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ShadowsGrnEyes
2009-11-02, 10:30 PM
OK so my usual group has a number of people who used to know how to balance their optimizing and their flavor, but as time moved on they sort of slid down the slipper slope of building for power first, everything else second or last in some cases.

I love that my group likes to optimize. I dont have to pull punches on monsters to keep them alive and they do some really cool stuff that makes for fun play. But I miss when my players would spend feats and skill on flavor.

the last time anyone spent a feat on getting a dragon cohort to ride was eons ago. the last time anyone other than the bard kept a perform or profession skill capped was also eons ago. the last time i had a player write a story first, then build to suit was ages ago. . . the only time people take spell thematics is when I give it for free cause i like the concept.

How do I encourage my group to bring in the flavor and depth to their characters that they used to bring before they were optimizers.

Constructive advise only! (saying find new players is not constructive)

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-11-02, 10:32 PM
DnD is not the type of game that typically rewards putting skill points into Profession: Chef rather than Bluff.

wykydtron
2009-11-02, 10:36 PM
DnD is not the type of game that typically rewards putting skill points into Profession: Chef rather than Bluff.

Unless you bluff your way into chef school and steal everything and sell it later.

Milskidasith
2009-11-02, 10:37 PM
My advice: Reward good RPing with EXP. As for putting points in skills... D&D is notorious for being terrible at allowing you to do things. I mean, a first level, average human can't know anything that isn't common knowledge in anything except three subjects and is incapable of doing anything more exciting with food than making it from a box. It's not exactly D&Ds forte to model the fluff of your character. Wasting skills on professions just so you can have crunch that backs up your fluff of "I am a travelling adventurer cook" just doesn't work for most characters.

Or you could, you know, give them skill points that can only be spent on professions, and feats only for fluff things that don't work well with their build.

ShadowsGrnEyes
2009-11-02, 10:44 PM
you could, you know, give them skill points that can only be spent on professions, and feats only for fluff things that don't work well with their build.

I've done this before and it doesnt really help cause they still build for power first, then throw on the flavor as extras, they dont incorporate it as thouroughly as they used to. . . . I also think its a bit annoying that i should have to give people free stuff to do somthing they used to do just fine without getting free stuff. . the game was just as fun if not more so before they decided to go all power-gamey

Kylarra
2009-11-02, 10:47 PM
It's not something you're going to get a mechanical fix for. The best thing you can do is just talk to your players, but D&D is not a game that rewards making suboptimal [mechanically speaking] choices in the name of fluff and does reward [mechanically speaking again] making optimal [mechanical] choices and rewriting fluff to suit your concept.

Krazddndfreek
2009-11-02, 10:47 PM
First of all, riding a dragon cohort is epicly awesome and anyone with a dragon cohort should ride it. There are virtually no dis-benefits as far as I see and you get to ride a freakin' DRAGON.

A step further in that direction (of rewarding RP with XP), you have each player help create eachother's backstory as a group exercise. Each player has their character's backstory and then every other player states one fact about that player's background. This fact is taken as truth by the character, but it isn't necessarily true. Here's the article I stole this from (http://abutterflydreaming.com/2008/09/03/character-development-hot-potato/) :smallbiggrin:

GoodbyeSoberDay
2009-11-02, 10:48 PM
the game was just as fun if not more so before they decided to go all power-gameyYour players obviously don't think so. Or if they do they're sort of weird.

UglyPanda
2009-11-02, 10:48 PM
Crappy characters do not necessarily mean good roleplaying. I've met terrible roleplayers who slap skill ranks and feats where they should not belong. This did not make them any better at roleplaying. Sometimes it made them worse, since those skills never came up in the character's personality or mannerisms.

If you decide to give out roleplaying xp, you need to make sure you don't reward people for being dramatic rather than being in-character. If you reward people for individual events of good roleplaying, then they're going to ham it up and do things that seem out of character just to get experience. It's better to reward players who know what they're doing with their character and acting like it.

