How To Get More Role-Playing From Your Players

A hot topic in RPG circles, well, at least it’s hot on twitter with me and my twitter buddies today, is how to get more role-playing from your players.  Here are a couple of pieces of advice and one way to reward players, possibly causing more future role-playing on their parts…

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1) Encourage your players to role-play

When you are having them talk to an NPC or go through a skill challenge, have then describe what they are doing and how they are feeling about it.  Directly ask them to describe it. When they are talking to someone, encourage them to speak in-character until the scene/skill challenge/situation is over – directly ask them what they say.  Never make fun of them for trying to role-play, and don’t let the other players do so either.

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2) Emulate role-playing for them

This means that you will also have to stay in character until the end of the scene.  Don’t ever expect something from your players that you are not also willing to do. If you want them to try to talk in-character more, do so yourself. If you want them to describe what happened when they tried to climb the fence to get into the cemetery, do so yourself.  If you want them to describe how they sliced their greatsword into the belly of the creature, spilling its guts onto the ground right before its body collapsed, describe things like that in the midst of the game yourself.

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3) Reward them for good role-playing

Give a player that does an especially good job at role-playing a situation an XP reward for doing so.  So as to not imbalance the level progression, you don’t count the XP toward leveling up.  Perhaps name it something other than XP (maybe RP points, or something) and give it to the players for later use.

For example, give a player who does a good RPing job a poker chip or a special card, or something that is not used for anything else (make it a special thing).  These would be in 100 point increments, let’s say.  So a player does exceptionally well at RPing for a couple of sessions in a row, or they blast a negotiation out of the park – over the top entertainment, whether they succeed or fail at the skill challenge doesn’t matter!  Give that player a 100 point chip and let them redeem it for a +1 to diplomacy or streetwise any time in the future.  These rewards could stack, so if a person plays 7 sessions with you and ends up with 2 or 3 chips/cards they could trade that in at an important moment for a +2 or +3 to their roll.

This rewards them and encourages the other players to strive for those rewards as well.  Be generous handing these out – it may spur creativity and your players will be vying to get the evening’s RP chip.  If you have a great night, don’t feel bad about giving two out.

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Remember, the point is to have fun, don’t force anyone to do things with which they are uncomfortable.   The beauty of this suggestion is that you aren’t punishing those that don’t role-play, you are simply rewarding those that do.

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Above all, have fun!

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Until next time, I wish you good gaming!

~DM Samuel