Post by Joe the Revelator on May 19, 2015 10:57:15 GMT
This is a redux article. If anyone wants to add ideas or peer review/critique, it would be welcome.
Featured Image:
In video games the Achievement has become ubiquitous. It pops up around the borders of the screen with a glitzy soundbite and a tiny trophy cup, like you’ve won something, even if your biggest accomplishment has been not cutting off your hojos with a pair safety scissors. These “gimme” achievements mean nothing, and do nothing to motivate the players. Yet they appear in almost every modern game regardless of difficulty rating.
Veteran gamers know, it’s the impressive, unforeseen trophies that mean the most. Trophies you can brag to your friends about. Trophies that you dwell on. Trophies you can bring to the game table…
(Stock photo of an achievement. Caption: Got this bad boy for getting out of bed.)
When it’s something odd or interesting, like tipping the bar-wench $10,000 (Borderlands 2) or killing the enemy by throwing his grenade back at him (Day of Defeat) or mastering practically every achievement category in the game (Gears of War 3) it feels like the trophy has been earned. You bled for that tiny pixel cup, and by god you'll unzip and flaunt it at anyone who walks into your lair.
Since childhood we’ve been conditioned to squeal with excitement every time we get a gold star, or go into fits whenever someone puts a little green checkmark at the top of our coloring book. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless you’re living in an age where everyone on the little league team gets a trophy so nobody feels bad (Fat chance, right? Right?) So in the spirit of abusing this little by-product of social conditioning, I’ve recently started using an achievement system in my tabletop games. The results have been spectacular, and vaguely disturbing.
So here are 4 ways you too can capitalize on this hard-wired happy switch public school has welded into our synapses.
(Stock image)
1) Award for what you lack:
My first piece of advice is to dole out Achievements for behavior you want to see in your game, and not what would be badass or mathematically difficult. If your players notice a relationship between how many trophies they get, and how many villagers they cut in half, you’ll have a goddamn bloodbath on your hands.
Likewise, if all of your achievements have to do with communication, solving puzzles, or kissing puppies, you’ll soon witness an episode of Blues Clues unfolding at your game table. When I say that Achievements can be powerful attitude adjusters in game, I’m not kidding. Try to reward for qualities your gaming group lacks. This may take some fine-tuning, and an intimate understanding of the people around your table. Likewise, promises that the next 20 achievements in your hidden folder are related to roleplay, and not sword-to-testicle sportsmanship, can be an important tool to quell the tide of blood.
(Stock image)
2) Keep your list short and infrequent:
Since it will be you, the Dungeon Master, who is awarding these suckers, you will be required to keep an active count for multiple instance achievements. I would advise keeping the list short. I started with around 20 ‘chievies and still found it taxing to remember just who changed clothes for the 4th time while everyone else was trying to slay the troll. (Achievement: Clothes Horse – Change Clothes 5 Times “The clothes make the man…“)
My advice is to keep a cheat-sheet with the names of the achievements sitting beside your campaign book. Give each player a designation along with a letter or number to the right of the Achievement, to indicate how many times each act/deed has been made. Example:
Players: Flavanoid, Ace, Vitamin B-2
Achievement: Snuff out 5 Goblin Orphans – F, F, F, A, A, Me
Achievement: Score a Crit on 5 Mechs – V, V, F, B, V
Achievement: For the love of God, roleplay the scenario –
(stock photo)
3) Make Achievements rare
It’s also important to make Achievements difficult or unlikely. As an experienced GM you’ll probably be able to adjust for whichever game system you’re running. But giving out an achievement in D&D 4.0 for every critical hit scored will make the whole process cheap. It's also important to remember that there are many, many other rewards in most RPGs. You don't want Achievements competing with fate points, gold, or milestones. Think of them as meta tools, not an intrinsic element of the game.
Give an achievement to the player who doesn’t screw over the party at the end of a successful Cyberpunk run. It might be a bit too far-fetched, but it will catch your bloodthirsty gun-bunnies off guard. Try to math the scarcity in a way that equals about one trophy per session, if that.
(Stock image from a cyberpunk game. Caption: If it looks like they're working together, think again.)
4) Achievements should be physical, but not necessarily monetary
The first time you pass the players a tiny cardstock slip with a trophy and clever phrase on it, you will believe in miracles again. Players come alive when you validate the last 5 hours they wasted on plotting out a miniature siege on 1-inch grid lines, or skinning small sentient humanoids. After all, how often do we walk away from the table with tangible proof of our tabletop deeds?
The last campaign I ran, I gave out an achievement for the player who had truly terrible attack rolls. A player with math-defying, improbable odds, who missed more attack rolls in a single round than should have been possible at his level. The name of the achievement was called “F*#@ Lady Luck!” and the player who received it went from chagrin and spitting, to laughing and manic in 2 seconds.
For this reason I recommend physically giving tokens or printed scraps of paper to the players. It’s something they can keep. Something that will remind them of your campaign weeks later. Having a gold or credit or exp values assigned to your achievements may work for your table, but in my experience the small sense of satisfaction seems to work wonders on its own. Why ruin something as pure as the delight of a player by giving them the impression that if they only had 4 more 'chievies they could get those new magic bracers?
