I've been thinking about some simple "plug in" mechanics that can be added to just about any roleplaying game to give character design and development a little bit more depth.  To give you an idea of what I'm thinking about, consider the following example...

If you take just about any roleplaying game, you can make it more cinematic by adding a simple "Fate Point" mechanic.  Give players an allocation of Fate Points that they can use to gain bonuses or re-rolls in difficult circumstances.  Or you could build an "Adventure Deck", like the one used in Savage Worlds.  See the idea?  The whole Fate Point mechanic is simple and generic enough that you can add it to just about any game to make it a bit more pulpy.

So what if I want to add a little bit of drama, politics and intrigue to an otherwise simple game?  How do I create mechanics that support and encourage roleplaying?  Aspects from Fate work pretty well.  I don't see why you couldn't add Aspects to, say, Basic D&D.  So what else?

Where I'm going with this, is that there are a lot of very functional "old school" games going around that can still be a lot of fun.  But they aren't very good at encouraging new and inexperienced roleplayers to come out of their shell and generate really character driven moments.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkWhere I'm going with this, is that there are a lot of very functional "old school" games going around that can still be a lot of fun.  But they aren't very good at encouraging new and inexperienced roleplayers to come out of their shell and generate really character driven moments.

Gee, thanks Tiberious!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceGee, thanks Tiberious!

-clash

aaah... what?

I'm not so sure putting the role back in roleplaying is a simple matter of plugging in rules. However, if you want to try to encourage it with mechanics anyway, you could try the old Nature-Willpower mechanic from the Storyteller system, where you replenish willpower (or fate points or whatever) every time the character does something true to their nature.

My Iron Heroes/D&D3.5 group does a half-assed rip of Burning Wheel's Beliefs, Instincts and Traits.  We develop all of our BITs but there are no mechanical benefits to them.  However they do provide a nice way to briefly describe our characters and touch on a bit of background without writing a page of history.

I don't think game mechanics can do it. Oh, they can encourage it for the shy ones who sit quietly by the GM, but basically the player's either got it or they've not.

I mean, you get a player who'll roll up a RuneQuest character and have him just walk up to goatherds and hit them to knock them out and take their goats because he thinks his character's hungry, and he calls that "roleplaying - playing the role of someone who's hungry!" And then you get another player who gets the same system, and writes just a few lines describing his character's personality, and plays it to the hilt.

The mechanics can encourage the second guy, but will have zero effect on the first one. And really I don't think the second guy even needs the encouragement. At most you'd want some sort of personality and background stuff which could be put into the game mechanics so that the player can get a good idea of their character before they start to play them. That's something like GURPS' Disadvantages and Advantages, or Burning Wheel's Instincts. Just some stuff to get a good solid grasp of what the character's about, and back the player up a bit in play.

And then you also get the players who roleplay quite entertainingly, but they only have one character... Which is of course why I GM instead. And for the same reason, so should someone else I know who reads this forum, if that person ever manages to get their shit together instead of making feeble excuses all the time.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron. . . but basically the player's either got it or they've not.

It all boils down to this.

The idea that deep down everyone is a role player is poo. The fact is the majority of people have no desire to role play whatsoever and you are never going to encourage them to give it a try unless you offer them money or free X-Box 360's or something.

As for encouraging existing role players to get more into the role . . . Kyle's hit the nail on the head. Crap players are by nature crap players. And the reverse is true. Game mechanics and even weeks of stress torture won't change a thing.

What do you mean by "role"? Is it showing the personality, is it talking in first person, is it entertaining everyone else on the table by acting dramatically, or what is it what you primarily aim for when you say that you want to put the "role" into role-play?
These are all quite different things and demand quite different, sometimes contradicting solutions.

And I have to agree to Kyle: A mechanic alone does _nothing_ if the kind of action you want to further isn't of interest to the player. I've met enough players who don't give a damn about their combat XP and rather play out their bath house visits and cloth shopping tours to prove this.
However, a reward mechanic can really help to encourage if the player is generally interested into doing the thing you want to further.

Quote from: JohnnyWannabeAs for encouraging existing role players to get more into the role . . . Kyle's hit the nail on the head. Crap players are by nature crap players. And the reverse is true. Game mechanics and even weeks of stress torture won't change a thing.

I still think it's good to distinguish between good roleplayers and good players. It's that "social creative hobby" business again. A "good roleplayer" is someone who is able to bring across their character's personality, much like a good actor or good writer - good at the "creative" bit. A "good player" is someone who contributes to the fun of the group - good at the "social" bit.

