Well, when I ran Vampire: the Masquerade on TT, we entered combat about 3-4 times a year.  XP in that system has nothing to do with combat, and almost every character I've made for that game has pretty much no combat capability.  If you're looking into different systems, I'd say take a peek at White Wolf.

Ultimately it's a player thing. Even the most combat centric system, Hackmaster can be roleplayed, and the most story based ones can become hack and slash if the players want it to be one. One idea is to encourage RP by stressing other skills and abilities that players seldom use.

For example in Shadowrun games I've run in the past, I gave free knowledge points at character creation, that were only to be used in interest categories. This encouraged the player to have skills such as Art Appreciation and Grunge Rock Music. To further encourage this, I would have situations in game where these would come up. This got the players thinking about how to capitalize on these, sure, but it developed the character more, especially when they had to hold a conversation with a security guard on the merits of Troll Thrash metal while their team sneaks past.

The biggest way I've found though, is be very descriptive. The more descriptive you are, especially in PBP games, the more into the RP the group tends to get.

Another thing. If the players are having a long discussion and are keeping the thread going, let them. Don't stifle their RP by triggering an event to interrupt them. Unless of course they are doing this right outside a monster filled room in a dungeon, then sure jump them. :-)

I would say that for the vast majority of RPGs, it's on the players and GM to encourage roleplaying.  It's much, much easier for RP to happen in face to face games because you have all the audio and visual clues that aid conversation and interaction.  The players and GM need to have a discussion on what they want out of the game, and that includes how roleplay happens.  Some people have a harder time getting into, and staying in, character.  Others have a hard time with 'public speaking', even if it's only four of your good friends, you're still having to use your voice, to take center stage, and so on.

So it is hard for mechanics to support and enable roleplaying.    Even social mechanics, or ones that give little benefits for roleplaying one's character, can lead to 'just enough' roleplay to get the benefit.  Which may not actually be beneficial to the game as a whole.

As far as games that do acknowledge and attempt to encourage and support roleplay, I would say FATE is a very good system.  Each character's aspects offer the GM a tool to attempt to compel a character towards a certain action that is in character.  If the character is compelled, then they gain a benefit for later.  If the player wants to have their character to resist compulsion, and act in a way that may be out of character, then the player has to spend a fate point to do so.  But players can also use those aspects to gain a mechanical benefit (in the form of pluses to their die roll).  So if you want to act out of character at a key point in the encounter, it'll cost you.  If you stay in character, then you'll gain a benefit.

We should be clear on what each person means by roleplaying. Above, you say "act in character," and that's a good general description, but others have a more particular idea. For some people it specifically involves talking. For some it involves things that don't have anything to do with the challenges in the game; I've heard this called "playing house," not unkindly, by which they mean just living the characters' lives between tense situations. For some people, "roleplaying" is just about anything that isn't "combat."

My personal preference is to think of roleplaying as anything a player does that is plausibly what their character would do, whether that's talking, doing the dishes, hiding, throwing a punch or anything else. I prefer this definition, because it allows me to relax more about different playstyles.

Insofar as roleplaying is just doing things the character would do, many games promote it by making some things easy or automatic for a character and other things less so. In 4th Edition D&D, a fighter is well-equipped to go toe-to-toe with vicious enemies, thereby protecting their allies, whereas a wizard is less able to engage in melee but is well-equipped to stand back, zapping or blasting enemies, calling forth effects that non-magical characters can't easily reproduce, and applying personal protective effects when enemies get too close. In short, the fighter is encouraged to make fighter choices and the wizard is encouraged to make wizard choices. The two could swap places, but their options are more limited, so they're going to tend to be roleplayed as (the game's idea of) a fighter and a wizard.

One of the biggest things that promotes roleplaying is for players to feel like they can make in-character choices that won't a) be countermanded by the GM or other players or their characters or b) put them in a bad spot. This, I figure, is why combat and roleplaying are generally seen as distinct: the "good" choices are often extremely limited by the tactical situation, and doing anything else is likely to result in anger from one's teammates/fellow players or disappointment at one's own fate. Ever been in a game in which one person wants to talk to the enemy, or not go all out to kill them because that's "what the character would do" and everyone else is exasperated with them because they or someone else is going to get killed by this attempt at non-violence? (Or, a game in which someone attacks because that's "what the character would do" and everyone else is exasperated, because it's going to trash the negotiations?) It's like a chess player only ever moving their knights because their king likes to watch the horsies.

