Be they luck/fate/experience/drama/karma/kismet/destiny/chi/prana/butterscotch or awesome points, is it patronising to say 'give players points for roleplaying well'? Is that something best used for kids games perhaps?

Maybe. Better:

"Whenever a player (including GM) particularly enjoys a contribution by another player, he or she may award the player with a Gummipunkt."

That way no objective standard (like "good role-playing") is implied, but instead everyone is asked to express their subjective impression of quality.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;549619Be they luck/fate/experience/drama/karma/kismet/destiny/chi/prana/butterscotch or awesome points, is it patronising to say 'give players points for roleplaying well'? Is that something best used for kids games perhaps?

It's basic "reward behaviour that you like to see", which is a very good thing. Even if it's a principle everyone agrees on, there's no harm in explicitly stating it.

And if everyone is in agreement in the group about what they want, it'll balance out; a table with lower overall RP skills will have a lower "RP bonus" threshold than one with higher overall RP skills, but that's okay because the groups will compensate and assign bonuses appropriately.

1) there are style points for using a character's flaw or motivation. This is a mechanical method to bring flaws into play, not so much "fun role playing"

2) Awesome points for when a player has a really creative idea, makes a particularly atrocious pun, expresses their character well... These all happen at our table (depending on the game). Awesome points are a meta economy, so we don't seem to have a problem with awards for RL fun.

Awesome points shouldn't be given out for great ideas, funny lines or bits and bobs that the players enjoy.

Awesome points should be given out for great ideas that work, funny lines that persuade the guard to let you pass and bits & bobs that further the game.

I enjoy using them. But then perhaps it's my kid at heart talking. RPGs I guess should be serious games, very serious...

I link points to three things:

a) character goals established during chargen, for example minor, medium, and major goals, so the player has an incentive to act out their chosen roles. Minor goals might be something like "find out who my uncle really was and where he got his powers", major goals might be "avenge my family on a corrupt tyrant king".

Achieving each of these goals comes with a point reward, it can't happen by accident or someone else's agency (evil tyrant king gets run over by a cart), and its part of the goal whether or not the player wants to do it personally as part of the goal ("He's mine, back off!"). The more difficult the goal, the higher the reward.

During chargen the group can collaborate and have the same or complementary major goals, which gives them another reason to stick together. Further character goals can be added as the game continues, on consultation with the GM to determine the level of goal.

This is my favourite method of awarding points, since it gets the players interested, immersed and involved in the campaign world right from the start, gives them motivation, and helps them roleplay strategically.


b) game and campaign goals, the GM sets certain events in advance, upon completion the group gets their points. These goals can be altered if the group goes a different direction. Again these are graded according to difficulty.

The GM may also set personal goals for individual players. These goals are usually not shared in advance. That the goals can be altered prevents players for trying to spend the whole session second guessing the GM.

Typically these goals don't involve simple physical feats but things that mean the players need to use their heads.


c) Role playing occasionally. I tried out a hidden voting system whereby after each game the players vote for one person based on their role playing in that game, but its hard to avoid it becoming a player popularity contest.

One slightly messier system is to have a pool of role playing points and split this up according to the votes, so if you have a pool of 12 points and 4 players, one player gets three votes, they get nine points and everyone else gets one, with a minimum of one. Typically a rather low three points per player is used in the pool, as role playing should be encouraged but not imposed.

The GM should not arbitrarily hand out points for this in any case, to avoid accusations of favouritsm. There is likewise no magic spell or draining power that can get you extra awesome points, they happen purely through achievement.

These points can then be used to wipe out problems, add benefits (different to skills, more "hardcoded"), add fate points, or adjust statistics/manna pools etc. The structure of the game is designed in such a way that it should take a few sessions to build up a lot of "awesome points", its not meant to be a quick process, and pushing a core stat like say strength from 8 to 9 needs a lot more points (45 points) than pushing it from 2 to 3 (15 points).

The main advancement route in the game is through skills and equipment, which incidentally provides a motivation to accumulate wealth if possible, otherwise why even bother. XP isn't awarded for killing and looting, your skills improve as you use them or train, and you gather wealth purely because you want to buy cool stuff or otherwise be rich. The concept of character levels doesn't exist.

Balanced and powerful, is how I'd describe it.

Quote from: Ladybird;549623It's basic "reward behaviour that you like to see", which is a very good thing. Even if it's a principle everyone agrees on, there's no harm in explicitly stating it.

Quote from: One Horse Town;549627Awesome points shouldn't be given out for great ideas, funny lines or bits and bobs that the players enjoy.

Awesome points should be given out for great ideas that work, funny lines that persuade the guard to let you pass and bits & bobs that further the game.

This and this, definitely.

(For a good pun, really? No, very bad idea. Very very bad idea.)

Quote from: One Horse Town;549627Awesome points should be given out for great ideas that work, funny lines that persuade the guard to let you pass and bits & bobs that further the game.

Those are XP or just moving the adventure along.

For stuff like: writing up a session log, finding a room to play in, painting a nice mini, taking the game in a new direction because of a neat idea, etc. an awesome point is a small price to pay.

And it's game-dependent.

In our Hollow Earth Expedition, relatively generous provision of style points gives the characters a chance to feel or act awesome when awesomeness is needed. A style point is worth one die to the pool, so it's not a big deal, but the players enjoy it.

In our Labyrinth Lord / D&D, no awesome points are to be found anywhere. No role-playing flaws or whatever is going to keep foolish characters from being clobbered. Any such would, I think, ruin the atmosphere.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;549619Be they luck/fate/experience/drama/karma/kismet/destiny/chi/prana/butterscotch or awesome points, is it patronising to say 'give players points for roleplaying well'? Is that something best used for kids games perhaps?

John Morrow went off about something similar in
another thread, complaining about designers using rewards to control player behavior.  

I think it's a matter of taste.  Personally, I often do find point rewards patronizing.  (I also don't tend to do this with kids games for this reason.  Kids don't like being patronized any more than adults.)  This includes players giving each other points for being awesome.  

I tend prefer point rewards that are explicit and objective.  Now, these do influence behavior, just like anything else.  However, more explicit rewards often don't seem to treat players as Pavlovian.  Chances are good that I'll completely ignore XP rewards and instead do something completely different than what would get me the most points.

I like them, however, I feel they are often in many ways a means to patch holes in certain games rules.

If the player HAS to spent points to do something/succeed, that they want badly, its a patch to a system that isn't letting the players make their characters awesome.

Quote from: One Horse Town;549627Awesome points shouldn't be given out for great ideas, funny lines or bits and bobs that the players enjoy.

Awesome points should be given out for great ideas that work, funny lines that persuade the guard to let you pass and bits & bobs that further the game.

Pretty much my thought process.

In my last longrunning D&D game, I gave xp awards for magnificent roleplay and plans.  We also went around the table and allowed everyone to give a 'nod' to another player for something they liked - purely subjective, it could be roleplay, a cunning plan, a good one-liner, whatever.  When a player accrued enought nods (I don't remember how many), they got an xp bonus.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;549619Be they luck/fate/experience/drama/karma/kismet/destiny/chi/prana/butterscotch or awesome points, is it patronising to say 'give players points for roleplaying well'? Is that something best used for kids games perhaps?

Stop trying to convince people you are awesome and just get on with the business of being awesome.

Best if the GM and players can "reward" the awesomeness in the natural flow of the game itself, but failing that awesome points are better than no acknowledgement, which is in turn better than the triple hell of railroading, DMPCs and dissassociated game mechanics.
 
I am a fan of giving rewards for rolling exceptionaly well, so it follows that I don't practice what I preach.