Storygaming in D&D 3.5?

[TheCorsairMalac]

I play D&D 3.5, but find that I am more interested in a cool story than combat resolution. D&D 3.5 is definitely not the perfect game for me, but I'm invested in it and will be sticking with it for a time.

There are other games, such as Dungeon World, that have strong, codified rules for roleplay. I would appreciate it if you guys would mention other games that reward storytelling, how they go about it, and how it might be implemented as a houserule in D&D 3.5. (Naturally, info about existing similar houserules are welcome.)


A number of people have pointed out that rewarding alignment-oriented actions without rewarding alignment changing actions stifles the incentive for characters to change over time. I agree, and think it is therefore better to reward players for roleplaying a personality/paradigm.

D&D 3.5 is a cooperative game. Individual XP rewards can have a divisive effect between unskilled(or unlucky) roleplayers and expert roleplayers(or the DM.) Spreading bonus XP between the party can reduce any resentment, while still giving an incentive for players to roleplay creatively.

Some players are simply less creative, or afraid of goofy in-character acting. Some people are goofballs who show up wearing voice-changers and Cthulu masks. A DM should be careful to make his reward criteria attainable by both types of player.

Dungeon World grants XP for fulfilling your alignment and for living up to 'bonds' with other players. Combat XP is given only for failures.

In Unknown Armies the group as a whole votes who roleplayed the best, and the person with the most votes is rewarded a bonus. (Singling out players has potential issues, but whether or not you like this method, it IS something that another game does, and therefore applicable to this category.)

In Marvel Heroic Roleplay different heroes are given custom XP tables, rewarding them for behaving in a particular way, which other characters will not be rewarded for.

In WoD(World of Darkness?) at the end of session each player presents to the DM what they feel they have done that is worthy of a bonus.

Cosmic Patrol gives each character a list of cues and mannerisms which, when used in thematically fitting ways, yield an XP bonus.

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine uses character goals which are reached over time, rewarding behavior trends.


Houserule from GITP member Segev: After the session the group as a whole discusses and votes on whether each player did something interesting and worthy of a bonus.

Houserule from GITP member BowStreetRunner: Give momentary bonuses for good roleplay. +1 or +2 on a roll because it fits the character so well.

Houserule from GITP member Afgncaap5: Give each character personal story arcs which, when completed, reward them with minor abilities/powers.

[Xervous]

I would keep my hands off anything that rewards playing to the alignments as described in the PHB UNLESS everyone agrees upon it or there's a mutual agreement on the true definition of alignments. Another thing to consider with rewarding alignment play is that you will polarize characters by leading their players into making hard definitive alignment choices all the time. (Push button, acquire bacon sort of thing)

[The Viscount]

You can borrow the Unknown Armies Rule where at the end of every session there is a set amount of XP awarded to whoever played the best or most interestingly. The way to determine is that everybody votes, and whoever wins most votes gets it. It doesn't have to be a large amount for it to be effective.

[Segev]

The best version of this I've seen was a GM who would, after the game was over each session, go around the table and ask everyone else, for each person, to vote on what that person did which deserves bonus XP.

[HolyCouncilMagi]

Don't reward playing to alignment overmuch. That actively discourages both character development and making pretty much anything more complex than an alignment caricature, and neither of those scream "beneficial to roleplaying" to me.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Reward people who just roleplay. Alignment will flow naturally(ish) as long as they participate in the game. Also make sure you recognize when you have players who dominate the spotlight as you don't want to punish people for not provoking a battle of personalities.

[Florian]

@TheCorsairMalac:

I don't want to discourage you, but 3,5 seems to lack all the necessary tools and interface to be effectivelly used for storygaming.
Take a look at the usual examples like Lady Blackbird, Durance or the wider PbtA-Family on how things like "Moves" work and how these mechanics are used to affect story, not task resolution. In addition, take a look at the Gumshoe System, as this is a very good example on how this affects certain design processes. Speaking of Gumshoe: There's Lorefinder, a Gumshoe/Pathfinder hybrid. Personally, I find it too cluncky to be of use, but interesting idea nonetheless.

