"You Get A Gold Star...In Mayhem" - "Dungeons & Dragons"

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At the end of every Dungeons & Dragons session I run, I like to give out a little extra somefin' somefin' out to my playaz.

In addition to doling out experience points for ganked monsters, defeated traps and/or solved riddles, I also fire off the following after-the-fact missive to all my participatory peeps:

"Lookin' to throw in yer two copper pieces RE: who was the 'Group MVP' and 'Best Role-Player' for our latest session? Message yer vote to me now! Remember...if you don't vote you can't bitch about who won!"

So, what exactly is this "Group MVP" and "Best Role-Player" thang I speak of?

Group MVP:  Fifty (50) bonus Experience Points are awarded to the player who kicked the most ass, cooked up the best schemes, answered the most riddles, solved the most problems and generally went above and beyond the pale to advance the game's progress.

Best Role-Player: Fifty (50) bonus Experience Points are awarded to the player who did the best job evoking a believable character. By displaying distinct mannerisms, unique voices, kooky accents, habitual behaviors, odd peccadilloes, alignment adherence and/or consistent attitudes players have a chance to net this particular Kewpie doll.

So, my Pee-C's send their nominations back to me, one person per category. If you want, you can vote for the same dude/dude-ette for both rewards but you can't vote for yourself. That would just be lame.

When the responses come back I tally 'em all up and then hand 'em out at the start of the next session, always to a genuine chorus of cheers and "Huzzahs!". If there's a tie between several players, the points are split evenly.

Even though this isn't a huge amount of XP, these humble l'il gifts tend to encourage three things:

• Players tend to remain a lot more focused and "in the moment" during sessions. 
• There's a lot more humor and the yuks are more likely to be related to in-game shenanigans.
• It tends to keep our four-hour sessions moving along at a realy brisk pace.  

Please note: I tagged this posts as relating specifically to D&D but it goes without saying that a similar system can be applied to any role-playing game.