(Someone might make a character who tries to make only strategic, cold-blooded, calculating choices in combat and hates it when others don't. They'd then be roleplaying their character if that's how they acted during the game. If that's how the player is themselves, it's not much of a stretch, but I've never seen anyone claim roleplaying requires one to stretch.)

Along the same lines, if player ideas are deemed not to be possible simply by the rules of the game, a player might feel that they can't "be" the character they had in mind. If the rules (either as written or in the interpretation of the GM) make it very difficult or outright impossible to swing into or out of a situation on a chandelier in a game of swashbuckling adventure, then it might be hard for some players to feel like it's worth trying to pretend to be a swashbuckler.

And so, all that said, I do feel like Fate does as well as any came can in encouraging playing one's character and not being afraid of their own or anyone else's sub-optimal choices. In theory, actual "optimal" play requires a few sub-optimal choices. At the same time, players and GMs are encouraged to allow player ideas to work, and gives everyone currency to essentially pay to get their way, rather than having to argue or justify their point. This makes it possible (or at least more likely) for everyone to have the conditions they need in the game to feel okay about doing what their character would do, instead of some supposed "right" thing.

I'll also mention Dungeon World. Dungeon World gives a player experience points if they fail a roll. This goes some way toward justifying a player making choices that are more about what the character would do than about success. Failure also brings about something that's probably not in the characters' interests, so there's not much upside to doing lots and lots of things the character is bad at, just to gain experience.

Dungeon World characters also gain experience for doing something related to their alignment, which works because each character sheet clearly explains what that something looks like or results in. I wouldn't try something like that with, say, the D&D alignment system.

In my experience, no mechanics support role playing. I would suggest it is actually lack of mechanics that supports role playing.

As you say, a chapter about combat promotes combat, a chapter about conquest promotes conquest. However, in a free form game, where there are no mechanical rules at all, and all you have to work with are the description of your character and the description of the setting, that tends to be what comes to the fore - the interaction of your character with other characters and with the setting; ie, roleplay.

Every time you introduce a mechanic, you provide something to distract your players from role play and give them something else to play with instead.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:11, Thu 25 Jan 2018.

Well not to sound like a one note pony, but in the Vampire XP chart, there is no reward listed for winning in combat, but there is reward listed for roleplaying.  I think this holds true to other White Wolf games as well, but I can't remember.

Free form can be great, but it takes just the right GM.  Personally, I'm not sure if I'd try to tackle that one just yet myself.

That is the only mechanic that encourages 'roleplaying'.  Because roleplaying is a mechanic-less activity.

Lots of good input here. Sounds like the general consensus is that freeform allows for the most natural flow of roleplaying. I like the suggestion of FATE's compulsion system, sounds like an interesting way to nudge the players to think like their characters rather than think like a player. It reminds me a bit of the Microscope system where at the start of a roleplaying scene the players share what their character is thinking.

The talk about magic the decision be the core of the roleplay, rather than the obstacles surrounding that decision, is something I've been coming around to lately in my games.

Thanks for all the views on the matter!

Outside of specific mechanics focused on roleplaying, rules taken as a whole can help players understand and engage in it.

Fate Core outlines at the beginning of the book what Fate characters and adventures are "supposed" to be like in that system. These aren't "rules," but they mesh well with the fate point economy that is in the rules.

Much is made of how modern Dungeons & Dragons books have extensive chapters on combat (though I find that spell and ritual descriptions take up comparable amounts of space). Whether or not one things of combat as "roleplaying," the rules at least make rather clear to what extent players should have their characters willingly engage in combat and to what extent they should run screaming from it.

Then there's the old Call of Cthulhu. It's not necessarily easy to know how or in what way contact with the Mythos should make a person insane. There are mechanics (not mechanics I felt were all that well worked out, but mechanics none the less) to help a person with that.

I get leery about reading too much into ability scores, but many people like having those as a guideline for roleplaying. "Intelligence" in D&D (and similar abilities in other games) is the worst culprit here, since in some editions it impinges mechanically on one's character's ability to talk correctly (though oddly not on their ability to plan, strategize or solve puzzles, unless tied to a die roll), but I've seen people "dump" a character's Wisdom-type ability in order to justify playing a foolish character, or the Charisma-type ability in order to justify playing a boor. Or, they're handed a set of scores and feel obligated to play those scores differently than they would another set. I find that rules tend to give paltry guidance on this, but that groups often treat such portrayals as tied to the rules as any other part of the game.

Another idea I've had for a suggestion, is not so much a mechanic, but it will promote RP. Be more willing to say yes to ideas when the players are roleplaying and less willing when they are just mechanics.

Here's an example:

Joe: My character want's to bounce the arrow off the shield and have it hit the ork behind the bar.

GM: Do you have a feat for that?

Joe: No.

GM: Roll, you'll need a Natural 20.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Versus:

Joe: Aeronal the elven warrior leaps over the table backwards in an attempt to get to cover. Simultaneously he fires an arrow at the shield behind the bar, hoping to hit the ork that has ducked behind the bar. "Come on Haerthwin don't fail me now." (Haerthwin is his bow and he has established a long history of talking to it.)

GM: Roll your attack, with disadvantage, since it is a blind ricochet.

Joe: (Rolls two d20) With a 12 and a 15... I take the twelve and add my modifiers... 17, 18, 19! Will a 19 hit?

Gm: The arrow bounces off of the shield and ricochets behind the bar, and you hear a grunt of pain. Roll your damage...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you see the difference?

I'm not sure I do. The second one seemed more interesting and so somewhat more worth allowing to succeed. On the other had, the first one probably could use more encouragement to engage with the game in any manner.

It wouldn't surprise me for the player in the second example to riff off that miss in an interesting way, whereas I'd expect the first player to get more disengaged if their idea were allowed but still failed.

In general though, saying yes (better yet, "Yes, and...") is a marvelous way to encourage players.

Can we agree that just because someone is engaging with mechanics doesn't mean they're not roleplaying in worthy way.

The difference is that in the first the character was trying something but in the mechanical disconnected way, and not demonstrating any RP at all. The second, Was taking the shot without asking, and felt whether it succeeded or not it was something he would do. It was all RP and not mechanical. I envision the second one would have done the shot even if th GM had said he had no chance of succeeding, simply because he felt like Aeronal would have done it that way.

Color Centauri, both describe a scene.  Both can go either way.  The first one can be hyped up by another player, maybe offering a wager, in mid combat to kick the scene along.  Others could chime in, the bar stands still as the arrow flies along in slow motion ...  The DM will have to verbally concoct the results after the roll.  If a nat 20 is rolled, a good DM could coax a description from the shooter.  Otherwise it hits the shield, but where does it go ??  Fellow players will offer all kinds of suggestions, go with it.  Somebody has to step forward adding some spice to the game.

The second is like any Kung fu action movie, hilarity is about to ensue, regardless of the die roll.  Even if he misses the shot, where does the elf land ??  In some burly amazon's arms ??  Who turns into a love interest ??  Does he slide along the floor, bumping into the bar, causing an open bottle to fall over and gurgle its contents into the elf's open mouth ??  Is this a brawl that becomes legend ??

When the action is hot and moving, I am often walking about the room as the DM, stirring the pot, waving my arms, telling whoever is next to get a move on, this is a fight.  Keep it coming, the insaner the better.  Be infectious.  Once the first round is done, have that shot orc crawl out from behind the bar with an arrow in its rear.

In reply to A Voice in the Dark (msg # 14):

I see, I misunderstood.

I question discouragement like that (either a flat no, or an arbitrary high target) as a method. I get wanting to reward engagement, but engagement is also its own reward. Setting the bar higher just because of how someone is treating the situation seems unhelpful. The player isn't encouraged to be flashier and less concerned with mechanics, they're likely simply not to bother trying anything that the rules don't specifically cover - which, as the existence of this thread indicates, is most stuff that gets considered "roleplaying."

