(TFT) Teaching roleplaying to Power gamers

[Pasha and or Rick Smith <pnrsmith@istar.ca>]

Hi all,
	In my 23+ active years of gaming I have
had several dozen power gamers try out my 
campaign.  Some came and went, but a fair number
I broke of their hack and slash habits.  Some 
pointers:

1)	Seriously explain to the power gamer
what is power gaming and what THIS campaign is 
going to be about.

2)	Change the exp. system rewards so you
can get experience for more than simply killing.
A very significant portion of my exp handed out
is for "Time Spent in Play" where as I don't give 
out anywhere near as much exp for fights.

3)	Try to have smaller groups when breaking
in a power gamer.

4)	Have a 1/4 of an attribute bonus for the
best actor at the end of a long session.  Players 
vote on this but they may not vote on themselves.
(This is not part of my regular campaign but I've
used it as shock treatment.)

5)	Try to have a couple of good roleplayers
in the group when you are breaking in the power
gamer (Pwr G. from now on.).

6)	Take a serious hand in the design of the
Pwr. G. character.  Make sure he or she can do 
more things than just kill, especially things that
allow them to ham it up.  For example one young
lady who's only experience was power gaming in
D&D became an expert kosher in my campaign who
was not afraid to put a PC to sleep if they were 
being obnoxious.  Dumb yes, but it got the ball 
rolling.

7)	Build a campaign with MORE TO DO than
just fight or dungeon crawl.  Don't get me wrong,
some of my best adventures were dungeon crawls,
and I still enjoy them on occasion.  But most of 
the campaign should be about other things.

8)	Tweek rules that force players into 
narrow slots.  My campaign would be far 
different with-out the memory superscript rules.

9)	If one player is a problem or cheats,
evict them.  I give one and only one warning.
There are dozens and dozens of more role players
out there who would love to join a good campaign.

	
	Good luck,  Rick
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