Gralamin
2009-11-02, 10:48 PM
OK so my usual group has a number of people who used to know how to balance their optimizing and their flavor, but as time moved on they sort of slid down the slipper slope of building for power first, everything else second or last in some cases.

I love that my group likes to optimize. I dont have to pull punches on monsters to keep them alive and they do some really cool stuff that makes for fun play. But I miss when my players would spend feats and skill on flavor.

the last time anyone spent a feat on getting a dragon cohort to ride was eons ago. the last time anyone other than the bard kept a perform or profession skill capped was also eons ago. the last time i had a player write a story first, then build to suit was ages ago. . . the only time people take spell thematics is when I give it for free cause i like the concept.

How do I encourage my group to bring in the flavor and depth to their characters that they used to bring before they were optimizers.

Constructive advise only! (saying find new players is not constructive)

Simple.

You want players to take option X, but there is no mechanical reason to do so.
Slip to your players that you are planning on adding mechanical awards for players to take option X. More will take option X.

Example: 4e has a feat called linguist. Almost no one takes it. Tell players you plan on having different languages frequently in the campaign, and there may be mechanical awards such as extra loot for knowing the languages. Watch how many people start taking Linguist.

Milskidasith
2009-11-02, 10:49 PM
I've done this before and it doesnt really help cause they still build for power first, then throw on the flavor as extras, they dont incorporate it as thouroughly as they used to. . . . I also think its a bit annoying that i should have to give people free stuff to do somthing they used to do just fine without getting free stuff. . the game was just as fun if not more so before they decided to go all power-gamey

The thing is, they are even less likely to fluff their character up if you force them to waste feats and skills on it. I mean, just think about it from both perspectives:

No freebies:

Powergamer: Ok, my character can just say he's a good cook, but... seriously, why the hell would I want to put points in a check that affects literally nothing besides maybe earning me one or two GP when we're sitting around in town?

Roleplayer: Huh, if I waste my feat on Spell Thematics and Dragon Cohort, I can be an awesome guy riding a dragon who casts spells like I want to be... but I seem to be taking up a lot of the scrolls of ressurection we find every time I die. Maybe if I just said my spells looked different, but didn't take the feat?

With freebies:

Powergamer: Sweet, I can make my build, and on the side, I can add some fluff to make my character more than just a build. I might not use it much, but hey, I can have a mechanical way of showing I am a better cook than the other players, rather than just base it on fluff.

Roleplayer: Sweet, my spells can look how I want and I can fly around on an awesome dragon (that doesn't get targeted or attack, granted) and I'm not too much weaker than Spike over there. Seems to be less scrolls of resurrection floating around, though. Ah, whatever.

taltamir
2009-11-02, 10:49 PM
How do I encourage my group to bring in the flavor and depth to their characters that they used to bring before they were optimizers.

Houserule it that they are not HORRIBLY penalized for it. The core rules are terrible at that aspect, if you want something non standard or cool it will stomp you into the ground, and you die, a lot. People do not want to invest their effort into a character that will die, or that will let others in the party die..

my suggestion is to make some alterations to the system. For example, seperate all skills into "core" (combat & utility) and "flavor". At every level characters get a few flavor skill points that can only go into flavor skills. Combine a bunch of combat / utility skills... and change the bard dependancy on perform into a new skill called "perform (bardic magic)" - or just make it level dependant. which simply allows you to release your magic in any way you want.

Any specific perform skill is now a flavor skill. Most craft skills are as well. etc

Give flavor feats too, which can be skill focus in any flavor skills, or abilities that are pure flavor.

jiriku
2009-11-02, 10:50 PM
Put crunch behind the fluff. Then the fluff becomes mechanically advantageous. For example:

An important NPC knows a critical fact, but can only be prepared to share it with a successful Diplomacy check.
Players are expected to disguise themselves as performers to infiltrate a site. Disguise and Perform checks are necessary for success.
A notable craftsman makes valuable equipment, but it's known that he reserves his best work for those who can appreciate it. Make a Craft (weaponsmithing) or Profession (blacksmith) check or he refuses to build masterwork gear for you.

