Chapter 20 — Advancement & Session End
Characters in Wanderstar improve through play, not between sessions in the abstract. The advancement system has two interlocking tracks: a fast, lucky path driven by failure, and a slow, reliable path driven by experience. This chapter is the routine that closes out a session and moves characters forward.
Index§
- Skill marks: learning from failure
- XP: the reliable path
- Banes at session end
- The two tracks together
- A session-end checklist
- Masteries: past the ceiling
- Advancement caps
Skill marks: learning from failure§
When a player fails a test using a skill at Trained rank or higher, they place a mark next to that skill on their character sheet.
Untrained skills cannot be marked — you can't learn meaningfully from failing at something you've never studied. Getting a skill to Trained first is always the prerequisite (and at creation, the only way there; see below).
This is the engine that rewards reaching past your reliable skills: a Wanderer who only ever attempts what they're sure of never marks anything, and never grows from play.
End-of-session advancement§
At the end of each session, for each marked skill:
- Roll 2D6.
- Clear the mark regardless of the result.
- On a natural 12: the skill increases by one rank (maximum Expert/+3). A skill already at Expert can't climb higher — so its natural 12 instead grants 2 XP, banking the lucky breakthrough toward a Mastery (Chapter 23) rather than a rank.
- On any other result: gain 1 XP.
The natural 12 path is rare — roughly a 1-in-36 chance per marked skill per session. It rewards breadth: the more skills you're actively using and failing at, the more chances you have at a lucky breakthrough. But it's never reliable, and it can't advance Untrained skills. At the top of the tree it never goes to waste, either — a breakthrough on a skill already at Expert pays double XP toward its Masteries.
XP: the reliable path§
XP accumulates from two sources during play:
- 1 XP for each marked skill that does not roll a natural 12 at session end — or 2 XP if that skill is already at Expert and does roll one (the rank it can't gain becomes XP instead).
- 1 XP for completing any session.
Spending XP§
10 XP = increase any skill by one rank. 10 XP = remove a Bane (Chapter 9), between sessions and when the fiction supports it. 5 XP = purchase a Boon (Chapter 9). 20 XP = purchase a Mastery in a skill you hold at Expert (see Masteries: past the ceiling, below).
Raising a skill includes bringing Untrained (−3) skills up to Trained (+0). XP is the only way to advance Untrained skills, since they cannot be marked.
XP can be spent at any time, not only at session end. There is no cap on how much XP can be held unspent — holding some back for a deliberate purchase later is a legitimate choice.
XP from character creation and careers§
Characters enter play with 40 free XP plus anything carried over from career generation — 11–12 term-roll results, various D66 events, and Life Events (Chapters 21–22), as well as the +5 XP per starting Bane (Chapter 18). That pool can be spent during creation or saved for later, exactly like XP earned in play.
Banes at session end§
Advancement isn't the only thing that resolves at session end. Each Bane that was invoked during the session earns its bearer 1 XP (Chapter 9). Banes that never came up pay nothing — but a Bane that shapes your play consistently pays for itself, and this is when that's tallied.
The two tracks together§
The two systems complement each other:
| Track | Source | Speed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Natural 12 | Active skill use + luck | Unpredictable | Skills you use often |
| XP spending | Sessions + failure | Slow and steady | Filling gaps; Untrained → Trained |
A character who actively fails at many different skills will accumulate marks, gain XP steadily, and occasionally get a lucky rank-up. A character who focuses XP spending can deliberately shore up weaknesses. Most characters do both.
A session-end checklist§
For the GM — or, in solo and co-op play, for whoever's at the table — closing out a session is quick, and works identically with no GM present (Part X): there are no hidden numbers to reconcile, just your own marks and XP.
- Award the session. Everyone gains 1 XP for completing the session.
- Roll marks. Each player rolls 2D6 per marked skill — natural 12 raises the rank, anything else is 1 XP (a natural 12 on a skill already at Expert grants 2 XP instead of a rank) — then clears every mark.
- Tally invoked Banes. 1 XP for each Bane that came up in play.
- Reset for next time. Momentum resets to 3 at the start of the next session (Chapter 7); it isn't carried over.
- Note recovery. A jump or stretch of downtime ahead is when Maimed/Broken nodes and battered ships get the full recovery session they need (Chapters 10, 25).
