Should Roleplay Determine Character Advancement?

[pemerton]

HARP (ICE's Rolemaster variant) uses an XP system based on achieving goals - both party goals and PC goals. This could be probably be tweaked in the direction that the OP is interested in.

 

[Ringlerun]

Danger, Will Robinson Danger!!

Roleplaying is subjective. How I roleplay is going to be different to how others roleplay. Making all character advancement based on roleplaying is saying you have to roleplay they way the GM wonts or no levels for you.
In a group that works well i can see the roleplaying for experience working quite well but on the other hand i can foresee legendary arguments and tantrums that will go down in the annuals of infamy.

 

[Norcross]

This one seems pretty easy, as it has been done in a number of systems.

1) The base XP for the session is based on the goal/mission/quest/whatever. For example: The party gets 2000 XP apiece once the princess is rescued. They don't get XP for sneaking into the prison. They don't get XP for killing the guards. They either rescue the princess and get the XP, or they fail and don't. You might give them partial credit if they get halfway or something, but adding up the number of guards they kill and giving XP based on that is right out.

2) Bonus XP or penalties for secondary goals. +100 XP if you find out why the princess was captured. -100 XP if you rescue her but don't recover her jewels. Half credit if she dies but you bring her body back for a resurrection spell.

3) Bonus XP for each character based on their background and personality. These do not have to vary per adventure. The wizard who has as part of his personality to hoard magic items gets +50/level XP each session if he does not use any magic items with charges. The priest gets +50 XP/level each session if no non-evil NPCs are killed. Whatever, as long as they are in character and have some basic drawback in attempting to achieve.

Now you can use XP for advancement as normal. The XP are now based purely on story and role-playing so do not reward hunting for random encounters, but they are still based on game mechanics instead of a nebulous idea of what one person considers role-playing.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Though I may or may not give out RP XP, I would rather RP not be the determining factor for PC advancement. There are too many gamers who I think are LOUSY RPers whom I'd rather have at my table than not because they were good to game with. And penalizing their inability to RP woulddrive them away as surely as anything else.

 

[Thunderfoot]

This is where 2eAD&D was really, super, nifty keen. I actually had a second book to supplement my DMG that I made that had all my personal charts, tables, maps, graphs etc; one section was XP.

I had the basic formula for awarding XP (ie the old static number per kill count method) but then had bonus XP added for each class and then a further bonus for things like teamwork, role play, problem solving, etc. I found this made it much more even in XP awards than just the standard. It allowed problem solvers to solve problems, role players to play their roles and hack and slay artists to chop, dice puree and blend and still award fair XP to everyone. I still try to do that even to this day, but, have had various degrees of success. (BTW, I realize that 1eAD&D, BECMI D&D and OD&D could also use the system, but lets face it, very few of us thought about it until the late 80s early 90s...)

 

[Jhaelen]

I used to reward xp for roleplaying (and still do in some systems) but I slowly turned around in my preferences. Roleplaying is difficult to measure and often what a player feels is good roleplaying results in a game going down the drain.

In D&D I stopped granting xp. In other systems I prefer to reward advancing the story these days.

Good roleplaying is still rewarded, but not using xp. Instead it grants bonuses to rolls or even automatic successes.

 

[Nagol]

That is not necessarily a problem. Some folks get huge amounts of fun at the tactical game portion of D&D. For some, it is its own reward.



So? Those best able to play a tactical skirmish game win in the combat format, don't they? If I'm not a tactical genius, I'm at an inherent disadvantage, just like the ones who aren't good at guessing and performing what the judge things roleplaying is.

The point being that whatever reward system you use, some folks will be better at it than others.

But they don't get more xp than their companions because they excel at the skirmish game -- unless you're using a variant system that rewards that, of course.

This does offer extra competition between players ad the possibility that the GM and some players become at odds regarding what 'good' roleplaying is for their character. It also places anyone who is more reticient/shy/introvert at a disadvantage at the table since their 'not roleplaying'.

