Back in high school, I gamed with a GM who openly encouraged us to bribe him with things (like snacks) for XP and other in-game privileges. Fifteen years on, man, that seems weird.
Or is it? Is this secretly commonplace outside of high school?
It’s got such a Knights of the Dinner Table vibe that I’m going to be pretty surprised if it’s common — but then, I was wrong about there not being a kobold name generator, too.
Edit: To clarify, I’m not talking about things like writing campaign journals, drawing maps or otherwise helping with in-game tasks in exchange for bonus XP (etc.) — that’s a good thing, and it’s not really bribery. What I’m getting at is more along the lines of “Give me a soda and I’ll give you a thousand XP.”
I’ve run across this actually happening only a few times in my gaming life. It’s more been a joke than anything. Snacks and those kinds of contributions are a major problem for us though. Most players are pretty good about bringing something for the group but there are one or two players who consistently show up empty handed but dig into snacks full force.
hmmmm…. I think that some Gms just make it more explicit and open than others… there has to be a certain flexibility, and as long as it doesnt affect the enjoyability of play is there really anything wrong with making sure the newby or a particularly valuable character doesnt die?…. who am I kidding bribe taking is pretty pathetic and unfair.
Yes, I’ve seen it, but not quite for what you’d think of as bribery.
For instance, bonus starting XP for helping create part of a world or an abnormally detailed backstory.
Yes, those are bribes, and there is nothing wrong with those bribes – they all help out the story/game a great deal. However, it IS just the GM giving XP in exchange for the player(s) doing something for the GM.
aetherspoon: Agreed — I don’t think of that as bribery at all, and it’s always a good idea. I’m getting at what seems like the shadier, much less useful side of offering XP and other benefits in exchange for things. 😉
Given the state of gaming at the time (high school, social awkwardness, power trips, etc), this isn’t completely unexpected.
But yeah, from a distance, it looks really stupid.
Actually, to put a twist on it, it looks like a prison scenario. The bribee is just the DM’s bee-yotch… 😉
I’ve always offered extra experience for putting extra effort into your character, and even for promoting group unity. It is kind of a slippery slope though, and it can backfire if the players, and the Game Master, don’t watch it closely enough. I’ve seen some players try to go just the distance to get some extra XP, or keep needling at the Game Master till they give in or call shenanigans and shut it down.
For a while I was in a game with rotating GMs, and the GM was exempted from contributing to communal snack pile as an acknowledgement of the extra effort the GM made in preparing for the game.
But it was never linked to XP …
In my experience, any sort of preferential treatment by the GM is a bad idea. I’ve never encountered any downright bribery, although I played one game in which a player was dating the GM. This caused all sorts of friction, since of course we all thought it improper that she got special treatment. Of course, it caused even more problems for the campaign when they broke up, but that’s another story…
Correction: The bribER, not bribEE…
We had a grope bucket back in the day.
If you wanted to make a “rules grope”(make an almost outlandish argument–iow: groping the rules) then you had to contribute money to the bucket and the GM would hear your case.
The more outlandish the argument, the more money in the bucket. But the GM would look more favorably at your argument.
The bucket saved us from constant rules lawyering, but allowed us to do it when it was really important.
In the end we cashed in the money for subscriptions to Dragon and Dungeon. The second time it was raided for pizza, and then the last time I think it got raided for magic cards or smokes or something really stupid, and that killed the grope bucket.
My group plays munchkin now and again and the card “bribe the DM: go up a level” has strayed over into our DnD games. During games I’ll shout out things like “You! get me a soda! 50 XP!” and “insulting the DM? -50xp!” it’s all in good fun, and the xp rarely gets remembered to be added to the totals post-game (though even when it IS, it’s hardly significant to the lvl 8 PCs).
I, as a DM, give out bonus XP for bringing snacks that are shared with the gaming group, and allow my players to bribe me with soda in the case that I forgot to buy. Why? Simply because the caffeine in my Pepsi MAX usually meant I could DM for another 2-3 hours each game night.
On the other hand, all players always received equal shares of the XP, which means that if one player brings snacks and another a Pepsi for me, everyone benefits.
