Rewarding Roleplaying

My players have never been big on roleplaying and that's fine.  But I think there is a bare minimum required to separate the game from "Kill monsters, Get money."  That's a bit of an inflammatory statement, there's nothing wrong with kicking down doors, killing orcs and taking their pies.  For me it's one of the most fun parts of the game.  However, the game is more than that, and aside from 1, maybe 2 players most of them don't try to branch out past that giving a chilling effect towards newer players.  That's beginning to change and I'm very happy as a DM to design something more than an exciting combat.

Here's what I've been doing.  In this particular campaign I had each player play through an opening vignette that established their motivations and the reasons for how they ended up in Hommlet.  This was the first session for the player's present.  During these vignettes I took notes on the players actions and the mindset behind them.  I wrote down different character traits and jotted down a quick bit of reference for what it was referring to.  At the end of the session I had them write down these character traits and explained to them that these were based on how their character acted and were useful in developing a personality.

(I should clarify, about half my players have never developed a character personality separate from their own, I'm lucky that they even choose a name sometimes hah!)

I let them know that when they continued to exemplify these traits during play they would be rewarded with experience for each major occurrence.  Furthermore that they could earn new traits through roleplaying.  This creates a positive feedback loop, that by playing to a character personality that their actions created they would be rewarded with experience.  The more they do it the more experience they earn.  Since then, my one player who frequently falls into the trap of chaotic=sociopathic, has been my best roleplayer.  He pays close attention to his actions and does his best to make sure his actions coincide with his earlier displayed traits and has earned a few more as well.  As an example he recently added 'benevolent' to his traits as he took it upon himself to become foodclaus after being rewarded with a surplus of crop rather than traditional coin.

Here are a few traits (after the break) and the situation where they displayed them: