Bribing Players

[hong]

There is one problem with giving character generation points or XP for certain things - what hapens if the player wants a character who's life was unremarkable before the current story begins?

So he's a little bit faster on the uptake than the others at first.

 

[Drawmack]

I have my players do up a formal 3page background. I use two methods bribery and the big stick. If you don't do it you don't play. I also promise to use background information in game to give charactes a staring role. On top of all that I give the character something for free that makes sense based on their background. It might be a feat, a couple of skill focuses, a magical item, something like that. Does make the party a bit stronger at the low levels, but that balances out rather quickly long as you don't monte hall them.

 

[Shallown]

Since I give Xp for good role-playing (And to balance it out for good tactics for those more into roll-playing, I like both)

I simple tell players without a Good background I don't know what "Keeping in character" is for them until a few sessions go by. Its that simple. Up to them.

Later

 

[Pielorinho]

In my slight experience, bigger-background PCs are better for lower-mortality games; smaller-background PCs are better for higher-mortality games. Folks who've put a lot of work into a PC are going to play more cautiously, generally, because they don't want to see all their work go down the tubes.

Also IME, the bigger-background players are often the same players who don't have a great handle on the rules: they focus more on the story, and so their PCs aren't as likely to be optimized.

One thing I've been thinking about doing is issuing Hero points to folks who put lots of work into the background and into campaign maintenance (writing journals, coming up with cultural fluff, creating new NPCs, etc.) A Hero Point would be good for escaping death (stabilizing the PC at -9 hp) or for attempting a dramatic action (lassoing the roc as it flies away and climbing up the lasso to attack it).

I like this idea better than giving out character-generation points b/c I think it meshes better with the high-background playstyle.

Daniel

 

[tabrumj]

I use two methods. First of all I usually reward the players with XP for a decent character conept and hstory. I also make it clear that the first person to give me a decent Idea is most liekly to inspire plot in my game, and that I won't read anything until the due date. Anyone who doesn't have stuff in to me by then might noot get the cool plot points.

That and I refuse to go beyond character creation until at leaaast half of the character backgrounds are in. And once game has started I am more than wiilling to fill in history details with little to no warning for the player. "what do you mane, I have an evil brothher bent on world domination who has always hated me."

 

[arwink]

My players hate starting at first level, so I pretty much worked out what I'd like done before the game (character descriptions, backgrounds, reason for the party to come together, homelands, etc) and assigned a portion of the XP necessary to second level depending on how important I thought each was.

I ended up with a game of very, very detailed second level characters within the space of a week.

 

[Hardhead]

Bribing players is great. I give out a 10% XP bonus to anyone that does "extra credit" work for my campaign. The result is lots of journals and background info from my characters. It's been a huge sucess.

 

[Quickbeam]

We've used all of the following rewards for PC development and/or roleplaying efforts at one time or another:

** Additional XP
** Extra skill points awarded at 1st level for characters created with thorough histories and/or amusing flaws which the player MUST roleplay accordingly
** A "get out of jail free" re-roll of any one saving throw...after all, we want to keep well-developed PC's alive don't we?

Edit: I forgot one -- more gold with which to buy starting equipment.

 

[Crothian]

I'm thinking of bonus XP right now. I have them roll attributes, I was thinking of doing point buy, but since this is my first time running for this group I don't want to start with a negative reaction since many of them dislike point buy.

It's a modern d20 game, so what things do you beleive would be important in one's history?

 

[Sanackranib]

bribes

I have found that bribes work better when they come FROM the players to the DM (but maby I'm biased because I DM), seriously, though food and xp usuallu work out best. books and or minis are also appriciated. The beauty of D&D is if you are the DM you just tell the players how it is/how you want it and no bribes are needed The players may then TRY to bribe the DM to change how it is/how he wants it. WAAAAA hahahahaha.