How do YOU encourage proper RPing?

[DeathQuaker]

Generally, my players don't need much encouragement to RP and I'm not sure what is "improper" RP vs "proper" RP.... I suppose the best thing I can do as a GM is try to make the story/backdrop/NPCs immersive so they want to interact with it in detail.

Even though people always bring mechanics into this kind of discussion, I find, in my personal experience, they don't matter a whit. It all depends on the players and GMs involved--if the GMs build a detailed world they're passionate about and players love and are into their characters, they'll RP whether the rulebook is thousands of pages long or just a 10 page .pdf handout. Again, my personal experience, but I find roleplaying is always in the hands of the players and never has anything to do with what the rulebook says or not.

I am not sure if this is what folks mean, but the only problem I have vs. roleplaying is just players sometimes getting too silly and too OOC, where the game gets stalled because people are just goofing off rather than playing the game. Of course, you have to let people socialize somewhat--if gaming together around the table isn't a social event, then IMO you're doing it wrong. On the other hand, if your friends just want to be getting together and goof off, we don't need to be playing something as prep intensive as an RPG. So to avoid that... I try to encourage people to get together early to get stuff out of their system--the best times I've had with this is meeting somewhere OUT for dinner/lunch and then moving to a different location for gaming. This helps signal that "it's game time now" and people are more focused on the game.

And sometimes if people are really unfocused, it's good just to call a break, or even just say, "Guys, do you want to play today or not?" Sometimes it's not, and that's fine.

And sometimes it's a matter of just assembling the right group. Some of my friends I'd never invite to play in the SAME game because I know they'll distract each other. No hard feelings, as usually in this case the players in question are as aware of the possible problem as I am. They know if someone sits out one game, they'll play in the next. I'll try to ask people I know who will play well together and build good player chemistry. I love it when there's a moment in game where everyone is so invested in interacting with each other that I have a moment where I don't have to actively GM and I can catch up on my game notes.

If someone is really, really in character or roleplays something INTERESTING out that they could've just asked for a die roll for instead, I'll reward with something appropriate--like giving more information than originally planned, or having them receive a special item that will be useful to them, or whatever seems story appropriate. If it's done right, it should be a seamless part of the story--just that they handled that well, so the result is something better than expected.

[Deepblue706]

As a DM, I find the best method to encourage roleplaying is to provide a reason to do so. I do not expect my players to put too much into it if I'm not trying to immerse them. So, when I want lots of roleplaying, I give lots of world information, and design more NPCs for the players to interact with. And when I try, things work out.

That's about it.

[Swordguy]

[joke]

I don't HAVE to encourage roleplaying. We switched to 4th edition so we wouldn't have to role-play.

[/joke]

More seriously, I'm reasonably blessed in that the vast majority of my local players are theatre people - RP is the point. For those who aren't theatre people, they tend to conform to the majority.

[Raum]

Even though people always bring mechanics into this kind of discussion, I find, in my personal experience, they don't matter a whit. It all depends on the players and GMs involved--if the GMs build a detailed world they're passionate about and players love and are into their characters, they'll RP whether the rulebook is thousands of pages long or just a 10 page .pdf handout. Again, my personal experience, but I find roleplaying is always in the hands of the players and never has anything to do with what the rulebook says or not.

I partially agree with you...very few mechanics, taken individually, encourage or discourage role playing. However, in any game where the mechanical details take a significant percentage of your play time, the time left for role play is proportionately less. If I only have three hours to game and I know one hour will be taken up by a combat's mechanical details, I only have two hours to devote to other facets of the game such as role play.

If someone is really, really in character or roleplays something INTERESTING out that they could've just asked for a die roll for instead, I'll reward with something appropriate--like giving more information than originally planned, or having them receive a special item that will be useful to them, or whatever seems story appropriate. If it's done right, it should be a seamless part of the story--just that they handled that well, so the result is something better than expected.

I like this almost as much as using intangibles. A question for you - do you try to make it apparent the extra information stemmed from role play?

[Shadowdweller]

For the most part: I have NPCs react better toward characters who evoke a particular role more clearly. Or whose players make more of an effort to evoke a particular role. This includes some non-mechanical rewards as mentioned previously by others (fame, title, offers to join various institutions), as well suffering less hassle/harassment where appropriate. This is, of course, explicitly mentioned to the players beforehand.

[OneFamiliarFace]

Any sort of good NPC - just the kind that the group treats as a (albeit fake) person, instead of a video game character (I am a gamer and played WoW for a long time, so this isn't an insult - but you don't RP with Deckard Cain).

