What is a reasonable amount of XP to give for playing it's alignment well?

[Kinwolf]

So, I'd like to give my players some bonus XP after each session based on how well I think they played their alignment, as an incentive to better their roleplay, but I also do not want to unbalance the modules by giving too much and making them higher levels than they should be. Based on your experience, what XP per session could I allow for such a thing and not unbalance the adventure?

Thanks

[James Jacobs]

My rule of thumb is to award the entire party an XP award equal to a CR equal to their Average Party Level for good roleplaying. I generally don't give out single XP awards to players, since that's not fair to award one player for good roleplaying and the whole party for another player's good combat skills.

[Philip Knowsley]

Yeah - I'm actually keeping track of PC actions on a 3rd party graph, so
that their alignments will actually end up how the character acts.

The way it works is that, when you create your PC you choose an alignment,
right? Then you play them - but the players actions aren't always consistent
with their 'ideal' view of the PC...

On the chart you monitor small deviations of PC actions, which tracks how
they're actually being played. Once a PC is clearly into a different
alignment, I'll be informing the player that they need to change the
character sheet to reflect actual play.

I feel that this is a more organic process, and eventually reflects the
PCs that the players actually 'want' to play, rather than some pre-ordained
idea of what they thought they wanted to play...

[Rynjin]

I suggest 0.

There'll be a large disparity between types of classes. Classes where alignment doesn't matter (the majority of them) are likely to act more like real people, fluctuating a bit but staying mostly within their alignment. You'd probably classify that as deviating and award them less (or no) experience, forcing them to either be gimped experience-wise or use the alignment description as a straitjacket (something it is specifically called out NOT to be) and all around stifling the players for no good reason.

Meanwhile, your Paladin falls for shifting alignment anyway, so he's always going to be straight and narrow, and gets bonus experience on top of it.

Bad idea. Very bad IMO.

[Rickmeister]

Bonus exp for awesome roleplay: yes!
Bonus exp for alignment: not inclined to. You play the character, not the alignment! :)

[Orthos]

What those two said.

I keep a little "points chart" for keeping track of alignment drift myself, using the Neverwinter Nights point system (0 to 100 on both axes, 0 being fully evil or chaotic, 100 being fully good or lawful) and simply note to the player if they've changed alignment or, in the case of those whose classes are tied to it, if they're verging on losing their abilities from it.

[GM_Solspiral]

May I humbly suggest hero points as a reward for good play. IF its combat or RP give out hero points as rewards for play you like to see, when a player takes a risk for the benefit for the party, or wins in an epic diplomacy showdown.

[Kinwolf]

Interesting opinions, all of them. I was looking at awarding XP because it's the system that our old DM used back in the days(of course, we were allowed to roleplay "out of alignment" as long as our general behavior reflected what's on the character sheet.) but I must say awarding a hero point looks even better to me. I shall use that instead, thanks for the idea!

[GM_Solspiral]

Its what I do, and yeah XP awards is very 2nd ed/old school

Remember when everyone was on different XP scales?

[MacFetus]

If you want to offer incentives for good RP, you could award traits or even some of the lesser-used feats.