Optimizers are very alert about what skills are valuable in any given DM's campaign. If your players are abandoning fluff skills and heading towards hardcore battle optimization, it's probably because you've been building adventures that reward the ability to kill stuff. To wean them away, build adventures where the ability to kill stuff isn't especially important, but the ability to persuade or impress others, or to retrieve an obscure bit of information, is very valuable.

taltamir
2009-11-02, 10:51 PM
Put crunch behind the fluff. Then the fluff becomes mechanically advantageous. For example:

An important NPC knows a critical fact, but can only be prepared to share it with a successful Diplomacy check.
Players are expected to disguise themselves as performers to infiltrate a site. Disguise and Perform checks are necessary for success.
A notable craftsman makes valuable equipment, but it's known that he reserves his best work for those who can appreciate it. Make a Craft (weaponsmithing) or Profession (blacksmith) check or he refuses to build masterwork gear for you.

Optimizers are very alert about what skills are valuable in any given DM's campaign. If your players are abandoning fluff skills and heading towards hardcore battle optimization, it's probably because you've been building adventures that reward the ability to kill stuff. To wean them away, build adventures where the ability to kill stuff isn't especially important, but the ability to persuade or impress others, or to retrieve an obscure bit of information, is very valuable.

magic makes most of this a moot point... anything you have a skill for, magic does better.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2009-11-02, 10:52 PM
magic makes most of this a moot point... anything you have a skill for, magic does better.I was going to say, if you go too far the next game they'll all show up as beguilers.

ShadowsGrnEyes
2009-11-02, 11:00 PM
A step further in that direction (of rewarding RP with XP), you have each player help create eachother's backstory as a group exercise. Each player has their character's backstory and then every other player states one fact about that player's background. This fact is taken as truth by the character, but it isn't necessarily true. Here's the article I stole this from (http://abutterflydreaming.com/2008/09/03/character-development-hot-potato/) :smallbiggrin:


Simple.

You want players to take option X, but there is no mechanical reason to do so.
Slip to your players that you are planning on adding mechanical awards for players to take option X. More will take option X.

Example: 4e has a feat called linguist. Almost no one takes it. Tell players you plan on having different languages frequently in the campaign, and there may be mechanical awards such as extra loot for knowing the languages. Watch how many people start taking Linguist.

You two get cookies for great ideas. I'm so doing both those things! very good advise. . .

COOKIES!!! * *

Kylarra
2009-11-02, 11:01 PM
Here's a thought, that may or may not go too well, but ask for backstories in advance, and then reward people with bonus fluff feats and/or skill ranks based on what you think their backstory warrants. They'll still get the mechanical bonuses, and they'll have incentive to write up more detailed backstories.

Milskidasith
2009-11-02, 11:05 PM
So you don't like giving them freebies, but you do like forcing them to take feats that are worthless just to play your campaign? That's not fun for the optimizer who has to waste feats or for the RPer who might not see his low int character having the Linguist feat.

Putting a skill and feat tax on doing basic activities just means that your players are even more limited in what they can RP, and you can't throw challenging encounters at them.

taltamir
2009-11-02, 11:17 PM
in regards to taking obscure skills... i think part of the problem is that you never, ever, ever use it. which really sucks...

Ask each for a skill or two that they want that is not normally usable, and work it into the plot.

ShadowsGrnEyes
2009-11-02, 11:28 PM
So you don't like giving them freebies, but you do like forcing them to take feats that are worthless just to play your campaign?
Putting a skill and feat tax on doing basic activities just means that your players are even more limited in what they can RP, and you can't throw challenging encounters at them.



ok i never once said i was gonna force anyone to do anything and i never said i was gonna impose a tax, ALL i said was that i was gonna give BONUSes to people who took flavor stuff? where are you getting that i'm gonna force people to do anything?