...So I've just been talking to myself in Tristram all these years? *single tear*

[Agrippa]

Chatter is usually a sign that it's time to break out the Lego pirates and start firing marbles at each other's ships instead of role playing. Some nights, we're just not in the mood!

Do you mind if I put that quote in my sig? Thank you.

[Hairb]

As a newcomer to D&D, I sort of found roleplaying quite difficult, because even though I had a background for my character, I hadn't "translated" that story into a personality.
Then, before one game, the DM handed out a questionnaire with about 15 questions relating to the character's hopes, fears, loves and hates. As it turned out, they were for a fear and hallucination-based adventure, but I found it a formative roleplaying experience. While it didn't exactly turn me from Joe Goblinslasher to Alec Guinness, it gave me something to work from. I'd written down an answer, so I thought, "Gee, I might as well stick to it."
As a result, I always try and tease out personality traits from my players early on in the piece, in the hope that they will do the same.

[EndlessWrath]

There are 2 kinds of reinforcement. Positive and negative.

I've always found it easier to encourage proper RPing with exp. penalties

kill an adventure hook, BAM!!! exp goes away, just like that

This is negative reinforcement. Not that it doesn't work....well..wait... it doesn't.
Forcing the players to roleplay by incurring penalties on them when they don't gives them a negative attitude toward roleplaying in general. It makes them not have fun playing, do the minimum requirement of roleplaying (bs-ing the ENTIRE thing if they can) and less likely to join the next game... if they don't quit this one.

To solve the question at hand... You don't encourage players to do so. You don't discrourage them either.

if you discourage them the results are obvious.

if you encourage players, it will bring minimal results. For example, I was playing in a game, and 2 players (out of 8, big crew) did special roleplaying and got their bios in early. They were extremely well written. As soon as the DM mentions giving them 100 bonus gold for the extra work they did, 3 more players bs-ed their ENTIRE work. When the DM refused to give them bonus gold that the other players received...the 3 felt cheated... Had the DM taken the other option, the 2 original players would have felt dumb for putting so much effort into their characters.

-----
This is how I fix the problem. I let the players run the game. If they wanna go somewhere...then they go there. if they wanna talk to Joe Shmoe. then do so. While they're doing this, the world keeps turning. If a necromancer is gonna destroy a city... and the PC's know about it but decide not to get involved... he'll do so anyways. If they skipped the chance to learn about it... it still gets destroyed. This isn't revenge against the players, its just the world in gear.

*Edit*
One more thing. D&D is a player's game as much as it is the DM's. If a player isn't interested in doing something, i find its not useful to railroad them. Don't make the game a plot-based twist crazy epic story! Make it interesting to the players. Can't we do both? if one idea isn't working, can't we as DMs make a new one?

This works for me...it might work for you it might not. But those are my few cents.

[nagora]

As a newcomer to D&D, I sort of found roleplaying quite difficult, because even though I had a background for my character, I hadn't "translated" that story into a personality.

Yeah, that's what I meant about detailed backgrounds not being any guide to whether a person will roleplay the character well. The problem is that background isn't a real guide to personality. For example, seeing your parents murdered does not tell you anything about how that affects a person: they may become clerics and set up an orphanage, they may become psychoticly jealous of people with parents, they may become dark-winged avengers of the night preying on superstitious criminals ("hsss, the Moonroach knows!") etc.

It's generally better to have a personality in mind and then work backwards to draft the background that led to that rather than start with the detailed background and try to work forward, in my experience. So, your DM giving you a form of questions and answers about the character's personality is a good approach which I've seen used a few times. I quite like the Runequest "What my father/priest/shaman told me" sheets too.

Detailed starting bios are rarely very useful and can cause a certain amount of friction if the character dies early on.

[DeathQuaker]

I partially agree with you...very few mechanics, taken individually, encourage or discourage role playing. However, in any game where the mechanical details take a significant percentage of your play time, the time left for role play is proportionately less. If I only have three hours to game and I know one hour will be taken up by a combat's mechanical details, I only have two hours to devote to other facets of the game such as role play.

I think the thing with combat... which is always going to be more dierolling than roleplay (though my best roleplayers will always describe their actions in interesting ways, beyond "I hit the dragon with my sword")... is that for me, it seems like combat ALWAYS takes a long time, regardless of system. Part of this is because my players get into arguments over tactics. As long as it doesn't get ridiculously into metagaming, i don't mind this.

