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View Full Version : Rules Mechanics that encourage dramatic roleplaying



Yora
2015-02-14, 07:21 AM
In another thread about bad game design, much of the talk was about rules that get in the way of roleplaying or don't do anything to encourage players to think of the game as a story instead of simply a number problem. And occasionally counter-examples were mentioned, which I think are a really good topic for its own thread.

What rules and mechanics have you seen in games that encourage players to get into character and act in ways that are more dramatic and exciting than sensible and cautious? Things that nudge players to do things that would later make them want to tell things about their characters adventures rather than the time they rolled a 20 in the right moment or were down to just a single hit point.

XP for treasure: This one seemed very illogical and actually quite stupid to me when I first heard it. After all, aren't XP meant to represent how my characters combat skills improve through training? Why should I get lots of XP for taking away a goblins treasure chest, but get less for killing 30 bears? But XP systems can be a lot more than that. It's probably the most effective tool GMs have to make players have their character act in certain ways. Players always want XP and are always happy to get XP, so if the threat of death is not too high, the main reason to make any descision in a game is "What gets us the most XP?". If the only source of XP is defeating enemies, then players will usually try to find any enemy they can find and fight them. Because it would be a waste to leave easily available XP lying around unused.
Awarding XP for treasure, which old editions of D&D did, changes that. When the amount of XP you get is not only dependent of the number of monsters you defeat, but relies also on the amount of treasure you take back to town, the dynamics change. As GM, you can place monsters into the game that would be very difficult or even impossible to defeat in a fight, but the players might still find other way to steal its treasures. Since the players know that not everything can be defeated in battle without huge luck (and probably losses), they can never be sure that everything they encounter can be beaten. So they always have to make a judgement if a fight should be risked or avoided and sneakiness used instead.
Yes, one could say that treasure already has a value to players since they can buy special equipment with it which also makes their characters stronger. So why reward the taking of treasure twice? But I think the lure of XP is quite different than the lure of gold, and actually a much stronger one.
(AD&D 1st edition also always stressed that XP for monsters are given for "slaying or capturing" them. Because of how things work in videogames, there very often is the subconscious assumption that slaying is the only way to get the XP and treasure.)

Mr. Mask
2015-02-14, 08:31 AM
Personally, if you aren't going with skills being raised by performing them, I'd award XP for objectives and actions. Fighting might get you XP, if you complete an objective through it, but sneaking around and completing it another way would also get you the XP. You might also get XP for doing something impressive, like slaying the dragon in combat instead of sneaking around them, or sneaking around the all-aware beholder instead of fighting it.

You'd also get XP for side objectives or personal objectives. If the ogre has a crown you want, the GM could aware XP for completing the personal quest of stealing the crown--especially if the GM intended it as a potential side-quest. Defeating the villain who slew your brother would also be XP for a personal quest.


One thing that could be interesting for roleplaying, is having downtime between adventures you roll for. And you need to decide what your character does during that downtime. If they have no civilian skills at all, or took traits like alcoholic... they may whittle away their share of the gold quickly. While the character with smithing might spend the time making a new sword, or increasing their income.

Some RPG may've done that already, but I'd find that fairly interesting (I think someone pointed out one like that to me, but I forgot its name).

TheCountAlucard
2015-02-14, 08:58 AM
Stunts, in the Exalted system. Describing your actions in a punchy, evocative fashion nets you a bonus on your roll; doing so in a way that uses your environment nets an even bigger dice bonus; a description that makes everyone at the table drop their jaws bestows a bigger bonus still, and once per game session, an XP boost.

It encouraged players to do cool things in scenes, be descriptive, and interact with the world around them; unfortunately, the wonky combat mechanics made it less a thing to be encouraged, and more a thing absolutely necessary to survive ten seconds of fighting. :smallsigh:

But hey, the new edition is supposed to be an improvement over the old in that regard.

