The Ebberon campaign setting introduced the "Action Points" system that can be used for similar results, but I found it to be somewhat lacking, being based purely upon character level, rather than the players achievements.
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The Roleplaying Bonus
Why institute a roleplaying bonus?
Dungeons and Dragons centers around two distinct worlds; those actions governed by the mechanics of the game (attack rolls, skills checks, etc.) and those actions that are purely social or role-playing related.
Both can be equally rewarding, challenging, and fun, and I believe that both are equally important to an exciting and interesting game. Under the official printed rules, the DM is entitled to mingle these two worlds, causing roleplaying to influence mechanical results, or basing NPC actions and attitudes off of mechanically generated events.
However, I feel that this can and should be taken to a higher level of involvement. The simplistic interaction in the rules as written can be greatly improved upon.
Further, the Roleplaying Bonus acts as an incentive and reward for players who advance the plot, or go out of their way to put themselves in the role of their character. This encourages a greater level of "immersion" in the game, resulting in a more enjoyable experience for all.
What is the Roleplaying Bonus?
The Roleplaying Bonus is a small reward given at the DM's discretion to players who exhibit particularly impressive roleplaying. This bonus stays with the player until used and there is a "cumulative" effect, encouraging players to save this resource until it is needed.
Every character in Dungeons and Dragons aspires to become a great hero (or perhaps, a great villain). Even if they begin as mere bounty-hunters and thrill-seekers, eventually they will establish a life-long goal that drives nearly everything they do. Perhaps they seek to unite the Three Kingdoms, or maybe they seek the ancient artifact that would re-awaken the lost splendor and glory of the halfling race.
Even if they don't have a definable, over-arching goal, all characters will develop a distinct personality and work towards what they see as a better tomorrow.
The roleplaying bonus is intended to foster within players the desire to "become" their characters, taking on their goals and aspirations, even if this might not be (mechanical speaking) the best choice.
Awarding a Roleplaying Bonus
Awarding a roleplaying bonus is an entirely ad-hoc decision. The DM should carefully consider whether or not an action should entitle the character to a roleplaying bonus or not.
The following actions could result in awarding a bonus:
-Roleplaying your character to a high degree in a believable manner
-A particularly impressive dedication to ones alignment, faith, personality, etc. This could include acts of self-sacrifice or extreme acts of kindness or cruelty.
-Doing something that essentially violates your alignment, faith, personality, but which you carry through with for other compelling reasons.
-Taking a major step towards your characters long-term goals
The following actions should probably never result in a bonus:
-Doing something that is essentially beneficial in every way to your character, or carries no real repercussions.
-Taking a certain skill, feat, or prestige class that suits your background (while this may be admirable, this does not warrant a roleplaying bonus because it is essentially a mechanical choice).
Accumulating and using Roleplaying Bonuses
When the DM awards a roleplaying bonus, it will be in terms of a "+1" to a "+5" bonus. A +1 bonus would be for something ordinary or simply a commendable roleplaying performance. A +5 bonus would be for an astounding demonstration, such as a paladin staying behind in the depths to fight off swarms of demons in order to give the rest of the party time to escape.
This bonus stays with your character as long as you want. Additional bonuses stack, and you can have up to a +10 total bonus at any time.
You can choose to expend any amount of this bonus at any time to increase any attack roll, saving throw, or skill check by the amount of bonus expended, even after the roll has been made.
It is possible to continuously accumulate and expend roleplaying bonuses during combat through dialogue and other interactions, although this would require significant effort on the player's part.
Alternatively, you can expend up to +5 points of bonus to gain additional experience at any time your character would normally gain experience. The amount of extra experience gained is equal to the amount of bonus points expended squared, and then multiplied by 100. So if a player chose to expend a +2 bonus, he would gain 400 extra exp, but if he saved up and chose to instead expend a +4 bonus, he could gain an extra 1600 exp.
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I disagree completely with the mechanic suggested for engendering roleplaying.
The DM's praise or approval is probably the most powerful tools at your disposal, and the most appropriate one to be used in this circumstance.
If someone plays extremely well, then at the end of the session, tell them so. Say it in front of everyone. "Joe, I thought the way you roleplayed your negotiations with the Ettin was outstanding. Great game. That’s the kind of roleplaying that makes it great to be a DM."
It seems wholly inappropriate to be rewarding an in-game character for the actions of a player. The Monk character should not be rewarded above and beyond the ranger character, simply because the Monk's player has an outgoing personality with a theatrical flair, while the ranger's player is shy, introverted, or inexperienced compared to the other players.
Whenever you reward one character, you are in essence penalizing all other characters. This can encourage many of your players to try to one-up the other, which isn't all that bad, but it can lead to some players feeling resentful. It can also lead to accusations (or perceptions) of favoritism, that you prefer one player above and beyond the others... which is what you technically are doing when you reward one and not the others.
If you feel that your praise of a player is an inadequate tool, and that you absolutely must use an in-game mechanic to convey how important roleplaying is to you, then I think your best option is to give EVERYONE the same bonus, but tell everyone that they get the bonus on account of Player "A"'s outstanding job at the table. This allows you to single out a great player, and encourage future great roleplaying, it avoids rewarding one character over the others, it avoids accusations or perceptions of favoritism, and encourages most of the players to do their best roleplaying in order to gain the party rewards. Some players will never be great roleplayers due to their personality... by rewarding the team for the actions of a few individuals, you do not unduly penalize the shy player.
