Tuesday, March 16, 2010

From: Kate M.

How do you encourage roleplaying over combat? Good question! Of course, sometimes the game system itself encourages roleplaying over combat, as is the case of the World of Darkness system.

Remember, though, that as the moderator, you can establish your own guidelines for how a player gains experience. In my own Chronicle, for example, I offer experience points for entertaining roleplaying as well as completing the 'homework' I email them. So conceivably, you could offer a 'bonus' amount for good roleplaying. But if you'd rather not give out a lot of experience points, then offer the players some scenarios that discourage combat. For example, say there's a law in your world against killing talking green flugelhorns. Have your players encounter one that is blocking their path and won't let them pass without answering a series of questions designed to be answered in character. If they kill it, they're breaking the law and should be punished accordingly. If they answer the questions correctly, then they should be rewarded.

Another suggested is a little more sneaky: have a few of your NPCs have some pertinent clues to the player's current adventure. If they kill or ignore the NPC's, they lose out on this information. If they roleplay, however, then they might possibly be able to avoid a nasty trap or save some valuable time looking for an item.

Good luck!

From: David "Yogi" U.

Hey John! First off, thanks for all the work you do on this project. The newsletter is wonderful and I keep hard copy of it usually around my AD&D Planescape campaign. It works wonderfully for spurring ideas, both for me and my players.

Now, on the subject of encouraging roleplaying, I find one thing that most people don't use that works very well. I use magic items to develop characters. Stealing an idea from Earthdawn, players get connected to their most favorite items, and sometime find additional powers. The identify spell doesn't do much in my game, as items must be tested to be figured out (great fun with potions). I find that the items, especially multi-use items that evolve with the character help mold the character, and yet help the player think about the character evolving. Most of my players grab onto this, and run with it to levels far beyond expectations, and discovering their item works with them, or sometime, opposite of them, makes great opportunities for roleplaying.


From: Patrick R.

I usually encourage my players into role-playing their characters by giving them special attributes, skills and items. For an example, if your player is role-playing an average ranger, he might get bored, BUT, try to give that ranger something special, like the ability to speak with specific animals, a magical sword which belonged to someone close to him (i.e. dead father, old friend etc.) and which therefore has special sentimental value to the character.

You should also encourage your players into role-playing by rewarding good role-plaers with experience points. For an example, if your player can really act like his/her character would, give his/her character some exp. and he/she will probably continue doing it, and he/she might encourage other players into good role-playing, as the easy exps. are somewhat tempting :)

From: James

To respond to your question about how to get players to roleplay I have a couple of suggestions:
1. I have a friend who always sets 15 minutes aside to do some sort of instantaneous roleplaying, i.e., improv to get his players in the habit of roleplaying. If you have ever seen Who's Line is it Anyhow? with Drew Carrey, you'll know what I mean.
2. Also, I've seen players roleplay more if they see others do it, so I always remind my players that there is a 10% XP bonus for roleplaying well. Along that line, it is helpful to talk to your players one at a time before your game begins to ask them to roleplay and work with you.
3. Along the lines of the first one, try sample encounters that might popup in the upcoming game such as: "A friend you know well just advised the master of your guild to put a bounty on your head for a crime you haven't committed, how does your character handle the situation?"



From: Maxim K.

You requested some tips about converting tactical-combat- loving-berserkers into good roleplayers :-)
1. Rewards...covered in the Roleplaying Tips newsletter (#50 & #51). Do give rewards for talking (most RPG Systems only give EPs for fighting...).
2. Let the players face a situation where fighting is obviously no solution, if your players are so fanatic that they would fight even then, make it obvious that the kind of death their chars will face is not worthy of a hero (i.e. being eaten by gigantic ants or such).
3. Make fights look and feel deadly, modify the rules if needed.
Do NOT use tabletop equipment/miniatures!!! They distract players from thinking of combat as something chaotic + dangerous, but rather as a kind of tactical game they can plan. Unfortunately, in a game with miniatures the players do not visualize