Roleplay points~
This is a concept I’ve come up with that seem to be working well so far. I award RP points when the player/character has roleplayed really well/deeply, come up with a very creative solution to a problem, really gotten into the spirit and acted out their characters move, wrote a great backstory for their character, etc.
The player keeps track of their points in Roll20. I do not give them out willy-nilly, they have to be earned.
Then the player can spend their points in three ways:
1. Roll Twice and take the highest/lowest roll (depending on what you are rolling for.)
2. Take +1 forward on your next roll.
3. GM Choice: I will give the character a way to make their situation a little bit better, by perhaps giving them an item, or having their god whisper necessary information or perhaps putting just what they need (but may not have thought of) in their adventuring bag.
I’ve awarded points already and it is fun to watch the players try and decide if they want to use a precious RP point to help out in their current predicament!
Roleplay points were always something I love giving out. I also give out points for drawing characters, since most of my friends are artists.
Because our running campaign carried over from a different system, we tailored the mechanic we were already using. Players can earn Karma points for work out of the session such as artwork, journals, work on our wiki, etc. They can be spent as follows (sorry for the big post!)
1 Karma Point
Sudden Advantage: You gain combat advantage on your target for this round, gaining you a +1 to hit with Hack and Slash, Volley, or some other action. You must activate this before rolling.
Hear me baby, hold together: You gain plus 1 to all Defend rolls or plus 1 to armor until your next round. This is not retroactive and does not cancel any ongoing effects already on you.
Blessing of Skill: You gain a plus 1 to a Defy Danger roll. You must activate this before making your roll.
Blessing of Life: You stabilize a fallen comrade on a 6 up. You must activate this before rolling.
Karma Saves: You may spend a karma point to bump a roll of 6 to a 7.
The Karma Initiative: Some basic item you need happens to be stashed nearby.
Karmic Ripples: To lean on your reputation: when making a roll that uses your Charisma stat, you may spend a point of Karma to substitute your overall reputation. The GM will tell you what it is based on your actions the past few games.
True Neutral Karma; Spend 1 Karma to just take an 8 on your roll without rolling. It isn’t great and it isn’t very bad either.
3 Karma Points
Karma Re-roll: You may re-roll one of your dice, except a natural 1 on a 20 sided die. You must take the second result, even if lower.
Karma Chameleon: For a split second, you totally blend into your surroundings, granting you great camouflage. You must activate this before a Defy Danger roll to hide
Karma On Top: Even despite being surprised, you act before everyone. You must activate this before someone else’s turn is resolved.
Karmalization: You convince a single minion to join you for a round. Parlay may be used to argue the minion into staying on your side or not rejoining the fight.
What Goes Around: You cause an enemy to suffer the same amount of damage as what they just did to you or another ally. This functions as an immediate interrupt and does not include any conditions that may be granted by the triggering attack.
Have a look at the Grim World Fate hack for DW.
I will definetely support any rule that encourages creative role play. My Sea Dog playbook has an Insult move that has the clause “If the GM thinks the insult is funny or creative, take +1”
I don’t give out meta-rewards, bonus for something done out of character or any kind of reward for “good roleplaying”. If you embrace playing your character well the rich, full story your hero will experience is the reward.
However when I run games at cons I do utilize XP in a different manner. Earning them is still the same but since we are not playing long enough to really level up properly I let players spend an XP before a roll to add an extra d6 to the roll and then take the highest two dice.
Huh. I wasn’t arguing with your analysis Paride, nor did I suggest you were a warrior or British. British Warriors are pretty cool though, Have you given Dark Age a spin yet? Its AWESOME.
Adam and Sage are fairly explicit already in succinctly pointing out what you have elaborated on in the advanced delving chapter of the book…
Be very careful with moves that muck with the fundamentals. Moves should never contradict the GM’s principles or agenda, or break the basic “take the action to gain the effect” rule.Changing the GM’s agenda or principles is one of the biggest changes you can make to the game. Changing these areas will likely require changes throughout the rest of the game, plus playtesting to nail it all down…
They don’t however say NOT to, just be careful. We ALL came from other games at some point, and if you are one of the very few players that have only ever played the Dungeon World RPG in our little group, then hey! try some other games mate, there is a world of possibility out there 🙂
FATE and *world games aren’t all that dissimilar in their agenda or principles really, though. Rewarding players for engaging play has long been a staple of ‘protagonist driven’ rpgs, and all *world games have their own currency. Adding an additional trait or aspect cycle changes the game, sure. But break it? or replace fiction with die rolls? I don’t see how any of the proposed ‘bennie’ points morph table behaviour or emergent story away from what DW does naked.
