Re: Experience Gain for PbP Games
another idea i had... in the two games i run, i don't give xp. i just advance the players a level once they reach a certain point in the story. granted, they are dnd and pathfinder respectively. so you might not find that directly applicable to your game. however, you could apply the same idea by simply advancing the players' stats as a result of in game actions.
instead of giving xp and letting the players spend it however they want to (sometimes advancing things that were never used at all), tell the players that their stats will advance based on how much in game posting they devote to it. for example, if they want to advance strength, they'd better be going to the gym or working out at home or something. if they want to advance linguistics to learn a new language? they'd better get some books from the library, or buy a language learning app for their computer.
if the players simply work on things in the background, devoting one line in their posts saying they continue to work on 'x', then they can advance at a given rate. figure out what that rate is and tell them (1 xp every 2 posts, at most 1 xp per week, or something like that). if they make exceptional posts detailing their efforts, or work it into the story and actively use the skills or what not, then give them increased advancement rate accordingly.
this way, you don't need to worry about little details and numbers. if the players want to advance something, they just need to figure out how to practice it and then include that practice in their posts.