Featured Image:
In video games the Achievement has become ubiquitous. It pops up around the borders of the screen with a glitzy soundbite and a tiny trophy cup, like you’ve won something, even if your biggest accomplishment has been not cutting off your hojos with a pair safety scissors. These “gimme” achievements mean nothing, and do nothing to motivate the players. Yet they appear in almost every modern game regardless of difficulty rating.
Veteran gamers know, it’s the impressive, unforeseen trophies that mean the most. Trophies you can brag to your friends about. Trophies that you dwell on. Trophies you can bring to the game table…
(Stock photo of an achievement. Caption: Got this bad boy for getting out of bed.)
When it’s something odd or interesting, like tipping the bar-wench $10,000 (Borderlands 2) or killing the enemy by throwing his grenade back at him (Day of Defeat) or mastering practically every achievement category in the game (Gears of War 3) it feels like the trophy has been earned. You bled for that tiny pixel cup, and by god you'll unzip and flaunt it at anyone who walks into your lair.
Since childhood we’ve been conditioned to squeal with excitement every time we get a gold star, or go into fits whenever someone puts a little green checkmark at the top of our coloring book. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless you’re living in an age where everyone on the little league team gets a trophy so nobody feels bad (Fat chance, right? Right?) So in the spirit of abusing this little by-product of social conditioning, I’ve recently started using an achievement system in my tabletop games. The results have been spectacular, and vaguely disturbing.
So here are 4 ways you too can capitalize on this hard-wired happy switch public school has welded into our synapses.
(Stock image)
1) Award for what you lack:
My first piece of advice is to dole out Achievements for behavior you want to see in your game, and not what would be badass or mathematically difficult. If your players notice a relationship between how many trophies they get, and how many villagers they cut in half, you’ll have a goddamn bloodbath on your hands.
Likewise, if all of your achievements have to do with communication, solving puzzles, or kissing puppies, you’ll soon witness an episode of Blues Clues unfolding at your game table. When I say that Achievements can be powerful attitude adjusters in game, I’m not kidding. Try to reward for qualities your gaming group lacks. This may take some fine-tuning, and an intimate understanding of the people around your table. Likewise, promises that the next 20 achievements in your hidden folder are related to roleplay, and not sword-to-testicle sportsmanship, can be an important tool to quell the tide of blood.
(Stock image)
2) Keep your list short and infrequent:
Since it will be you, the Dungeon Master, who is awarding these suckers, you will be required to keep an active count for multiple instance achievements. I would advise keeping the list short. I started with around 20 ‘chievies and still found it taxing to remember just who changed clothes for the 4th time while everyone else was trying to slay the troll. (Achievement: Clothes Horse – Change Clothes 5 Times “The clothes make the man…“)
My advice is to keep a cheat-sheet with the names of the achievements sitting beside your campaign book. Give each player a designation along with a letter or number to the right of the Achievement, to indicate how many times each act/deed has been made. Example:
Players: Flavanoid, Ace, Vitamin B-2
Achievement: Snuff out 5 Goblin Orphans – F, F, F, A, A, Me
Achievement: Score a Crit on 5 Mechs – V, V, F, B, V
Achievement: For the love of God, roleplay the scenario –
(stock photo)
3) Make Achievements rare
It’s also important to make Achievements difficult or unlikely. As an experienced GM you’ll probably be able to adjust for whichever game system you’re running. But giving out an achievement in D&D 4.0 for every critical hit scored will make the whole process cheap. It's also important to remember that there are many, many other rewards in most RPGs. You don't want Achievements competing with fate points, gold, or milestones. Think of them as meta tools, not an intrinsic element of the game.
Give an achievement to the player who doesn’t screw over the party at the end of a successful Cyberpunk run. It might be a bit too far-fetched, but it will catch your bloodthirsty gun-bunnies off guard. Try to math the scarcity in a way that equals about one trophy per session, if that.
(Stock image from a cyberpunk game. Caption: If it looks like they're working together, think again.)
4) Achievements should be physical, but not necessarily monetary
The first time you pass the players a tiny cardstock slip with a trophy and clever phrase on it, you will believe in miracles again. Players come alive when you validate the last 5 hours they wasted on plotting out a miniature siege on 1-inch grid lines, or skinning small sentient humanoids. After all, how often do we walk away from the table with tangible proof of our tabletop deeds?
The last campaign I ran, I gave out an achievement for the player who had truly terrible attack rolls. A player with math-defying, improbable odds, who missed more attack rolls in a single round than should have been possible at his level. The name of the achievement was called “F*#@ Lady Luck!” and the player who received it went from chagrin and spitting, to laughing and manic in 2 seconds.
For this reason I recommend physically giving tokens or printed scraps of paper to the players. It’s something they can keep. Something that will remind them of your campaign weeks later. Having a gold or credit or exp values assigned to your achievements may work for your table, but in my experience the small sense of satisfaction seems to work wonders on its own. Why ruin something as pure as the delight of a player by giving them the impression that if they only had 4 more 'chievies they could get those new magic bracers?