Hey I use a voting system to award Roleplaying Awards to my players. Which I think is pretty good. I want to share it with you guys.

How it works

1) each player including the GM gets one vote

2) On a piece of paper each one of you write down the name of the player character you think did the best performance that evening. Remember: you can`t vote for yourself, and don`t write your own name on as well, since voting is done anonymously.

3) the GM than collect the pieces of paper and write down the result. Remember: To not tell the exact result, only who`s is on top .

4) award the player that got the most votes with maximum Roleplaying XP. Remember : in the case with a draw or a large group of players, you could always give the maximum XP to the two players with most votes.

5) than award the rest of the group with Average XP in Roleplaying.

So Who Deserve my Vote?

when my players ask who should they vote for, I give them a few pointers to find out just that.

Did anyone in-game make you laugh? If so he could be a candidate

Did anyone in-game add drama and tension to the session? a possible candidate

Did someone save the day by a clever idea? that person is definitely a candidate

Did you in-game had a bonding with another player character, perhaps laid to rest an old quarrel? if so maybe that character is deserving an award. Afterall is quite easy to let the argument stay, ready to ignite a new quarrel. But quite difficult to apology and make friends. And hard descisions deserve an award.

don`t give your vote for any player giving of these behaviours:

if a player complained and made a big fuzz over some rule or GM desiscion. No vote for the Whinners, I say.

keep interrupting the game by making or answering cell phones, writing text messaging and so on. people don`t usually answers the phone or text message while in a meeting do they? especially not if their boss is oogling at them.

Acts on a clearly out-of-game info that sours the game for everyone, or make another player misserable. Hey good manners counts everywhere.

ruins the game by sabotaging the plot or just being stubborn and difficult. Again good manners are universal, or it should be!

Taking up all the time, with incessant talking, and never shut up to let other players have a go. Some people can`t stay out of the spotlight. don`t award them for not being able to help themself.

What do you think of my democratic ways of awarding Roleplaying XP?

Does it work?

-K

I've played games that used this rule, except it was not secret vote. The end result was that the most charismatic and outgoing player always got the bonus xp while the others lagged behind (this was Shadowrun RPG btw).

In a party where different players routinely impress the group this could work, but otherwise I think it's a bit unfair to punish players for not being good actors.

Instead I sometimes give bonus xp for everyone if the group has been especially good at rp, and people have played their characters in amusing and interesting ways. 2 sessions ago the group got 200 xp for a session with no combat, and not really achieving much particular goals (the whole team even let themselves be captured by a bunch of musketmen), but I still gave 100 xp more than they'd normally deserve because it was a very fun session with alot of good rp from pretty much everyone.

I've used a "Justify it" kind of XP award system.

As per normal, each session they'll get between 150-300 depending on how much they find out and whether the combat was both justified and awesome or a waste of time that gained them nothing other than a chance to waste some ammo and die.

Then at the end of the Mission proper i ask the group to say what they thought the others had done well, where they'd done well, and only focus on the Positive stuff, then if they've done perticularly well, or Co-Opped really great and had a good synergy then they get given some Extra XP, usually between 100 and 200, in bite sized chunks of 25.

Its really helped one of the players come to of their shell and start giving good ideas for the plans and battle tactics when it comes to "aggressive diplomacy".

Players that might normally have made disruptive characters all pitch in and the group works better for it, yes there can stil be some character conflict but thats just human nature, we no longer have the rabid foaming anti psyker character joining with a group that has a well established psyker character and his freinds back him up 100%

A post-game review is a very good idea. Sometimes the GM is too focused on the overall story and the minutiae of running the game that he fails to pick up on what the players enjoyed or didn't enjoy. Tieing this to the xp award is a good way to get the players interested in coming forward with their opinions. In a group its very easy to clam up and mutter "it was fine" and leave it at that, but once you get the discussion going people realize that they have something worth-while to contribute.

-K

A better system is to have everyone listed on a ballot; everyone gets the ballot. Each person gets 0-3 ticks: 1 tick for "I believe they played in character", 1 tick for "I believe they contributed to the group's enjoyment", and one for "They participated appropriately"...

use the point totals as the guide; whomever got max from everyone (including themself), they get full, and decrease from there.