Awarding CPs

[CRMcNeill]

The RAW states that characters should be awarded between 4 and 15 CPs, depending on a variety of factors. I'm curious how many of you adhere to that rule (or use your own method) and why (or why not). Thoughts?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Fallon Kell]

I stick towards the high half of that. I also tend to have very long adventures, and I might award FP and CP at the midpoint if I feel it's necessary.
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[Guardian_A]

Our group has used our own way of distributing CPs as long as I can remember.

While we still give out CPs, we turn it into an intereactive experience. With a little Q&A at the end of the game, it gives everyone a chance to share their thoughts on the game, and often gives the GM some valuable feedback on how things went. Recently, it seems like the players are earning 8-9 CPs a game.

Character Point Awards:
1-5 Automatic
1 Favorate Part of the Game
1 Least Favorate Part of the Game
1 Character Learned something of Value
1 Player learned something of Value
1 Roleplaying
1 Poweful Enemy Defeated
1 Using a Skill or Special Abiity in a New Way
1 Accomplished a Character Goal
1 Characters Worked well Together
1 Futhered the Story in some Significant Way
1 MVP?
+5 Finished a Story

-No award can be given more than once per player/character.
-I usually roll a die to see where I start, then rotate the starting person with each new queston.

Automatic:
I always give at least one point for this. If we get to game longer than usual and/or everyone has a lot of fun, I will sometimes award additional points.

Favorate Part of the Game:
Each player tells their favorate part of the game. It can be anything either in or out of character. But everyone has to choose a different "Favorate." (Usually people choose somethig cool that either their character did, or something that happened to their character during the game.)

Least Favorate Part of the Game:
Each player tells their least favorate part of the game. It can be anthing either in or out of character. But everyone has to choose a different "Least Favorate." (This usually ends up being either somethig bad that happened to one of the characters, or a rules issue that interupted the game.)

Character Learned
Something that the character learned that could prove useful in the future.

Player Learned:
Something that the the player learned that could prove useful in the future. (This often involves a rules question)

Roleplaying:
The player did a good job of staying in character during play, and their character didnt do anything that seemed out of place during the game.

Powerful Enemy Defeated:
Characte(s) defeated an enemy that is more powerful than he/she/they are. (This is often given to everyone or no one depending on the challenges they face.)

Using A Skill or Special Ability in a new way:
Sometimes a player will do something neat with a skill or special ability in a way not depicted in the book. (Exmples: Using Blaster to identify a rare blaster instead of shooting one, or using Force Lightning to "Jumpstart" something instead of just frying someone.) This particular point encourages players to think outside the box. This ONLY applies to the first time a character in the group pulls the trick.

Accoplished a Caracter Goal:
Every chracter has things that drive them. These should never be simple things that are easy to achieve. Examples: Finding a lost family member, exacting revenge for some major slight in the chaacter's past. Finally paying off that expensive ship they've been flying around the galaxy. Etc.

Worked Well Together:
The characers worked as a unit, taking advantage of each other's strengths during a situation. (This is either given to everyone or no one.)

Furthered the Story in a Significant Way:
This is usually given when the characters do something significant that is story related. It may be that the finally found the item/person they were looking for, or they fially took that lead you had been dangling in front of them.

MVP:
On the count of three, all players point at the person who they think deseves a little extra recognition for their contrbutions during the game. Once he count is made, each player explains why they chose the person they did. If there is a tie, then the GM acts as a tie breaker.

Finishing a Story:
Any time the group finishes a story arc, all of the characers gain this award. I tend to start at 5CPs for this award, then add additional CPs depending on the length and depth of the story arc.


PS: Keyboard is acting funny, so if there is a random missing letter or space, thats the reason. I think I caught most of the typos, but I may have missed a few.)

[Crimson_red]

I've taken a note from White Wolf and the storytelling system. I typically reward between 1-5 CP per game session, then follow up the adventure with a 4-15 CP reward. I found this encourages the use of CP for enhancing rolls throughout the game as characters are less likely to run out of CP for an extended period of time.

I also give additional awards CP, FP, etc. during play for good, entertaining, etc role-playing, thinking, twists, etc.

Admittedly, I also like faster character development, especially since most of my games don't last longer than 2-4 adventure trilogies (6-12 adventures)... My last big Campaign was a six part story detailing the rise of a planetary resistance against the Empire, and I ran it over the course of a 4 month summer session, 2-3 sessions a week.

EDIT: I still only allow players to spend CP on self-improvement after each adventure, unless there is a significant interlude of some kind, so in the example above, they only had 4 opportunities for improvement, 5 if you include after the sixth adventure. In that case I might have relaxed the 1 pip restriction realizing the PC's limited opportunity to improve, but I can't recall.

[Blue Glowie]

My current campaign has ramped up from 8 to 20 CP's per session over the course of 60+ sessions. On one hand, I think my players would have lost interest if it hadn't been gradually increasing, because they wouldn't be reliably increasing skills every adventure.

