Focus on the roleplay

From our interview with Andy Collins and Bill Slavicsek at GenCon last year, this conclusion was clear to me: the mechanics are just mechanics, and you should be focusing on the roleplay.  Nerds latch on to rules and limitations, and often excel and enjoy min/maxing or using the mechanics to ends that they probably weren’t intended for.  What 4e provides for you is a way to have entry-level abilities and skills and have them FEEL impressive.  They even give you special racial abilities that help deepen your character from a two-dimensional cookie cutter into a honed, interesting, dynamic badass that is fun to play.

But I digress.  The criticism that 4e characters all feel like spellcasters, casting with their implements/weapons/rages/etc instead of having actual fighting tactics are ridiculously unfounded IMHO.  What has happened is that 4e characters have some very cool and dynamic abilities that allow them to participate in combat in a more meaningful way.

In our last session, our Avenger used on of his abilities to switch places with a bad guy, forcing said baddie into a situation that they had to struggle to get out of.  Our player actually remarked that that was one excellent battle tactic and that was an important distinction: the abilities read in a standard way, and its easy to attribute them all to a spell block since that’s what we’re used to from previous editions.  In reality, the non-magical character abilities are intended to be battle tactics, or primal abilities… something exceptionally physical to shape the battle in their favor.

So in short: view your character through the proper lens that the class outlines, and pay no mind to the fact that the ability card looks like the 3e spell block.  They’re just trying to simplify the presentation, and that’s it.

Here are a few really simple steps you can take to provide your players some incentive to think outside the sheath.

Reward Them!

This one is easy: provide some in-game incentives for them to roleplay more.  I have used both experience rewards and items/gold to tantalize my players out from behind the sword and shield, and I have found it best to inform them up front of this potential reward.  Encouraging your players to write backstory, act in character, or explore non-combat options can be immediately rewarded with an experience boost.  I have heard of this done as lump-sum RP rewards, or a multiplier for the rest of the session that will essentially double or triple earned experience.  I tend to lean toward 100 to 150 xp lump sum awards for in-character blog posts, character portraits or art, or other tie-in items.

You can beef this up as you desire.  Once, Vanir actually created a set of audio tracks inspired by an epic battle that he and our other players participated in.  I gave him around 1000 experience and a cool item to enhance his character, because participation outside the battle aspect of the campaign should be rewarded greatly.  For item rewards, I find it best to provide it to the character through an in-between session narrative in an effort not to bore the rest of the group.

Provide Episodes of Non-Battle Content

By learning to create episodic content you can foster more roleplaying within your campaign.  You can choose to have a bad guy defect in the middle of combat, pleading with your players to help him defeat his ex-buddies or have the players run across a damsel in distress in between fights to lead them into some diplomatic intrigue, you can steer your players toward non-combat interactions.  Again, as before, ensure that you dole out equivalent rewards for non-battle participation to provide incentive for your players to interact this way.

If your group truly loves hack ‘n slash and opts to roleplay, reward them with what they love: a unique hack and slash opportunity.  Whether it is competing in a prestigious gladiatorial competition or destroying an evil creature of specific threat to the local townspeople, this can be an effective way to foster roleplaying.  The characters get to fight and win a special prize as a reward in either case.  If they warm to this idea, you can use those established plot hooks to further the story and provide your players with even more roleplaying opportunities.

If your players electively refuse to roleplay, you can take one of two actions: let them continue hack ‘n slashing, or restrict their ability to fight.  You can throw them in jail and take their items, enter a strange magical field that increases the weight of items by 300%, or whatever… if you do this, you must do it sparingly.  This can be seen as railroading your players if not done with the appropriate soft touch.  I would much prefer that you opt for trying to provide abundant opportunities and let your players warm up to the idea than I would force them into it, but it is a technique that can be used effectively.

More advice from the DM’s perspective will come later on this week, so stay tuned!

The feedback that we’ve gotten on the Sizzle Card idea has been extremely positive.  Post up those ideas for Sizzle Cards and we’ll roll ‘em up into a PDF similar to what Zzarchov has done.  I’m honestly a little afraid of what Vanir will come up with!  Thanks for taking this one the extra mile, Zzarchov!