what makes a system encourage roleplaying not "rollplaying"

[Wolfen Priest]

I just want to add this important (in my little mind) tidbit...

Look at the most recent issue of Dungeon magazine (which I LOVE by the way). It has submission guidelines which are pretty long and detailed.

I don't have it with me to quote verbatim, but read it if you can get it; it says something like: "Use action. Players like action. Don't make a scenario that needs to be thought out when it can instead be resolved through action."

Again that's paraphrasing, but I just read it last night and my memory isn't that bad. <Action != (not)roleplaying>, sure, HOWEVER, somehow I don't think that's what people think of when they want to run a "roleplaying heavy" game.

 

[chatdemon]

Say whatever you want, but the fact is that D&D is focused on fighting. The designers themselves are upfront about it.

Yup, D&D has always been that way, Gygax has written on more than one occasion about his distaste for 'ameteur thespians'. D&D is, after all, derived from wargames. Gygax has said that the rules of the game must serve to resolve the action; ie. finding traps, battling monsters, casting spells, growing your character's abilities, etc. The amount of role play in a game, and how it is encouraged or rewarded, should be left up to the game master.

I agree with that theory 100%, BUT...

3e could take a few steps to help a DM encourage role play. Now, if you look at your DMG, page 168, it suggests allowing only 50 xp per PC per session for role playing awards.. 50. Compared to the hundreds they ca amass slaughtering orcs. Given that guideline, is it any wonder the average D&D player tends to downplay the role playing of their character and commences with the ass kicking at the earliet opportunity?

My solution is twofold:

1> up the XP for good role play, perhaps to as much as 500 per session for outstanding characterization. This shows the players that role play is important to you as a DM, and rewards them for doing it. You must be careful though to not apply the same standards to each player. Get to know them, learn what constitutes good role play from them.
For example, if Joe is extremely outgoing and flambouyant, and is the president of his school's drama club, he will be more comfortable with interacting with puzzles and NPCs. Adjust his rewards down a bit, so that to get the maximum reward, he has to really put out an effort. Inspiring the good role players also helps to set an example for the weaker ones.
If on the other hand, Mary is shy and introverted, it might be difficult for her to do much more than roll dice and go along with what the party is doing. Try to guide her a bit, give her prompts and hints (like if the players are interrogating a goblin, you could remind Mary that her character speaks goblin and would make a great party spokesman here). Reward her when you motice an obvious effort to contribute to the story, and adjust your NPC's behavior to reflect the way the player approaches the interaction.

2> Cut the XP awards for combat in half, that's right, in half. For everyone except fighters. Give fighters 3/4 of the 'real' XP award. This balances the fact that most fighters don't have much of a concept beyond 'im a sword for hire' or 'i likes to kick me some orc ass', and the fact that most players of fighters will not invest heavily in the skills and feats that help involve them in the puzzle solving and NPC interaction that will generate them role playing XP. This also tells the non-fighters 'hey, I'm not a fighter, if I want to keep up with Regdar in levels, I better get in character and contribute.

It is best to introduce a custom system like this at the start of a campaign, and I strongly suggest discussing it with the players beforehand, so there are no rude surprises when it comes time to hand out XP. If you explain your reasons for wanting to promote story and role play, while still keeping the fun of combat, most players I've ever known will adjust accordingly, or simply play fighters and let the other players do the role playing.

 

[Tsyr]

I'll agree with the person who said that deadly combat does encourage combat... Check out shadowrun some time if you want an example... after a hack-n-slashers third or fourth min-maxed PC is taken out by a security guards lucky shot, they start to try to avoid combat.

That, or they become "strike first and hard" type fighters... but there are always ways around that.

 

[kengar]

I think it all boils down to what you consider to be roleplaying. Using skills or social interaction reduces combat, but less combat does not necessarily mean more roleplaying:

Player A: I try to convince the orc to give me the pie with my Diplomacy skill.