DragoonWraith
2009-11-02, 11:46 PM
You know, you could just not equate roleplaying with weak choices. Just because their characters are optimized, or weren't optimized before, does not mean that their RP is worse now, or was better before. You don't need a feat or skill points to RP, and saying your players are not roleplaying because they didn't take the feat or skill points required (???) to do so is really disingenuous to your players, I think.

And since I suspect that this isn't what you had in mind when you requested 'constructive' advice, I would point out that really, I am trying to be constructive, even though I'm not giving you exactly what you asked for. Because really, I honestly think that you're being a little narrow-minded here, and I often find that when I am doing that, it helps a lot to have someone point it out to me. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to try to reward flavorful choices (I know I've made some choices like that before, and was a bit disappointed when my DM didn't even comment on it; not that I was fishing for a reward, but would have been nice if it'd been acknowledged), but I think you're expectations here are a little skewed, and it doesn't need to be this way. Because, in the end, I don't think you'll have much success changing the fact that D&D, as a system, is really bad for rewarding this kind of thing.

ShadowsGrnEyes
2009-11-03, 12:11 AM
You know, you could just not equate roleplaying with weak choices. Just because their characters are optimized, or weren't optimized before, does not mean that their RP is worse now, or was better before. You don't need a feat or skill points to RP, and saying your players are not roleplaying because they didn't take the feat or skill points required (???) to do so is really disingenuous to your players, I think.

now this is a very good point. it's not really that they dont take the feats, and the skills that bothers me, it's more that they simply dont put the effort into developing character depth. I think the uselessness of the feats and skills is whats making them make more shallow characters.

it's more of a "oh well that feat is powefull but kind of bland and this one has cool flavor and makes sense for my character but is kinda useless, I want the powerfull feat so I'll just not use flavor since I didnt take the feat." sort of a problem. It would be fine if they'd flavor up the bland stuff.

i'll be the first to admit alot of flavor feats can drop whatever miniscule mechanical benefit they do have and be tied into story and character with no feat at all. . . my players are just apparently to lazy or unimaginative to do that. (i'm going with lazy cause they all used to do it just fine)

Hence my desire to encourage them to use more flavor feats. i think adding better mechanical bonuss to the flavor feats, and maybe adding flavor to good mechanical feats, might be a way to do this, allso the group written backstory feels like a fun idea.

DragoonWraith
2009-11-03, 12:20 AM
You could try adding flavor to the powerful feats. That could work quite well. Something like Power Attack being the secret maneuver of some training dojo in town, or Arcane Thesis actually requiring the character to write a thesis for an arcane university of some sort, would work rather nicely.

Alternatively, make the players RP what they're doing to learn a feat the next level. Like, I have a Sorcerer that I planned to have take a level in Human Paragon so he could take some ranks in Knowledge (The Planes) to qualify for Loremaster. Since he was going to have some other extra class skills, I was also going to pick up some Sleight of Hand for Conceal Spellcasting.

Therefore, in the level before taking Human Paragon, I asked the Wizard to borrow me some books about the planes from the Wizard Academy Library, and asked the Rogue to show me how to pickpocket. It was totally pure RP, just how I described spending the time we were laying low (having committed significant amounts of murder and arson the night before), but I felt it helped justify the path my character was about to take. Stuff like that might help your campaign a lot.

All of this sort of depends on your characters having a lot of downtime, though.

taltamir
2009-11-03, 12:22 AM
mmm... before next level up, ask your players for a few skills or feats that are not good by raw, but that they would LIKE to take (but not take them yet). If you think you can create a campaign where such a skill is actually used consistently, tell said player as such (so he would take it). If you can't think of any possibility of ever using it, then tell them to put it in the back story and say it doesn't take skill points because it will not be used in game.

