[RPG] Experience Awards For Role-Playing; Should I keep it

experience-pointspathfinder-1eroleplaying

When I GM, I award bonus experience for roleplaying. My intent is to promote roleplaying from my players, who occasionally fail to remember that it's a 'roleplaying game.' It's generally a small amount, and I randomize it, to an extent.

For anyone who's curious, here's my exact method; Based on my personal opinion of how well they depicted their character, I assign my players one of three 'tiers' at the end of the game, in the form of a d4, d6, or d12. The first is if they didn't roleplay at all, or did so very poorly. The d6 is for active effort to roleplay, and get into character. The d12 is a reward for going above and beyond to depict their character. I then roll the selected die for each player, multiply the result by 5, and that is the amount of bonus experience they get. Everyone will fall into one of the three tiers. The only way to be denied this experience is if a player is caught meta-gaming, specifically to cheat. Luckily, the last has rarely been a problem for me.

Most recently, I've had a problem with a player who feels I'm not assigning him the appropriate tier. He's a new player to the group. During the first game, his character showed no emotion or interest at all in anything, and the player himself was only interested in optimizing his play. However, after learning of the bonus experience, in recent games he has begun copying other players' actions that earned them a d12 at the end of the game.

The problem: He feels he deserves the d12. I do not. However, I don't want it to seem like I'm forcing my roleplay style on him.

I would just do away with the system, except, it has actually accomplished what I intended it to do. It gets players to roleplay that otherwise don't.

Should I do away with it? Or should I keep it?

Best Answer

As you say, this house rule works well for your group. A new player objecting to a house rule they don't understand is no reason for you to change it.

And they don't understand the point of the house rule. They've observed their fellow players and seen the rule's results, and are trying to adjust their actions to fit what the rule is meant to encourage — and they've misunderstood. Instead of engaging in new, creative roleplaying, they're just copying what they see other players do in a kind of cargo cult roleplaying.

This is also the source of their frustration: they think they've solved the puzzle, and they perceive you denying them the reward for solving it. They haven't understood it though, and rewarding them for missing the point will not help them integrate into your group.

Having put in effort and missed the "target" of understanding the point of the bonus experience, though, you should meet them halfway:

"It's clever how you noticed what the other players did to earn the bonus experience. That's great, but it's only halfway to getting the point of the bonus. The bonus is a reward for individual creativity in roleplaying, so simple copying doesn't earn the bonus.

"Does that make sense? This is an important tool that has worked for us, and I want you to understand what it's for so that it works for you too."

You need to emphasise that you're willing to help the new player get up to speed with the group. Emphasise that, because that's what the conversation should be about — not about whether the rule is useful or not (you already know it is for your group), and not whether the player gets to challenge the award (that's not their job in the group dynamic). Just take it as given that this is how it works, that's not up for discussion and don't bring it up for discussion. Move past those givens without even mentioning them, and instead move right to discussing with the player the point of it and how they can reach that point.


P.S. — Contrary to recent online RPG community fashions that resist XP rewards, this is a common and widespread way for RPGs and groups to work, and entirely functional when done fairly and impartially. Current fashion is simply that — passing fashion. Fashion is not legit grounds to tell you it's a bad way to run your game.