Bringing Role Playing Back to the Game

[Snowy]

Being that I like to really run games that focus on Role Playing, a Friend and myself have come up with a Experience Point System that really rewards players for Role Playing instead of just getting experience for hack and slash and adventure rewards.

Figured I would share it with everyone, and see what you all think of it.

Experience to make a Level: 40 when you make a level, any extra points carry over as progress towards the next level.

Experience Points are given out twice in a session. Usually at some good stopping point halfway through the session, and at the end of the session.

One other thing worth mentioning, is that each reward can only be gained once per session.

Mid Session Experience

Participation: 1 Exp - Character was active in the session.

Good Role Playing: 1 Exp - Player stayed in character for most of the session.

Creative Idea: 1 Exp - Character came up with a really creative idea to solve an issue or task.

Heroic Action: 1 Exp - Character did something that went above and beyond the expected.

Outstanding Success: 1 Exp - Player rolled a Natural 20

Outstanding Failure: 1 Exp - Player Rolled a Natural 1

Personal Goal: 1 Exp - Character made progress towards a personal goal or completed a personal goal. I usually require players to have goals for their character written down, and it actually has to have some personal meaning, other than getting money, or walking out of a building. If it can be completed in 1 session or less, I don't let players count it.

Group Goal: 1 Exp - Usually the Characters have some goal to take care of when a session is going on. If they have made progress towards or completed it, they get the reward.

End Session Experience

The End Session rewards are just like the Mid Session rewards. Players can't count anything they might not of gotten credit for in the Start Session to Mid Session. This is a whole new session.

For example if the player rolled a few natural 20's, since they got the reward in the Mid Session, they can't claim one of their other rolls in the period of Mid Session to End Session.

There is a new addition to the Experience Rewards, it's called Session Title. Unlike the other rewards; Session Title can only be claimed by 1 player.

Session Title: 2 Exp - Consider everything that has happened from the Start Session to the End Session a chapter in a book. Every player takes a piece of scrap paper or whatever and writes a title for the chapter. Out of fairness, I have the players hand all of their titles to another player, and that player reads the title, and I chose which title I like.

[Astralplaydoh]

I'm a fan of anything that takes the focus away from killing monsters for XP and brings roleplaying to the fore front.

However, this seems like a lot of extra book keeping. Why not just get rid of the experience points all together. The GM decides when everyone levels up based on the story. Then just give out "bennies" "hero points" "action points", whatever you want to call them, whenever someone does something RP related such as those things you listed.

A lot less work.

[Wyrd_Wik]

I agree with the OP that its important to encourage role-playing but I concur with the other poster. I dropped using xp entirely from PF giving out hero points or bennies seems a better way to go to reward rping. Depending on the group you can forego this too but if players need some motivation it certianly works.

[Hodge Podge]

I sort of like the "gold star" approach. It's like giving out star stickers to kids in school for doing well. I think giving out points like that could really encourage some players to play better. And it's fun, like a game within a game. I imagine bookkeeping wouldn't be too hard. Just have a checklist printed out for each session.

That being said, I generally do a "no XP, level and bennies when appropriate" approach as well.

[Cos1983]

I like your break down. I think I might adopt something similar for an e6 game I want to run.

[Kolokotroni]

Personally I like rewarding good roleplaying, but I dont like the idea of it being tied so tightly to xp. With such a small xp system (40points to level) good rpers who come up with awesome ideas and are quick with their 'session names' and personal goals will level dramatically faster then people who arent. I dont think that is good for any group, I consider challenges overcome by the whole group (including roleplaying situations) when dealing out xp. And for good roleplay/creative ideas I grant hero points when I am using them.

[Snowy]

Hearing what everyone is saying and taking it all in. I guess it would all be a matter of your preferred GMing style.

Yes 40 EXP doesn't seem like a really big number, but when taking into account how the system is set up, a player can gain a level roughly every 3 gaming sessions. Which with the group I play with a gaming session can be anywhere from 5 to 6 hours. Keep in mind 1 gaming session is from the time we start playing, till we decide to call it a night.

As for Personal Goals, this is where the GM and the players talk about what they have for some ideas and it's gauged from there. It's a bit of a balancing act but if done right, it doesn't let players get one over on the system. For example if someone was trying to build a castle. If their character just drew up the map and that was the only progress towards their "building a castle" I wouldn't let them count it, it has to be at least some significant move towards their goal. It is a juggling act, and I guess it depends on the players too, as a Player and GM using this system, there hasn't been any wars over if the GM said, If you make some more progress next session, you will probably be able to gain it.

As for book keeping, there really isn't a lot of book keeping at all. You can spend maybe 4 or 5 minutes if that writing up a printable spreadsheet that will cover X number of sessions.

Session names, i'm assuming you are referring to Session Titles. It doesn't matter how quickly someone writes. It's also good for a nice little wind down period at the end of the night, people can relax. Maybe that should of had a bit of clarification, each player can only write 1 title. So you might be with a group of 6 players, but as a GM you are not going to be bombarded with 40 titles, you hears 6 titles, the person reading them doesn't say who wrote them, and the GM picks which title they like the most from the ones read. The GM never sees the title, only hears them read out.