Paride Papadia You haven’t politely done anything. Your way is not the only way, you are not the role playing police or the dungeon world police, you don’t get to dictate how other people do their games.
Oh my goodness…
Any way. All DW GMs have been frustrated at one stage with non creative players. Count how many times someone remarked: Its fun to be a GM but it drains you. Just yesterday a GM complained about unimaginitive attacks: I H&S with my sword. Etc.
Dw works out of the box. In a perfect world every player is always sharp, perceptive, creative and witty. In a perfect world the fiction flows fast and furious with poulet surprize prose, zen profundity and hollywood style story arcs.
But we do not live in a perfect world. And thisworldly psychology states that if you want a certain behaviour, you reward it.
Outofthebox DW does just that: it rewards, in the metagame take note, good roleplaying with XP. Alignment and bonds. And it works. Well. But what if a GM wants to introduce another metagame reward for good RP’ing using those very same principles, but calling the currency RP points in stead of XP? Same principle, slightly different mechanism?
I say all the more power to her.You go girl and all that.
Last very extremely humble observation. The “M” in GM stands for… Minion?
May I humbly suggest something similar to primetime adventures? Once per session/front/adventure (in PTA is once per scene, but since in dw there are no scenes, one should find the best cooldown for their own campaign), a player may award another player for doing something cool or otherwise enjoyable with one of such points. Rewards creative players and tightens the bonds among them without having the GM judging anyone!
Alessandro Gianni
That is a SUPERB idea. Thanks!
wasn’t mine, but I’m superbly glad to be helpful! 🙂
Alessandro Gianni very good!
But there is intrinsically nothing wrong with the GM judging players as long as he adheres to the principles of having/creating fun, being a fan of the characters and not messing with their agency. There are a lot of things a GM can do that are much worse than saying, “Hey Bob that was an awesome thing you just did. Take an RP point – it represents the favour of (whatever power in the universe). Spend it well!”
Absolutely! I like that in DW the GM doesn’t give any reward to the players and when I fiddle with the mechanics I try to respect that; less job for the GM (that is, usually me) = more time and mental energy to think about fronts and npcs, more engagement by the players, and all that. It also helps getting them into focus; they arrive at the end of the session, start checking for xps, discover by themselves they only gained a couple, and then they all make vows to explore more bonds and alignments and find some damned treasure in the holy name of leveling up for the next time.
Specifically, I feel something like this won’t work at my table-I don’t feel like judging anyone, I would just shower them with points for everything they do; I’m probably not too comfortable on having so much responsibility on my shoulders. I mean, I loved how the Burning Wheel had very well defined and measurable requirements for GM’s rewards, but there’s even better stuff for me (like, FATE’s fate points!). Conversely, I think my fellow players would laugh at me if I said to them “hey guys, tonight I’m giving you
rewardsfree rerolls if you roleplay well”… They probably would like to do the contrary 😀 “Dude, I’ll pay you a beer if you just stop making weird noises every time I cast a spell” (and I won’t we bribed so easily about that).But every table works differently! If you really know the other players, and you know when it’s the one right time to give a shy player such a tangible reward to actually have him acquire more self-confidence and make him bolder about expressing his creativity, that’s a win-win situation!
I don’t know, GM awarding points for RP has never worked for me and it seems so far from what DW is promoting (every player decides whether he meets the requirements for alignement, etc.) that I wouldn’t try it. Maybe a vote between players could work, but I don’t really see the purpose, I find that the fiction->move->fiction play flow of DW works well enough that no incentive is needed.
Andrea Ungaro
I understand and every table is different. I love roleplay points and my players are enjoying them as well. I love watching them try to decide if they want to spend a precious roleplay point to get themselves out of danger!