D&D 5E 5e should include roleplaying incentives as a module.

[Ratskinner]

A friend of mine expresses concern that getting mechanical benefits for bringing weaknesses into play encourages artificial role-playing in the form of picking weaknesses just for the benefits. He cites people doing exactly that in new World of Darkness games.

I think that's more a problem for games that don't offer some sort of in-play currency for the benefits.

In FATE, taking a "bad" aspect specifically to get it compelled often and earn a lot of FATE points is fine. Presumably, you would then take that pile of points and use them to power your "good" aspects, as well as invoke aspects on the bad guys, etc. Which works fine, you actually have to take your lumps to get the points. You actually get players looking for ways to get compels and even suggesting them. Contrast that with a system like GURPS (or Vampire IIRC), where there is no currency, but you earn build points for "disads". In such a system, you are encouraged to try to avoid taking the lumps for the disads (both in-game and at-table) because you already have earned all the benefits you will ever earn and can utilize those benefits freely.

 

[1of3]

Old School Hack calls these Awesome Points. I think they work quite well for a D&D style game.

The idea is originally from Primetime Adventures. OSH expanded upon it, requiring a certain amount of Awesome on every party member to level up.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

To add my own personal thoughts on it, something just doesn't feel quite right about it as a core D&D system, functioning in the manner in which the design team hinted at. As I understand, they've got it set up so that you get your bennies when you act in character in disadvantageous ways associated with some sort of chosen flaws to your character.

I like to role-play flaws, and I think getting mechanically *rewarded* for it somehow makes it feel less flawed--it doesn't feel like you are making a sacrifice as a commitment to your character concept. That actual sacrifice seems important to me in order to keep the sense of an actual weakness. Otherwise it is a plot control currency.

On the other hand, I'd love to use this up and coming bennies system (depending on what exactly they do) as a rewards system for good role-playing in general, whether flaws, strengths, or quirks. I'd hand them out in lieu of bonus XP (since I prefer to control the campaign leveling pace).

So it will be nice if they offer alternative ways of using the system, and make the whole thing an optional module.