How do you deal with Roleplaying XP?

[barsoomcore]

I'm going to try a system I read about in OldDrewID's Story Hour, "The Medallions" (great SH, by the way) -- each of the players has two or three "chips" with their initials on them. Whenever they think somebody else does something really cool/great/funny/awe-inspiring, they give that person a chip. Bonus XP based on the number of chips you got at the end of the night.

I used to give out XP for in-character writing between game sessions, too, but that started to really favour the players with more time on their hands, which wasn't fair. But maybe if this system works well, it'll reward those players who contribute DURING the session, and then I could re-introduce the writing award, so as to reward shyer players who aren't as quick on their verbal feet, so to speak, but who still contribute something to the campaign. Players who neither do much during the game NOR contribute anything via writing -- well, maybe I don't want too many players like that in my campaign anyway...

Thoughts?

 

[barsoomcore]

I would then hand out EXP bonus on how well you played your character to your character. That is, if your character is a wizard that loves books and stayed behind to scan a few books while the rest moved forward you played your character.

If you did something that was not inline with how your characters background was written and you did it for a non-roleplaying reason then you got less exp bonus.

See, my problem with this is two-fold:

1. The notion of a character's character is imprecise and open to interpretation. The player in your example MIGHT choose to stay and study the books, and you might think, "Tom's trolling for magic items again," not feeling that this was a character-based action, and not give him the award, OR he might be thinking, well, my character knows none of these books will be interesting, and move on, which you see as NOT playing to his character, and so he gets less XP bonus, which isn't really fair. Basically, players will get rewarded for how closely THEIR notion of their character coincides with YOURS. Which is unfair to players who aren't very good at articulating their notion of their characters.

2. It also encourages players NOT to have their characters do surprising things. Real people do things we don't understand all the time. They surprise us, they change their minds without warning -- people are unpredictable. But in your campaign, if my character does something surprising, I'll get dinged for being "out of character".

Now certainly we're all human beings and can communicate and negotiate and figure this sort of thing out, but those two facts for me make this sort of XP award system too imprecise and too dependent on MY whims for me to be comfortable with.

 

[Desdichado]

I totally do barsoomcore's system; I don't track XP, I award it arbitrarily. In fact, I tend to prefer house rules that get rid of the need for XP and make arbitrary levelling a possibility. You just need to revise item creation and some spell use to pull it off.

Quickbeam; quick tangent; I sent you a PM - did you see the Detroit gameday thread?

EDIT: D'oh! Didn't realize this thread was another resurrected one; QB probably has't looked at this in months.

 

[Kemrain]

I like to see role-playing (or at least roleplaying attempted) and therefore give out XP to try to encourage this. I judge role-playing based on the following criteria:
1) "Speaking" in character. If the player actually replies to character conversation as if they were that character talking to the character that I am playing (the NPC). As opposed to something like, "I tell the Wizard that I will take the quest.", they say, "Findelstaff! I am the one that you are looking for to return the fabled Gem of AllPower for you! I accept this challenge."
2) Referring to the other players by their character names. Instead of saying "I follow Bob's character.", the players should say, "I follow Grindlenorf."
3) Having some personality quirk or trait for your character that you can build upon and roleplay in the game. (A fighter who's personality is "I like to fight" is not a trait, it is what your character does as a profession).
B

I know it's off topic, but I'm amazed by how spoiled I am. I haven't played with a group that didn't all do that. All of it. When we game, we speak in character, in voice; refer to eachother by character name only; play our characters as close to real people as possible... It's suprising that everyone doesn't do this... Wow.. I gotta go hug my gaming group.

- Kemrain the Terribly Suprised... and Thankful!

 

[CanadienneBacon]

To Quickbeam: I totally ripped off that fate point system for my new group and both they and I love it. Thanks bunches, it solved a major issue in the group for me as DM...ie, how to encourage roleplaying and help my players stay alive.

