would It be a good idea to add a +20% XP incentive to players for role playing their characters for the whole session?
No.
Roleplay or other positive behavior can be encouraged with mechanical rewards, but maybe not XP, and certainly not a whole 20%.
>>47533074
20% no
but every time someone tries to rp their character you should keep track and give them bonuses, even if they roleplay badly or it leads to something bad happening
My games never really ever focus around combat so a good 50-70% of the groups xp comes from role play.
Rest comes from if the party reached a goal or objective we set.
XP for "good roleplaying" basically becomes "whoever can entertain the GM the most gets to level up faster."
This will never NOT be the case.
I would say no to exp but add extra rewards for roleplaying. Like either more information from NPCs, have npcs become allies and help out, etc. But if you want
I roll diplomacy at bob the farmer
You pass
Bob and I are friends
then thats fine too. Its about having fun
>>47533074
In a barely related note:
How does /tg/ feel about the notion of personal narration instead of straight role playing? Using third-person limited instead of first-person when indicating what your character does.
>>47533415
It depends on the character. If you're trying to RP an erudite 16INT 18CHA statesman, it's often a good idea to focus on how things are being said rather than trying to speak like somebody you're not. Same goes in reverse, pretending to be a retard can be tricky to get down. I personally also encourage 3rd person and not specifying words for in-person sessions when somebody's playing a character with a massively different voice. (98lb twig playing the half-ogre barbarian, or the little girl, or the sentient jellyfish hive, or whatever)
Really though, whatever works works.
>>47533074
Only if the bonus is given to the whole group equally, without explaining who earned it.
You don't want to be in the position of judging what is good roleplay and what isn't. Someone will be royally pissed off.
Someone will argue that they deserve more XP for their effort. You can pull rule zero and shut them up, but they won't agree with you.
Someone will find out they literally *can't* roleplay to your standards no matter how long they've been trying, and they'll despair and want to leave.
>>47533278
>>47533074
Just in general 'if you role play you get XP'? No.
But there are games that include role play elements and character progression in their mechanics as a primary way of gaining experience.
>>47536040
You could have just said it's not a good idea.
I tried it for one game I ran and I ended up not liking it, the issue was that some players were getting the bonus almost every session while others almost never got it, this ended up creating an imbalance in the party, also since the good roleplayers were earning xp every session even when the others started roleplaying more they were always going to be behind.
Long story short I gave the players who were behind an extra session to earn the difference and then got rid of the rule
Stop using XP.
It's time to grow up. You're a big boy now.
>>47533074
>I need to bribe my players to get them to partake in one of the core aspects of the whole exercise.
I also like to give out little gold stars to dinner guests who talk to other guests and eat the food.
If your group won't role-play without some kind of mechanical incentive you should just play a fucking boardgame instead of keep trying to make the role-playing happen, jesus.
>>47533074
I stopped using XP altogether a while back, because my players wouldn't stop whining about how close they were to leveling, or who had more XP and who deserved it, and all that mess.
They kept wanting to grind out XP until the next level. Fucking no, I'm not going to run a video game for you. I play TTRPGs to avoid all the shitty parts of video games.
One guy even got salty when I wouldn't give him XP for a pvp duel.
Anyway, complaining aside, if I did still use XP, I'd give them bonuses for things like social encounters, or actions that were relevant to the game. The dangerous part is when some players get ahead of others.
>>47533074
If you stop playing with shitty plays you won't have to bribe them to play as their characters.
>>47536316
I just have my players gain levels at regular and appropriate intervals/story points, unless they've found a way to do fuck all rather than actually adventuring. Extra rewards come in more material things for their efforts- payment, allies, or the joy of imaginary violence.
I haven't had any complaints.
>>47533278
But you're wrong and also stupid
>>47533278
That depends on how you do it. The usual XP for good rolplaying has two problems
> GM and players never discuss their characters personality. Forcing the GM to guess at it. Those that the GM guesses correctly, typically because they are more stereotypical characters, get more roleplay XP.
> The GM needs to notice the RP. Certain PC personalities are more noticeable than others, so they get more XP.
To solve it, you need to do two things:
- Have players define their characters personality at character creation. Even a one sentence motto is enough. Letting players change this for free between sessions should be allowed to represent character development.
- At the end of the session, the GM awards the roleplay XP to whoever stuck to their defined personality. Each player either gets the full RP XP, or they get none.
I've done this in a system that awards a third of the XP this way. I only had one session where one player was acting so out of character to deny him the XP.
>>47536063
Why? It works.
Only if everyone is ok if some players get ahead of others in power. Some people are shy and don't speak up, it's harsh to "punish" them by only talking when they need to and not being able to stay totally in character.
>>47533074
Yes.
But only if characters who are mechanically optimised, and who deal the biggest numbers during combat,
get a +20% bonus to GM Fiat, favouritism, and having NPC interaction go the way they want it to go.
Good at building your character?
Get a bonus to roleplaying.
Good at roleplaying?
Get a bonus to building your character.
It's only fair.
>But what if you're good at both roleplaying AND building your character
You get both bonuses!
>>47533074
> +20% XP
Context required. But yes getting /small/ amounts of extra EXP for good roleplaying is pretty common.
>>47536480
>One guy even got salty when I wouldn't give him XP for a pvp duel.
Because those reward XP. "Defeat" doesn't mean "Kill". It usually does, but PvPing until surrender or KO counts as a defeat.
>>47533278
But anon, good RP is always about entertaining GM (and other players) with your RP.
If you don't like idea of leaving it in arbitrary hands of the GM and subject only to his personal tastes, you might instead leave it to vote or open discussion amongst the players, provided you have mature and sensible enough group.
This also works only with giving total XP at the end of a session i nstead of rewarding individual encounters and achievements, but this is the best method of dealing with XP either way.
>>47537262
It does not work. Characters always develop in play in different way than any theoretical psychological background you created beforehand. Sticking to pre-made theory is not important. What's important is consistency and being able to feel the character and act it out with this feeling. RP is all about creating a good story together, not about sticking to some patterns in your head even if they DO NOT WORK in reality.
>Join a new group
>Playing FF Star wars
>The GM informs me at the end of each session they take a vocal vote on who was the best roleplayer in the group and they get between 5-10 exp
>Okay sounds neat
>Other players seem to be more focused just throwing dice at the problems the GM gives them rather than roleplaying it out
>Being a combat focused character I attempt to get more creative with how I do combat with the dice to back it up
>By the third session the GM has voted me to receive the exp every time while the others in the group have just rotated between themselves.
>I say this to the GM in private and he agrees but because he is friends with them he doesn't want to make a problem out of it
>Leave game but remain in contact with the GM because he was a cool guy
Thats been my experience
>>47533074
oh great whichever player jerks the DM off the most and who overacts and drama whores the most gets bonus XP
GURPS uses a mix of objective driven and roleplaying driven XP allocation. No XP for kills, but for achieving your goal. Extra XP for roleplaying.
>>47535672
So you are basically saying that the one who can suck his dick the most, gets the most XP.
Nice. I bet you are the GM's "best friend"...
>>47533074
It has to be more subtle imo.
>>47533074
I tell my players they get bonus experience for roleplayingreally I just budget more experience for them and remove it when they don't roleplay
In my experience people are shit roleplayers and don't care about it. They typically are silent until they have a turn in combat and mutter a few words and then do nothing.