Edit: You could copy something from Marvel Heroic Roleplay, namely the custom XP tables that are unique to each hero. Those are a pretty strong motivation factor and they drive the game.

@HolyCouncilMagi/ZamielVanWeber:

You're missing the point of what Storygaming is about then. In this mode, you declare what kind of actions/elements should be part of the developing story and put a heavy emphases on them, mostly by putting reward mechanics in place and leaving out all other kinds of mechanics that serve no function relative to a story.
So, if action based on alignment are relevant or alignment conflict will be the basis for drama, everything else besides alignment is uninteresting...

[Quertus]

The D&D alignment system is, IMO, the worst thing to happen to roleplaying in the history of RPGs. So it follows that I believe that the first thing you should do to encourage and reward roleplaying in D&D is to remove "alignment" from the character sheet.[/rant]

In D&D 3.x, I tend to give the party XP for every clever idea, every burst of creativity, every fun moment, and everything that adds to everyone's enjoyment of the game. 3.x is based on party XP, and rewarding everyone for one player's good ideas means that the player doesn't get rewarded twice - once for getting the spotlight, and then again with extra XP. This way, when one player takes the spotlight, the whole party knows that they will all be rewarded for that person's spotlight time. Sometimes, when calculating XP at the end of the session, I will ask the players to help me remember all the fun/clever things people did during the session, which reinforces the understanding that I am rewarding that behavior. This tends to make people much less resentful of others' spotlight time, and much more willing to take the spotlight themselves, as everyone knows it's all good fun.

I "grew up" with individual XP awards in 2e; I find that giving a group XP in 3e almost liberating. A group XP award makes for a much less competitive me-centric feel, and creates a much more group-oriented, cooperative, fun game. YMMV.

(OP, thank you for starting this post. I have just started running a new system, one which provides XP rewards for just this type of thing. But they are individual awards. I almost went with the system as is. Thanks to your post, I will be utilizing what I have learned from D&D, and giving the party the awards for the wonderful moments we have shared.)

.....

That having been said, if you're still looking for a way to give individual awards for roleplaying... I like the WoD XP system, where, at the end of the session, you have to explain to the storyteller what you did to earn XP for learning, roleplaying, acting. Where it makes you think about how you contributed to playing the game in the "encouraged" style.

Exalted and Scion have immediate, numeric benefits for their "encouraged" style of descriptive actions. I believe 7 seas does something similar.

Putting these ideas together... you probably don't want to go around the table and ask, "did you do anything to give the party bonus XP today", because then you will more likely alienate the players who didn't "contribute" rather than encourage them to participate the way you want them to. Bu,t if you want to give some kind of individual reward, perhaps you could give players a number of "reroll chits" for the next session equal to the number of points they score on an end-of-session "convince me how you did X Y and Z" recap of the session. Or even a free-for-all where everyone just blurts out the things that they believe should get someone a reroll chit.

[TheCorsairMalac]

@Florian

Thanks for bringing up Marvel Heroic Roleplay! That's a neat way of doing things.

About your disagreement with HolyCouncilMagi and ZamielVanWeber... I think they mean that playing too closely to the D&D alignments yields only 9 different characters, one for each alignment, and doesn't allow for alignment-opposing quirks(the womanizing paladin, the compassionate assassin). I don't think they're saying to throw away predefined roles, but that the D&D alignment grid isn't a good way of defining roles.

@Quertus

What you bring up about me-centric gaming is a big deal. The cooperative nature of the game is one of the big reasons to play it, and I would be foolish to make houserules that turn it into a competition for spotlight. I think I will avoid individual rewards and instead reward the group as a whole. (My current DM is actually very good at this. He doesn't pick a favorite, but instead says "there was a lot of good roleplay today, give yourselves 300xp.)

[Florian]

@Florian

Thanks for bringing up Marvel Heroic Roleplay! That's a neat way of doing things.