Yora
2015-02-14, 09:56 AM
I am currently reading Atlantis: The Second Age, a Sword & Sorcery game which has attributes and skills very similar to D&D but no true classes or levels. You get a few advancement points as your experience increases, but only up to a maximum of 60 points, while a completely new character already starts with attributes and skills worth well over 150 points.
Instead of raising your regular abilities as you gain experience, you become better by getting more Hero Points. Hero Points can get you bonuses to skill checks, attack rolls, damage, reduce damage taken, avoid falling unconscious, get free extra actions, and things like that. A new character can spend 2 Hero Points on the same die roll, and the number increases with experience to a maximum of 10. That means +20 to any roll or +40 damage.
At the beginning of any adventure, you start with some Hero Points, usually between 5 and 20, depending on your experience. That's already neat, but you don't have to make do with these, but can get more during play. A lot more. And the best part of the system is how you can do that:
You could pray to a god to give you strength for an upcoming battle, but the god will demand some kind of service in return in the future. Or you can curse a god for the bad situation you are in, which also empowers you to defy fate, but the god will try to get some revenge for the insult later. In the Conan movie, Conan does both: "Crom, grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to hell with you!" If you do this in Atlantis, you do actually get stronger and set up interesting roleplaying situations in your future. You're getting rewarded twice!
Or you could raise your spirits and courage by preparing for the adventure by a night of drinks and wenches (or whatever other activity you think fitting for your character). You can go to the temple to make a sacrifice. And if you need a lot of Hero Points instantly with no time to get them any other way, you can simply defy fate. You are a Hero! after all! You can get as many points as you want by defying fate, but each time you do it there is a risk that you fill your "Doom-meter". You can never reduce it, and once it is full you'll get the backlash and meet a tragic end, losing everything you created and fought for. This may sound like it sucks, but when you're staring death right in the face it becomes a tempting option. Or if you really, really want to succeed at something, what's the harm in tempting fate just this once? This game is all about glory and fame, and it fits the genre to live fast and die young, which is much preferable to dying old and weak with no heroic deeds to show for. No risk, no fun.

If you would simply strap this mechanic to a game like D&D, it would most likely be horribly unbalanced. However, though there are many similarities, action resolution works quite different. Your dice rolls can always only end in Critical Failure (bad thing happens), Failure (nothing happens), Partial Success (halfway there), Success (it works), and Critical Success (it works very well). Critcal Success is alway a Critical Success, regardless of your die roll being a 20 or a 67. If you are a high experience Hero and spend 10 Hero Points on a die roll (for a +20 bonus), you only greatly improve your chance for a Success or Critical Success. You do not increase the degree of success. A high experience hero who uses lots of Hero Points does not necessarily do superhuman things, but he regularly succeeds and things that normally would require huge luck. You don't get stronger but instead luckier.
And doing things that require a lot of luck get you additional experience.
And you get the experience even if you don't succeed. Just attempting them is already rewarded with increasing your glory.
And as your experiences increases, you get more Hero Points to do even more unlikely things even more often.

This whole game is build as a positive feedback loop to get players to do heroic and improbably things. It is quite genre specific and simply doesn't do regular farm kid who becomes an experienced soldier through years of training and hard work. In this game people become heroes because they have the will and determination to forge their own destiny, and in this world the powers that be favor such people. You don't have to be a huge barbarian warrior who strangles giants with his bare hands; you could also be a small and meek thief with the most outragous luck, or a civil and sophisticated priest. But all characters are expected to stand out from the masses and rise to greatness.
In lots of games I've seen, Action Points are something that you might use in a very tight spot and should save for moments when you absoutely need them to survive. The Hero Point system instead rewards you for going all balls to the wall with giving you even more Hero Points in the future. And there is a direct, easy to comprehend connection between acting in dramatic ways (cursing the gods, getting drunk, having an old enemy show up to ruin your day, decapitating Thulsa Doom in front of thousands of his worshipers) and growing more powerful from it.
Absolutely wonderful system.

TheDarkSaint
2015-02-14, 10:19 AM
For me, hands down the best XP for RP system has to be Dungeon World.

It's simple, fun and focus's on the characters stories and how they interact rather than what they kill.

The premise is simple. You have 'bonds' with other characters. "I don't trust Datak, he seems shifty". As you roleplay this out, the bond gets resolved sooner or later. You may learn to trust Datak or he may prove shifty after all and you can shun him. Once a bond is resolved, usually by consensus of the group, you get an experience point.

Acting according to your alignment gets you an experience point as well, but they are very simplified concepts. If you select "good", then you get your XP if you "put yourself in danger to help another". If you select "chaotic" then you get an XP when you "defy a ruling authority.

Once your players realize that they get xp from interacting with each other and their stories as well as roleplaying their alignments and they get nothing for killing stuff, they go hog wild in the drama department. Mine have just started to understand how to phrase what they want to do to include people who they have a bond with and our story is really starting to take off.

Kol Korran
2015-02-14, 05:31 PM
I really liked the Aspects system in Fate. Basically, you give 5 short phrases about a character, that sums up what's important about it. This can really be anything, from profession, past, troubles, relations, organizations, behavior and a whole lot more. The aspect define what MATTERS, and the focus of the character.

