Learning from GMs at GenCon - Respond to Roleplaying

[Imaginary Number]

When I DM, I give a standard +1 to any d20 roll if the player "entertainingly" describes what his/her character is doing. It's not required and I had a player in a long-term campaign who almost never said more than "I attack. I got a 13. If I hit I do 11 damage."

But the rest of the group enjoyed hearing the thief say "I carefully crouch down, breathing as quietly as possible through my nose with my mouth open. With my face as close to the floor as possible, I slowly--oh. so. slowly--extend my mirror-on-a-stick to see around the corner. (Rolls Perception). What do my fine elven eyes see?"

In certain circumstances (e.g., if everybody laughs out loud at the description) I'll give a +2. I've even given an automatic success a few times for extraordinary descriptions.

Yes, I consider this a mechanical reward for "role-playing."

I generally agree with this approach, and I've used it myself on more than one occasion. I think it needs to be used sparingly, however, because throwing around bonuses indiscriminately can lead pretty quickly into Magic Language territory. For example, if your group includes three enthusiastic narrators and one shy player and you regularly give "description" bonuses to the enthusiastic narrators, what you're effectively doing is penalizing the shy player for lack of narrative ability. That's fine for Wushu-type games that mechanically reward narrative flair, but it's not for games that don't by the RAW include a mechanical reward for "role-playing," however one defines that. Role-playing is rewarding and should be its own reward for people who enjoy doing it; it should not require an extra mechanical kick in the pants for folks who aren't otherwise interested in doing it outside of the framework of whatever system you're running.

 

[Klaus]

No, the Diplomacy person is roleplaying more: 22>15.

Covered.



When I DM, I give a standard +1 to any d20 roll if the player "entertainingly" describes what his/her character is doing. It's not required and I had a player in a long-term campaign who almost never said more than "I attack. I got a 13. If I hit I do 11 damage."

But the rest of the group enjoyed hearing the thief say "I carefully crouch down, breathing as quietly as possible through my nose with my mouth open. With my face as close to the floor as possible, I slowly--oh. so. slowly--extend my mirror-on-a-stick to see around the corner. (Rolls Perception). What do my fine elven eyes see?"

In certain circumstances (e.g., if everybody laughs out loud at the description) I'll give a +2. I've even given an automatic success a few times for extraordinary descriptions.

Yes, I consider this a mechanical reward for "role-playing."

I prefer going the other way around.

Roll the dice and describe the outcome. Wether it's a critical hit, a near-miss or a complete failure, if you make it entertaining the entire group gets a little XP (that's right, the entire group).

 

[pemerton]

Roll the dice and describe the outcome. Wether it's a critical hit, a near-miss or a complete failure, if you make it entertaining the entire group gets a little XP (that's right, the entire group).

A variation on this, which moves the roleplaying more from the "theatric" to the sort of "playing the character" roleplaying Ariosto and LostSoul have talked about upthread:

If a player has his/her PC do something interesting/entertaining that builds on and develops that PC as a character in the ongoing story, award XP as for a minor quest. (Again, as per 4e rules, this is shared among the party.)