Rewards are an important part of any campaign and duets are no exception. Now there are many sorts of rewards, but while there has been a lot of discussion about some rewards, such as experience, authority, mechanical bonuses, minions, wealth, and so on, perhaps the best reward is rarely mentioned. This is praise. Praise is simply saying something positive about the performance of a player or narrator. Unlike with most rewards it is easy to give praise right when it is deserved. Furthermore, praise has no effect on mechanics and for those narrators are concerned about the illusion of balance it is a safe and easy tool for encouraging players.

Praise trumps the XP system of any tabletop RPG in its effectiveness in promoting better behaviors around the gaming table. This may be controversial, but Iíll say it ñ every narrator seeks to manipulate the behaviors of his players. Sure you may have some narrators who say they are simply out to have fun and donít care what their players do, but they are all either deluded or lying. Obviously, a lot of narrators have low standards for the behavior they seek from their players, but we all have standards. This might be timeliness, not losing your character sheet every week, being engaged tactically, roleplaying well, or whatever really defines the play-style of a particular narrator. So letís be honest, every narrator has behaviors they want to encourage, but most struggle with how to encourage them. I will be blunt; praise is your best weapon.

XP systems can be used to alter behaviors and most XP systems do this. Some RPGs base XP on combat and thus encourage a tactical focus while others encourage roleplaying and thus encourage a more theatric focus. Obviously, this can produce conflicts. If you have a narrator who is really into roleplaying and is using a system that has a tactical focus then there will be sent mixed signals to the players. This isnít a big deal, depending upon how the narrator handles it, but it is important to be aware of what behaviors an RPG is encouraging.

I have encountered a lot of narrators who use negative reinforcement to change the behaviors of their players. This might be docking XP for a lack of roleplaying, grudge monsters for PC actions that go against what the narrator wants, to actual criticism. DONíT DO THIS! Narrators provide consequences for PC actions not punishments and negative reinforcement while it does work has negative side-effects. I had a DM back in college, years ago, who really wanted us to be better roleplayers. He set up a system where roleplaying was a component of XP and he would give us grades for each session that would determine how much XP we would get. I kid you not. He would criticize how we roleplayed our characters and while he would use praise every now and then, his focus was very negative. We couldnít get our total XP award unless we met his standards. This approach created resentment and led to the end of his DMing career as everyone moved on to less obsessive DMs. A lot of narrators use some form of negative reinforcement from sarcastic comments to in-game punishments, but this is a very ineffective and potentially disastrous approach. Players should be treated as adults, even if they arenít. That said, sometimes you need to use negative reactions. My pet issue is sexism or racism at the gaming table directed at other players. That is a situation that requires, in my opinion, intervention and coming down hard on the offending party. Additionally, I also believe in punting disruptive players from groups and that it is a narratorís primary duty to create a safe and friendly gaming environment. Obviously, these situations donít crop up in duets, but with groups they are important and a good example of a situation where narrators must be negative.

Positive reinforcement can take many forms from XP and other in-game rewards, but these are always a little tricky as sometimes they may not encourage the exact behaviors you are aiming for. For example, it is fairly common for a lot of DMs to give roleplaying bonus XP in D&D. This is to encourage roleplaying, but the reward is given at the end of a session and is a subjective award. This means that it might not be clear to the player why they got the reward and lead them to wrong conclusions. Sure a narrator could specifically explain why a reward was given but this is a little annoying and even then it might not work. If you have four players and a narrator participating in an adventure then you will end up with five different perspectives of that adventure. Sure they will agree on the big events but the details will all be viewed differently. This is actually a good thing and should be encouraged, let a playerís mind create its own image of events and this image will be more vivid than anything the narrator could describe and try to force on the group. This is why I am a fan of sparse details and letting the players fill in the blanks in their mind. A narrator isnít running one campaign for a group but a number of campaigns for each player that happen to be occurring simultaneously.

Okay, back to praise. Praise is a positive reinforcement but it is a timely and specific one that is very effective in conforming behaviors IF used properly. Praise has to be meaningful, random platitudes do nothing, but specific praise is very powerful. So a PC gives a moving speech to an army, okay, maybe it wasnít that moving and was a little clichÈd, but the player made a good effort. If this is something the narrator wishes to encourage then the narrator should give specific praise. ìIím impressed that was an excellent speech; the crowd is particularly moved about your analogy comparing the Usurper to a dire badger and it is clear they are deeply moved by your stirring words.î Now that is an out-of-character bit of praise from the narrator tied together with an in-character reaction. Now a lot of narrators might go one further in this situation and give some mechanical bonus to the army for the PCís speech and thatís not a bad idea, but the praise itself is what really does the job.

Now as a corollary to this, players can change the behavior of their narrator. This isnít discussed much, but just like the narrator wishes to influence his players the players which to influence the narrator. Players lack a lot of the tools of narrators (XP, rewards, control of the game, etc.) but they too can use praise. If you want more action in a campaign then compliment the narrator on an action scene he just ran. If you want more roleplaying then compliment the narrator for how he ran a NPC. Narrators respond wonderfully to praise, in fact, with players you have to hammer the praise sometimes to get an effect, but narrators are often so starved for any feedback that they pounce on any praise.

So in conclusion, use praise. You might be surprised by the results.