I really don't think it is a matter of COMBAT optimization... but a matter of "why should I take it if we are not gonna use it, EVER". If you TELL them that it will be used, then you will find suddenly people are taking profession(chef) and perform (exotic dancing) because they want their character to be able to do so.

elliott20
2009-11-03, 12:42 AM
The crux of what I'm seeing here, I believe, is that you're seeing characters who are inherently supreme specialists in adventuring, rather than say, a more well rounded individual like the rest of us who might have a myriad of skills in a bunch of different things simply so that we can function in society. That is, in real life, most of us are not optimized.

So, what you need to do is to encourage people to have reasons for being more well rounded.

The best way to do this is to reward people for using their skills that are not necessarily their specialty or in some way feeds back into their character concept.

However, I don't think giving XP rewards is the best way to go. Simply put, XP is another tool you use to further specialize in your given profession. Fundamentally, XP rewards are not as flexible. Money rewards also don't work nearly as well either, since not every roleplaying experience will necessitate a monetary gain.

This is why I personally use action point rewards. I've posted about this a number of times. But the basic gist is that for roleplaying your character, you get these points that you can use for any roll. It will always give you a flat unnamed bonus to a given roll.

Eberron uses this to great effect, actually. PCs are rewarded with action points which can be used to give bonuses, or if the PCs have taken feats geared towards it, perform other functions as well.

the key here is that you have to make sure the roleplaying award is something that is flexible.

some of the potential uses for the action points, for example, include:

- powering a spell when you're out of spell slots (be careful with this one though)
- giving an unnamed flat bonus to a single roll
- let's the PC change the environment in ways that might seem like deus ex machina
- power a magical item that might have already been tapped out
- power an class feature or feat (i.e. ran out of stunning fist uses? you can burn some action points to get another use!)
- trade in for XP

This way, it aligns the incentive of roleplaying with the optimizers as well since it gives them more power through roleplay.

taltamir
2009-11-03, 12:51 AM
The crux of what I'm seeing here, I believe, is that you're seeing characters who are inherently supreme specialists in adventuring, rather than say, a more well rounded individual like the rest of us who might have a myriad of skills in a bunch of different things simply so that we can function in society. That is, in real life, most of us are not optimized.

So, what you need to do is to encourage people to have reasons for being more well rounded.

Most of us wouldn't survive combat either... Many of us specialize in certain fields (lawyers, doctors, soldiers, etc).
And if thrust into a dangerous situation, people will drop their hobby of bottle collecting and start investing their time learning pertinent skills...

Lets say I wanted to crunch the RP idea of me being transported into a fantasy world...
Level 1 commoner / expert.
No weapon or armor proficiency.
Lots of knowledges... computer, video games, movies, biology, etc... nothing about that world.

Now that I am there... immediately find some training in something useful, like magic or swordsmanship and begin learning.
So, I am a level behind. that is actually pretty bad, but it is an extreme case.
Alternatively: After some training, replace that level with a level of whatever class I took, keep the knowledges (useless stuff)...

Now if you wanna do something closer to home... random villager... commoner, knowledge farming, etc...

Thing is, their survival chances are low and they will drag... and the replayability is EXTREMELY low, you run out of such ideas...

AstralFire
2009-11-03, 12:58 AM
There is one power as a DM that is truly unparalleled among the others - you, more than any other single person in this cooperative adventure, have the ability to set the tone and pace of the campaign. The more emphasis you place on roleplaying and on challenges that can't be dealt with without roleplaying (if necessary, some clamps may be needed on prepared casters and some powerful spells) and the less emphasis you place on equal level combat, the more likely they are to focus on roleplay.

Throw in encounters that are clearly trivial or highlight mechanical benefits that aren't usually considered optimal, too, like talents that improve your ability to take out lots of weak foes (great cleave, fireball) or nab an enemy that runs a lot but can't take a good hit (archery, charges instead of full attacks), etc. If I felt players were trending too much to fight a certain way, I'd mix it up and introduce an encounter that would be best with an easily accessible, non-optimal tactic they do not have or choose not to use - and then tell them about that afterwards.