About your disagreement with HolyCouncilMagi and ZamielVanWeber... I think they mean that playing too closely to the D&D alignments yields only 9 different characters, one for each alignment, and doesn't allow for alignment-opposing quirks(the womanizing paladin, the compassionate assassin). I don't think they're saying to throw away predefined roles, but that the D&D alignment grid isn't a good way of defining roles

Don't get me wrong here. Your question was about Storygaming and a huge part of that is defining and including certain aspects of the game that you want to see in it and be relevant to the story. Sure, your alignment is not your character. That's nothing we need to talk about. Lets also move away from fuzzy alignment discussion to what they can contribute to a story.

As you seem to know MHP, let's stick to this an talk about a plain vanilla paladin and how The XP table should look like:
- Gain 1 XP when you stay true to your alignment
- Gain 3 XP when you are forced to question your alignment
- Gain 10 XP when you eff it all and switch to being an anti-paladin.

Now we do know alignments are in effect and we do have a grip on how they affect the story we want to tell.

It's bordering on the bizarre to talk about it here, of all places, a forum dedicated to a comic supposedly based on the D20 system, when the best option that comes to mind to emulate things the way the oots stories are told are based on not using the D20 system ;)

[TheCorsairMalac]

As you seem to know MHP, let's stick to this an talk about a plain vanilla paladin and how The XP table should look like:
- Gain 1 XP when you stay true to your alignment
- Gain 3 XP when you are forced to question your alignment
- Gain 10 XP when you eff it all and switch to being an anti-paladin.

Now we do know alignments are in effect and we do have a grip on how they affect they story we want to tell.

I actually don't know anything about the game but what you've explained. You just explained it well.

I like that this table embraces changes in alignment or creed. With this table he is rewarded XP for this developement, rather than punished for acting against his alignment. This encourages characters to change and develop. I could see this system working well with the D&D alignment system.

[BowStreetRunner]

Be careful not to limit yourself to granting only XP awards for good role-play. There are other ways to reward good role-play besides XP.

Also, watch out for the 'annual review' trap. Lots of companies have been adjusting how they handle performance reviews because asking someone to look back and remember what happened isn't as effective as dealing with it when it happens. In the same light, when waiting to give out rewards until the end of the game day it becomes easy to overlook things that may have been deserving of reward.

One method I have encountered that is simple and effectively addresses both points that I just mentioned is the Role-Play Bonus rule. On any d20 roll the player can gain a +1 Role-Play Bonus (stacks with other types of bonuses) by simply doing a good job of role-playing the character interaction in some way. This usually involves describing in detail how their character is acting at the time of the check - so instead of saying 'my character picks the lock' one might give a brief description of the character's behavior - does she calmly and coolly assess the lock then methodically start probing the mechanism, or does he nervously go through his mental checklist while quickly searching through his picks for the right tool to use? Does he grit his teeth and squint his eyes while shaking off the effect causing him to make a will save, or does she avert her eyes, trying to think of her order's teachings to center her will? Pretty much any time a player puts an effort into role-playing and not just game-playing, they can get the +1 bonus on a roll. Of course, the DM can also decide if he wants to make larger (+2 and even +3) bonuses available for truly memorable role-playing moments.

Again, the point is to keep your mind open to rewards other than just XP and also to handing out some rewards right away rather than waiting until afterwards and hoping you remember everything.

[Florian]

Sorry, my bad. I was under the impression that you knew that system or its core version, Cortex+.

Actually, I just made up that XP table and based the XP values on what I, as the potential player of the paladin, want to be relevant in the developing story. I included the option of the fall because I think it is a fitting story arc I'd like to engage in, if its fitting to the story, but I placed it high on the list as I see it as a capstone of story development and nothing that should be done on a regular basis.

The notion of "punishment" is pretty foreign to that sort of gaming. That's more grounded in a simulation and used as a stick to enforce compliance with a chosen role that has to fit inside the simulation. That is not the case here.

[Florian]

@TheCorsairMalac:

Sorry for the double post, but I reread your initial post and I felt the need to ask and clarify: You mentioned Storygaming as well as Storytelling. You know that there's a huge difference between these two things. Do you know that difference and can you clear up what you exactly mean?

