House Rule to Get More Roleplaying From Your D&D Players (or other RPGs) 

i think immersion might be the key -- a common thing i've noticed is that many players (and sometimes DMs) treat TTRPGs like they would a video game. this leads to unimaginative combat and lackluster roleplay. if they feel like their character is an active part of the world and they care about the NPCs, it will feel alive, and they will engage with it like an actual world rather than a game.

Fleshing out a character, and having some supporting NPCs from their past helps a lot. The big thing you gotta keep in mind when playing D&D is you are not the main character - nobody is. It's a team game, and if you get someone with main character syndrome trying to push and pull everyone to do what they want to do, that gets really bad. Almost as bad as the meta-gamer that is trying to make the most powerful, well-optimized character. It brings everything down, and sucks the life out of the game. There's not much you can do about other players if you aren't the DM, but you can help your DM by trying to work with the other party members, and ask them questions aimed to get them into their character, and think what their character would do, not what they would do. Never play yourself; play your character. We had a guy playing essentially himself, he got himself killed, and threw a tantrum, quitting the game instead of rolling a new character. If you play yourself, and have a fragile-though-inflated ego, if your character dies, it can be difficult to accept that and move on. I've only played 2 proper D&D campaigns, and started about a year and a half ago. There's so much to learn, but our DM is great, and he makes it super fun. He also says we're the best group he's DM'd for in 10 years, and it's because while our characters are interesting, we let each other have our spotlight when it comes, and things unfold organically. Sometimes you get that really great group dynamic going, and man, we've had a blast! Doing the voices, playing the character, avoiding meta-gaming, all good things that make the immersion great. Sometimes we predict what the other characters would do, because we just know the character well enough. I consider myself very fortunate to have found this group, and maybe I'll DM someday, too, when I'm ready.

Great stuff! I love all your videos and look forward to many more.

Thanks to this video I now have a new playlist called 'DnD Tips!'. Thank you, this has been amazing and I really love your ideas. Can't wait to use some of them :)

This is great advice! Keep the videos coming. Skål!

Very nice considerations! I will think about how I can use them without breaking the gamemechanics by awarding too much XP.... Concerning OSE, I think you don't only award XP for killing monsters, but for passing threats by monsters. That might of course be to kill them, but you get the same amount of XP for finding clever ways to pass them without a fight.

progress is definitely a tricky one overall. I romanticically like the "If you use a skill, you get to level up that skill", but I dislike putting together a list of skills. It feels a lot easier when cobbling together my own things to just say there is one xp point for each adventure completed. I am not sure, what other ways would there be?

In D&D i removed the bless cantrip but give out d4s that can be spent like savage world bennies on non combat rolls. In SWRPG light side points as an RP reward rather than just rolling at session start. I trying out hinderances (deadlands) as a way to gain extra dice in other games as well. I've seen no game do as well as Deadlands in adding character to characters mostly from the low intensity flavor hinderances more so than the major ones... hmm i should write ones that fit the tropes of other genres....

Red from Better Games Old Leveling system - later used in Space Gamer / Fantasy Gamer Magazine Free Games All Ignobles must be checked off to go to next level Adventure, Travel, or Intrigue Bard's Tale, Fame, or Notoriety Battle, Military Engagements, or Strategy Desires Fulfilled, Profit, or Power Gained Prudence, Forethought, or Goals Growth, Leadership, or Politics Heroics, Audacity, or Courage Magical Events, Acquisition, or Exposure Either a GM would announce a player could check one off, or the player will ask if X was qualified to be checked off.

The incentive I use most goes as follows: If you don't roleplay, I don't invite you to come back to my game.