Award or penalize

[Tale]

I'd never reward players for interparty drama. It just rewards them for playing against each other over playing together.

If it's that easy to get XP, I should just pick fights with the rest of my current group. I'll even roleplay it. Don't even have to leave the inn. And, best of all, I might be able to get some of them in on it so that we can keep at it forever.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Depending on your players, I'd be a little wary of giving RP rewards for this. The problem with a certain type of player is that they could start ginning up such intra-party conflicts to harvest XP, entirely independently of the GM's part of the campaign. Of course, if your players aren't this devious, then no worries

 

[On Puget Sound]

First of all, advancement happens when you want it to happen, so bonus XP just move you to higher level encounters a session earlier. It's only a "reward" because we're conditioned to think of it as one. That said, it's a great form of communication. Giving xp says "hey, what you did was awesome, do more of that." If you don't want them doing more of that, don't give xp.

I don't see working through in-character conflicts as "creating problems for themselves" in the same way you describe making a tactical blunder that increases the difficulty of an encounter. The problem was always there, inherent in the characters, lurking like a...well, like something that lurks. They spotted it, dragged it out into the open and defeated it.

 

[delericho]

My question is: given that the characters put themselves into this situation, do I reward them with Roleplaying XP? It is a character-made difficulty, and on many occasions there was almost a party split or a PvP combat, which I do not want to encourage. On the other hand, it was excellent roleplaying, and despite the many near misses, no one got attacked or asked to leave. I have decided not to award individuals roleplaying XP, but rather give it in lump sums to the whole party.

That depends entirely on whether you want to encourage this sort of behaviour or not.

If you want to encourage intra-party conflict, give a bonus to XP. If you don't, then don't give a reward. (In fact, I would go further and simply tell the players that you'd prefer no in-party killing.)

(This applies in general. I've seen a number of DMs who say they want exciting and unpredictable combat actions from the players... but when a player declares such an action they then require a cascade of high-DC skill checks coupled with horrible penalties for failure. The end result being that no player ever tries anything more than "I hit it with my axe", certainly no more than once. You will get the behaviours you choose to reward.)

I agree with you on giving a party bonus rather than individual awards, btw.

Also...

The cleric/avenger, having just rolled his dice (being soon on the initiative) decided that he was going to fire his crit anyway, obliterating the werewolf in a beam of holy light.

Don't they declare their actions before they roll? They should - otherwise they'll "just happen" to pick an easy target when they roll low. Basically, the player of the Cleric should have decided whether to obliterate the werewolf after the surrender, then made his roll, and then have everyone else react to that. A big part of the problem in this scenario is that things have been done backwards - the player had his Cleric attack only because he rolled a crit, and not necessarily because that's what his character would do.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Good/clever/funny roleplaying (whether or not this was an example of any of those. . .) is its own reward, IMO.

Also, the point (OK, one of the points) of it all, in the first place.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It all depends on who the players are.....

 

[Umbran]

To take a slightly different perspective from most of the other posters in this thread: why do you feel the need to reward or penalize anything? If the players enjoyed the session, it should be its own reward. If the players did not enjoy the session, it should be penalty enough. Throwing extra XP rewards or penalties into the picture simply messes up what to me is a simple and straightforward feedback loop, IMO.

By that logic, why give out magic items, or gold, or any XP at all?

The fact of the matter is that people are motivated by rewards. Now, maybe the session was fun, and that should act as a reward. But, if the GM wants to see more of such stuff, why not express that in a way that motivates the players, and sweeten the pot?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Give xp. Maybe don´t give the same xp for everyone... just for those who made the party come out whole...

if the cleric was of an unaligned or evil god i would give him xp too, if he follows a good good i really would NOT give him xp. Actually depending on how close he is with his god i wouldhave a word with him.

He is: a) a murder b) he threatened with slaughter of good people... this is nothing a good guy should have xp for.

If the cleric however is evil and other players are good, i would only give xp to the cleric and not for the other characters, because getting rid off him should have earned them some xp^^