Experience point

An experience point is a numerical reward that measures a character’s progress toward advancement in a game. Accumulating enough points typically unlocks a higher level or new abilities.

Character level: A rank that represents a character’s advancement and often determines its abilities or attributes. Experience points commonly accumulate until they raise a character to the next level.
Role-playing game: A game centered on assuming characters and making choices within a fictional world. Character experience points became a defining progression mechanic in many role-playing games.
Skill-based progression: A character advancement model in which abilities improve through their use rather than accumulated points or levels. It advances characters through practice instead of a general experience-point total.
Game balance: The design of rules and resources to make a game’s challenges and options function coherently. Experience rates affect character strength and the difficulty designers can sustain.
Intrinsic motivation: Engagement in an activity because it is rewarding in itself rather than for an external outcome. Experience rewards can compete with enjoyment of the activity that grants them.
Level up: An increase in a game character’s level, often granting improved attributes or new abilities. This is the usual event triggered when accumulated experience reaches a threshold.
Dungeons & Dragons: A tabletop role-playing game first published in 1974, in which characters gain levels through play. Its early editions helped establish experience points as a way to reward adventuring.
Currency (video games): A game resource used to buy items, services, or upgrades. Currency is usually spent in an economy, while experience points track advancement.
Difficulty curve: The pattern by which a game’s challenge changes as play progresses. Experience gains can offset rising challenges—or let characters outgrow them.
Extrinsic motivation: Engagement driven by separable rewards or consequences rather than the activity itself. Experience points make advancement an explicit external reward for play.

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