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Thank you for requesting:

Roleplaying Tips Weekly Supplemental #2:
      Alternative Forms Of Character Rewards

Please find below various tips, stories and comments about
Issue #50's request for alernative forms of character
reward.
   http://www.roleplayingtips.com/issue50.html

Cheers,

Johnn Four
johnn@roleplayingtips.com
http://www.roleplayingtips.com

====

From: Warren L.
      www.mmpog.net ( follow the D&D link)

Picture this:

A ramshackle lean-to. Scattered about its interior are
various armor pieces that seem over-sized and not all that
well maintained.  Many of the pieces still have bloodstains
from their former owners.  The weapons also have a more
gruesome look about them and more than one battle-axe still
has the skull of some creature still stuck to the blade.
Now presiding over this motley collection of equipment is a
half-orc with the typical chipped tooth and foul temper.
This half-orc "merchant" operates in the shadier area of
Waterdeep's market.

My purpose in setting up this encounter:

I have a half-orc player who really role-plays his character
well and is a master of combat too!  I wanted him to have a
chance to really role-play his character when dealing with a
merchant who expects him to show his dominance if he wants a
fair price.  After all, that is how I see orcs bartering...
If the half-orc merchant feels he is the alpha-male
(dominant) then you pay a higher price.  I kind of pictured
the whole barter scene as a argument bordering on combat...
(I thought of Klingons and how they argue and talk.)

Krusk, our party member, started out wanting to buy a suit
of armor. The merchant answered back...( in a confident
Klingonish voice ) " I don't believe you are strong enough
to wear that armor and wield your puny excuse of a
weapon..."  This set the mood, tone and, well, everything
else...  The two argued over the price, their honor, their
strength and everything under the sun.  In the end the
player got his gear, the merchant his money and the player
his 30 minutes in the spot light... It was one of the most
fun merchant encounters I have ever run...

====

From: ShadeWest

In my campaign, knighthood isn't a matter of choosing the
right class or rolling the right social status.  Being
knighted is a privilege bestowed on a character for great
deeds.  It's usually best to do this at the end of a long
adventure, or series of adventures, and give it to the whole
party at once. Be sure to have a grand ceremony scene for
them, and have a few of the prominent NPCs of the campaign
there to witness the honor.  Also be ready for the party to
want to flaunt their new authority later in the campaign,
though.  Balance it with some of the hassles of celebrity.

Knights can expect hospitality, but landed ones are expected
to give it as well.  I have several NPC nobles who are real
moochers.  I use an adaptation of the old Companion Set
Dominion rules to determine how much PC money Lord Groff &
Company can waste during a visit. Those PCs who don't settle
can still expect fans, in the form of children and peasants
who interfere with a quick or discreet getaway.  Political
rivals may plot against the King's new golden boys.  The PCs
may be expected to serve duties with their new positions.
People may expect the PCs to play hero for them.  Don't
forget the "gunslinger effect," and the admirer who gets
himself into trouble just by sticking too close.  Of course,
any PC with a reputation can suffer these effects, not just
knights.

====

From: Jim K.
      http://nasw.org/users/jkling

Nice issue on tips for encouraging PC development.

I'm rewarding character development by tailoring adventures
and encounters to the players' concepts. For example, one of
my players came up with this character background: her
ranger left her homeland and people, who are a primitive
hunter-gatherer folk, because the land had 'dried up.' That
is, for unknown reasons, the hunts and foraging expeditions
didn't produce as much sustenance as they used to, and her
people are beginning to suffer. I've worked that into
adventurers and encounters, and the players are heading
towards a meeting with 'the Druids of Green Isle,' whom the
ranger hopes can shed some light on the problem. When the
time comes I'll decide on the reason and use it as an
adventure lead-in.

Another player, a fighter, is the heir to a highly
successful weapons-manufacturing business, and the likely
inheritor of the family business. Lately, they've discovered
some cheap imitation swords and axes, and she is starting to
look into it. Who is making the imitation weapons and why?

I try to get players to make up homelands for their
characters, and in time the party will have an adventure in
the homeland of each PC. This seems to be a good motivator
for players to come up with interesting backgrounds.

====

From: Miguel V.

Character development starts at the beginning.

