Character improvement (split from older thread)

[Emmett]

Sorry I haven't replied quicker I've been busy.

Plain and simple, I'm not a narritivist. I see the virtue in it, but it's not interesting to me. However I also don't like shoot and loot. I think there is a way to have great story and a Sim all rolled into one.

in a game i had recently, one of my players went for "extra color" by dismounting from his horse to fight Cut and Thrust style and sacrificed the extra dice one normally gains from fighting mounted. I wanted to award him a bonus for of some sort "playing in character" , but i couldn't. Perhaps i should have given him a point of Luck, i don't know.

This is playing bravely and heroicly. You wanted to reward the player for it, I do all the time. This goes back to my days at the SCA (Society for Creative Anacronisums). When in combat and you wound your opponent, if you take on the same disadvantage as he does even though you don't have to, you get an Honor Point. Honor Points do nothing exept that the Ref yells out "Emmett recives an Honor Point!". It's silly but it was still enjoyable.

This is my argument why a brave, noble, good, or heroic character should be rewarded. Evil is best described as a lack of empathy. A lack of anything constructive is a weakness. Being brave, noble, good, or heroic is showing strength of character. Thats why it was so important in Japan to be honorable. You wern't showing weakness. That's why Knights were chivelrous, because they showed more power by being good than by being bad.
I know that I'm going to catch grief about this, because now adays everybody thinks it's great to be evil, they're bored with the good guys.
The problem with rewarding evil is that you're taking the easy road. The selfish road. It takes no moral character to be evil. It takes no effort to be bad. Tell me of one task where taking the short cut is harder. If there was one, it wouldn't be a short cut.
Evil is weak. Anything you can do being Evil is harder being Good. Therefore Good is stronger when it succeeds. Everybody makes the mistake of assuming that because a cheeter wins they must be the best, when the person who was playing by the rules would win in a straight fight.
Does that mean that Evil is ineffective? By NO means! Because Evil is easier, it is more effective. But If you are playing a character that is crafty, I will reward him for being crafty because he is playing in character.

I never said I penalize an Evil or not honorable character, I said that I reward them less. That makes sense since any reward they get will be by being more effective. They are choosing to take thier reward now, rather than when xps are awarded.

Mike Wrote

Yeah, to reiterate Max's excellent point, it seems that you're confusing players and characters a bit.

But even then, do you like Chess? Isn't that the players striving against each other?

I like chess, but that is competition. Competition and strife are different.

Compatition is fine, strife between players is not.

Balbinus Wrote

Your concern is with conflicts between players, and avoiding those.

Exactly, which by extension is playing out of character and therefore bad role-playing.

As far as skipping advancement entirely, I wrote my opinion on that in my first post.

I say that it happens at a slower pace in real life and therefore has a place in RPGs. If you simulated life perfectly in an RPG, It would be booring. Life is slow and if it wern't booring, we wouldn't need RPGs. With that argument, advancement is a fun part of a game even if slightly not realistic at times (I'm going to enhance my Beauty with experiance). After all fun is what we're here for.

I say it's a fun part of Role Play and I'm sticking to it. If it were the only part of Role Play then I wouldn't be here, I would be playing a CRPG. I don't play CRPGs because advancement isn't the only part of role play, however I also don't play RPGs that don't have advancement (see: previous statements).

sorry for all the quotes I don't like doing them but its a nessary evil (aka its harder to do things otherwise, and therefore my point).