It's possible to be a crap roleplayer and yet be an excellent player. That is, you're really terrible at describing your character or bringing them to life, but the session is a lot more fun because you're there. I've known lots of gamers like this, and I welcome them. After all, I am one myself - I'm only able to portray one kind of character for a long time, but can do quite a variety for short periods - so I just GM. But whether I GM or play, in general the group has more fun because I'm there. Thus, bad roleplayer, good player. More social than creative.

In theory it must be possible to be an excellent roleplayer while being a crap player - that is, portraying your character well but annoying everyone, to be creative while antisocial, or asocial - but I wouldn't really know because I never let crap players stay in my group, and if they're in a group I join, I don't stay.

I'm reminded of the words of the great moochava,

Quote from: moochavaFor whatever it's worth, I don't actually support the bitch-slapping of players. I subscribe to the Lazy Bastard school of GMing, whereby the players come up with all the ideas and I hog all the credit. Laziness and tyranny are, in games, two mutually exclusive vices.

Now, players who just sit there and don't come up with ideas, those you should bitch-slap.

The only true gaming sin is to be boring. Game mechanics can help interesting people be more interesting, and cannot stop them being interesting; game mechanics cannot help boring people become interesting.

The rest of my response, taling about how it's good to reject unfit players, is in another thread

Quote from: Kyle AaronI still think it's good to distinguish between good roleplayers and good players.

Yes, you can distinguish between the two. In my experience, however, a good roleplayer is usually a good player. But, in the end, what I want is a good player because a good player makes the entire experience fun.

A roleplaying game is just a game. And the point of any game is to have fun.

Personally, I found that mechanics produce a focus on mechanics, not roleplaying. The type of mechanic isn't important.

Seanchai

Quote from: JohnnyWannabeAs for encouraging existing role players to get more into the role . . . Kyle's hit the nail on the head. Crap players are by nature crap players. And the reverse is true. Game mechanics and even weeks of stress torture won't change a thing.

I don't know if I agree.

What got me thinking on this topic was the thread on first roleplaying experiences.  And I realised that I can't recall any personality for any of the first half a dozen D&D characters I played.  Basic D&D is such a simple system, the mechanics just don't support anything other than the absolute basics.  And yet, I can pick up the notes for a one-shot Fate adventure I ran a years ago and immediately recall the personalities I'd devised for pretty much all the NPCs.

I'm the same guy... a little bit more experienced from when I first started playing D&D almost 20 years ago... but fundamentally the same guy.  Is experience the only thing different?  Or do the different mechanics allow me... or should I say, encourage me, to make more memorable characters?

Quote from: Tyberious FunkI don't know if I agree.

What got me thinking on this topic was the thread on first roleplaying experiences.  And I realised that I can't recall any personality for any of the first half a dozen D&D characters I played.  Basic D&D is such a simple system, the mechanics just don't support anything other than the absolute basics.

And yet, those of us who created the game had characters that were distinctly different from each other's characters, and from other characters of the same player.  Sometimes it took a session or three to decide what a new character's personality was like, but often the fifteen-minute character generation would give rise to an idea.

We never included "role playing mechanics" because it never for the life of us occured to us that they might be needed, or even desired.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkIs experience the only thing different?  Or do the different mechanics allow me... or should I say, encourage me, to make more memorable characters?

Well, yes and no. You like to role play and you've been playing for almost 20 years. A crap gamer, on the other hand, plays for a month or two and then moves on to something else. You are dedicated to your hobby and open to it so you are looking for new things to inspire you and feed your like of the game. If you were a crap gamer, you wouldn't bother, and new mechanics wouldn't mean much to you.

Quote from: Tyberious Funkaaah... what?

People are either good roleplayers or they aren't. Some are awesome from the get go, and others take some time to develop, but the desire to be good roleplayers is in them from the start. It doesn't matter a whit whether there are mechanics to "support" AKA "force" roleplaying, as as good roleplayers do so for personal reasons. All you will do is piss off the non-good roleplayers, who will be forced to deal with something they have no talent for.

BTW, Roleplayers and Players, as others have mentioned, are orthogonal axes. You may have good Players who are not good Roleplayers, vice versa, people who are good at both, and those who are good at neither, who should be pushed out of the lifeboat at first opportunity.

-clash