Reward for Roleplaying?

[Aus_Snow]

Roleplaying != acting.

I disagree.

I've done acting, and I play RPGs. The roleplaying in roleplaying games is acting, in my opinion, with the noted possible exception of when the roleplaying is via a written medium.

Perhaps we should simply agree to disagree? I'm fine with that.


note: I think some actors would be uncomfortable with the fact that roleplayers act, and some roleplayers certainly seem to be equally uncomfortable with the same connection. I find this intriguing. Kind of a stigma that can go both ways? Hm.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Rewards for roleplaying works, you just have to do it properly.


DM RULE 5421 - If you reward someone for something, they will do more of that. If you punish someone for something, they will do less of that.


Works with puppies, works with players. However, when a puppy messes up the carpet do you wait four hours to rub his nose in it? Rewards must be instant, punishment likewise.

Player1: Captain Taglot says "Tell me where it is, ye bootless freebooter, or I'll blow yer brains out!"
DM: "Arrgh! It's in the locker!" And have 100 exp.

Player 1: I tell him to tell me where it is. I'll shoot.
DM: "Arrgh! It's in the locker!". Lose 100 exp for not roleplaying.




Second trick is this. Imagine you are the director. say "Cut! Take two!" when they start mooning the ziggurat class super heavy planet destroyer.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I reward for roleplaying, and, contrariwise to the first poster, I find that it does encourage people to roleplay. (And by "roleplay," I'm talking about the "amateur thespian immersive" style, which is my favorite way to play. I like to be able to tell when someone is speaking in-character, without hearing, "My character says ... " in front of everything.) I've found that once people realize the players who do dramatic stuff and stay in-character a lot and so forth tend to advance a session or two faster, consistently, they start emulating the behavior.

That said, I reward the sincere effort, not the accomplishment. I also allow other avenues for bonus XP, because there are some players who truly love the game, but who truly will never roleplay as I prefer it, whether out of shyness or whatever other reason.

In general, I total XP normally and award 80 percent of it. The other 20 percent is available for roleplaying or for other activities (like logging, illustrating, and so on). Typically I mentally rank everybody as the session progresses, starting everyone at "10" and raising or lowering them within the range of "1 to 20." The ending range is the bonus RP they will receive. (I.e., I have reserved 20 percent of the actual total. If they score "15" on the "Jeff RP-ometer," they'll end up with 95 percent of the total XP: 80+15.) I also lower the score when people egregiously break any RP mood that's been established ... we occasionally have serious problems with OOC humor at the expense of dramatics.

Note that this usually means I don't give out full XP for a session, which is fine with me ... I like slightly slower advancement. You can use the same system exactly, except with a base of 90 percent XP awarded, and achieve average advancement matching by-the-book.

 

[Sammael]

I let the players reward each other for roleplaying. At the end of each session, every player evaluates every other player's participation and assigns a score from a scope from a scope determined by me depending on the time spend role-playing, as opposed to fighting (e.g. for last night's session, the scope was 1-10); the player is then expected to explain why he assigned the scores in that particular manner. In the end, each player averages the scores he got and multiplies the result by an appropriate level-based multiplier (currently, at 15th character level, it's 100).

 

[Bront]

I offer roleplaying bonuses, but I offer then as a group. Because it takes more than one player to tango in a roleplay session, and the move involved everyone gets, the more fun everyone has. This encourages players to actively look to involve each other, work as a team, and generaly try to help others have fun in the game.

It also doesn't penalize a character for generaly remaining quiet, or what some would consider lesser roleplay, because usually if they weren't heavily involved, it doesn't mean they weren't roleplaying, just that their character didn't have as much to say or was holding his tongue.