Creative Experience Point Rewards

If you have played Dungeons & Dragons or any similar role-playing game, you have probably seen how campaigns can easily devolve into a sequence of, "find more meat pinatas and hit them until the experience points fall out." This kind of combat-focused campaign is relatively easy to run, because the Monster Manual offers experience point (XP) values for enemies, and players often want to have a good time rolling dice until the enemies are dead. Unfortunately, it also creates a feedback loop of incentives and rewards which can undermine a lot of role-playing opportunities and encourage players to overlook better options to resolve problems.

Give a portion of the combat encounter XP reward for non-combat solutions. Combat has a resource cost in wounds, spell slots, and time, so I don't think the full XP reward is warranted. Sometimes enemies simply can't be out-talked or outwitted, no matter how well dice are rolled, but what is wrong with letting players try?

Grant XP for passing difficult skill checks. Combat is effectively a series of combat skill checks, so why should these be the only ones which earn XP? Trying to calculate an XP reward for every little action players choose is tedious, but those high-impact actions might warrant a reward.

Good role-playing should earn XP! Players who use their character sheets to consider skills, proficiency, flaws, background, etc. before deciding how their character would act, while contributing to the game experience of the entire party, should be rewarded. This can also encourage players to not be munchkins.

Consider the full XP gained within a story beat, and reward afterward. Rather than adding up XP after each encounter, establish a baseline reward for completing a chapter or scene, and modify as appropriate based on player actions, perhaps using ideas above.

No, I do not advocate always allowing peaceful solutions, or trying to calculate an XP reward for every little action players choose. Sometimes enemies simply can't be out-talked or outwitted, no matter how well dice are rolled, and micro-managing is no fun, but players need incentives to encourage creative solutions and that makes the game more fun for everyone.

How else do you manage experience as a game master, or how have you seen it done in games where you were a player? I played a game where every natural 1 earned XP, for example. It was a bit fiddly, but it took the sting out of failure because your character presumably learned something in the process, and it made more sense mechanically than the critical failure tables a lot of GMs like to use.