Suddenly, you get players cross-dipping to generalize instead of specializing quite so much... because they learned that 5 points in balance or use rope or forgery could have saved the day there. And that does a lot to stilt a min/max feel right there.

elliott20
2009-11-03, 01:27 AM
Most of us wouldn't survive combat either... Many of us specialize in certain fields (lawyers, doctors, soldiers, etc).
And if thrust into a dangerous situation, people will drop their hobby of bottle collecting and start investing their time learning pertinent skills...

Lets say I wanted to crunch the RP idea of me being transported into a fantasy world...
Level 1 commoner / expert.
No weapon or armor proficiency.
Lots of knowledges... computer, video games, movies, biology, etc... nothing about that world.

Now that I am there... immediately find some training in something useful, like magic or swordsmanship and begin learning.
So, I am a level behind. that is actually pretty bad, but it is an extreme case.
Alternatively: After some training, replace that level with a level of whatever class I took, keep the knowledges (useless stuff)...

Now if you wanna do something closer to home... random villager... commoner, knowledge farming, etc...

Thing is, their survival chances are low and they will drag... and the replayability is EXTREMELY low, you run out of such ideas...

that is true, and this is why such an approach needs to be careful guided or else you'll end up with a bunch of characters who are essentially useless in combat.

But like I said, the crux is simply a case of over specialization. It's not that people are not taking expert/commoner levels, it's that every single fighter will come out of the gate maxing their ride, but not take a single skill point that might deepen the character background.

the reason for this is because a fighter, for example, only has 2 skill points per level, and so they don't really have that many to go around. The solution is you can either give them maybe 2 free skill points per level to use on things that are for background building (i.e. take a couple knowledge skills that are relevant to your background), and use the dungeonomicon solution towards the profession.

dungeonomicon does away with the profession skill, and basically just has your character have the option to take a profession that pays a steady amount. They also allow you to spend several points in the profession and just be called a "master" at your profession. Your pay, however, is no longer tied to your actual skill investment, but rather in your position. this doesn't mean that your skills are ALWAYS irrelevant to your pay, but rather it is no longer tied to it by force.

the rest of my post above is really less about this issue and just more about trying to address roleplaying awards themselves.

there is, of course, AstralFire's method of just making sure these mundane skills actually DO come into play.

Kylarra
2009-11-03, 01:33 AM
There's definitely a big problem with a general lack of skill points. Beyond a few specific areas, you either max your key skills hard, hit certain bumps (tumble, balance) or ignore it altogether because with minimal ranks, it won't affect anything anyway (everything else).

elliott20
2009-11-03, 01:50 AM
the thing is, we need to also keep things in perspective here.

D&D, as it is, is a game where survival especially for a non-tier 1-2 class can be quite brutal for most CR appropriate encounters. In those cases, each and every feat/skill point/spell can mean life or death. And when you have sacrifice your own efficiency just for fluff, you are making a deliberate choice to be less capable of surviving. I'm sure we all understand that.

And as such, we cannot, for example demand that a fighter spends all of his preciously few skill points on say, craft(basket-weaving), as such a choice is clearly suboptimal and god knows how often THAT is going to matter in game.

There are several approaches to solving this problem.

1. lower the power focus requirement so that the players can afford to spread their assets around a bit more or
2. give them the suboptimal stuff for free or at least at a reduced cost
3. make the skill they've taken actually matter in game and reward them for making the choice to take an option that might be suboptimal for combat.

the first one can cause a lot of problems especially if your players by their very nature would optimize anyway as it can rob them of the challenge that they might be seeking.

the second one needs to monitored carefully since sometimes it's hard to know what options are really just useful things disguised as "fluff" skills. Generally, craft, profession, and skill feats all fall into the safe category as well as a large number of knowledge skills

the third one I think is one of the safest ways of going about it. If you must, change the rules a little to accommodate them. so, your wizard has gone ahead and taken craft (basket weaving) as a skill? hey, guess what, tell him that he can now make magical baskets if he'd like and now he can safe on master work costs for making the basket itself. Also, roleplaying rewards in the form of XP, action points, and other meta-game elements can help tremendously.

