Originally Posted by dr_venture
Hmmm... perhaps I'm not understanding some other DM's thoughts on the value of role playing in character advancement. I appreciate DM's wanting to reward good roleplaying by awarding XP for it, as it's an aspect of the game that is core to RPGs and fun. A player invests themselves into a session, and the DM wants to reward that - I understand the desire to reward that.
But for me it's all about rewarding characters with XP for things that would most likely cause that character to advance in their profession, or as an adventurer. An argument can always be made that everything a character does advances their understanding of the world, but a line does have to drawn somewhere, practically speaking... which is what we're talking about.
I'd award XP for a Rogue that roleplays a conversation with a noble, sweet talking his way into the person's home in order to pilfer something - he's accomplished something he can learn from, and be better at his profession. But I'd reward that Rogue equally whether he played the whole encounter out with a proper accent and witty banter, or whether the player simply said (as many of mine prefer to do), "I'm going to use my Charisma to chat up the rich guy and see if I can get access to his house."
I wouldn't reward the rogue for having a Oscar-worthy performance at the game table for conversation with an very important NPC if it didn't advance either the character's personal or professional goals/story, or the party's goals/story. If something was achieved by chuming up to the NPC, whether through role play or simple statement by the player, I'd reward it.
I've just had too many players who aren't comfortable roleplaying to the degree that other players are. They're very uncomfortable 'acting.' They absolutely love the game, are avid and regular players, but they're just not comfortable stepping as far into their character's shoes as other players are. As a DM I get that too, I have absolutely no problem with it. My only goal is for them to have fun playing and get into the game to whatever degree in which they're comfortable.
I would say that I think roleplaying a character naturally leads to more opportunities for gaining XP, because, well, things tend to just come up in conversation, just like in real life. I do my best to be fair, but I've definitely had subjects and information come up if roleplayed conversations that I never expected to come up at all, and players have benefited from this, and indeed have gotten XP from that conversation. I try to be fair to the non-extroverted players an allow for this to a degree, but it is what it is - some methods of game play are more effective than others. I can't change that, but I can make the non-extroverted feel comfortable and level their playing field a bit.