I don't think I've played in a system where combat didn't last at least an hour, and I've played everything from Tri-Stat to Hero to various editions to D&D to Storyteller to fairly diceless homebrew games (because dice still get pulled out for combat). Some of the more "rp-intensive" games I've played--I used to play a TON of White Wolf's (OLD) World of Darkness which was always hailed as a hugely roleplaying oriented system, but combat still took two hours.

If I want an RP-intensive session, I generally don't plan combat, or plan only minor combat, for the session.

I like this almost as much as using intangibles. A question for you - do you try to make it apparent the extra information stemmed from role play?

If it disrupts the flow of play I may not at the time, but I may mention to the player afterwards, "You handled that really well. I wasn't intending to let you guys find this out yet. Good roleplaying." Or whatever.

[Roderick_BR]

There are 2 kinds of reinforcement. Positive and negative.



This is negative reinforcement. Not that it doesn't work....well..wait... it doesn't.
Forcing the players to roleplay by incurring penalties on them when they don't gives them a negative attitude toward roleplaying in general. It makes them not have fun playing, do the minimum requirement of roleplaying (bs-ing the ENTIRE thing if they can) and less likely to join the next game... if they don't quit this one.

To solve the question at hand... You don't encourage players to do so. You don't discrourage them either.

if you discourage them the results are obvious.

if you encourage players, it will bring minimal results. For example, I was playing in a game, and 2 players (out of 8, big crew) did special roleplaying and got their bios in early. They were extremely well written. As soon as the DM mentions giving them 100 bonus gold for the extra work they did, 3 more players bs-ed their ENTIRE work. When the DM refused to give them bonus gold that the other players received...the 3 felt cheated... Had the DM taken the other option, the 2 original players would have felt dumb for putting so much effort into their characters.

-----
This is how I fix the problem. I let the players run the game. If they wanna go somewhere...then they go there. if they wanna talk to Joe Shmoe. then do so. While they're doing this, the world keeps turning. If a necromancer is gonna destroy a city... and the PC's know about it but decide not to get involved... he'll do so anyways. If they skipped the chance to learn about it... it still gets destroyed. This isn't revenge against the players, its just the world in gear.

*Edit*
One more thing. D&D is a player's game as much as it is the DM's. If a player isn't interested in doing something, i find its not useful to railroad them. Don't make the game a plot-based twist crazy epic story! Make it interesting to the players. Can't we do both? if one idea isn't working, can't we as DMs make a new one?

This works for me...it might work for you it might not. But those are my few cents.

That's ecaxtly what we talking about giving "intangible" rewards. If the players interact more with NPCs, they (the npcs) may feel more inclined to help out. Robot-like people bs-ing their way, will sound like (powerful) lunatics, and will be left to their own trouble.
If the players can figure out themselves that a reward-punishiment is in place, and is not forced upon them, then it's good.
For example: The DM set a short story with orc marauders raiding the local town. The players know the orcs are there.

Case 1: The PCs go to town, and ask around about where to find the orcs, buy some stuff, and set off. They find the orcs, kill them, take the treasure, return to town, takes the reward, and leave.
That's normal, mindless fun. Sometimes we just feel like riding into battle and kill stuff. My group do that from time to time when we are too bored, and there's no videogame available.

Case 2: The players, when asking around, decide to roleplay what their characters are saying. Doesn't really need to be "real" roleplaying, just assuming what they are saying "My character asks so and so", for the more shy ones. They study the town, try to gather the townsfolk's trust, and so on.
After a while, they can get some results: Some commoner knows a trail to the orc camp, that doesn't seem to be well guarded. The smith decides to let them take a look at some masterwork itens he's been holding, and make them a special price. After dealing with the orcs, and talking to the mayor, he writes them a recomendation letter to his friend in the next city, that can get tips for good treasure locations, etc.
If the players do take their time to do things, things should start to happen. That'll incentive them to put a bit more tought into their actions. The more they RP, the more they develop their characters' traits, the more things in-game they get.

Case 3: The classic, "I attack him" when the DM is trying to describe the scene where the PCs meet the king. No need for much explainations here.
Even if the players are not interested in immersion, they should at least pay a little attention to the history. Bad roleplaying should be punished with in-game reactions, not meta effects, like XP loss.

The only advice here is to not punish players with little background/roleplaying with metagame penalties, and don't over reward roleplayers with metagame rewards.

[Mushroom Ninja]

In my experience, the best way to encourage RPing is by sticking in cool npcs to interact with the PCs. Ethic dilemas help as well. "Roleplaying XP" has always seemed like a bad idea to me. It can lead to too much competition between players to try to squeeze the max XP out of everything.