Whenever I GM, I always try to give the players at least a
week of lead time to come up with character ideas (and
several weeks when I can).  This lets them come up with a
backstory.  I reward the players with extra points based on
how much detail they add to their history, their
personaility, their hopes, etc. The reason I reward them is
because the more information I have, the more plot hooks I
can come up with.  This also helps ease the uncertainty
people feel with a new character before they get into the
character's head.

Naturally, some players do very little or nothing, while
some players get some good ideas and go hog wild with them.
That's why I keep it a subjective reward. If they turn in
something like it's a class assignment or if they are just
writing something to get the points, I'm not going to assign
them much.  But if they lose themselves in their character
and come up with lots of ideas, I'm going to be more
generous.

====

From: Roger

I have been giving Brownie Points for excellent roleplaying
for years.

It is a simple and totally arbitrary format where the GM
hands out points for good roleplaying and excellent ideas.

If the players botch a die roll, they can spend a point to
make it work. It allows people to "make the incredible"
happen in games without having to roll a 20.

This is particularly good for time sensitive rolls, like
chasing the bad guys, or trying to pick a lock before the
water trap fills up to the ceiling and drowns them.

The players know I reward them, and they often will go
trolling for points by working hard on good roleplaying...
:)

====

From: Russell S.

Here's a reward we use.

Spotlighting within the campaign journal. Like many gamers,
we keep a monthly newsletter. This covers a monthly recap of
the plots and other details of the campaign. We have also
instituted a monthly spotlight feature whereby a player who
has preformed particularly well gets a kind of character
specific article.

This may take any reasonable form the player wishes.
Commonly we have autobiographic pieces or a character's view
on a specific storyline/adventure written by the player.

Other times the spotlight displays an illustration,
sometimes commissioned at a convention or from within the
group. On really rare occasions we've had ballads, lists of
top 10 coolest/lamest actions committed or polls like "if
you could cast a movie about the character who would you
pick". It's always kept light, and voluntary and has
generally been accepted quite positively.

Stories/recountings of heroic exploits are far and away the
favorite with portraits following up no too distantly.

Here are the rules:
1.) The spotlight is chosen by the campaign's GM. Players
may suggest a candidate for the spotlight but the GM makes
the decision.

2.) A player-character can not have the spotlight
consecutively, they become ineligible for the next month's
spot. (this has had the odd effect of sometimes having the
same player get the spot with different characters though,
so we may amend it to player or character.)

3.) A player gets to choose what form his/her feature will
take and any request that isn't criminally offensive will be
honored. (Criminally offensive is apparently definable by
the game group and not the GM or spotlightee.)

4.) Portraits, articles are to be provided by the
spotlightee but routinely, that is more often than not,
involve at least one other player's contribution.

====

From: Aylene B.

Johnn,

I really enjoy the weekly tips. As a fairly new gamemaster I
hope that they will help me to run better and more
interesting games for my players. You asked for examples of
rewarding characters outside of tangibles. I have a good
example from my ongoing online email campaign. It is a
mixture of tangible and intangible. The character is a
barbarian of the "Horse Tribes" from the fantasy world,
Windaar, created by my husband and myself.

In order to reward excellent roleplaying and interaction by
a player who has been limited in the past I wrote a legend
about a warrior of the Horse Tribes who played a big role in
an ancient battle. Then the player had the opportunity to
complete a mission thus earning the ancient warrior's
shield. All of my players enjoyed reading the legend.
Obviously the shield is a tangible reward; however, in
linking the player to an ancient warrior the reward was also
a deepened understanding of the fantasy world and more
player buy-in.

By adding the "legend" that the warrior who uses this shield
will one day unite the Horse Tribes and rule over them, it
developed a possible plot arc for the character. At the
start of the campaign this character had just escaped from
captivity as a galley slave so he had neither possessions
nor honor (in his eyes). This was a step in restoring both.

====

From: Jeff T.