Equating roleplaying to no combat also means that people with big, dumb, fighting machine characters are automatically not roleplaying. This may not always be the case:

Player B: Bror, you gutted the goblins, bashed up the bugbears and smashed the skeletons. Why won't you fight the orc?

Player C: Humans beat Bror, drove Bror away. Bror would have died in snow. But orcs found Bror, fed Bror, taught Bror to fight. Bror will not fight orc.

I had a player in my last campaign do almost exactly this. She was playing a half-orc barbarian who wouldn't kill male orcs because she wasn't sure who her father was. She had an INT 8 and was firmly convinced it was "Bad" to kill your parents (funny, wot?). The other players just about freaked when they charged they orc lair and their strongest fighter suddenly drops her axe and tries to grapple with the orcs. Only I (the DM) knew this facet of her character. LOL

I usually give normal XP for combat (divided evenly) after each combat. This allows them the chance to level up during play, which helps keep the powergamers happier. After the session is over, I hand out "bonus" xp (usually via email the next day). I give up to 500xp for RP as well as points for problem solving & skill use (Traps, etc.) & some combat bonuses (one time the human fighter took on an ogre with a dagger while he was basically naked; he deserved bonus points for guts, if nothing else.). This can mean up to an extra 800-1000xp per session for a player, so it encourages them to worry about things besides just combat, but it doesn't penalize them for fighting monsters.

There came a point when 2 characters leveled up before the others: one was an elven ranger- she had tons of character background and story being RP'd to the hilt, the other was a high CHA human sorcerer who used his Diplomacy and Bluff to avoid a fight as much as the group would let him. The rest of the party was confused since the were all several hundred away from the next level. I simply told them, "Boy, that RP experience can add up, can't it?"

 

[Conaill]

2> Cut the XP awards for combat in half, that's right, in half.

Why stop there? What's the point for doing all this bookkeeping of exactly how many goblins got killed anyway? The only thing it does is to encourage them to kill more goblins.

EL's and CR's are all fine and dandy for balancing encounters but, frankly, I think the system for awarding XP just sucks.

Here's how I would award XP:

1) Figure out how fast you want the PC's to progress, and how much XP they need per session to do so. This is your baseline XP level.

2) At the end of the session, determine how much progress the party has made towards the campaign goals, how much fun this session was compared to other sessions, how well everybody got into their characters, etc. Modify the baseline XP up or down accordingly.

3) Adjust individual XP's up or down, based on how much each player contributed to 2).

 

[chatdemon]

Here's how I would award XP:

1) Figure out how fast you want the PC's to progress, and how much XP they need per session to do so. This is your baseline XP level.

2) At the end of the session, determine how much progress the party has made towards the campaign goals, how much fun this session was compared to other sessions, how well everybody got into their characters, etc. Modify the baseline XP up or down accordingly.

3) Adjust individual XP's up or down, based on how much each player contributed to 2).

That works too, hell, a lot of times I just arbitrarily come up with a round number for combat XP, giving the fighters (single classed plain old fighters only) and extra 50% of that number (to fit my fighters get 75% of total, everyone else gets 50% of total system) and then add in misc. awards and role playing awards. I've been a DM for a long time, and have had the same group for a few years now, so I know roughly how many XP they earn based on the encounters they complete, and I know how much XP I need to dole out to keep the group from becoming frustrated with slow advancement.

We game once a week, usually, and I like to keep the party at a one level every 1 1/2 to 2 months of real time. This may seem slow, but I like it. It encourages single classing, since you advance slowly, splitting your levels among multiple classes gives you a lot of abilities, but the single classed characters will achieve whoopass-hood much sooner. It also gives the players a chance to explore the abilties they gain each level, wading through all the avaiable options before stacking a new set of powers on the pile. This also, IMO, encourages role playing in its own way. Since the actual XP level of the party advances slowly, things like gaining rank in a guild or group, making a network of contacts and cronies, and developing your PCs reputation and legend among the NPCs of the world become far more important. Heroes do not need to be high level, and allowing the party to explore ways of achieving status without simply adding more XP levels is a great way of reflecting that.