[Winterwind]

Even though people always bring mechanics into this kind of discussion, I find, in my personal experience, they don't matter a whit. It all depends on the players and GMs involved--if the GMs build a detailed world they're passionate about and players love and are into their characters, they'll RP whether the rulebook is thousands of pages long or just a 10 page .pdf handout. Again, my personal experience, but I find roleplaying is always in the hands of the players and never has anything to do with what the rulebook says or not.

Even though Raum already justified this point, I would like to emphasise that I quite deliberately chose the formulation "...the less time the mechanics consume, and hence the more time remains for the roleplaying proper", instead of saying that rules-light systems encourage roleplaying more than rules-heavy ones. I fully agree that mechanics generally have little to do with the incentive to roleplay, this lies entirely in the players' hands, but a system that is light on mechanics will generally allow the dice rolling and analysis of the dice rolls to consume much less time of the session, leaving more time for actual roleplaying.

Though I should add that I do not share your experience; I have found that combat and other mechanical affairs generally last much shorter in rules-light systems, and in some of the games I play a fight of one hour would be considered a battle of epic proportions.

[Paul H]

Hi

I define Roleplaying as a group of people playing different characters in a dynamic story. They have a basic framework within which to work, but the final story ending hasn't been decided yet.

Also we game to have Fun. Everyone should be involved, and the GM should be aware of what different players want. If the players are all hack'n slash, then so be it. If they're there for a whodunnit murder mystery type, then that's good too.

I tend towards basic concepts for home grown campaigns, too much detail makes them inflexible. I like to 'think on my feet' & make players 'Masters of their Own Destiny' through the choices they make.
(Though for a Swashbuckler campaign I did download copies of some 17th century maps of the Caribbean. Nice detail to say "you are headed here - enemies are based there...)"

Cheers
Paul H

[EndlessWrath]

I think the thing with combat... which is always going to be more dierolling than roleplay (though my best roleplayers will always describe their actions in interesting ways, beyond "I hit the dragon with my sword")... is that for me, it seems like combat ALWAYS takes a long time, regardless of system.

D&D 3.5 (as with most d&d) is a combat heavy system. Its unfortunate but true. Many players think not of a character concept, but rather, what they want to do in battle. I've forced my campaigns Combat = half the time. and rp = the other half... like...thats just how it runs... so less encounters than a normal game..but they run just as long.

In my experience, the best way to encourage RPing is by sticking in cool npcs to interact with the PCs. Ethic dilemas help as well. "Roleplaying XP" has always seemed like a bad idea to me. It can lead to too much competition between players to try to squeeze the max XP out of everything.

I agree and disagree. You see, rather than award EXP points for Role-playing or "Roll-playing"... i do it for any time a player excels in his/her spotlight. Lemme 'splain.

A barbarian is a combat mech. He's a deadly machine and a god of death. A player that plays a barbarian receives his/her spotlight in battle...which is a majority of the game.

A bard on the otherhand doesn't necessarily lose that option, but even if he had same rolls as the barbarian...he wouldn't come close to the barbarian's fighting power. The bard excels in other things... mainly non-useful things but hey he's a bard.

my point is Rogues are dps yes... but they excel in Skill checks and such... while wizards get that magic side. There's a spotlight for every player. If they do well, reward them. if they don't, don't.

And I'm not just saying reward a barbarian only if he kills stuff.... or even EVERY time he kills stuff. (yes he gets exp, i mean bonus stuff from normal)

Reward players if they do well. period. Thats how I see it at least

[DeathQuaker]

Even though Raum already justified this point, I would like to emphasise that I quite deliberately chose the formulation "...the less time the mechanics consume, and hence the more time remains for the roleplaying proper", instead of saying that rules-light systems encourage roleplaying more than rules-heavy ones.

Just so you know, I wasn't targeting your comment specifically, but a mass of comments in this thread and elsewhere. I think your careful wording makes sense.

I fully agree that mechanics generally have little to do with the incentive to roleplay, this lies entirely in the players' hands, but a system that is light on mechanics will generally allow the dice rolling and analysis of the dice rolls to consume much less time of the session, leaving more time for actual roleplaying.

Though I should add that I do not share your experience; I have found that combat and other mechanical affairs generally last much shorter in rules-light systems, and in some of the games I play a fight of one hour would be considered a battle of epic proportions.