In my campaign the PC's have actually made friendships as
rewards.  For example, they recently rescued a small farming
village from the depredations of some unusual undead.  They
are now great heroes in the eyes of everyone in village and
they can expect, food, lodging and healing whenever they
pass by.  Unknown to them is the fact that their reputation
is spreading by leaps and bounds, not only for this action
but also their actions in destroying/capturing two pirates
vessels that had been plaguing the area, wiping out a huge
infestation of wererats in a large town and ending the
threat of orcish raids upon local merchant traffic.  I find
the PC's really like it when they enter a town that has
heard word of the 'brave heroes' and they are treated with
respect and even awe.  Big ego inflater to say the least.
Of course the PC's have to careful in how they act while
they are in these towns, being egotistical and bullying will
undoubtedly serve to ruin their reputation and word will
spread just as quickly that the adventurers are crude
brutes!  Anyway, just my two cents on your topic.  I hope
you found it useful.  Thanks again for all your hard work on
the newsletter and web site.

====

From: Bill

I've been enjoying your RPing newsletter for a few months
now. Your last issue (#50) made me think of the experience
trick that I use, or rather stole from Amber Diceless - the
Wish List. In games that use spendable experience, often
there is some trouble with players buying things that are
not justified by their experiences in the game. Some players
also don't know what to buy, so they just spend it on
whatever they think they'll need, which is usually combat
abilities, which precludes good role-playing opportunities.

With the Wish List I take care of the problem from the
beginning. However, you may want to warn players or give
them a choice beforehand, since many may not like having
their character's experience taken out of their hands. At
the beginning of the session, each player should tell the GM
what they would like on their Wish List, in the order of
importance. As the character accumulates experience, the GM
should spend the points on these items as events justify
them. When there are enough points to buy it, the GM tells
the player at the end of the session.

Along with this come player extras. If the player wants to
write an in character diary, or draw pictures of the major
characters, or otherwise contribute to the game, the GM can
pay him for his work with an extra experience point or two.
This works well for the game, since a player who contributes
an in character diary will most likely fill out down time
activities that explain how he works towards items on his
list.

This does put a bit of extra paperwork on the GM, but if you
have a good character filing system it should be very easy.
It only takes me a few minutes after each session to account
for the points, and in an online game it's easy to pull up
the character notes file, allocate a point or two as an
event occurs, and get back to the game. Hope somebody finds
this helpful.

====

From: Matthew F.

I once had a campaign where the party was a group of skilled
thieves. In one session the players broke into a Dwarven
mine only to find its inhabitants enslaved by the minions of
their arch-nemesis.  Despite the odds they decided to
liberate the Dwarves and attack.  In the process, the one
Dwarven PC made several affinity checks and was able to
rally the slaves against the common enemy.  This action was
critical in turning the fight! When all was said and done,
the free Dwarves taking notice of their dwindled numbers
(about 20) declared the PC as their new king.

Now this turned out to be a lot of fun as far as character
development is concerned.  This selfish character is now
responsible for twenty more additional mouths and he cannot
refuse the act because the Dwarves are needed to escape the
mines.  In addition he also had to worry about the rest of
his party and how they would react to the situation.  (I
really pumped the royalty thing to drive a small wedge into
the party. Instead of obeying all commands the Dwarves acted
in what they thought to be best for the king.)  After
several sessions and a bit of pushing on my part this
character is completely different now compared to the first
half of the campaign.  This was the one and only time I have
ever seen a characters alignment change for the better.

Selfish characters should constantly have to choose between
good and evil; however, there is no reason that the
consequences/rewards of either can not be equally difficult
or beneficial!

====

From: Jay T.

Again, thanks for a great column!  I suspect that having you
as a GM would be pretty interesting.  Keep up the good work.

The players I used to GM for were a little more character-
driven that experience point or treasure driven.  When we'd
build the characters, they'd come up with motivations, and
personalities, to go along with that nifty longword, or the
black cloak that hides features.  The best reward for them
tended to be allowing them to achieve what they wanted with
their characters.  One guy, actually my best friend, loved
to play "tortured soul" type characters, heroic but flawed.
I thought he would cry when I he was given the chance to be
the hero in a very public scene.  It was not without great
sacrific on his part, but the look of satisfaction on his
face as he did the "hero-thing" was without a doubt worth
more than any 1000 XP.

====

I hope you gained some good information from the experience
of these game masters. If you have additional advice,
opinions or comments, send them to:
    johnn@roleplayingtips.com

====

End of Supplemental #2