Roleplaying XP

[Camelot]

I want to encourage my players to roleplay a little more by giving out roleplaying XP. What is your experience (no pun intended) with RXP?

I took a look at the Shadow of Yesterday system, and it encourages storytelling with a thing called "keys." Each character has a key, for example, Bloodlust, and they gain XP according to a scale. 1 XP for defeating someone in battle and 3 XP for defeating someone more powerful than you. Other keys give out 1, 2, then 5 XP depending on the scale of the accomplishment. This gets the players to do what their character would do. The coolest thing is the "buyoff," when the character does something completely against their key, gets 10 XP for it (a lot in this system) but never gets to benefit from this key again.

I want to replace "minor quest" XP with RXP, because in my opinion minor quests are things that the characters do by themselves pertaining to their background, but this would have to be initiated by the player, which doesn't often happen with certain players. So, any ideas on using RXP to distribute the same amout a number of minor quests would?

Thanks!

 

[Saeviomagy]

IMO, the best reward for roleplaying is roleplayed rewards, not mechanics.

What I mean is: having NPCs recognise the PCs and know things about them. Having the king respect (or fear) the pcs because of their deeds or misdeeds and respond accordingly (and in a broadly beneficial way).

 

[weem]

We will be incorporating the FATE system into our games soon and I am really excited about it.

For information on how "Aspects" work in FATE, see this document (PDF)...

http://www.faterpg.com/dl/FATE2fe.pdf (Chapter 4, Aspects)

Also, here is a poll asking people if they would like to see FATE-like "aspects" put into 4e - Would you like to see FATE-like aspects in future editions of D&D? - RPGnet Forums.

More importantly, in that thread, there is a post here...

RPGnet Forums - View Single Post - Would you like to see FATE-like aspects in future editions of D&D?

...where CB details how he has incorporated it into his game (to give you an idea of how it can be done).

The Aspect system is awesome (imho) and when I showed it to my players (saying we could add it in the next campaign) they wanted to immediately add it for the next GAME. Also, two of those players DM campaigns I play in and both incorporated it immediately into their games.

Anyway, that's enough out of me - we really like it, but I can only speak for us


---edit---

I should clarify - this is not a system that rewards XP for RP-ing. This rewards players with Fate Points that can be spent to do various things in and out of combat.

 

[Fanaelialae]

IME, role play xp awards are rather hit and miss. They can encourage assertive or competitive players to RP more, but they don't tend to do much more than upset and discourage more laid back or shy people.

My group doesn't use RP xp anymore (we decided whatever gain wasn't worth upsetting those players who were regularly low in RP xp rankings) but one thought I've had would be to use an RP xp "pool" that is awarded to everyone equally at the end of the game. I can't say how well it would work, though I imagine the quiet players will be less inclined to be upset if they're getting the same xp as everyone else, while the assertive ones could still be encouraged by the fact that they're speeding advancement via their RP (albeit the entire group's, rather than their individual advancement).

 

[Camelot]

Fanael, you got me thinking about two possibilities.

1) Since I want to replace minor quests with RXP, I could give out a minor quest amount of XP when the player deserves RXP. They get this once per level. For the shy players, their amount stacks from the previous levels that they didn't get RXP in, and when they do (which is bound to happen some time), they get everything that they would've gotten before all at once, bringing them up to speed with everyone else.

2) When a player does good roleplaying, each player is awarded a minor quest divided among the players. This way, the players can receive RXP a number of times per level equal to the number of players there are.

Thanks for the ideas!

 

[mkill]

IMO, the best reward for roleplaying is roleplayed rewards, not mechanics.

What I mean is: having NPCs recognise the PCs and know things about them. Having the king respect (or fear) the pcs because of their deeds or misdeeds and respond accordingly (and in a broadly beneficial way).

This. Everything you need to know about rewarding roleplaying is in the above quote.

I've found that the best way to encourage roleplaying is to just give the players some space to act out their characters. Introduce an NPC who starts a conversation with the characters. Introduce NPCs that cannot be trusted, so players need social interaction to gather his true motives. If a decision needs to be made, make sure everyone has spoken up and given their opinion, even players who don't normally take part in the acting. Present moral dilemmas that force players to consider their players actions.

Have the outcome of the plot depend not just on killing stuff, but successful social interaction. Rewards for interaction are NPC and community support, access to more information and items, new contacts and allies...

I'm not a fan of XP as roleplaying encouragement because it feels too much like elementary school. Behave in class to get a good mark. I've found that the longer I play, the less I care about XP rewards, I mainly want to have a good time, and for that it's unimportant whether my character has 100 XP more or less. In my group, we have come to the point where noone really keeps track of XP anyway, and the DM just announces "guys, level up for next session". Of course, I enjoy leveling up, it's just the XP bookkeeping that's annoying and superfluous.

 

[lectric]

Lots of great points in here.

I do give RP XP rewards, but usually dish them out to the whole party. That lets the game-mechanics players have a tangible sense of accomplishment,but doesn't punish the shy ones. And of course the RP rewarded by RP goes without saying.

My general rule for XP rewards is once or twice per level, and no more than 10% of XP-at-next level. In other words, level 1 PC's might get a 50 or 100 XP bonus (10% of 1000), in a session when they really help or get into the story.

 

[Chimerasame]

If RP rewards are the only variable-XP present in your game, which is to say, different party members having different amounts of XP, then I'd find something else to reward people with. (If there are other sources of variable-XP, then RP rewards won't have too big an impact on that issue.)

I think extra action points are a decent reward. Players can have a repository of "reward points" that function like APs but neither increase nor decrease as a result of milestones and extended rests.

 

[Camelot]

Again, thanks for the ideas!

I agree how rping should have in game benefits, and it will, but I also have some players in my group who would think it more fun if they got "tangible" benefits from rping, thus the XP. Of course the duke will still owe them a favor, but they'll also be a little better off for it before that favor needs to be called upon.

I like the idea of action points as a reward. I think that could be an additional benefit, after an rper has receive RXP, they will receive action points so they don't get too far ahead in XP. That or, if I use the method of everyone benefitting from one player's rping, action points are just used after I want to stop giving out RXP.

(I have a feeling that once I tell my players they can be awarded RXP, they're going to jump at every opportunity to get it, and I don't want to disappoint them when I don't want to give out any more RXP.)

 

[lectric]

Inspired by this thread, I created a little Fate dice roller.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AshS6s1Toa0cdDJPdFNYcy1jOGs4TEttVDFsWmpkOXc&hl=en

It's VERRY simple. If you make any awesome changes, please let me know.