From: paul@redgum.ucnv.edu.au (Paul Smith)
Newsgroups: aus.games.roleplay
Subject: Re: Judging Roleplaying
Date: 3 Sep 92 04:37:55 GMT
Distribution: aus
Organization: UCNV, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia

s892341@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Matt=Goodall) writes:
>	Whenever you GM a group of people in a tournament there
>is usually a place to put a score for roleplaying. What does the
>Gm judge the group on? Is it consistancy? (When the player stays in
>character ALL the time). Is it how loud the player is? (Making it very
>easy to play a loud obnoxious character with a funny voice). The player
>must also make the right choices, a paladin not killing peasants etc.

Personally I tend to look for a consistent and believeable performance
from a player. If the character was played with realistic reactions to
situations and it was similar to what I have interpreted from my reading
of the character sheet, then I will usually score the player quite
highly for roleplaying. (if they don't play according to my
interpretation, I usually ask the player how they came to their
interpretation, there has been more than one occasion where I have had a
player read a very different, but quite good character from the
character sheet.) Other things that I look for are things such as how
keen the player was in play, how he interacted with the other players
and characters. Then there are other things like, did I enjoy the
character (not like but enjoy, I have hated some characters which I have
scored very highly), did the other players seem to enjoy the character
and how much fun did I have.

Things I do not like are people who are loud and obnoxious (unless in
character) and gamespeke. Also people who argue over rules, people who
are gross just to impress the other players with their outrageousness
and most of all people who start saying things for other characters or
start playing other peoples characters.

I dunno, its too hard to quantify roleplaying scores.

>And so I wonder how the Gm (worn out and tired) decides who was roleplaying
>better, when roleplaying is such a vague thing. 

Once upon a time I reffed a tournament here in Bendigo. Over a three day
period I was GM for 11 four hour sessions. Each group was scored
immediately they finished and amazingly the two best character
performances came from the last group when I was absolutely stuffed.
They were keen, exciting and played their characters so hard it hurt. It
was incredibly clear cut.

>	Anyway if anyone would care to respond as to how they would divide
>a roleplaying score, say out of 10, into it's components.

If I had to score someone out of 10 it would be something like
10-outstanding, 8-9-great, 6-7 better than average, 4-5- average, 2-3-ho
hum, 1-rotten, 0 and beyond-hate, hate, hate. Its better to judge
roleplaying scores by having the score sheet look at specifics of the
character.

>	One other thing that I think deserves consideration is the 
>percentage of a team score that is based on roleplaying. In recent
>years it has usually been 50% roleplaying (in the AD&D) but this
>year's Arcanacon major AD&D (Buate Dosta) was 2/3 roleplaying. Is this
>a good thing? Will next years winners not move from the first encounter?

It can be a good thing, it all depends on how it was advertised and
played. If it is advertised as being roleplaying only then it should be
100% roleplaying. This goes into the area of Flyer Information Integrity
where the score percentages should reflect the amount of emphasis on
things like roleplaying, problem solving etc. which was indicated in the
flyer.

Paul Smith
paul@redgum.ucnv.edu.au
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