 

[Celebrim]

1) A richly described setting in the core source material.

One of the problems D&D has always had in encouraging role play is also one of its strengths. D&D lets you play the game you want, where you want, how you want. However, as a result, players generally know very little about the setting and don't feel compelled to richly dress thier character in background to fit themselves into the setting.

Vampire is a good example of the opposite approach. Most of the core material is about the setting. So, between being set in something that superficially resembles the real world and having this rich background, players are strongly encouraged to envision complex stories for themselves.

D&D really doesn't have anything like this. Not only are the settings available in extra material only, but typically the settings are really shallow - especially when first introduced. Years of developement have yet to make Forgotten Realms even remotely deep. Greyhawk is by and large no better. Krynn always felt like a one shot setting. Spell Jammer was silly. Dark Sun felt silly and munchkinish. Ravenloft was cludged together. No one seemed to pay much attention to Bloodright, so why should TSR spend money on setting?

Now, that isn't to say that a RP heavy campaign can't done in D&D or even in any of the official D&D settings (even FR), but it does mean that to a certain extent it is up to the DM to push the characters into doing that, flesh out the worlds, and provide this information to the players to use in filling out thier background.

I would expect to spend a couple of hours working with each player answering questions about my setting so that they could get a good feel for what sort of options they had in character background. The more you make a player think about his character the better.

2) Lethal Combat

If the combat system is particularly lethal, players are strongly encouraged to avoid combat. And, if they must avoid combat, then they must find other things to pass the time than roll dice and kill creatures.

Call of Cthulu hack and slash anyone? When's the last time you saw a CoC character without a background and personality? Power gamers tradiationally don't play (and don't enjoy playing) games like CoC or Paranoia.

That is not to say that you can't have an RP heavy game with a combat system that encourages combat, just that you have to have the right players to do it. It is also not to say that a CoC game necessarily features deep RP. It's quite possible to play CoC with a group of problem solvers and get nothing but metagaming conversation and investigative dice rolling.

3) Rules within the system that expressly reward good RP (or penalize bad RP).

Vampire is another good example of this. The willpower mechanic forces a player to strive to achieve certain roll playing situations so that he can restore his all important will power. If you are playing a 'care giver', then you have a strong impetus to give care in a fashion that is very evident to your referee as good roleplaying.

The D&D system is still somewhat hampered by the age of the system. Although 3ed. went a long ways toward incorporating more modern approaches and rules, the one explicit RP mechanic in the game is still primitive and if anything got weaker. That mechanic is of course, the much maligned alignment. Of course, it always seems like alot of the reason it is maligned is most people don't seem to understand what it is and isn't.

In my experience, the more the player maligns alignment as a restriction to RP, the less that player really wants to RP no matter what he says. Basically, those that hate alignment almost always want no restriction on how they play so that they can game and not roleplay. IMO, They should play neutrals (the unaligned) and stop bugging people.

That is not to say that alignment = personality, and choosing an alignment does not constitute a background. But, I do think that it gives a mechanic for the DM to punish and reward roleplay.

In first edition, Gygax explicitly linked alignment behavior and class behavior to eligibility to advance a level. In his campaigns, presumably, failure to act 'in character' meant a larger outlay in gold peices for training and more down time in which the character was not available for adventuring. Although Gygax had a rather simple notion of what 'in character' meant (all fighters were natural leaders and brave for instance), this was still I imagine a somewhat effective means of making his players stick to a consist set of behaviors.

Horrible violations of stated behavioral norms had even a bigger penalty - loss of level and alignment change (which could be bad depending on what class you were supposed to be).