What if the GM in the first example said "Yes, and that's cool, so what happens is you make a regular attack. It's a hard trick shot, but the guy behind the bar isn't expecting it so he's wide open to it. If you hit roll normal damage, and if you miss, the target takes a -2 on his next attack, because he's freaked out." Or, slide the target to a new location as he realizes his cover is for nothing, or cause him to leave cover and charge, etc.

That could have issues too if the player then just always wants to make trick shots like that, but its reasonable to say "That worked once, but it will be a while before someone falls for it again." But players see that flashy stuff (or whatever stuff the game is themed around that the players, hopefully, are trying) can work, and that (hopefully) gets them thinking.

True. I can see your point, though I should have specified the example better. The normal rules in D&D wouldn't allow such a shot at all. The nat 20 would be allowing something that wouldn't be normally possible in the rules. The "reward" was for attempting to roleplay the character no matter what the consequences. It was probably a poor example, as more information was needed to fully understand the variables I was thinking about.

Hi, long-time listener, first-time caller... I'm running a Conan game here using the Modiphius 2d20 rules and those kinds of epic things are possible right from the start of the game. It has Momentum mechanic, think of it as inspiration, that provides a pool of bonus dice that are built up from you and your colleagues earlier successes. I want my players to try things like moving impossibly heavy blocks of stone, which one did, or to convince some guards that their attackers were the ones trying to start a revolt. It encourages the player to be flashier.

I'd agree with Centauri that utilising mechanics does not have to mean that the rolelaying isn't any good. "Yes and..." is always a good approach.

Welcome to the chat, Chromatic Newt. :)

I think Centauri's point is a good one. I'm often flexible with the rules, and if a player comes up with a good idea like that, I'd like to see it work - partly for the fun value and partly as encouragement for further roleplay. A straight 20 almost certainly isn't going to succeed, so it doesn't constitute much of a reward.

I'm not saying the character would kill the orc with such a shot, but something interesting or comical would result from the idea, by GM fiat if nothing else. Even if the mechanics don't support role play, the GM should.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:45, Thu 01 Feb 2018.

In reply to Ike (msg # 19):

Thanks! I don't want to veer us too far off topic. "Yes" and "Yes, and..." GMing has a thread here that I'd love to see more activity in.

So, I'm leery of GM-based incentives for roleplaying, which is why I think mechanics that provide incentives for it can be a good thing. Often "roleplaying" gets taken to mean "not optimizing," because it's arguably a little difficult to find characters interesting if they can't reasonably be challenged. Some games come close to finding ways to make "not optimizing" part of the optimizing, so that roleplaying is less of a "get out of it what you put into it" thing or "amuse the GM and get rewarded" thing.

Plenty of games let players buy "flaws" in order to improve other aspects of their character. I've never felt those work very well, mainly because the players get the benefits up front, whether or not the flaw ever comes into play. It's easy to have "afraid of heights" if most of the actions is probably going to take place on solid ground (which is often the case simply because three-dimensional situations are not always handled well in rules).

If a game were to tie directly into flaws, or if there were rules to, say, make sure that there were no "dump stats," by somehow making every aspect of the game important for every character (instead of, say, PC 1 being able to sit back while  party "face" PC 2 handles everything PC 1's abysmal Charisma-equivalent makes them hopeless at), then taking "downsides" would tend to matter more.

Again: Fate. Good aspects have both upsides and downsides, but players want the downsides to come up, so they can power the upsides. I can't even say I've ever seen Fate done all that well, but I can't get over how great the concept is.

I just wanted to mention a system that I find is very good at promoting RP...

Flying Circus.

Flying Circus is a "powered by the apocalypse" game (a heavily modified one) that introduces some pretty damn good ideas. The basic concept is a "not quite Earth" world where a near apocalypse wiped out all the big empires, and ground transport is a nightmare for a bunch of in game reasons. The PC's play members of a flying circus, basically a mercenary/adventurer group of pilots flying planes mostly designed and built during the great war.

The game has a lot of neat mechanics, but one of my favorite is stress.

