Roleplay incentives

Would it be nice to get a small bit of experience or a boost to experience earned when roleplaying in the game? I think so. I see this being implemented very easily. Even more in-depth interactions can be added later or left out if it is to be. I don't intend for this to be a primary way to level, just a small bonus for roleplaying.
Maybe -
A +1 for sitting in a chair
A small% exp boost for a task completed when being social to NPC's
A small EXP gain when sleeping in a bed overnight when offline
A small exp point gain when interacting with non-combat events or situations
just some examples

 

You'd have to make sure some of this wouldn't be abused by macros, but an interesting idea.

 

limit the gains by frequency to prevent abuse. like 10 sits per hour, whatever is reasonable.

 

Except none of that is actual roleplay. The thing is.. roleplayers will roleplay without incentives. Everyone else will be playing a game. It's a matter of personal preference and mindset. Things you can't change with in-game incentives. That's not to say you can't encourage people to congregate. Faster recovery in civilized areas for example.. but I think awarding XP is just going to be abused. People will go through the motions.. get their XP and move on.

 

While I'm not a huge fan of your examples, the idea itself is intriguing to me. The top priority has to be preventing abuse, but anything that encourages rarer playstyles (such as RP and PvP) can be good additions. Considering that there will be temptations to PvP, maybe there could be similar temptations for RP.

EDIT: After reading Bowen's post, I realize that he is right. You can't offer a carrot as the reward to RP like you can PvP.

 

I am wary giving rp experience even in pen and paper rpg's, (for many reasons, I could probably name a few if someone is interested) so doing this where there is no active GM to actually see what you are doing is not just exploiting the system for "free" xp, seems like a bad idea.

 

I think the best you can really hope for is to encourage people to go certain places where they can encounter RP such as taverns, inns, market places. The only way to get a non-RPer to really roleplay is to expose them to it and hope for the best. Give them reasons to want to go places. When they see other people having fun with an interesting discussion they might stick around and see what it's all about.

Back in my NWN days.. we had both carrots and sticks trying to get people to RP. There was a cap on how much XP they could earn in a certain amount of time and it would 'drain' faster in taverns.. then we had a reward system were people could vote on other people's RP for the month and the top 3 would get rewards.. and of course DMs would occassionally watch and award XP.

The end result? The people who didn't want to RP would either go AFK or log off while their XP cap recovered rather than RP. The RPers would spend hours in the taverns chatting away despite the XP cap. A lot of them only went out advenuring reluctantly or when no one else was around.. or they went together. A few of them wouldn't gain levels for weeks or even months.

 

How about going farther with the idea: giving incetives for running roleplaying events.

Maybe not XP, but perhaps some kind of other reward.

Heck, say you put on a play (an earlier example in another thread), you charge people for admittance. Boom. You've made some gold (after you pay your actors, of course). That's a nice gain, and though it's not XP, it's definitely worth your while.

Or you could write a book in-game, if that happens to be implemented. Those could be sold and also net you a profit.

 

There's been some really good discussions on books including publishing and selling them for profit.

Some talk of events but I think that'll be beyond EP1. Things like tournaments with jousting etc. RG has expressed an interest but again.. not likely for EP1.

We've also talked about New Britannia holidays/festivals and things of this nature. Usually just running a successful event is an award undo itself and players will find a way to run events even without mechanics.. but being able to reserve an instance.. decorate it and host games, market & food stalls and the like would be pretty cool.

Even the non-RPer will typically want to join in some events.. especially tournaments.

 

As a RP person, I really enjoyed running large events like live auctions, balls, market day, festivals, and tournaments. However, I never needed an incentive to do this, just the means by which to do it. IE: The ability to lock down items and some basic deco things to set the scene. I think you'll find that there are a lot of RP people out there that would be happy to run events throughout the year just for the fun of it.

I agree with te sentiments above, that the best way to encourage people to try RP is to expose them to it through large events with RP that they can come in and join. Preferably events that last long enough to act like an 'open house', where you can come see what's going on and try it out without having to worry about being online for exactly this particular hour of the day.

 

Don't let possible abuse cloud your judgement. I've seen abuse in every game, no matter what happens or how hard developers try to prevent it. Most of the time it just hampers everyone. People find a way to cheat every system. I can recall my friend telling me about how some people were waltzing through cities in a massively popular MMO slaughtering guards, which they should not be able to do, because they were underground and unable to be harmed.