Then, the character can boost their checks, if their actions also refers to their aspects, (By spending a fate point), or get more faith points, if it refers to it negatively (This is called a compel). This is quite beautiful, as it makes the players find way to integrate the important aspects of their character again and again, positively and negatively, which makes the character come alive, much more than "I got +7 to hit".

Things get more interesting when NPCs, environment and scenes, organizations and more all have aspects. Learning of the aspects, you can use them to your advantage (Or dismay). This makes actual roleplay "bits" into the main mechanic of the game, which is, as I've said, quite beautiful. It takes awhile to get your head around it (And what sort of aspects make "good/ useful" aspects game wise), but it's definitely one of my favorite mechanics.

dream
2015-02-14, 05:33 PM
Personally, if you aren't going with skills being raised by performing them, I'd award XP for objectives and actions. Fighting might get you XP, if you complete an objective through it, but sneaking around and completing it another way would also get you the XP. You might also get XP for doing something impressive, like slaying the dragon in combat instead of sneaking around them, or sneaking around the all-aware beholder instead of fighting it.

You'd also get XP for side objectives or personal objectives. If the ogre has a crown you want, the GM could aware XP for completing the personal quest of stealing the crown--especially if the GM intended it as a potential side-quest. Defeating the villain who slew your brother would also be XP for a personal quest.


One thing that could be interesting for roleplaying, is having downtime between adventures you roll for. And you need to decide what your character does during that downtime. If they have no civilian skills at all, or took traits like alcoholic... they may whittle away their share of the gold quickly. While the character with smithing might spend the time making a new sword, or increasing their income.

Some RPG may've done that already, but I'd find that fairly interesting (I think someone pointed out one like that to me, but I forgot its name).
X.P. awards for personal objectives & downtime between adventures is a concept that's been around for decades, specifically in D&D. Way back with OD&D, DMs were encouraged to award players X.P. simply for being good role-players. It's nothing new.


For me, hands down the best XP for RP system has to be Dungeon World.

It's simple, fun and focus's on the characters stories and how they interact rather than what they kill.

The premise is simple. You have 'bonds' with other characters. "I don't trust Datak, he seems shifty". As you roleplay this out, the bond gets resolved sooner or later. You may learn to trust Datak or he may prove shifty after all and you can shun him. Once a bond is resolved, usually by consensus of the group, you get an experience point.

Acting according to your alignment gets you an experience point as well, but they are very simplified concepts. If you select "good", then you get your XP if you "put yourself in danger to help another". If you select "chaotic" then you get an XP when you "defy a ruling authority.

Once your players realize that they get xp from interacting with each other and their stories as well as roleplaying their alignments and they get nothing for killing stuff, they go hog wild in the drama department. Mine have just started to understand how to phrase what they want to do to include people who they have a bond with and our story is really starting to take off.
Or even better: getting X.P. for good role-play and killing monsters!:smallbiggrin:

neonchameleon
2015-02-14, 05:48 PM
What causes drama? Conflict and stakes.

Stakes are amplified by anything that gives emotional investment. A regular cast of NPCs and anything that makes the game emotionally real.

Conflict is amplified by not having the PCs all want the same objective; a system like Monsterhearts, Hillfolk, or Smallville that routinely puts the PCs into conflict with each other even though they are normally basically on the same side really really helps.

And having the adversaries normally survive so you can build a history (i.e. not physical combat) also helps. As mentioned I'd look at Monsterhearts or Smallville if I wanted drama. Oh, and Monsterhearts normally gives you XP for things that screw your character over.

kyoryu
2015-02-14, 06:07 PM
Then, the character can boost their checks, if their actions also refers to their aspects, (By spending a fate point), or get more faith points, if it refers to it negatively (This is called a compel). This is quite beautiful, as it makes the players find way to integrate the important aspects of their character again and again, positively and negatively, which makes the character come alive, much more than "I got +7 to hit".

Slight correction - a *mechanical* bonus, whether positive or negative, is an Invoke. If you're a *Grizzled Warrior*, and in a polite society situation, it's entirely possible that that aspect can be used to increase a hostile roll against you.

Compels are *narrative complications*. For instance, you're a *Grizzled Warrior*, so of course you run into an old enemy from the army. Damn your luck.


What causes drama? Conflict and stakes.

Stakes are amplified by anything that gives emotional investment. A regular cast of NPCs and anything that makes the game emotionally real.

Conflict is amplified by not having the PCs all want the same objective; a system like Monsterhearts, Hillfolk, or Smallville that routinely puts the PCs into conflict with each other even though they are normally basically on the same side really really helps.

