Topic: Using positive reinforcement to train your players

All DM's know that the stereotypes of gamers occur. The lazy gamer, the over analytical gamer, the meta-gamer, the geek-out gamer, the won't-shot-up gamer, etc. But most DMs never try to train their gamers to play better, or at least to play a style that makes them enjoy things the most. A lot of DMs will just give up or punish gamers for acting in a way they don't like. However, if you look at studies on conditioning, we know that negative reinforcemment/punishment is not a good way to get people to do what you want them to do and to still enjoy themselves (gamers are likely to just give up). Instead, we know that positive reinforcement is.

Positive reinforcement, as a DM, needs to be timely. Most RPGs do not provide the tools for this. Things such as experience are handed out at the end of sessions or adventures. The only thing that is at times immediate is loot, which at times is unknown just what it is until much later (nothing wrong with this, but it doesn't always act as a great reinforcer).

Instead, DMs can take lessons from conditioning studies, and try to give out timely positive reinforcement when the gamers are doing things in a good way. This doesn't mean rewarding them just because they rolled dice well in an encounter, but perhaps because they were more focused on that encounter than previous encounters, less goofing around. Reward them. Any time they are acting in a way towards what you want from them, reward them. It is called shaping. You won't necessarily capture the desired behavior right away, but you'll capture something that approaches it. So you reward it. Next time you might reward it as well, but if they lean even closer to what you want, you reward more.

The reward can be simple. It could be some immediate experience. It could just be saying 'that was a good encounter'. Or you can come up with something else, based on how well you know what would motivate your players.

When they finally do what you want, a jackpot. They focused in an entire gaming session, no meta-gaming, role-played appropriately, were very in-character in encounters, thought through situations, etc.

The key is to not mix this with negative reinforcements. Don't get angry when they aren't doing what you want. Don't get frustrated, dont' make heavy sighs, don't threaten to cancel the game.

Of course, this works the other way around too. You can't give your DM experience, but you can thank them for the things you like.

Re: Using positive reinforcement to train your players

What you describe sounds totally weird. I assume players are grown-ups and play along.

Re: Using positive reinforcement to train your players

@mutiemoe

Actually, I've found that because there is 30-years plus of RPG history, when you bring new players together they can have wildly divergent expectations of the game. You need to understand their perspective, and communicate yours, and through play achieve the style of game you want. So you do totally have to reward players if you want them to play the way you want.

For example, several of my players have only really played computer RPGS, so they ignore all treasure they obtain and 'hand-wave' the wealth.This is because all computer RPGs are 'monty-haul' with their treasure allocation. Drives me nuts, especially since we have rotated one of these players into the DM role at the moment. When I get back to DMing, I'm going to take some of their existing magic items and make them the focus of some plots (ie. previous owner has tracked it down, ancient curse activates, etc.). That should hopefully get them paying attention to items they find in the future.

Sure they're grown-ups and will play along, but they want to have fun too, and as DM you should do what you find fun and figure out a way to make it fun for them too. As another example, several players enjoy RP in some of the towns and inns we've frequented, but one player was really only interested in combat (4e in this case) and was obviously bored stiff when not fighting. The (new) DM ignored this for two RP-heavy sessions and as a result the player left. Now some may view this as a good thing, but I really see it as a failure. So perhaps engaging the player in the RP and rewarding him with something he could use in his next combat would have started to change his perspective. Now instead we've lost someone who had been with the campaign for a year.