[Afgncaap5]

Two games I want to mention for rewarding roleplay...

Cosmic Patrol gives you "character cues" and "mannerisms." The game's Lead Narrators are encouraged to look for those times when a character says one of the cues on their sheet, and if it feels organic to reward it with a Plot Point or a boost to an upcoming roll. So, an LN would probably reward a Martian Amazon who shouts "This! Is! MARS!" while fighting a Venusian Automan back into a pit, but likely wouldn't reward it to a player who's just responding to someone who's checking a map and asking where they all are. The one who uses it in combat will likely either get a boost to its combat roll, or a plot point (which can be used for about anything in that game.)

On the other end of the scale you have Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (hereafter called Chuubo's for brevity's sake), and it's an odd case because people can "level up" by completing story arcs. I've been tempted to call Chuubo's "Progress Bars: The Game!" because every character winds up with two or three Quests or Character Arcs that gain XP, but only in response to certain events. For instance, if the quest you take is "A New Hobby", you might gain a point of XP toward completing that quest if you spend some time on a hobby ("I can't wait to enter tomorrow's Banthlo Card draw tournament.") or if your dedication to the hobby causes some sort of problem ("I don't CARE if it'll cost my rent money, that's a gold-foil Aurasaur with a Time Boost modifier, they only made eight of those and it'll fit my new deck perfectly!"). You can also get 5 XP for entering a hobby-based duel or competition against an enemy ("I'm tired of you bullying the new players! One last game. You, me, Banthlo Cards, loser never comes to the shop again!")

One of the reasons I like these systems is that they really encourage the players to look at the character sheets. I have more fun playing Cosmic Patrol (as I've yet to convince people to play a game of Chuubo's with me) but Chuubo's' Arc Progression is sort of an ideal for me because it'll convince the players to begin looking for directions they can take their character that go beyond individual events or uttering catchphrases (or, rather, the fact that a player has to incorporate individual events and catchphrases over and over and over before any reward is given encourages the players to make it more than just something to check off of a list... even if checking things off a list is more or less exactly what the XP progress bars are. ...that's literally what they are, now that I think about it. It's a lot of check marks where the player fills in the blank for what, exactly, they're checking off in a given category of options.) The other note is that at the end of a Chuubo's Arc the character usually gets some minor reward like minor powers, boosts to existing powers, or shiny new bicycles. So, if I incorporated something like this into D&D I'd probably do things like "For finishing your Fire Monk of Caldera Castle personal story arc, you can choose between either making Magic Missile and similar force-damage spells deal half damage plus the same amount of damage in fire on a case by case basis, or you can add one point of fire damage to all your melee attacks." Oh, or the player might learn an Incantation that they can use to transport the party to the Plane of Fire whenever they stand in the ashes of a fire. I like that one better, actually.

[TheCorsairMalac]

@TheCorsairMalac:

Sorry for the double post, but I reread your initial post and I felt the need to ask and clarify: You mentioned Storygaming as well as Storytelling. You know that there's a huge difference between these two things. Do you know that difference and can you clear up what you exactly mean?

Oh boy. This feels like the introductory paragraph to a long discussion... :/

I'll take the bait, I guess.

I was not aware that there is a difference. I do not know the difference of which I was unaware, and I doubt that I could clarify my meaning into one of your definitions without knowing those definitions first. Would you please teach me the difference?

[Florian]

Oh boy. This feels like the introductory paragraph to a long discussion... :/

I'll take the bait, I guess.

I was not aware that there is a difference. I do not know the difference of which I was unaware, and I doubt that I could clarify my meaning into one of your definitions without knowing those definitions first. Would you please teach me the difference?

Nah. I hope to keep this short and to the point so we can proceed.
"Storytelling" is used when the game master has all the power and the rules don't matter, as they can be modified according to what the gm says.
Basic D&D 3.5 can be seen as the antithesis to this, as by default the gm should not be able to change rules at a whim.
Example: You want the villain to escape, he escapes, no matter what your player do.
"Storygaming" is used when there're strict rules gouverning how to play are enforced and everyone is bound to them. No rulings alowed.
Example: The rules allow for the players to decide whether the villain escapes or not and they are rewarded for this decision, one way or the other.

