Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
But nowadays, I reward with xp: Nothing. I don't grant xp based directly on player or PC behaviour, nor on anything mechanical. I tend to give level ups based on reaching adventure goals, but don't see it as a reward system, more of a pacing so that the game changes over time, and stays fresh.
I think that's an excellent way of playing the game, and should certainly be called out in the core rules as a way of managing character advancement.
Were I running a campaign at the moment, I'd probably default to this. I've run multiple campaigns tracking XP to the nth degree with multiple goals in mind; in hindsight it would have been just as effective to periodically tell the players to level up at appropriate points in the game.