How I Do XP?

So I have a number of house rules and practices related to XP that I want to share.

My objectives for house rules on XP are:

1. Encourage player experimentation and narrative variety.

2. Give players agency and choice in how the game develops.

3. Reward behaviors that contribute to good gameplay and help make our playing experience more fun and joyful.

And why not? Here are some ways I'm going about it.

Player XP
This is the most important one for me. This is another case of a rule I stole from Marvel Heroic Roleplay. In their Civil War supplements, they created a version of this rule to enable players to portray multiple characters from multiple angles in the Event. To explore the conflict on a character level.

My use is a little different, but very much in the same spirit. Here's the trick: I don't award the characters XP, I award the players XP. Simple as that. Players can spend their banked XP whenever there is downtime in game to level up a character. Any character. Or for any other purpose defined by the DM. (For bookkeeping purposes, the player keeps track of XP during the session and reports it to the DM at the end. The DM keeps track of total earned / spent XP by the player and reports that total to the player at any time by request.)

XP for Defeating Your Opponent
Players don't have to kill the opposition to earn XP. They can defuse the situation in any creative way or for any narrative reason, and they still earn half XP for defeating their opponents. Monster run away because of morale. Half XP. The players succeed at negotiating their way out of a conflict. Consider giving them half XP. If they are able circumvent an encounter by sneaking their way past it. Again, consider giving them half XP. But here's the kicker:

Awarding half XP is at the discretion of the DM. Be generous, but don't be a pushover either. In my case, I mostly award this to them for demoralized opponents who flee. But I have also awarded half XP for other reasons, too.

Story Awards
This XP award is player actions that advance narrative plot or the game experience as a whole. The lowest value reward is 25 XP per session and is typically used for routine actions that promote gameplay: participation (everyone), keeping notes and writing up session summary for the group, creating inventory of shared equipment and treasure for the group, mapping the dungeon for the group (if applicable), etc. 

The second type is more episodic in nature and increases in value as a result. It is for meeting milestones and objectives within the adventure path and is typically more substantial, with 100 XP being my default for this.

Split XP
This may not be as important as the others. But I let the players decide what to do with the remainder XP leftover after they split it up evenly. This allows them to prioritize good roleplaying, smoothing out advancement progress, or for whatever they please.