 

[Dausuul]

So? Those best able to play a tactical skirmish game win in the combat format, don't they? If I'm not a tactical genius, I'm at an inherent disadvantage, just like the ones who aren't good at guessing and performing what the judge things roleplaying is.

The point being that whatever reward system you use, some folks will be better at it than others.

Combat XP is not awarded on an individual basis. Everyone contributes as best they can, and the rewards are shared out equally. If combat XP were granted individually, you'd get a host of problems. For one thing, everyone would play the most offensively oriented character possible, in order to score a fair share of the kills. For another, those who were good at tactics would quickly out-level those who weren't, leading to a self-reinforcing cycle.

If you want to switch to roleplaying XP, I suggest taking a page from the combat system and awarding XP to the group as a whole, combined with your "traits" system. And make it a binary thing: Did you roleplay one of your traits during the current session? If you did, you contribute a fixed amount of XP to the party pot. If you didn't, you don't.

This won't eliminate the subjectivity from the process, but it will give the players an idea of what to do and reduce the chances that some folks will sense (fairly or unfairly) DM favoritism. Of course, you may see a tendency to treat the traits as checkboxes--"Damn, we're almost at the end of the session. Let's go back to town so I can hit on the tavern wench and get XP for my Oversexed trait." But any XP scheme that relies on player actions is going to be gamed to some extent, and roleplaying that's done to fill a checkbox is still roleplaying.

 

[Balesir]

That is not necessarily a problem. Some folks get huge amounts of fun at the tactical game portion of D&D. For some, it is its own reward.

I agree completely - in fact, I think that is the focus of play best supported by D&D in all editions, by far! But you might notice that the original poster was asking a specific question, so I was attempting to give an answer to that question.

So? Those best able to play a tactical skirmish game win in the combat format, don't they? If I'm not a tactical genius, I'm at an inherent disadvantage, just like the ones who aren't good at guessing and performing what the judge things roleplaying is.

The point being that whatever reward system you use, some folks will be better at it than others.

All true, but when did I say that was the actual problem? If you read further down my post you will see that I outline what I though the issues would be - this first part of the post was just an explanation of my expectations as background to those problems.

That's what I'm worried about is quantifying roleplaying in too general a sense. The idea that I'm tossing around in my mind is having the players give their characters certain traits - much like aspects in the Fate system - and judging them by those traits. Whenever they play their characters according to those traits, they are allowed to advance.

Why not link those traits to their chances of succeeding in the game world? Have you ever seen the game "Pendragon"? I think that might encourage the sort of play you are looking for admirably.

I have another question after reading these posts. What is everyone's favorite system for leveling up? I've seen a lot of different systems do it a lot of different ways: GM choice, XP, random chance, etc. What do you prefer?

The flaw in your question is that it assumes I have a single "favourite system". The real answer to your query is that it depends on what focus I want play to have. For D&D I play 4E with standard xp mechanics, because I use D&D when looking for a 'gamist', 'challenge based' game and the xp model there fits such play well. If I want a more exploration-based, or 'simulationist' focussed game I will pick a system that does not have "experience points" in the sense they are usually thought of. Pendragon, that I mentioned above, is one example of such a system. HârnMaster is probably my favourite, since it also dispenses with hit points and a neccessary or expected focus on "adventures". Other games, like Primetime Adventures or Universalis, have completely different approaches that fit their own intended focus of play, as well. I "prefer" them all - for their own particular focus of play.

 

[Mallus]

Advancement based on role-playing? Whose definition of it? What kind?

I don't like to award XP for role-playing because there's no handy definition of it, outside of a rather broad one which makes it almost synonymous with "playing". Which is kinda why I'm at the point I consider RPG play as 'role-playing'.

I start from the premise: different people get different things out of gaming. Therefore I'm not interested in deeming some modes of play as valid/correct and others as invalid/incorrect, outside of some very basic social contract type-rules. Play in the manner of your own choosing and be respectful of your fellow players with their divergent and, hell, let's be honest, frequently inexplicable needs/tastes.