White Chips
I have played a lot of games, two science fiction games I have used a lot are Star Wars D6 and Serenity. In both games, players are awarded experience points which can be used to buy bonuses to die rolls and in Serenity can actually be used to buy plot twists. At the end of the adventure, unused points are converted into advancement points to be spent on improving your character (both games use a skill point system instead of character levels). Serenity, in keeping with the setting's western motif, recommends using poker chips to keep track. It works well and I have used it in other systems.
Now, in 5E they have Inspiration points which is a point awarded to a player (usually only once a session) for various reasons and can be spent to buy a reroll so you can try to get a better result. I like to award lots of bonus XP, so instead of using Inspiration points in 5E, I award white chips for experience points and the players can cash them in to buy a reroll. But, because I give lots of chips out, it's two chips to buy a reroll. In D&D, a chip is worth 50XP times your character level (so a chip for a 7th level character is worth 350xp) at the end of the adventure if you don't spend it. I did that because making a chip worth a flat value reduces its worth as you level up. In D&D I don't let players roll white chips over into the next adventure, they get converted to XP at the end of the adventure. In Star Wars and Serenity, you're allowed to keep a small pool of points so you have some when the game begins.
I give white chips for all kinds of reasons; good jokes, bad jokes, funny quotes, good roleplay, good planning, high die rolls. I have penalized people chips for making really bad jokes or poor choices.
Blue Chips
Blue chips, on the other hand, are given to the players (two per adventure) and they are awarded to OTHER players. This helps foster teamwork. I got the idea from an article by John Wick (no, not that John Wick) and my players have really enjoyed it. Basically, players award blue chips to other players and they turn into white chips for the receiving player to use to buy a reroll or save for XP.
