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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gothmog" data-source="post: 2189548" data-attributes="member: 317">I'd go one step past this.  When I started my homebrew campaign 13 years ago, I had three players that were hard-core powergames and obsessed over numbers to the point they didn't develop their character's personalities.  I realized that if you want your players to role-play, they need to see the game world as real people see the real world- without all the numbers.  So I had them generate characters, select proficiencies (2E at the time), buy equipment, and then took the character sheets from them, and had them write their possessions on a sheet of notebook paper, as well as a 1/2 page character history.  They didn't have access to AC, HP, THACO, stats, saves, etc.  I kept track of all this stuff, and when they went up a level, I gave them an average roll on their HP to keep things simple.  I never told them the plus on a sword, the game stats of a magic item, or exactly what level or how many XP they had.At first, there was much gnashing of teeth and wailing, but eventually my 3 powergamers relented and gave it a shot.  Low and behold, within 2 adventures, these guys were getting really immersed in their characters and the world, because they looked at it through the eyes of a character who didn't see a 0-level innkeeper, but Otis the Inkeep, who had a lazy dog that tracked ashes from the fireplace across the room.  Later when I asked the group if they wanted to slowly re-insert game stats into the game, the result from everyone was an emphatic NO!  Basically, reduce the possibility of metagaming by removing the stats from the player's easy access, and I've found in almost all situations the role-playing will really come to the fore.  It also really stretches and challenges your DMing skills to keep everything straight, but more importantly to describe everything in detail and really portray the world as a living place since the only conduit your players have to it is you.</blockquote>

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