Maybe what I'm trying to promote is immersion. You can't immerse yourself in a world if you're typing " where dungeon kill spider king." I would like to think people could enjoy a game more if they use full sentences instead of keywords for NPC's. If they were to sleep in a bed to regenerate instead of stand within a certain radius of a fountain in a city. Have you ever seen those cities where everyone stands around motionless in one spot to regenerate faster or to prevent death?

Then again, I can do nothing about how people interact in a game except provide ways to encourage them.

The NWN days scenario seems to be exactly what I proposed. Do nothing, get nothing and be left in the dust.

I like what Kilhwch said about giving something for doing something that promotes roleplay. If people see other people having fun doing something besides swinging a sword at a spider, then maybe they'll join in.

Yes sitting in a chair is not roleplay, but is standing in a bar the entire time while chatting any less? People don't stand all day.

It doesn't have to be EXP or gold or items. Anything, something to provide an avenue towards realism? Yes, realism in a game is an oxymoron.

Maybe this is just too much to implement given the small amount of funding.

 

The people who 'stand around' chatting in the bar all day do tend to sit a lot. The RPer needs very little encouragement to use what's available.

I would normally be the first to say that you should not design out of fear of misuse or abuse.. but the flip side to that is you don't knowingly design something in such a way that will be widely abused either. If it's forseeable then it's best to simply not do it that way.

 

Rewarding RP with a stat boost just seems compleatly wrong to me.
If you say rewarded a poetry contest with a hat or something, I might agree.

I don't really consider myself an PRer, but I'd rather see the game operate on the fewest possibly number of stats and numbers. I think anyone can appreciate an immersive experience.

 

Speaking from personal point of view. I don't think this is a good idea at all if it gives that player an advantage over people who don't roleplay. This would cause a couple problems like forcing people who don't want to RP to have to and well they would not make it enjoyable for the other RPers. I think it would be fine though if it were for non game changing items or events. I do not like RPing myself, and I would not be impressed at all if I was forced to or be behind in levels and/or gear.

 

Firstly - I am a RPer. I am not a PvE person... as if I'm going to play a game for just following plot and killing NPC bosses then I wouldn't be here. I'm not a PvP person. I like a combo of PvP/PvE that ultimately all is fed by RP. That said...

I'm not really for 'rewarding' RP. If you enjoy RP then you're going to do it and good RP with another RPer is really all the reward you need. If you don't like to RP, then you're not going to do so meaningfully even if there is a reward. Most people will just go through the motions. People will play the style of game they want to and if they don't want to RP and just want to use incomplete sentences and bash things then I'm all for them having fun and doing that... so long as they let me have my RP.

If you want to get people to try RP who usually wouldn't, I stand by the best way to do that is to get groups of people who RP together in events that will attract people, like tournaments, and give them a chance to try it if they like.

 

Why are you all always so down on ideas. Forums are the worst place evar to try and bring new ideas into a community it seems, and this one is certainly no exception.

Also I am a non-RPer, surprise much? Simply sticking a RP event in front of me is going to annoy me, if I was ever to RP it would be from my own choice and not because some dev saturates my login splash screen with special events where you get X tokens to trade in for Y extra special capes with Z designs on them. While that may bring a few cat hoarders to the table and those being driven by their frontal lobes, it isn't how get people to RP or would it succeed in creating real RP/RPers.

It is clear though, without incentives it is near impossible to get anyone to try something new regardless so the OP is at least on the right track. You just need to find the right combination of things to incentivize to get people to try it.

There are only very few instances where I would consider being part of RP myself, and I doubt the RPers would agree to the terms of the engagement

 

You might be surprised.. some RPers love to play trouble makers and start fights.. One of the rare moments where I've enjoyed PvP involved such occassions as ticking off someone else's character who was volitile enough to attack me over an exchange of words (and then getting their butt kicked). I've also taken plenty of beatings as a result of RP as others did something I felt a particular character would respond quite negatively too.

Roleplay is so much more than simply hanging around a tavern telling stories. There is much PvP to be had as a result also.

 

Indeed, one needs not an incentive to do rp. Any good rper will rp for the pure fun and excitement out of it as Bowen said.

 

I need an incentive to do RP. So that kinda shoots that theory out the window.

 

um.. it could get you into a lot of fight?