 

[g33k0 gzus]

I use a pretty simple system in my game. There are three categories of XP determination, all rated from 1-100: Challenge, Accomplishment, Roleplaying. I rate the session and the groups performance in each category, add 'em up, and then multiply by (the average party level) +1. I like to promote the groups efforts to have each other roleplay, so that's why I put that there. However I also have two session rewards after each session - the Action Hero of the night and the Actor of the night, which everyone (including I) vote on. The Action Hero reward is for whoever carried out (whether or purpose, or luck) the coolest, most memorable action of the night - and the reward is an extra Action Point (which I use from d20 Modern). The Actor is the person who best portrayed his character, meaning class, race, alignment, and overall acting (i.e. using voice, staying in character, etc.). That person gets a 10% XP bonus on the overall session XP reward.

Seems to work fairly well - and I can ignore the, what I find to be almost useless, XP tables in the DMG.

 

[Altalazar]

I try to keep the forumulas out of it. I total up the xp for monsters encountered and defeated as a reference and starting point and see what I get. Then from there i adjust for roleplay, and anything else that strikes me, and dole accordingly. I do also keep in mind the general level of progression and what the next sessions encounters might be like (if they are close to the next level), though this is a minor consideration.

It generally boils down to how much got accomplished in a session - did they sit around town arguing about buying potions all night, or did they come up with several plans and execute them by the skin of their teeth?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Roleplaying experience point is a tricky subject because it's all subjective to the members at the table.

One thing I've tried to put my foot down on though is roleplaying at the expense of the whole group. There is no reason to punish everyone in the group so that one player can ham it up a bit and show everyone how good he is at acting in his choosen style.

I follow the base advice from the DMG in that max awards are something like 50 xp per level for good role playing. I do like the chip advice though. I may have to steal that and put it into my game.

I also award story based bonuses upon completion of certain missions and who provided what role in that. I generally try to focus it so that each class has some worth to contribute. For example, one week it may be an undead infested lair letting the cleric shine, another a trap infested mine letting the rogue shine.

If you can find the first few issues of Shadis, they have a series of articles, The World Beyond Hack & Slash that covers every class and general situations. Mind you, this is 2nd Edition/1st Edition stuff, but it still applies to most situations.

In this particular example, what did the players think? If people can sit out and do what they want and still get rewarded, then what is it encouraging? On the other hand, do you now want the characters to take that extra time out to role play? I guess I'd wonder why he teleported over there in the first place before

 

[Dustin Clingman]

For the current internal Blackmoor group, I am currently using a Role Playing point system where I dole out the points liberally (but not too generously) for people who actively roleplay and contribute to the game above and beyond rolling for initiative and attacks.

These points can be redeemed upon any failed d20 roll. The players can redeem the to re-roll one additional die for each RP and can spend as many as they have, but must declare them in advance of rolling. The declared points are deducted and play continues.

Some might think that this is too generous, but considering that most of my players are Min/Max DMs in their own right, it has done wonders. In fact, it was indeed roleplaying that saved the life of the Cumasti Ranger when he failed against a Vampiric Touch that would have killed him.

People who contribute more often seem much more "lucky" for some reason. I encourage participation and I really don't care if they get extra rolls. I can alway modify encounters as needed. Besides, the players are supposed to win in the long run. Since starting this process, roleplaying has increased quite a bit and I am enjoying games even more.

Dustin

 

[CaptainCalico]

I have been using the Personality Feats form Atlas' Dynasties and Demagouges, so far to good effect. Quick summary: in addition to thier regular starting feats each PC gets a Personality feat based on a particular archetype. Currently my group has a Schemer, Idealist, Rebel, Architect, Loyal Member and a Fortune's Fool. The book outlines what each archetype needs to do in order to earn an "action point". At the end of each session a player can put in for action point if they fulfill the role or achieve a goal based on their archetype. The points can then be traded in for either additions to d20 rolls or for xp equivalent to an encounter of mild CR (same CR as the party average), which is divided up among the whole party.

This has been working great because the current story arc does not involve much combat at all, and since the xp is divided up equally nobody minds giving each player their turn "in the spotlight".