So, as you might expect, flying for hours in an unheated deathtrap for hours and getting into combat is what one would call, a stressful situation. In this game, as stress builds up you eventually can't pilot the plane.

That said, you WANT stress (but not too much at once). Removing stress lets you mark experience, which you do through various vices that have to be taken to excess. Flying Circus members are hard living folk. This encourages the kind of hard living/dying young lifestyle expected of someone who makes a living flying a 40+ year old WWI biplane into deadly confrontation for a living.

Now, what raises stress is also really interesting. Flying and combat are always a pain, but the worst stresses are based on your playbook. I haven't played much flying circus, but the two sessions I did play, I was running a scion, basically a noble, who is used to being in charge and getting their way. Their worst stressors involve threatening other nobles, having their commands be ignored, and being given orders. In our first fight, I gunned down someone in cold blood. I gained a little stress. The other player was way more effected.

The second game, our mission was to escort a bratty princess around. There was almost no combat. I was this close to maxing stress by the end of it though and having a meltdown, because I kept getting disrespected by people and having to deal with someone who socially outranked me. The other pilot gained a lot as well, for a bunch of other reasons more related to their playbook (soldier).

Also, since both of us had stress galore, we had to have a night on the town that involved broken limbs, shooting pigeons and on the dock (one of us had to hunt), and a bunch of shit that would have gotten our asses jailed if we weren't hotshot pilots who the city wanted to keep on good terms.

Each playbook also has interesting mechanics related to intimacy with other characters and the world.

The scion is basically a control freak, and have the ability to pull cash out of their estate.. but this literally impoverishes their holding. It's largely a class about privilege and being a control freak.

There is a class called the survivor who grew up in a city that had been gassed with what amounts to eternal mustard gas. They always wear a mask. Taking it off for them and being open is a big deal for them.

There's a class called the fisher who are not 100% human any more, and have weird a religon/culture that no body else trusts. When they do anything that reminds people that they are fishers, basically they give everyone else stress... and the fisher's intimacy move involves basically doing these religious rites as a blessing.

The playbooks for flying circus are really quite impressive, and have a fair amount of mechanics to encourage the kind of interactions the game is looking for. Their moves are very thematic as well and have obvious references that let the player know exactly what they are going for.

1. Exalted had social combat, at least second edition did, as I can't speak on third.
   
2. Pathfinder 1e had Ultimate Intrigue, which did cover such things as how to sway crowds and such. Some of the mechanical options of that would work well for any D20 game,      and would be a viable tool as part of  mechanically supporting RP/ social interactions.  It would not, in of itself  lead to increased RP, because it too can become just, I roll this to obtain that. 

This leads me to a few other things:

• Is playing one’s character rewarded an easily recognizable way?  This has two parts to it, but this is one part. Do you the DM/ Storyteller say, so and so got experience for playing his/ her character well?
• Has the DM/ Storyteller stated directly that playing one’s character is important, and will help determine things?   I will get to what it can determine in a moment.
• Does the DM/ Storyteller state that in social situations rolls are only to be done when the DM/ Storyteller asks for them, and the interactions should be treated more as free-form, until rolls are asked for?  I was briefly in a Pathfinder game where social interactions were handled this way, and it did help with RP a great deal, since sometimes  translating certain mechanics are a bit iffy, and it also meant we could run with things a bit more.
• Has the DM/ Storyteller established groups, and other things that the group has some idea of, and conditions of interaction with? This is the milieu of your RPG, which might  have some built in, making it easier, but some do not. VTM for instance, had some already built in milieu to such an extent that it was easier to engage in playing one’s character, since the milieu provided information on how to engage in player/ player, and player NPC interactions. If one has an idea on how to act socially, it makes it easier to act.  This is why social skills training had to be created for long-term blind people, since if you have a hard time figuring out how to model social behavior, then its harder to engage in social behavior.  This can be set up, for players sighted, or blind, as part of joining the game, in thread asides, and the like. It can even be something that certain RP interactions can give to the player.   This leads me to IC rewards for RP/ social interactions.
• IC rewards for social  interaction/ RP. Did your party Face to just pull off a smooth totally free-form interaction with a NPC to gain some info, which actually pulled one other party member into it, who also played their character, maybe that gave them some connections to the Goblin slums, which might give them more eyes and ears in the city. Did  a player and another player engage in some just-for-the-fun-of-it interactions in a night club, while waiting for a mission/ quest giver? Maybe  such interactions will lead to a totally random (not random), interaction with a guy that might help the group later with an item discount.  Should this happen all the time,no, because rewards work best when they are a bit random.  They also deepen  your games milieu and give it that “Its alive, its alive!”  feel.

