Fading Suns uses what we call the Victory Point System. In the new edition, we really rev up the role that victory points have in the game, increasing their number and their uses. You can collect quite a number of VP during play — and spend just as many. In light of this, I really didn’t want to have a whole separate type of points — experience points, or XP. I wanted VP to be the sole type of points that you need to deal with in the game. (Well, okay, there is another type of VP — wyrd points, but they pretty much work just like VP except that they apply to occult phenomena.)

Hence, the new edition adopts a level system in place of XP to represent characters’ progression through experience. Unlike certain other level systems in certain other RPGs, this one is not used to limit or restrict what traits a character can have — there’s no rule that says you have to wait until you’re 7th level before you can learn, say, psychic powers. Levels are used to award your character with new traits (perks) and new ranks to allocate among existing traits. You decide what perks to choose and where to put those new ranks.

Level is tied to your character’s class: noble, priest, merchant, or yeoman. Whenever your character advances a level in their class, they gain the following: