Role Play XP

[big teej]

another simple question.


Role playing XP

do you use it/hand it out?

if so, by what criteria?

[olentu]

Individual RP awards are generally a no. They are too subjective and that can lead to problems.

[Bhaakon]

Rarely, because I like to have players leveling up at the same time, and too many individual XP awards can screw that up. Instead, I prefer to reward good RP with items, alliances, followers, favors from NPCs and similar in-world bonuses (organically, of course. PCs don't just deliver finely crafted monologue and then find a potion in their pack). Also, because the bonuses flow organically and fly a under the players' radar, they're less likely to cause friction.

[Human Paragon 3]

I often give out ad hoc awards at the end of each session. Here's how we do it:

Each player gets an award for -

Best Character Moment
Best Class Moment
Best Skill Moment
Biggest Blunder and What You Learned From It

In addition, each player gives out

Best Moment By Someone Else

and then there's a

Best Team Moment, shared by the group.

For each award, I give out 15-50 XP per spell level, based on how much I liked the moment.

That way, at level 1, the award is 15-50 XP and at level 20 it's 300-1000 XP. Makes more sense to scale it.

[1stEd.Thief]

As I recall, I used to give "bonus XP" for roleplaying (and other subjective things) that was (100xp * character level) or thereabouts. Enough to mean something, but not enough to throw stuff out of whack. I would also be careful to keep things "in whack" by making adjustments if they were needed. I'm okay with a 1 level difference in party members, but I don't want anyone to not have fun because they are not powerful enough to contribute.

[Libertad]

In general, not for individual actions.

I've toyed with idea of "quest-based" experience, where PCs get experience for forwarding the story by completing important tasks. That's how I would do things.

I wouldn't give out experience to just one PC, because that can get unfair if one PC gets too far ahead or falls behind too much.

[hex0]

It was given in the games I used to play. Tiny amounts though. 10-15

[Chronos]

I've given roleplay XP, and I've also given out other DM-fiat bonuses for good role-playing. For instance, I had a low-level paladin stumble into a level-inappropriate encounter with a demon, and in reward for the totally goodass way he responded to it, let his weapons overcome its damage reduction (the dice also rewarded him-- He ended up killing the thing without a scratch).

Don't worry too much about the party ending up uneven-- That'll also happen anyway due to item crafting or spells with XP components, and no matter how it happens, it tends to even out in the end (since a gap of some number of XP points is less significant at higher levels, and lower-level characters will get more XP from each encounter).