Masteries: past the ceiling§
A skill that reaches Expert (+3) stops climbing — but it isn't finished. From the ceiling onward, XP buys Masteries: narrow, signature techniques that mark true command of a craft. Reaching Expert is the unlock — the moment a skill stops getting higher and starts letting you do things no one else can. The cap, in other words, is a doorway, not a dead end.
A Mastery costs 20 XP — twice the price of a rank. It is meant to be the reward of several sessions' saving, not a routine purchase: a Wanderer earns a Mastery the way they once earned the long climb to Expert.
A Mastery never raises a skill or grants a flat bonus. The +3 cap holds, and an Expert is no better than a Professional at an ordinary roll. What a Mastery grants is a permission — it bends one named rule, makes Advantage free in a signature niche, removes a specific kind of failure, or unlocks a feat the rules otherwise forbid, always inside that skill's domain. Mastery is shown by what you can do, not by a bigger number.
You may buy a skill's Masteries only while you hold it at Expert, and you may take any that suit your character — there is no hard limit beyond their cost and the GM's judgment. Each carries its own scope: the potent ones limit themselves to once per scene or session; the quiet ones stay narrow. As with Boons, the GM has final say on what a Mastery covers — specific enough to matter, narrow enough not to be a blank check.
Masteries are earned in play, not bought at creation. A Mastery may only be purchased at a session end, and never during character creation or before your first session has been played — even by a character who reaches Expert and banks the 20 XP at creation. A starting Wanderer can walk in at the peak of a skill, but not already wearing its signature technique; that is something you grow into across play. (This is the one XP purchase the carries-over-and-spend-anytime rule does not cover.)
Boon or Mastery? A Boon is a knack — 5 XP, grants Advantage on a relevant roll. A Mastery is a signature — 20 XP, requires the skill at Expert, and grants a permission a Boon never could. A long-served Wanderer carries a handful of each.
A starter menu§
Treat these as prompts, like the Boon and Bane lists (Chapter 9) — reword them to fit your character, and invent new ones with the GM's blessing. The question a Mastery answers is: what does it mean to be the best at this in the room? A full D6 Mastery table for every one of the thirty skills is in Chapter 23; the handful below is just a taste.
| Skill (at Expert) | Mastery | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|
| Piloting | Threads the Needle | Activating Advantage on Piloting in a chase, a hazard, or tight/low-g flying costs 0 Momentum — your edge in the cockpit is free where it counts. |
| Close Quarters | No Opening | Once per round, parry an attack that cannot normally be parried (e.g., Smasher), turning a hit into nothing. |
| Ranged Weapons | Called Shot | Once per scene, on a success you add a fitting complication to the target beyond the trauma — disarmed, a dropped device, a cut line. |
| Engineering | Field Miracle | Once per session, attempt the deep repair a craft normally needs a drydock for: an Engineering test (8+) to clear a Wrecked or Offline node in the field (Chapter 25). |
| Survival / Biology | Steady Hands | You can administer first aid to yourself, which the rules otherwise forbid (Chapter 10) — a master's hands don't need a second pair. |
| Deceive | Perfect Cover | When you've built a cover identity, the first failed Deceive that would expose it instead only stalls — the lie holds; you gain no ground, but you aren't burned. |
| Network | A Name Everywhere | Once per session, declare you know someone here — establish a minor Contact on the spot, no roll, fiction permitting (Chapter 35). |
| Recon | Saw It Coming | You cannot be caught flat-footed: you always act in the first round of an ambush, and may spend 1 Momentum to grant the crew Advantage that round. |
| Heavy Weapons | Braced | You ignore the bracing or mount requirement on heavy weapons — your stance is the mount. |
Advancement caps§
- Skills cannot advance beyond Expert (+3) — but a skill at Expert opens its Masteries (above), so the ceiling is a doorway, not a dead end.
- Characteristics do not advance during play through this system. (Some career and Life Event results during character creation can set a neutral characteristic to Advantage; this does not change in play, and creation Disadvantages are permanent — Chapter 6.)
- There is no cap on total XP held or total advancement over the course of a campaign.
Growth in Wanderstar is steady and earned, and it comes as much from the things that go wrong as the things that go right. A Wanderer leaves each session a little more capable than they entered it — usually because of what they failed at along the way.