This might seem like a cool and progressive XP system, if you're coming from D&D/PF. "Let's take XP-awarding out of the hands of the GM! Let's have the players vote on it!" I was going "Hmmm that's a cool idea" when I first read it. But even 2 minutes of thinking will show that it's bunk. For first of all, the Agendas are secret! How tf will people vote on them lol? And in my view the Buddies and Rivals should also be secret. So that's almost half the questions taken out of the equation—and these are the most important questions as seen by how high the authors rank them in the list. And btw, I wouldn't give players XP for money gained. The money is its own reward. Otherwise, say the players in a D&D game come upon an enormous hoard of money... what? They're now 20th-level just because they looked at some gold? I think some editions of D&D/PF also award XP for money (iirc it's optional in 2E for the rogue classes), but I wouldn't use this rule, because it would tie my hands too much in terms of doling out treasure.
Moreover, the standard Alien team is 5 players, and as I'll be explaining soon in the Alien Season 1 thread some scenarios are for 7 or even MORE players! So can you imagine having to go around 7 people asking all these questions at the end of every session when everyone's exhausted and just wants to log off? Granted most GMs don't run my marathon 7-, 8-, or 9-hour sessions (the typical session for most groups is 3-4 hours), but that makes it even MORE of a burden because the smaller your sessions the MORE TIMES you'll have to award XP because it'll take you longer to finish a scenario! And it's completely out of the question for me to plan to shorten my sessions so I can fit in these boring XP-awarding meetings. Imagine me looking at a watch so I can cut the session short half an hour before normal, on top of the fact that I NEVER KNOW HOW LONG A SESSION WILL LAST, I HAVE ZERO CONTROL OVER IT BECAUSE WE END OUR SESSIONS WHENEVER TF THE FIRST GUY SAYS "I NEED TO GO". In normal groups the GM normally ends the session, and because he's typically a pussy, he typically ends the session before anyone has to go. So he controls when it ends. But I have NEVER ended a session on my account. I could go for half a day if no one logged off. So controlling this aspect won't work for me at all.
MOREOVER, WTF WHY WOULD ANY PLAYER SAY THAT ANOTHER PLAYER SHOULDN'T GET XP!!! OF COURSE THEY WOULD ALL GIVE EACH OTHER MAXIMUM XP ALL THE TIME LMAO, OUT OF POLITENESS IF NOTHING ELSE (and there are many more reasons lol).
So for all these reasons, the GM will be doling out the XP in Ultimate Edition Alien sessions as usual—using the given questions, of course. THAT part of the system is cool, way cooler than D&D's/PF's massive focus on killing stuff. But the other part of asking the players is dumb, so we won't be using it.
