Achievements

Roger · Sep 23, 2008

This is sort of a random thought (I've been playing a lot of Spore lately) but I've been thinking lately about achievements.

What I'm thinking of is that every adventure (or, more fundamentally, every major quest) would have associated with it an achievement that the PC would earn by successfully completing the quest.

So, after a few adventures, Falstaff the Fighter would be the Slayer of Gorgo the Blood-Thirsty, Discoverer of the Lost Tomb of Doom, and Saviour of the Mumplestump Orphans.

This wouldn't have any mechanical effect (at least I'm not envisioning such at this point) but it'd provide a sort of fluffy reputation mechanism.

Submitted adventures would include the proposed achievement under the Success part of their central quest. I don't think it's too late to retrofit the current adventures with it.

So... that's my idea. Comments are very welcome.

Cheers,
Roger

Voda Vosa · Sep 23, 2008

Nice idea, I like it a lot. The DMs can write down in their players sheets all thier achivements for the quest.

Graf · Sep 24, 2008

I like the idea. So much so that I proposed it before....

I called them Attainments though. (I think achievements is an xbox term? not sure)

I left it open as to whether there were no, very minor, or occasionally some benefit.

At time there was no interest in even discussing it....

garyh · Sep 24, 2008

Graf said:
I like the idea. So much so that I proposed it before....

I called them Attainments though. (I think achievements is an xbox term? not sure)

I left it open as to whether there were no, very minor, or occasionally some benefit.

At time there was no interest in even discussing it....

Well, I'd be much more likely go go for it if there was no mechanical benefit. I was just as concerned about the trouble of mechanical benefits from these as you were about more robust regional benefits.

EDIT: Also, now that we're done with the pre-start work we were doing at the time, I'm also more open to discussing it. At the time, there was almost TOO much being tossed around. I might have been suffering from Project Discussion Overload syndrome.

Roger · Sep 24, 2008

Wow; yeah, that's quite the convergence of independent ideas, alright. Maybe I saw your thread earlier and just forgot about it somehow.

It looked like some of the concerns were about bookkeeping and the mechanical elements; I think we should be able to set up a system that doesn't have any of that.

Cheers,
Roger

Phoenix8008 · Sep 24, 2008

I think it would be a neat idea myself. Like garyh said, there was so much being discussed back then that I looked at it as another hurdle that would need to be gotten past to arrive at the point of being able to play. I also think that having no mechanical benefit would be much easier and more likely to get implemented even though small mechanical benefits could be fun.

Graf · Sep 24, 2008

I'm not complaining that it was dropped. It was definitely "too much".

<looks at list unapproved characters and unsubmitted adventures>
It may be too much now...

If people are interested, how should we handle it? Just do something informal?

I confess to thinking that -some- of the achievements would not exactly be titles, but be more oriented around relationships.

Graf · Sep 24, 2008

[sblock=Not that I want to provide the community with further evidence of my being barking mad, but...]But there's a very interesting scene in a Waking Life where Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman (I think) talk about the collective unconscious.

He asserts that there a study that shows that people who get a crossword puzzle a day after it's released to significantly better than they do when they're working on an unreleased crossword puzzle... and extrapolates that well.... collective unconscious.

Which sounds fairly bonkers, but, anyway, if I have the same idea as someone else I rarely think that they're necessarily mimicking me. The geeksphere may very well just be talking a lot abut achievements.

I'll take my nutty self back to writing that summary now.[/sblock]

covaithe · Sep 24, 2008

As long as these achievements / attainments / whatever don't have any predefined mechanical effect, then it's no problem at all. You can call yourself the Slayer of Gorgo the Bloodthirsty, and if your DM sees fit, he or she can give you a bonus to intimidate scores or something, if the situation merits it.

It's when we start talking about assigning a flat +1 to intimidate as an achievement that it turns into a bloody mess of balance issues, bookkeeping nightmares, and judging headaches.

Halford · Sep 24, 2008

I'm with covaithe on this. Should you wish to call yourself Dragonslayer you are free to do so, true or not, and your DM will interpret it as he wishes having his NPCs react as he deems appropriate.

I might also grant none treasure items for significant victories. A grateful maiden rescued from a dragon could craft all the heroes carved dragon fang brooches, etc. The knowledgeable, or folks from the appropriate area might thus recognized the PC as one of the heroes who slew the black dragon Kartharath Heartstealer, etc.