Dimers
2009-11-03, 01:57 AM
Whatever choices you make in addressing this, be aware that you need to get the entire group moving in that direction, not just a couple people. Those who are mechanically optimized will have concrete advantages in what their characters can accomplish, and if they are rewarded by the system while you're trying to reward outside it, the counter-example might cause their fellows to backslide into optimizing too.

Incidentally, what are your players' motivations for being part of the game?

ShadowsGrnEyes
2009-11-03, 02:24 AM
I've gotten tons of good advice, and i do believe ill be implementing quite a few of these things.

1. Backstory before you start generating the mechanical parts of your character.
2. Add flavor to good mechanical but flavorless feats, and better mechanical benefits to flavorful but crappy mechanical feats.
3. create situations geared specifically for various characters flavor stuffs.
and finally.
4. i am going to create a special RPXP and whenever a player puts notable effort into the depth, individuality, and actual Roleplaying of their character as they have written that character (no dramawhoreing for XP) i will give them bonuses they can use for tangible in game benefits. the more they do the more beneficial these benefits will be. I havent worked out the logistics but i will work out a definite system before i implement it. either floating unnamed bonuses or more tangible things like upgraded mounts or cool special armor and other things that fit with their characters story.




Incidentally, what are your players' motivations for being part of the game?

We're friends, we like to hang out and have fun, most of them love to play and hate to GM, i dont mind GMing. it gives us somthing to do other than play halo/poker/make fun of eachother/ watch tv/ go to denny's/etc

. . . and i'm usually pretty good about making the stories about their characters. . . probably part of why im frustrated, they havent been giving me much to work with lately

elliott20
2009-11-03, 02:48 AM
i am going to create a special RPXP and whenever a player puts notable effort into the depth, individuality, and actual Roleplaying of their character as they have written that character (no dramawhoreing for XP) i will give them bonuses they can use for tangible in game benefits. the more they do the more beneficial these benefits will be. I havent worked out the logistics but i will work out a definite system before i implement it. either floating unnamed bonuses or more tangible things like upgraded mounts or cool special armor and other things that fit with their characters story.


simplest way of doing this?

have them write up character traits, character goals, motivations, character beliefs, etc. Basically, stuff that makes their character a character.

keep that as a checklist, and every time they hit up on one of those aspects, put a check mark next to it. Reward accordingly.

Burning Wheel system manages this by having players write up 3 beliefs and 3 instincts. And every session, if the player hits those, they get a fate point (basically an action) for each one per session, netting a total of 6 potential points per session.

You want to make sure that you control the actual number of rewards and how often you give it out, or else you will get player abuse on this. A helpful way of doing is to take this list, and make the player select say, 4 of them as the most important and zero in on those.

and also, remember, this list should NEVER be set in stone. In fact, players should be encourage to play out these aspects to the point that they can either be resolved or evolved into something even bigger. Successfully resolving or evolving these roleplaying aspects, btw, should always garner a larger reward then just giving it a nod. that way, players will be encouraged to resolve personal plotline issues.

AstralFire
2009-11-03, 02:56 AM
I think something like action points is a better solution than XP, which has the issue of: "too low, and they won't really notice it's there... too high, and they'll be fighting over each other for story rewards."

elliott20
2009-11-03, 03:32 AM
action points too will also have that problem, but a different nature.

that is, if you reward too many action points, you could end up invalidating a character's mechanical build. Too little, and it's basically just a blip on their performance.

also, what you actual use the action points for needs to heavily monitored. giving a flat unnamed bonus works fairly well since it's primary recipient are rolls, which can help with things like touch attacks, rolling for saves, ecking out extra damage, etc.

but using to power other character options will also make it more powerful and versatile. However, if you do so, you need to keep a very close eye on how much is used. i.e. letting a wizard pump out more spells via action points is basically giving the wizard more spell slots, which in certain context can easily break the game again.

so, first you have to figure out what you want these action points be capable of first, and then you need to figure out what the optimal expenditure of points should be.