I certainly understand that in theory, what you're saying is true--rules-heavy games certainly should make combat longer. That's why I am careful to point out that it's my experience in practice that doesn't make it so.

I noticed I somehow deleted a sentence in my post above (which I've now re-added) -- I think part of why combats are long for ME is that my players (whether I am a GM or among them) stop and get into tactical arguments. It doesn't matter if you have to roll once per combatant or eight times if people are stopping to analyze the situation and figure out how to make the combat work for them. I don't mind this to some degree, though I'll stop them if they're over-metagaming or taking too long. ("You have 10 seconds to announce your combat action, or we're moving on to the giant illithid's turn.")

And in some ways, because I have some players who can get argumentative over how to handle a combat, sometimes I appreciate the rules-heavy systems more, because if someone's getting particularly picky about an issue, they tend to respect a GM calling more if I say, "No, mechanically, this is how you handle this because the book says so right here." There's always rule zero, but sometimes I've noticed players are faster and moreover more content to shut up if you can show them a rule in print than say, "My calling in this situation is BLAH" --

BUT these are all personality issues, not a system issue itself.

But personality issues I think are a valid point in a discussion like this. RPGs involve social interaction. If the character sheets advanced themselves and the dice rolled without the people behind them, there'd be no point. So you have to factor in the human part of it--and in my experience, moreso than the rules of the game.

Player experience is an issue too. I've been in 3.5 combats went lightning fast because everyone knew what they were doing---but also ones that went slower than normal because of having players who don't know the rules (and more frustratingly, players who say, "ooh! ooh! I want to game!" and then when you give them the rules to read, they refuse to. Of course, said players are never going to be invited to play in certain games I run again, but I digress). Likewise rules-light is great when everyone's on the same page, and terrible when they're not BECAUSE there aren't strong guidelines on how to handle certain situations.

I think what it REALLY boils down to--to encourage good gameplay in general, as well as good roleplaying in specific--is the GM and players need good familiarity with the game at hand--be it complex in its crunch or not-- both conceptually and mechanically. That way when they need system aid they know exactly how to handle it, and otherwise they know when to discard the die-rolling in favor of roleplaying. If you know what you're doing, NO mechanics should ever get in the way of your fun or your roleplay.

[Paul H]

Hi

Well put, DeathQuaker, couldn't agree more.

A recent game of Living Greyhawk had fairly simple comabat. We knew what we each could do. (Embarrassingly the Fighter remembered more about my equipment than I did- after 3 months)! Pretty much pseudo military like in planning.

(Simple case of Arcane Eye for recon, then Flaming arrows cast for Scout, Mass Fly, Evard's Tentacles & party buffs before we went in. Wall of Force, Fireballs etc as required).

Cheers
Paul H

[Raum]

I certainly understand that in theory, what you're saying is true--rules-heavy games certainly should make combat longer. That's why I am careful to point out that it's my experience in practice that doesn't make it so.

It's not just combat, after all combat may be part of the role play experience. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned combat specifically, but it made an easy example of one of D&D's more rules heavy subsystems. It's just an example though...the same result shows in skill systems, magic systems, and any other system heavily dependent on mechanics.

Take an extremely light game such as Over the Edge for comparison. A starting character has four statistics - a central trait, two side traits, and a flaw. The basic system mechanic is to roll 2-4 d6 (based on player narrative and related character trait) against a target number based on difficulty. That's nearly the only rule you need to know...the rest is just how to apply it. As such, the mechanics take very little time. Whether it's combat, attempting a skill, or casting a spell most time is spent in narratives. The actual die roll to decide success or failure is over very quickly.

Contrast that with a more detailed game such as D&D. The mechanical character description may be several pages long. The game mechanics detail specific results for specific actions in a given situation. They simply take more time. Don't take this as a knock against D&D or any other rules heavy game though! Time spent on the mechanics isn't less fun after all. I used to spend hours creating characters I might never use...just for fun. :) Just don't have that much time to devote to gaming any more...

Compare both to Shadowrun's combat system. It's probably one of the mechanically slowest combat systems I've played. Each attack, defense, and health check was a separate roll of a handful of dice. To add to the mechanics, you also had dice pools you could split between offense and defense. Each round was a mini tactical game of trying to decide how much to devote to offense while keeping enough back to stay unwounded (hopefully) or at least alive. Each attack could be three separate rolls of attack skill, then dodge / defense skill, followed by a health stat roll to lessen any damage which got through. It was time consuming. I enjoyed every minute of it! But most of our game time was devoted to combat, probably 2/3rds of game time. The mechanics simply didn't leave as much time for other aspects of role playing.

