Quantifiable, non-XP, role-playing rewards

[Sword of Spirit]

(While D&D is the immediate context, I felt the topic was abstract enough that it might fit better in this forum.)

In pre-planning for my uber-campaign (5e, after it's been out for a bit), I've decided that rewarding good role-playing with straight up bonus XP creates a less satisfying campaign.

Assuming you have a campaign arc with certain adventures and challenges you want to present to the characters at certain level ranges (which I do), and that you intend the campaign to last a certain amount of real time (which I do), awarding bonus XP requires doing at least one undesirable thing. Either you shorten the campaign, or you artificially increase the intended challenges to compensate.

In the latter case, the "bonus" you get from role-playing is partially illusionary. You also have to change the desired campaign experience, because everything gets higher powered--which means you very well may not be able to present the sorts of experiences you intended to.

In the former case, you are "rewarding" players for really getting into the campaign in an immersive way by giving them less of that campaign! Hardly a desirable result.

I'd really love to hear suggestions from the forum on other ways to give out fairly tangible, overt and open, rewards for role-playing ("For great role-playing tonight, the group (or character X) gets such and such bonus"), since I feel such rewards really help players feel rewarded in a way that fits the game experience. (I have a group of good role-players, so this isn't about encouraging role-playing as much as it is about quantifiably rewarding it.)

Suggestions?

 

[Nagol]

One GM I know gave a literal cookie any time he considered a player deserving. "Great scene! Have a cookie!"

 

[Umbran]

If the rules you're using has some spendable game resource (like "action points") those often make good role-playing awards.

 

[amerigoV]

Consider non-standard opportunities - they earn land, title, property, a follower, or just something in the game that shows off their awesome-ness (a statue!).

 

[gamerprinter]

Similar to Action Points as mentioned by Umbram, we offer 'boons' as RP bonuses which are one-use only bennies that provide some kind of limited advantage in a given situation. One boon was literally a 'get out of jail free' card. At one point during an adventure, several PCs were captured by local authorities, arrested and sent to jail, the PC with the 'get out of jail free' card, spent his boon, and the GM explained due to some loophole in local law, that one PC was released from jail, and able to work outside to get help and release the remaining PCs. Boons in our game can be magical or mundane, but all are one-use only situations. Generally a PC doesn't earn more than 1 boon per level, though they can possess multiple boons at the same time.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I actually run a 'token store' at my table. Tokens are poker chips. I hand them out for things like showing up with your dice and a character sheet, fast combat turns and, you guessed it, good RP. The chips can be redeemed for tangible in-game rewards, like adding one to a dice roll, re-rolling the entire dice, recharging a spent ability and even raising the dead (this takes a LOT of tokens).

I find this system to be a great way to motivate my players to do certain things that I see as a positive in my game. For instance, I hate long, drawn-out combats, and picking up tokens for fast turns has really motivated the players in that regard.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I have not tried the following, it's purely off the top of my head: if you want in-game RP awards, maybe try something like a reputation system. If there is an organization or guild the players want to belong to, perhaps they can rise through the ranks by means of reputation. Being highly favored by, say, the Assassins Guild might net you access to specialized equipment later on. And you could hand out reputation points for successful roleplaying.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

You can also give them longer lasting mechanical bonuses, too. Increased maximum hit points, spell-like abilities, increased ability scores, and so on.

 

[GMMichael]

If the rules you're using has some spendable game resource (like "action points") those often make good role-playing awards.

+1.

They're called Hero Points in my game, and they grant 1d6 points to skill checks (which includes attacking and defending skills).

Sourcebook here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350867-Modos-RPG-Playtest-1-the-One-True-System

Importantly, some players may be better roleplayers than others. Granting in-game benefits like this can cause your roleplayers to shine too brightly, unless you also put a cap on how many hero points a PC can get.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

That's true.

Another thing that you might consider, is using an action point system similar to that in the XCrawl game, where points are awarded into a pool that can be spent by any of the players to benefit someone else's character.