On a reverse note, our Dm once offered a magic item of our choice for players chipping in money for the wife of one of our semi activice players to use on postage on care pakages being sent to him while he was in iraq.
Most of us probally would have chipped in without the bribe, but haveing a magic item to use in the next game lit a fire to get over there and drop off the donation sooner over later.
dang. its like a whole new world, opening up to me… 😉
I’ve been known to play games of chance for the opportunity to gain some tangible benefit in-game. Had one DM who was ultra-competitive and through a challenge at darts, got my druid in his game some special shapeshifting abilities.
In another dart game I let him, the winner, select the class of starship to be used in our upcoming Star Trek campaign.
Yeah, I’ve done that before as a joke plenty of times, but rarely did anyone actually do it. Probably because they knew it was a hollow joke. I’ve dated a couple of my players in the past, it actually worked most of the time in their case. 🙂
“Give me a backrub with a happy finish, and I’ll give you an extra level.” Wow, that puts a whole new spin on this, blackheart! 😉
Martin Says:
“Give me a backrub with a happy finish, and I’ll give you an extra level.†Wow, that puts a whole new spin on this, blackheart!
My wife refuses to be bribed like this on the grounds “For it to be fair, you’d have to give ALL the players that option.”
I encourage GM bribes; heck, I once even posted a bribe/rewards table on my GM screen! The rewards range from bonus XP (chocolate) to godhood (sex).
Now, I do make sure that the reward for bribes is something minor that doesn’t really affect the game balance: in 7th Sea, candy for the GM gets you extra Drama Dice, for example. But basically, it’s harmless fun.
I used to play with the Camarilla, White Wolf’s LARP organization. I don’t know if it was common outside our area, but players were eligible to receive Prestige (a player-level XP allowing you greater clout and character abilities) for bringing food and beverages to games. Providing a game site also gave such benefits.
I don’t recall it ever being used for character XP, but there was plenty of other cheesiness going on with that.
It has never come up seriously in the groups I’ve played it, though we do joke about it. I suspect that’s Munchkin bleed over, but it’s still amusing.
My standing rule is that I only allow classes, races, feats, and spells out of D&D books I own. This has resulted in some players buying me copies of books they want to use. I don’t consider that bribery since all the players can take full advantage of the book, but others might interpret the situation differently.
Hmmm… I’m not sure which side of this divide I’m on. I do receive bonus xp from my GM for such things as bringing food/beverages and early arrival, but although the GM instituted the system, he doesn’t have much subjective control over the giving of the xp.
There is a standard reward which the gm adjusts as we level and if you meet the criteria (bringing food, early arrival, beat the gm, scribe, others) you get the reward.
So at this point is it bribery or part of the game system we play?
Back in college in the Cold Iron games, we had cookie crit pro. It was awarded for supplying the GM (or even the group) with snacks. What it was good for was reducing the effect of a critical hit on your character, one time only. I don’t actually remember it being used, though I’m sure it did get used.
I think it has a minor beneficial effect. With players who are still learning social graces, it helps reinforce the idea that when someone is presenting to you, it doesn’t make sense to make everybody wait while they run down stairs to get a soda (cookie crit pro was offered most often in my game for people to run and get me a soda, I usually even paid for it).
Jeff: Yea, that’s a different category. How can you expect a GM to run the game without all the rules? I have even heard of players bribing GMs to run a new game this way (“Here nice GM, here’s a copy of Monster Slayer 2000!”). For a while, back in college, when I was short on cash, and running lots of modules, we as a group decided to have the group chip in and buy modules. After we were done with the modules, they were offered to the players.
Obviously at some point these things become power trips for the GM, though as long as all the players are comfortable, what’s wrong with it?
Frank
I’m with you, Martin. We did use rampant bribery back in Jr. High / High School, for stuff like bonus XP, magic items, or an extra Psionics roll (back in 1st Edition), but looking back on it years later, it seems pretty silly. Then again, back then we were more about the munchkin than the role-playing, which has been completely reversed these days.
The more I think about it, the more I realized our early games were EXACTLY like KotDT. Anyone else have that feeling?