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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mesh Hong" data-source="post: 4963511" data-attributes="member: 73463">While it's an interesting idea I am personally a little dubious of the actual effect it would have on gameplay and balance. This system to me seems like it would give different characters different XP awards and therefore advancement rates. Isn't one of the basic principles of 4e balance that all the characters have the same XP and advance in levels at the same rate? On a more general level it is my opinion that either people want to Roleplay or they don't, I doubt whether any player is sat there thinking "I want to Roleplay my character but I am not going to bother unless there is some XP in it for me". It is the way the players interact with the DM (and therefore the characters with the world) that either encourages or discourages Roleplaying. If you want to encourage Roleplaying in your group I think you might be better served by directly engaging their characters in ways that they will find interesting or confronting. Grab their attention in a way that will make them respond without spending 5 minutes checking their skills, get them to react in character without thinking about game mechanics. As for reinforcing Roleplaying all you really need to do is congratulate them at the end of a game session (or even after a scene), a little praise can go a long way. There is also nothing stopping you from just awarding extra XP all round because it was a great session, again if you tell them this it will add to everyones sense of accomplishment and positively reinforce the type of game you want. The problem with introducing lists to manipulate player behaviour is that you are introducing another mechanic that can both be a distraction from the actual game play and in an extreme case give players another mechanic to exploit (which could lead to arguements over what exactly is a meaningful casting of a ritual or usage of an alchemical formula). As an aside, for the last portion of my campaign I actually stopped giving my players XP, I just announced when the characters had gained a level at appropriate points. This allowed me to time level progression with the big scenes in the campaign without having to worry about whether there was too much or too little actual combat. I was actually surprised how well it worked, and my players never raised any issues with not getting running totals of XP, all in all it was quite liberating.</blockquote>

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