I’ll come back to this, because as someone that’s thinking of running some games here on RPOL, who’ve played in games where everything ground down to either combat, or dice rolls, even when not in combat, which made me want to scream, ‘come on gang lets play our characters.’

In reply to Sightless314 (msg # 22):

In this particular instance, GMs could facilitate character interaction outside of "missions", or "adventures", by having social areas with their own threads.  Bars, raves, market streets, or something appropriate to the setting.  Also, having some downtime between said "missions" or "adventures" could also facilitate roleplay between characters.

As for rewarding roleplaying, that's usually on the GM.  There are some games that help that happen, but I couldn't name any off the top of my head.  I don't single out a player for good RP, generally in my experience once one person starts doing it, the others jump right in.  So I'll reward the group with extra XP, or some goodies for their characters.  For those odd times when players don't follow along once one gets to roleplaying, I am hesitant to point out that one player, because the tactic could easily backfire.  Better to nudge players towards RP, or reward group RP the moment it happens, to encourage more roleplay.

Now if you state at the beginning (which you should, when you and the players are talking about expectations) that RP will be rewarded with extra XP or goodies, at that point you could start giving out individual bonuses.  Since everyone was notified ahead of time.  It can still backfire, so I would say use it tactfully.

EDIT: Apparently in my previous reply way up, FATE is a good game where roleplay can be encouraged by the GM with mechanics for doing so.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:27, Mon 23 Jan 2023.

It does, but "rules for talking" aren't actually role play. Elaxted is worth mentioning here because they DO have basically the best mechanic for encouraging narration which sort of sets you on the path to better RP.

Stunts somehow manage to hit an ideal spot where they are a reward worth getting but also seem to not stagnate. I expect it is partly because of the system and setting are supposed to work on rule of cool to begin with so the expectation is there that you are going to do a backflip as you kill a guy to get a bonus rather than needing to do that and getting a penalty for trying in the first place.

I've tried adding a stunt system to other games and it doesn't seem to work as well for some reason.

Also I used a combat example. But it applies to social combat too. It's not a wibbldy wobbldy "give a bonus to diplomacy for good RP" it's the same stunt rules as everything else so it seem more tangible, I guess. Like we know where the bar is because we do it literally every action rather than it being this random undefined buff only for social interaction.

In reply to Sir Swindle (msg # 24):

You have a good point, and I've asked my DM a few questions about this, because I'm the player in this game listening to it being done, versus listening to him the DM doing it. Keith  Baker does have a blog entry somewhere -- its an Eberron game I'm in -- that talks about Using the environment and mechanics for better  roleplay. its for fifth edition,  so take that as you will.    I'll post the link, if I can tab to the link, or quote points when I find the blog. I suspect it'll be a bit, since blind people are slow when searching on the internet

I should probably add, right now, that everything I post here is merely a suggestion based on my limited experience that has seemed, emphasis added here,
 to work, and not a rule I'm going to fight over. .

I found the Modiphius 2d20 system, e.g. Conan, had a fairly coherent system and some good options like a pool into which excess success could go, to help the characters do more difficult things e.g. the agile thief who leaps across a chasm first can add excess success dice to the pool to "inspire" the lumbering warrior who goes next.

It also used the same concepts for physical combat, magic, and social combat, which helps with familiarity.

The downside were the number of dice rolls seemed to make things drag a little in a pbem.

Amber has always been more about Role Playing than anything else, as you can't really play unless you are playing 'in-character' all the time.
Character Points(CP) are the only way to progress and their award is subject to the GMs discretion, in fact there are almost no rules relating to the award of CP other than "Furthering the Story", and even the specific elements that are defined "Writing a Character Diary" specifically promote Role Playing.