Post/Author/DateTime	Post
solipsist00 08-01-03, 01:03 PM	hey guys, i'm thinking about implementing a new policy regarding rp experience, and i wanted to post it and get feed back before my campaign starts. heres what i've told my guys: everyone will get combat xp, but people that come up with good ideas, roleplay their character well, or turn down the chance to metagame will get a hash mark next to their name. people who do stupid things, act completely out of character or metagame will have one of their hash marks erased. at the end of the night the hash marks are tallied and bonus xp is handed out. and to clarify no character can go negative from the hash marks. the bonus xp is just that, bonus and has no way of effecting the combat xp. is this a good idea? thanks, solipsist00
MinusInnocence 08-01-03, 01:08 PM	Yes. The players who take advantage of the opportunity to explore their character, will get twice as much for their trouble; i.e., they will actually get some extra XP, to boot. The players who don't... well, they'll find themselves falling behind. At first it may or may not be a big deal, but when they realize they're a level or more behind the roleplayers it will dawn on them that something is very wrong. Note: Don't assign a flat award. It will either be too much or too little, depending on the character's level. Rather, make how much you hand out per tally mark a function of their level; so, you may decide on 50 to 100 XP per mark, per level (thus, a 2nd level character might get anywhere from 100 to 200 XP for every tally mark they attain, above and beyond any combat experience).
Balthasar 08-01-03, 03:32 PM	Originally posted by MinusInnocence Note: Don't assign a flat award. It will either be too much or too little, depending on the character's level. Rather, make how much you hand out per tally mark a function of their level; so, you may decide on 50 to 100 XP per mark, per level (thus, a 2nd level character might get anywhere from 100 to 200 XP for every tally mark they attain, above and beyond any combat experience). That's a great idea! Yay for math! lol :) Sewiously, though... I really do like it and would never have thought of doing that myself.
Malben 08-01-03, 03:53 PM	I award bonus XP for good roleplay, too. It's not something I find necessary, but I still do it because I like to encourage people to get into and stay in character. I even have a couple systems I use to decide how much XP I'm handing out. When I run a good-aligned game, where the party is entirely of good and neutral alignment and is therefore operating WHOLLY as a cooperative venture, I put it to a secret ballot at the end of every gaming session, asking people to give me the name of the player they thought put out the best roleplay that evening. I tally the votes, and then award XP as follows: 1 vote -- 50 XP 2 votes -- 75 XP 3 votes -- 100 XP 4 votes -- 125 XP 5 votes -- 150 XP I tend to award a bit more in high-level campaigns, and a bit less in low-level ones, but this is a baseline value I like to use. This little bit of XP isn't enough to push a given player ahead unless he or she is consistently receiving 2-3 votes a session. But it's a nice thing for the spellcasters with item creation feats, since it gives them fuel for their little projects. When I'm running an evil campaign, or some other scenario where the PCs are at odds with or competing against each other, I use a different set of criteria. Each player gets a tick mark or something every time the character does something that I, as a DM, consider particularly useful, successful, amusing, or good for his or her own self-interest. At the end of a scenario, I total up XP from encounters. Then I divide the encounter XP by the number of characters participating, and award that as per usual. For these sorts of scenario's, though, I am also keeping a list of mission objectives, secondary objectives, and things like that. I assign anywhere from 10 to 200 XP per objective, and I highlight those objectives which are necessary for a Successful Mission (tm). If a mission is completed, I add its assigned XP to this secondary counter. If it is totally missed, I don't. At my discretion, I'll award partial XP. Once the total XP is added up, I divide this by the number of crucial objectives attained. Then the players get 25% of this total per tick mark. Yes, that's a complicated system. It's complicated in part because I like to be sure that my players can't figure out exactly how I'm calculating bonus XP. They're welcome to try to exploit or beat the system in game. Out of game, however, I don't go for that sort of thing, and don't want them to play to what they think I want in order to grab extra XP. Not that I really think they would. They're a good bunch, and I love gaming with them. But just in case . . . .
solipsist00 08-01-03, 04:15 PM	i'm probably going to use the formula that Dash brought up recently which was: 25xp for good but useless ideas 50xp for good usefull ideas 75xp for an idea that saves a pc or important npc's life 100xp for an idea that saves the party then multiply this by character level as they develope. and of course the reverse will also be true. thanks, solipsist00