I personally feel that you should give XP 'story awards' to characters who complete major story arcs for thier own characters. Just like you award the party an XP bonus for finishing an adventure, award players an XP bonus individually for accomplishing something important to themselves or otherwise adding to the interest of the campaign. (As an aside, I'm very much in favor of halving combat XP whether you do this or not. 3 ed. just advances too fast to really savor being a particular level.)

However, no matter how well constructed the system is, all of this is irrelevant compared to two much more important things: the attitude of the DM and the aptitudes of the players. If the DM roleplays his NPC's, creates deep personalities for his NPC's, creates an intriguing setting, and forces the characters to enteract in ways other than combat, then RP will usually. ON THE OTHER HAND, there are simply players out there who won't roleplay no matter how much encouragement you give them. You can sit certain players down in the middle of any number of roleplayers, and no matter how long they associate with them, they won't understand what the attraction is or why the other players aren't min/maxing thier characters.

That's just the nature of the game.

I know this is long already, but I want to mention that I disagree with those that say the skill system (or lack of it) is necessarily an impediment to role play. The real advantage of an elaborate skill system is it starts a player thinking about his character, who he is, what he wants, how he has lived and what he has done up to now. At least, that is how it should work in theory. In practice, power gamers will simply look at which skills are most likely to come into play (particularly in combat situations) and choose those with no reflection on who thier character is. Ultimately, having a lot of skill points to spend does nothing to encourage the creation of a well realized character. Skill points are simply another way of defining 'what you can do' just like combat abilities and spell casting, and do nothing to spell out 'who you are'. A fighter can be perfectly deeply realized without alot of explicit skills. For example, Boromir, Faramir, Gimli, Leoglas, Merry, Pippin, Denethor, Theoden, Samwise Gamgee, Thorin Oakenshield, Bombur, Balin, and Turin are all clearly fighters (and possibly all have similar alignments!) but are all clearly distinct characters with different personality traits. Sure, that Sam can cook is a character quirk, but its hardly sufficient to describe him or his goals in the world.

 

[rounser]

If the DM roleplays his NPC's, creates deep personalities for his NPC's, creates an intriguing setting, and forces the characters to enteract in ways other than combat, then RP will usually.

Excellent post - just an addendum to this particular point, though:

The DM can roleplay to the hilt and heap on the setting detail until the cows come home, but unless he bothers to integrate the PCs into his world as much as he does the NPCs (such as by providing PCs with NPC family and friends that mean something to them, bothering to develop a background that can come back to haunt them, and letting them go on quests that their characters are personally invested in), then there are unlikely to be enough roleplaying hooks provided by the DM's setting and NPCs for the players to hang onto. By making the PCs just as integrated into the setting as the NPCs, they are no longer just bystanders watching the DM's NPC puppet show as they go on a tour of the world, but genuinely part of that world. With contacts and needs that are part of the setting, you often can't help but roleplay when you're accosted by your character's old mentor who accuses your wizard of not washing his hair enough, just like when he was younger, or when the town thugs show up to collect on that bet that the PC's family still owes.

A lot of players will not help you with integrating their character into the world - they'll just make stats and have vague notions beyond that. This is to be expected from many gamers - usually the most enthusiastic person about the setting and campaign is the DM himself, and as you point out above, the DM is almost invariably the one who knows the most about the setting. In this case, I think it's the DM's responsibility to prepare a draft background based on what information they can get out of the player about how they want their character's personality, friends, enemies, desires and background to be, then present that to the player for their opinion. It doesn't have to be long - (usually) they're only 1st level so they shouldn't be living in the past. Revise and negotiate from there if necessary to get it closer to what the player wants (and still suits the setting). It sounds superficially like control freakery on the DM's part, but every player I've done it for really appreciates the time invested in their character, and usually offers a bunch of ideas to expand on it that can end up campaign fodder.

The only problem is getting sidetracked by personal quests - it can get rather old if one of the PCs is always sidetracking the adventure at hand by searching for his lost mother, for instance - but I suppose that's better than no roleplaying at all...

