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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 4724905" data-attributes="member: 23240">System traits that encourage roleplaying:- a game world that is consistent (allowing "what would I, as the character, do in this situation?" thinking) or built on a well known genre and theme ("what would characters in book/movie X do?")- game mechanics that allow failures, but mitigates their results (a resonable percentage of negotiations/battles/etc IS lost by the party, but it does not cause death, permanent injury or something else that makes the characters unplayable)- game mechanics that describe not only character's abilities, but also personality and attitude, actively encouraging acting according to the initial concept (but not penalizing other behavior in such a way as to discourage character's growth and evolution)- game/adventure design with a lot of scenes that are not challenges (there are not winnable/losable)- game/adventure design with a lot of moral choices (value conflicts - not evil/evil dilemmas)- game mechanics that allow taking a concept and making it into a playable character (instead of taking a mechanical construct and trying to add a desired flavor to it)- a reward system that encourages playing characters with flaws and weaknesses, not "perfect" and "well-rounded" ones (for example, by rewarding failed tests or getting into trouble because of character's personality and value system)- a party concept that assumes cooperation, but not perfect understanding and agreement- a wide range of viable character choices (not necessarily of mechanical concepts); for example, a possibility of playing a character that only fights using nonlethal methods or that never uses any kind of magicSystem traits that discourage roleplaying:- a mish-mash world with no distinct flavor, incoherent with itself or with the game mechanics- a world that does not give characters any motivation but selfish ones (wealth, power, fame)- a world with no real conflict and no real change; a world that just lacks fluff- game mechanics with a lot of stackable options (one, that may be "optimized", because some combinations are better than other); no system is perfectly balanced, so the only resonable way of avoiding this problem is keeping the system simple, with few degrees of freedom- game concept centered on "winning" by appropriate use of game mechanics (by combat abilities and tactics, by social skills etc.); focus on winning (gamism) is not bad if it stresses adaptability, creative thinking and (roleplayed) social interaction- too much predictability in how the world and the system works; often a result of too strong reliance on player-controlled mechanics- a game mechanics that makes character deaths too frequent, thus lessening player's investment- game concept and system that make player focus on something else than the character he is playing (equipment that determine character's competence, many types of strong metagame mechanics etc.)- system that makes it hard to explain in-character why certain resonable actions are (mechanically) impossible; abstract mechanics is not automatically guilty of that - but it may only be saved by describing precisely what and why is abstracted and by giving examples of how it is supposed to be used in play- harshly punishing non-optimal behavior and tactics, as a result forcing a separation of "conflict" (especially combat) scenes and "roleplaying" scenes. It should be hard, but possible, to get through negotiations or combat with a party containing a reckless, rude and dirty barbarian and a greedy, cowardly rogue, really played according to their concepts. Or, maybe, it should result in failure, but not one that would ruin the adventure.</blockquote>

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