolls

To provide players with a method of influencing their characters more, we make it so Artha can be spent to augment rolls in game. While this may result in the player losing that one Persona point they needed to level up, they may be able to just survive an encounter they otherwise wouldn't have. Each type of Artha point can be spent differently:

• Fate can be spent to reroll a dice. It can be spent after the initial roll, but before the DM tells you the outcome of the roll.
• Persona can be spent to provide yourself with +d4 to all checks for 1 minute. This can stack with similar effects like Bless.
• Deed points cannot be spent. This keeps characters from falling behind others in leveling since Deed points have the highest rarity in acquisition.

Fate and Persona points should be spent fairly frequently, as these points should be earned fairly regularly with good gameplay. It is of course possible to save your points, but the number of points you can have cannot exceed the amount needed to level up, so it is clearly a waste to always save your Artha points.

How to Earn Artha

In order to earn Artha, at the end of each gameplay session all the players and GM will discuss and vote on who should receive what Artha points. Multiple points should be earned each session overall, and everyone should remember to discuss and allocate Artha to everyone in order to ensure that players are earning progression points. Artha points cannot be exchanged for another type of Artha for leveling up, and any Artha in excess of the amount needed to level up is lost.

Fate

Fate points should be earned at a rate of approximately 2-4 per session per character. These are used to make a single challenge slightly easier. The table votes on who should receive Fate points, and a simple majority will do for award(The DM gets a single vote in this).
Fate points can be earned for a variety of reasons, and here are some examples:

• Manifesting the characters Beliefs in a convincing and entertaining manner. When a player uses their characters Belief to serve a purpose and drive the game forward, they get a Fate point.
• Playing Instincts when such play gets the character in trouble or creates a difficult or awkward situation. If a character has the Instinct "I always draw my sword at the first sign of trouble" and during the royal ball they see their arch nemesis and immediately draw their sword, that gets a Fate point.
• Using Traits, but only if using that Trait alters the direction of the story in an unforeseen way or makes life difficult for the character. If a player's character has a Clumsy trait and they opt to fumble the MacGuffin at the absolutely "wrong" time, that's worth a Fate point.
• Stop the table dead with humor while in character. If a player can really get the table laughing and having more fun with an in character action, they get a Fate point.
• If the character has the right thing at the right time. If a character happens to have the right thing at the right time, the wizard has the Rope Trick spell just when they need to hide, they get a Fate point.

Fate points are ultimately meant to provide players with small rewards for roleplaying their characters. These help keep the table in the mood and moving forward in the game. Since Fate points are needed to level up, even players who may be getting lots of Persona or Deeds still need to be doing these small things in order to move their characters forward.

Persona

Persona points are rarer than Fate points, and should be earned at a rate of approximately 1 per session per character. These are used to make an extended set of challenges easier, essentially "powering up" your character for a short time. The table votes on who should receive Persona points, and here a majority will do as well(The DM gets a single vote in this).
Persona points can be earned for a variety of reasons, and here are some examples:

• Going above and beyond in their roleplaying. When a player captures the mood of the table perfectly and further drives the story forward, they earn a Persona point. Moments like great speeches, desperate decisions, or gruesome revenge fall into this category.
• When their Beliefs, Instincts, and Traits conflict with a decision they must make. If the players character reaches an impasse where their BiTs conflict with something that must be done and they play out the inner turmoil in a believable and engaging manner, they earn a Persona point. For example, if one character has the Belief "All people are redeemable and it is my duty to show them the light" and they play out their inner turmoil when they must execute the BBEG, they receive a Persona point.
• Putting in the mundane work to drive the story forward, being the parties 'Workhorse'. If a character is the workhorse for the session, they put in the most mundane work necessary to drive the story forward. For example, while the Paladin who strove onto the front line and slew the dragon with their high level smite might win the MVP, the cleric who had been healing them throughout the fight would win the workhorse award.
• Saving the day or doing the impossible, being the Most Valuable Person during that session. If a character is the one to provide a healing spell at just the right time to prevent someone from dying, is the one to throw themselves in front of the arrow to protect another character, or says just the right thing in order to prevent the party being executed, that character earns an MVP award and receives a Persona point.

Persona points are ultimately meant to provide players with significant rewards for going above and beyond in their roleplaying and engagement in the game. While a player can get many Fate points by staying in their safe zone with roleplaying, they won't be able to progress their character without intentionally putting their characters in places of conflict where they can shine.

Deed

Deed points are the rarest of all, and should be earned at a rate proportional to the play speed of the table. Players can request a Deed point if they think they have earned one, but it is ultimately up to the DM to decide. The entire table must vote unanimously to award a Deed point to a character.
Deed points are awarded rarely, here are some examples of when a Deed point could be earned:

• Resolving a conflict that results in a massive restructure of a characters Beliefs. If a characters Belief is "All mages are evil for what they did to my village, and I will end the life of the head Wizard responsible." and through play the characters end up killing the head Wizard only to find out that the wizard did not want to destroy their village but did so in order to save many other lives, and this revelation causes a huge change in the characters belief structure, then a Deed point is awarded. Note that killing the wizard did not result in the Deed point, the character and belief changes as a result of it did. The character changing dramatically as a result of conflict resolution is what awards the Deed point, "conflict makes your characters grow".
• Accomplishing something larger than oneself, or in opposition to ones beliefs. If a character helps to accomplish something greater than themselves, or helping to accomplish something that are anathema to their own goals, results in the awarding of a Deed points. These are non-trivial things. For example, while hired to hunt the mage-killer of the kingdom, the characters discover something sinister within the kingdom. If they resolve the sinister thing without the promise of payment, they receive a Deed point. If character 1 has the belief that "A fair trial is necessary for law and order to survive, I must bring justice to the borderlands." and decides to help character 2 hunt down and kill the man who murdered their mother without giving him a trial, then character 1 will receive a Deed point since this is in direct opposition to their Belief.
• Sacrificing oneself or something important in order to do something greater. This is a rare edge case that will likely have everyone around the table in shock and clamoring for the award of a Deed point(if the character in question survives). This happens when a character chooses to sacrifice something important to themselves in order to achieve something great, or save something else. An example of this would be the character who is playing a noble choosing to sacrifice his noble standing in order to help the poor of the city, or the paladin making the choice to sacrifice their life for another characters. In the latter case it doesn't matter if the Paladin doesn't actually end up dying, they had made up their mind to sacrifice themselves, and thus receive the Deeds point.

Deed points are the ultimate expression of character growth, and come from large victories and dramatic moments. Since these are the rarest of Artha currency, and are vital to leveling up, players should always be trying to pursue any chance to get these through character growth.