Reward factors

[M. J. Young]

Is there a way to encourage good role playing through the use of a rewards system?

I've got an article almost ready to go that touches on these kinds of questions; if I get time this weekend, and Clinton is settled into his new digs, it should post early next week. Watch for Applied Theory.

Obviously, if you want to encourage "good role-playing" (whatever you mean by that), you give "points"--currency--for any play that qualifies. That part's the relatively easy part. The question is, what do you do with it, if not build up skills or combat potential? The obvious answer is that you make it something that can be spent to enhance role playing--but what would that be? Here are a couple ideas.

[*]Limited director power--the ability to bring characters into a scene by spending currency. This would enable the player to say, "As I'm arguing with the merchant, suddenly my partner walks in," or similarly the merchant's best customer, or a prominent citizen who is indebted to the character, or someone of that sort. It could be broader than that, like creating connections--"I realize that his style is so similar to mine that he must have learned from the same sensei, and when I mention this he says indeed he did."[*]The ability to create contacts and connections, in essence spending currency to build up relationships with characters either created for this purpose or known to exist without much information.[*]The ability to create complications in the world, plot, or background. I've an example of this in the article, so I'll leave it at that.[/list:u]The idea is to figure out what sort of power/control/credibility the player could use specifically to do more of the kind of "role-playing" you want to see, and give him the power to do that.

Make sense?

--M. J. Young

[taalyn]

I'm looking forward to your article, MJ, as that's exactly what I have set up to do. I'm just trolling for a list of behaviors to reward, basically. And then the rewards presented will go towards the kinds of things you mention.

Aidan