Mechanics seldom make role play better or worse. Very few encourage or discourage role play. But system mechanics do consume time.

I noticed I somehow deleted a sentence in my post above (which I've now re-added) -- I think part of why combats are long for ME is that my players (whether I am a GM or among them) stop and get into tactical arguments. It doesn't matter if you have to roll once per combatant or eight times if people are stopping to analyze the situation and figure out how to make the combat work for them. I don't mind this to some degree, though I'll stop them if they're over-metagaming or taking too long. ("You have 10 seconds to announce your combat action, or we're moving on to the giant illithid's turn.")

Yeah, that seems to be a common issue. We used a 30 second hourglass timer for a while.

And in some ways, because I have some players who can get argumentative over how to handle a combat, sometimes I appreciate the rules-heavy systems more, because if someone's getting particularly picky about an issue, they tend to respect a GM calling more if I say, "No, mechanically, this is how you handle this because the book says so right here." There's always rule zero, but sometimes I've noticed players are faster and moreover more content to shut up if you can show them a rule in print than say, "My calling in this situation is BLAH" --

There are many ways to handle those types of discussions and pointing to an authoritative book may be one of the better ones. There's also the Dogs in the Vineyard method of "Say yes or roll the dice." Or the autocratic GM method "Rocks are going to fall!" (not recommended ) and a variety of methods in between.

[nargbop]

Drama beads. Also called action points. Also called...

My group used little glass beads. We get two beads at the beginning of each session. Each bead can be worth one reroll, before hearing the result of the bad roll. Each bead can be worth +10 on the next roll, before rolling. Spend multiple beads for interesting effects. For instance, I once found half a dozen liches trapped underneath a Temple of Pelor, and was powerless with my Diplomacy-type spells I'd prepared. I used three beads to completely rewrite my spell list, including Disrupt Undead and Crown of the Grave.

To gain beads, act well. Impassioned speeches, well-approved by the rest of the group, along with in-character arguments and repeated quips, get you beads. Barbarians do well by this method. "Krangthor want beer!" Come to think of it, Krangthor shouldn't have been thinking about beer at that time, but it was funny, so he got a bead.

This drama bead method means few character deaths, and encourages in-group in-character roleplaying, so I suggest going with it.

[Tam_OConnor]

Let's see: in a one-shot, I pre-generated characters, with backstory, but not much characterization. For example, I left it up to the married couple (in game) how well they got along. And then I tried to bring up everyone's backstory over the course of the three sessions it took to finish the "one-shot." Since all the action happened in a fairly contained environment, I was able to prepare for most occurrences, and type up notes on the character's observations. When we first started out, everyone was having dinner together, along with their NPC host, and they each got a piece of paper with their observations of their fellow diners. Using the host, I encouraged IC bantering for about ten minutes. Then I had the host leave to fetch a servant, and get his throat torn out by a zombie.

That was, I believe, the first session of a game where we had to take breaks to keep people from having panic attacks. So, to sum up that whole long paragraph, I try to get my players immersed in their characters. Then I scare the living daylights out of them.

Also, whenever possible, I try to work in the character's backstories. Having a backstory is one thing. Having the people from your backstory come begging to you for help is quite another.

Another thing: once a DM has a good handle on what his PCs are like, and they've got a few adventures under their belt, throw them into a dreamscape: preferably theirs. One session I DMed, the players did just that: one encounter in each of their minds. The party leader's brain had them herding cats. The ranger's brain had them running a relay race against some tentacled monstrosity. The schizophrenic crusader had to meld his personalities together. The shaman's put them up against an old enemy, and they handled it exactly the same way as before (violence). We don't talk about what the warblade's mind put them through.

[Coplantor]

I burn their corneas with cigarettes.



No, what i do is help them while creating character's background and then try to give them extra XP (they love extra XP) when they behave according to the background they created. One player in particular always consults me about what class he is going to take levels and how that would affect his character. He is the one with the most XP. Nothing original, i know, but slowly, very slowly, it is working.

[Bosh]

Simple: make it matter.

If the sort of RPing that the characters do doesn't have an effect on what happens in the game then all it is is window dressing and nobody takes window dressing seriously. Is big things change in the campaign according to how the party RPs then they'll start taking it seriously. Of course this means that you have to be flexible as a GM and not railroad the party.

Also get rid of any silly distinction between combat and RPing by injecting as much good RPing as possible in your combat scenes and having there be plenty of combat for people who like that to sink their teeth into.