And having the adversaries normally survive so you can build a history (i.e. not physical combat) also helps. As mentioned I'd look at Monsterhearts or Smallville if I wanted drama. Oh, and Monsterhearts normally gives you XP for things that screw your character over.

Yeah, all of this.

One of the other keys is you have to be willing to let the players lose. A lot. That doesn't mean "die", but it does mean that they don't get what they're after, and incur problems/complications. When they know they can lose, tension goes way up. In too many games, characters have a 99 44/100% success rate, which isn't conducive to drama.

Here's a good article about the idea (though in a film context): http://io9.com/why-you-should-never-write-action-scenes-into-your-tent-511712234

neonchameleon
2015-02-14, 07:41 PM
One of the other keys is you have to be willing to let the players lose. A lot. That doesn't mean "die", but it does mean that they don't get what they're after, and incur problems/complications. When they know they can lose, tension goes way up. In too many games, characters have a 99 44/100% success rate, which isn't conducive to drama.

And this is often done very very wrong. "Losing" due to cutscene immunity isn't actually losing at all. It's being cheated. So is losing due to blatant GM/Module Writer fiat with overwhelming forces.

kyoryu
2015-02-14, 07:55 PM
And this is often done very very wrong. "Losing" due to cutscene immunity isn't actually losing at all. It's being cheated. So is losing due to blatant GM/Module Writer fiat with overwhelming forces.

Except that's not what I said at all. I mean, fiat-loss is pretty much the opposite of what I'd ever encourage. It's the oldest, most obnoxious form of railroading.

Losing should be because there was a chance you'd win, and a chance you'd lose. I mean, the primary point is tension, and if it's a "cutscene", how is there tension?

(The second part is "not knowing what's going to happen, even as the GM")

(Apologies if you're agreeing with me and expanding on my point, it's not entirely clear based on your post)

neonchameleon
2015-02-14, 07:58 PM
Except that's not what I said at all. I mean, fiat-loss is pretty much the opposite of what I'd ever encourage. It's the oldest, most obnoxious form of railroading.

Losing should be because there was a chance you'd win, and a chance you'd lose. I mean, the primary point is tension, and if it's a "cutscene", how is there tension?

(The second part is "not knowing what's going to happen, even as the GM")

(Apologies if you're agreeing with me and expanding on my point, it's not entirely clear based on your post)

I was agreeing and expanding rather than disagreeing, sorry :) And yes, not knowing what's going to happen as GM is nervewracking the first couple of times - but it's the only way to do it and keep it real.

Gritmonger
2015-02-14, 08:13 PM
In one of the games I was in, character aspects were coded such that if you adhered to your character description, you got more points with which to do things.

Some of these descriptions were things your character adhered to and tried to do, so they helped you do things if the thing you wanted to do was in line with these principles. This was more an assist to dramatic action that was in line with what your character ideals were.

The other descriptions were strictures or ironbound facets of your character that might limit your options. As such they could get in the way of what you might want to do, but they were rewarded if you adhered to them with tokens for assisting other actions at a later time.

So it actually behooved the characters to adhere to their own limitations in the short term, and role-play the way the character was stated to be, because it benefited them and their concepts of what they wanted to do over the long term.

It didn't help everybody who was role-playing, but for those that got it, it was a wonderful way to reinforce their desires for the character. Even if it meant occasional dramatic failure.

Kol Korran
2015-02-15, 03:01 AM
Slight correction - a *mechanical* bonus, whether positive or negative, is an Invoke. If you're a *Grizzled Warrior*, and in a polite society situation, it's entirely possible that that aspect can be used to increase a hostile roll against you.

Compels are *narrative complications*. For instance, you're a *Grizzled Warrior*, so of course you run into an old enemy from the army. Damn your luck.


I stand corrected Kyoryu, I stand corrected... :smallsmile:

Huh... I wish I could get my players to try this again. Perhaps after the current campaign.

Yora
2015-02-15, 05:14 AM
One of the other keys is you have to be willing to let the players lose. A lot. That doesn't mean "die", but it does mean that they don't get what they're after, and incur problems/complications. When they know they can lose, tension goes way up. In too many games, characters have a 99 44/100% success rate, which isn't conducive to drama.
The best thing about pen and paper games is that losing does not mean it's game over. With a GM to control the game, the adventure can still continue when all the characters get caught by guards and put into prison or when the portal to hell has been opened and the kingdom burned to ashes. As long as some of the PCs still live, the campaign is not over. And even in cases where the entire group is killed, you don't have to abandon the campaign but can continue the story that is taking place in the world with other characters.
Losing is not bad in pen and paper games.