For example, for my own homebrew, there are two kinds of points, action points which gives you an unnamed bonus, and destiny points, which you can use to declare that you roll the best possible result on a single roll. (i.e. instead of rolling a d20 for attack, you just spend a point and say, "I roll a natural 20")

Destiny points, as you can see, are EXTREMELY powerful especially for melee characters since it means they can, with the combination of their action points, basically force a crit if they have any points left. This means destiny points in my system needs to be rationed out VERY carefully.

oxinabox
2009-11-03, 04:40 AM
Put crunch behind the fluff. Then the fluff becomes mechanically advantageous. For example:

Optimizers are very alert about what skills are valuable in any given DM's campaign. If your players are abandoning fluff skills and heading towards hardcore battle optimization, it's probably because you've been building adventures that reward the ability to kill stuff. To wean them away, build adventures where the ability to kill stuff isn't especially important, but the ability to persuade or impress others, or to retrieve an obscure bit of information, is very valuable.

I bet someonme has already poitned this out but:
Noncombat doens not equal nonpowergame.
Diplomacy skill does not equal playing in character.
Optimising for noncombat is still Rollplaying.

...

Starsinger
2009-11-03, 05:11 AM
I have invisible rewards for flavor. For example, in a (4e) game that I ran previously, someone was playing a Star pact Warlock, so I didn't ask for a check from him to identify the Farspawn that the party fought, I just gave him the information privately, figuring it's something his character would just know.

Also, another good idea if you want them to put effort into building their character's flavor, is to incorporate said flavor into the game. Take a lesson from JRPGs, tie the characters' into the metaplot (if there is one in your game) on a personal level or if you run a more episodic D&D format, be sure to have personal quests for the PCs like in Baldur's Gate 2. Players enjoy the spotlight and when the plot of the game shines on them, they enjoy it more. Showing them that there's a reward for flavor encourages them to have flavor. The carrot is harder to see for flavor since optimizing combat shows off on its own, but it's there.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-11-03, 11:24 AM
I've gotten tons of good advice, and i do believe ill be implementing quite a few of these things.

1. Backstory before you start generating the mechanical parts of your character.

How much backstory do you want before the build? I can throw a brief history at you, but if I have to write up the whole backstory before starting mechanics...
1) Damn annoying.
2) Unlikely to mesh with the character - prefer to have a sense of how powerful the character actually is before writing

ShadowsGrnEyes
2009-11-04, 12:15 AM
I belive my bonus XP will be somthing i lett them build up over time and when they reach a high enough amount then they get somthing in game that provides a mild mechanical benefit but a large flavor benefit. i think i'll work it a little bit like affiliations in the PH2. so many points equal a certain benefit mechanically but have alot of meaning flavor wise. . . hmm. . flavor affiliations. . .




How much backstory do you want before the build? I can throw a brief history at you, but if I have to write up the whole backstory before starting mechanics...
1) Damn annoying.
2) Unlikely to mesh with the character - prefer to have a sense of how powerful the character actually is before writing

It wouldnt need to be a whole backstory, juat a general idea of what they want to play flavor wise before they start building mechanics.

Example I would be satisfied with: I want to play a guy with a family curse thats been passed on for generations and that I'm desperate to get rid of. Because of the curse i've been forced to live the life of a mercenary when all I really want to be is a paladin! i want angst over the family curse, lots of angst! and lets make it something i'll have to roleplay from time to time. . . like i cant do anything without getting rewarded for it. and if i'm not rewarded i go nuts and have to kill something before i can be me again! (yes I jacked that from the faerun books)

Example I would not be satisfied with: I want to play a fighter, i mean mercenary who uses a big sword, but um, secretly i'm a nice guy?

elliott20
2009-11-04, 12:19 AM
sadly, 90% of the time when we see people ask about character concepts, we always invariably get a class/race build combo, but seldom do we see them go much deeper than that.