But there comes a time with this game where dice pools become bloated. I think the highest combat skill in the party is 8D, but I feel like that's about the cutoff limit for when things get weird. So the campaign is probably going to end in 6-8 adventures.

[Guardian_A]

[Crimson_red]

[Guardian_A]

At the end of each session, we have our "Experience" summary (Regadless of game system. WW & Star Wars is purely Q&A, D20 and others have traditional XP, with the Q&A ammounting to a small XP reward for each question based on their character level.) The Experience summary is treated as an extension of the game itself, with a group BS session commonly taking place afterward. (Anywhere from 15 miutes to 2 hours depending on the day.) Our Q&A usually runs about 10 minutes.

Our Q&A tends to result in a lot of good feedback for the GM and serves to focus the conversation a little bit as the game winds down.

Early in a campaign, XP/CP rewards tend to be a bit higher. As time goes on, it becomes harder to answer many of the questions, making the plyers work a little harder for it.

I like your "What are your plans for next session?" question. I might add "What is your character's immediate goals?" to our group's Q&A.

[DougRed4]

I stick with the recommendations I've seen elsewhere, though I don't recall where I got them (it's kind of surprising that there isn't any suggestions in the rules).

I've changed some of the standard terminology. What some of the published adventures call "Episodes" I call "Chapters" (since each large storyarc of movie length I call an "Episode").

3-15 Character Points per Adventure (what I call "Parts")

The average Adventure spans two nights of gaming, or 4 to 5 fairly long Chapters

How did the players/characters do? (Well: 6-8, Poorly: 3-4)
• Solved puzzles
• Came up with great solutions
• Made sure everyone had fun

How did each individual player do? (2-3)
• Very clever
• Went out of their way to make the game fun

Did they cooperate? (2-4)
• Worked well as a team
• 0 if the players argued

Did they play in character? (Well: 6-8, Poorly: 3-4)
• Roleplayed well
• 0 if they didn’t roleplay at all

Did everyone have fun? (3-4)
• All? (including the GM?)
• 0 if difficult or not trying to get into the spirit of things

If you add these up you'll see that you can quite easily get to 15 CP, so that's about what my PCs will get after a couple of sessions.

[Zarm R'keeg]

Typically, I don't finish an adventure in one night (sessions which go from about 9 pm to 1-3 am, depending on everyone's wakefullness, and generally making only the first hour or two really sharp, intelligent roleplaying ) , so I tend to go 'by session.' I tend to be fairly CP-generous, because my players spend them like crazy on rolls they don't realize aren't going to be that hard, or important. Typically, I will actually hold 'nominations' at the end of each chapter or session, in which players can nominate each other to receive points for noteworthy actions, choices, quips, or moments. This doesn't always balance out, as some players stand out and take risks while others don't, and some are shameless self-promoters while others are quite humble and thus don't receive nearly as much- but as long as I step in and try to fill in for those that get 'left behind,' it seems to work really well.

Points for the end of the adventure tend to fall on the high side of the scale, but only come every 2-3 sessions, and typically pale compared to the number spent.

Additionally, I have instituted a 2-5 point 'bonus' at the end of the evening if all players had a good/smooth time, to try and minimize debates or arguments. I would award additional roleplaying points, but few of my players seem very interested in actual character work- just in beating the puzzles and collecting rewards, video-game-RPG-style.
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[garhkal]

Then start handing out the RP awards to those who Do bother to rp.. when the rest see them getting more CP than the rest they will change (hopefully).
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[Zarm R'keeg]

I do try- but they are few and far between. So far, no one's gotten the hint. But I live in hope...
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Star Wars: Marvels, the audio drama: www.nolinecinemas.com

Hard core OT, all the way!

[DougRed4]

Gotta agree with garhkal here. Perhaps a little speech is in order, and it might even take a session of "Well, here's a half dozen CPs that are not going to be allocated, since nobody decided to really role-play and get into character!"

I'd bet good money that doing something like that would motivate some changes. It's extremely rare for me to have any player not play outstanding, and the exceptions don't ever happen in my Star Wars game, where everybody really embraces the setting and gets into it.
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[cheshire]

I often give a baseline of 10 for a good session with a few other factors that may add to that. If the players REALLY capture the cinematic style with some "appropriately over the top" solutions and heroic choices, then they'll have 12-15. Sometimes if I see that EVERYONE is having to burn massive CPs to make it through an adventure, I'll help them recoup their losses, but mostly because I figure if I've made things difficult enough that everyone has to spend that many, then I've probably made things a little more difficult than I ought to have. It goes without saying, though, if they've made poor choices and have decided to make things harder for themselves, I'm not going to help recoup for that. If they decide to needlessly antagonize an Imperial garrison and now have to spend all their FPs and CPs just to make it out alive... that's on them.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[garhkal]

Wow 10-15cp a session?? That's high.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!