 

[Jerrid Al-Kundo]

Remember, that skill point choices are in the context of class. If you want your fighter to learn how to be play the mandolin, all you have to do is take a bard level or three.

But isn't this overkill? I mean, all I wanted to do was learn how to play the mandolin, but in addition to learning the mandolin, I got:

Bardic Music
Bardic Lore
Spells
A bunch of other skills that have nothing to do with the mandolin

So my question is: Why do I have to take levels in Bard? If I don't take levels in Bard, why must I lower my character's power level (which is hard-coded by merit of CR) in order to add depth to my character (Perform: Mandoline).

Once, in a discussion in the WotC Chatroom, my wife got ripped on for having 9 Ranks in Sitar. Why?

"You only need 1 Rank for Character Development..."

Suppose she wanted to be good at it?

[minor tangent]

Nothing personal, but I've seen this before. Someone wanted to tweak the Ranger to be more fitting for a "Native American" styled game. Several people insisted that he should not tweak the Ranger but instead multi as a Ranger/Rogue. None of them, however, could explain how it is that the character also got the Traps benefit (most traps used by primitive cultures don't have a DC over 20) or evasion (American Indian mythology is rather light on area-effect magic), as well as several skills more associated with urban and/or dungeon environs (both lacking in Native American culture).

Yet, they insisted that this was "the" choice to make since it was already within the rules.

[/minor tangent]

On the main topic:

I generally encourage role-playing by running a story-intensive game. In this, the lives of the PCs (home, family, friends, business, associates, church and state, etc.) are integral and vital to the setting and plot. As the DM, I find it important to obtain Players that fit this style (and poor me just moved; Finding a suitable group may be problematic... Anyone near Norfolk/Newport News Va interested in an In-Depth Game that can commit to every-other weekend?).

In social situations, RP is handled before rolling for outcome. By adding political intrigue (through Church, State and Guild) and maintaining friendships with several NPCs, role-play becomes far more important. Saying, "I talk to him diplomatically" usually results in my saying, "go ahead." I don't expect it to be entirely "in character"; I understand that a Player most likely cannot perfectly mimic their characters Int/Wis/Cha scores. But anyone thinking that they're just going to handle RP as any other declared action ("I jump the chasm... Now I bluff the guard...") is at the wrong table. Go ahead and talk/speak like you normally do; I don't need you to give me voices, accents or longwinded speeches. Your numbers are more indicative of the "specifics" of the matter. I just want you to use RP to indicate the "direction" of those specifics.

The adventures I run are most often related to long-distance travel. I rarely run a "dungeon crawl"; If it's to be an intensive dungeon, then it's usually a dusty crypt or ruined metropolis populated more by puzzles, traps and environmental dangers than monstrous encounters (I've actually doubled combat Experience Awards to prevent level gain from occuring less than once a year). And finding these places often involves a lot of role-play to begin with (researching in libraries, conversing with scholars and historians, making deals with those living near the target location, etc.).

When going through your actions, don't list every rule involved. Don't say, "I use Search in the corrador." Describe you methodology and how you do so. I'm leniant. You didn't say you were searching under the carpet? Big deal; Your 10 Ranks in Search tells me you did. Just describe it to a degree, and I'll tell you when to make the roll.

[So, yes, I'm more into the heavier aspect of Role-Play; But don't think that means you're going to sit at my table with you low-Charisma/0-Diplomacy PC and talk your way through every situation. Eventually, the RP does end and the roll does occur, and your numbers are your numbers.]

At any rate, I think there are several key points: (1) Players that are on a similar level of RP-focus, (2) DMs that can develop situations that more often focus on RP than combat, (3) a setting and environment that is interesting and detailed *just* enough to be describable without being a National Geographic Special, and (4) use the rules to support the RP instead of using RP to fill the gap between rolls.

Anyhow, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[frankthedm]

have a sma.l chance for instantanios death with no save everytine you are struck for damage.

this will encourage players avoiding combat a little