PS: These same arguments above apply just as much to DMs who would hand out individual experience rewards for roleplaying. Roleplaying is something that should be expected at your table, but not to the extent of penalizing or excluding the shy players.
I suggest changing the point cap. Allow the PCs to gain a number of 'bonus points' equal to thier level. This way you don't get a 2nd level wizard being able to get upwards of +5 on thier attack rolls. And as the game progresses, it gets more and more powerful, as well as more and more useful. This way, high-level PCs won't be restricted by the +10 cap.
Other than that, the only other problem I can see is the varying uses to the system. This works well assuming that the PCs are all RPing, but what if they're not? What if they're all RPing, but only one of them is cashing in their points for XP, while all the others are using it in combat? In these situations, you end up with one character who is mechanically stronger than the other PCs and will inevitably dominate the game after a certain point in time if it’s not kept in check.
All in all, great concept, just with a few bugs that need to be worked out.
Either way I think I’m gonna try your system in my next campaign
~Spy
The Ebberon campaign setting introduced the "Action Points" system that can be used for similar results, but I found it to be somewhat lacking, being based purely upon character level, rather than the players achievements.
I like the system you've presented here. It's interesting. But to say that the standard Eberron action point system is lacking because it is based on character level rather than character/player achievements doesn't really make sense. Afterall, level advancement is based on experiences which are gained through the achievements of a character.
I like this a lot. I may try to implement it into my campaign. When we started, it was mostly hack n' slash. Now the players are roleplaying a lot more. I've been handing out a few hundred XP here and there for bonuses. I like your system, because they can use the bonus in several different ways, or even XP if that's still what they want.
I tip my hat to you.
The reason why I do not agree, is that a D&D game for me is somewhat a question of team play, where all members of the group have some responsibility towards achieving the common goal of having fun. In all groups in which I have played, some players take up more space than others, which is fine because if everyone was to attempt to talk as much as the one that talks most, I think games would become more chaotic. Some players have a personality that is more discreet or reserved than others, which is fine with me.
With that in mind, I am of the impression that rewarding players for their role-playing with tangible bonuses that can be used in-game or for gaining more experience points, is likely to favor those that take up more space and talk more and might even push some players into acting for the reward instead of for the game itself. I have no problem in letting one player taking up more space in the role-playing side if everyone is comfortable with the situation, i.e. if he doesn't bully everyone to take this space. And I would not wish to reward this player more than others.
I find that role-playing is something that is fun to do in and of itself, and I think that players would benefit from approaching the game in this manner. For me, issuing rewards for role-playing is like going to the baseball field in the park with your friends and neighbors to play a game and paying your team mates that manage to drive runs in. I think that for baseball like for D&D, players should want to play the game in and for itself, and not for the rewards that are given out for doing so.
Also, one question that is likely to eventually come up, is the way that the DM hands out those rewards. Some players might feel that they have done some good role-playing at some point and they were not rewarded because the DM did not find it was in any way out of the ordinary (or perhaps he was simply not thinking about rewards at that particular time), while some other players got rewarded at some other point for role-playing that might not be considered worthy of a reward by most. Most mature players will not make a case out of it, but all players faced with such arbitrary decisions will obviously think about it, and I believe that this is not likely to improve the mood around the table.
Sky
Now, with the AP system in Eberron, I am thinking about dropping the XP system and simply rewarding good roleplaying with the spontaneous regeneration of a used AP.
Great system! Anything to keep the spirit alive!
The players who have earned these points have carried themselves with more pride, and the party obviously recognizes their achievements. This has caused a few of the players to really come out of their shells, and I've rewarded their efforts.
Overall, I've seen a vast improvement in the roleplaying at the table, and to my delight, I found that they were not just trying to gain these points, but that they were genuinely beginning to enjoy the roleplaying aspect of the game more. For example, after an encounter with vampires, the wis 9, int 8 barbarian began to think that he was a vampire, and there was an engaging, thirty-minute long discussion as to how they could prove or disprove this.
If you choose to incorporate this feature into your game, be very highly selective about handing these points out. They need to be attainable, but not easy to get. They need to be rare enough to be special, but there need to be enough of them to be useful.
At the end of a session everyone who played smart (we have a lot of n00bs in the group) gets one point. Everyone who roleplayed well gets one or possibly two points if they did a really good job. Then everyone who did something absolutely insane gets a point. After a player has received 20 RPing points they auto go up a level. Because of the session to leveling ratio my group has, someone who doesn’t roleplay could find themselves at level 8 when the rest of the party is at level 10. Luckily there is usually only a gap of about 4 points (2 sessions on average) between the most and least point holders.
Once I tripped a BBEG wizard, started a grapple and threw us off a 50ft tower just because I hated him that much, once we hit the water I held him down until he suffocated (w00t to fighter saves!) then I swam to shore. I received 3 points that session for extremely good roleplaying and insane actions/luck, but I didn't get the smart playing point
I know that a mechanical, systematic reward for roleplaying rubs some people the wrong way, but this is why I highly caution anyone who wants to use a system like this to think long and hard about how it will affect their group. It can (as it has been in my game thus far) be a great way to enrich the gaming experience and add some incentive for roleplaying, but it could also lead to one-ups-manship, frustration, and other tensions within the group.
I like the idea of scaling the experience rewards with level. I don't know why I didn’t' think about that before; I'll give it some thought and post an edit to the original post.