Level Up!
When you win a fight or achieve something else notable, you receive Experience Points (traditionally known as 
Star Points).
Your GM may choose to roll dice to decide on your reward, calculate it in some way, or allocate levels based on your overall achievements – but in any case, you're rewarded for your effort, with more difficult challenges earning more Experience Points.
As a general rule, overcoming anything noteworthy may earn you about 5-20 Experience Points, and truly gruelling challenges like boss fights around 20-40.
Whenever you receive 100 or more Experience Points, you immediately level up!
When you level up, take away 100 Experience Points; you immediately recover all HP and FP, and you receive the following:
- +1 to a Stat
- +1 to a Skill relating to that Stat (e.g. Heart and Coordination)
- Either +1 to a different Skill relating to that Stat, or a Skill Specialisation for any Skill
- The option to tweak one of your existing Innate Techniques; you can add a positive trait, add a negative trait, remove a positive trait and/or remove a negative trait.
If your GM agrees you can make more drastic changes, but you should always try to keep the spirit of the original Technique. - At every 5th level, the ability to learn a new Technique, and increase your Power by +1!
Each level represents an exponential increase in your character's abilities. A Level 5 hero stands head and shoulders above a Level 1 rookie!
Paper Story plays best at lower levels, with a recommended cap of 4 Innate Techniques – in line with the original games.
Though of course, that's just a suggestion. Higher power games might run up to level 20 or beyond, with massive HP totals and truly exceptional dicepools. Do whatever works best for your game!