Hullo, Finders of the Path.
So, I stopped awarding and calculating XP for my home games awhile ago, and since I've been leveling up my players whenever I feel sufficient time has passed, but usually after every 3 game sessions. However I felt that they really weren't doing anything to earn that new level, so I'm implementing an alternate XP/Level Up system I took from an RPG called Invisible Sun.
So far it has been working ok, basicly players need to gather 3 points of Joy, 3 of Despair, and 5 Acumen. They get Acumen for completing Character Arcs that are described in the original IS system. Joy and Despair they get whenever something really good or something really bad happens to them in the game. So growth and learning come from both good and traumatic experience through the course of adventuring, and through completing personal or group agendas (Acumen from advancing Character Arcs) like rescuing princesses, founding an organization, crafting a very difficult item, joining a secret cult, exploring a lost ruined city, and so on.
All this stems from the player's actions (and reactions), what their goals are, what they actually do in the game beside murdering and pillaging creatures.
However, my players are finding it hard to get Joy awarded to them, and I'm also finding it hard to come up with story reasons to give it to them, aside from "completing the quest" (also "screwing up the quest" for Despair).
The original Invisible Sun game system indicates three things that might award Joy, and three things that might award Despair, for each "Order" in the game (that's the closest thing the game has to Pathfinder's classes). So I thought of writing three things that would award Joy and other three for Despair for each race and class in Pathfinder. Of course not all of them at once, starting with the Core ones and going up from there.
So, what I came here to ask is: What would give an elf Joy? What would give a Dwarf Despair? What about a Barbarian? Or a Ranger? I'm having difficulty with the more martial classes, given that the Orders in Invisible Sun are pretty much all made up of magical characters.
These should be things that are not super rare, like once per adventure, but also can't be things that are too easy to achieve and abuse.
For instance: a halfling might get 1 Despair by going too long without good quality food. A ranger might get 1 Despair for failing to track his favourite enemy. A cleric that consecrates/desecrates the temple of an opposing deity might get 1 Joy. And so on...
It's difficult to come up with appropriate events for this system without asking Standard Homebrew Question #1: How does this make the game more fun for your players?
It's difficult to come up with appropriate events for this system without asking Standard Homebrew Question #1: How does this make the game more fun for your players?
Well, they end up getting more involved in their characters and in the story, it's a way to encourage them to roleplay.
But in the end, if they don't find that fun, and just want to murderhobo their way through the campaign like before, then i guess I don't want to play with those kind of players anymore.
One should also ask the question, what makes things fun for the DM?