[BowStreetRunner]

Nah. I hope to keep this short and to the point so we can proceed.
"Storytelling" is used when the game master has all the power and the rules don't matter, as they can be modified according to what the gm says.
Basic D&D 3.5 can be seen as the antithesis to this, as by default the gm should not be able to change rules at a whim.
Example: You want the villain to escape, he escapes, no matter what your player do.
"Storygaming" is used when there're strict rules gouverning how to play are enforced and everyone is bound to them. No rulings alowed.
Example: The rules allow for the players to decide whether the villain escapes or not and they are rewarded for this decision, one way or the other.
Storytelling is the part of the game where the DM describes the setting and events of the game. These are elements over which the PCs have little control. [In contrast, Mordheim (Games Workshop 1999) allows the players to take turns setting up terrain in the play area.] This also describes events that occur outside the constraints of an initiative sequence - they take place according to a narrative structure determined by the DM.
Gameplaying is the part of the game where the rules govern everything. The players and DM are equally at the mercy of the rules (although the DM may control one side as well as being the default referee, this is not the case in every game system).
Storygaming is actually a combination of storytelling and gameplaying. Rather than being entirely a narrative structure or entirely a rules structure it is a hybrid of the two. Because it is more rules-based than pure storytelling, some people consider it 'rules based' play, but pure gameplaying would actually be little more than a board game.

[TheCorsairMalac]

Nah. I hope to keep this short and to the point so we can proceed.
"Storytelling" is used when the game master has all the power and the rules don't matter, as they can be modified according to what the gm says.
Basic D&D 3.5 can be seen as the antithesis to this, as by default the gm should not be able to change rules at a whim.
Example: You want the villain to escape, he escapes, no matter what your player do.
"Storygaming" is used when there're strict rules gouverning how to play are enforced and everyone is bound to them. No rulings alowed.
Example: The rules allow for the players to decide whether the villain escapes or not and they are rewarded for this decision, one way or the other.

Okay, let me think how to define my goal in those terms.

Definitely storyGAMING. I would like to leave the DM and player rules mostly untouched, with the DM doing the majority of storytelling and players interacting with the story through their existing skills and abilities. However, I would like the players to be a significant source of the DM's storytelling ideas through their actions and personalities.

My D&D 3.5 groups have generally only developed character personalities that don't cost them gold or great effort. I would like to enable the game to reward characters who have costly addictions and debts or wearisome relatives and social habits. (According to how much they contribute to a fun and engaging story.)

[Florian]

Well, ok then, it seems you need to work on your carrot and stick a bit, making the carrot more juicy and the stick more subtle.

I think the first step would be working out a proper reward cycle.

Get rid of the usual XP system and leveling up. Move to a two-tier system of milestones and story goals.

Have everyone fill out a questionaire and give you the results in private. For starters, there should roughly 5 items on the list, containing things like "What is my greatest weakness", "What is my secret ambition", "What is my deepst conviction" and so on. Check those for suitable drama-potential, keeping an eye on how potentially pvp-inducing these may become, as that may or may not be disruptive to play. Don't be afraid to disallow "weak" choices or "too muddy" ones, as they don't cater to the effect we aim at right now.

Now, bear with me as that step may sound illogical: When you have aproved all entries and finall corrections have been made, share the results with your players. Yes, that is Meta-knowledge about some hidden background stuff, but that _is_ the kind of stuff you want to be roleplayed and happen at your table, right?

Let's tie this up. Please note that in this example, I want to encourage bold action and shake the stick at the 15 minutes workday:

For a level up, you need to hit 5 milestones and 5 story points. If you reach the limit of 5 in one category, you don't get any excess points until you level up.
You gain milestone points by:
- Beating 4 normal challanges in a row (1)
- Beating 2 normal and one difficult challenge in a row (1)
- Beating a boss type challange (1)
You gain story points by:
- Bringing your own drama items into play (2)
- Bringing some other players drama item onto play (1)