RPG Achievements

"Achievements" have been a popular part of video games for a quite a long time.  I can remember earning medals back in X-Wing  back in '93.  Trying to get as many achievements as possible drove a lot of my game play in Dragon Age.  Likewise, StarCraft 2 has a lot of achievements that I unfortunately haven't had time to earn.

So, do "achievements" in the video game sense fit into RPGs like Pathfinder?  Several other authors have certainly considered the topic for a while.

My opinion is that videos game are really good representation of role-playing games only without the role-playing.  Mostly, I believe this is the case because 1) Computers aren't advanced enough to provide an open-ended canvas for human interaction (Refer to the Loebner prize contest for examples of state-of-the art chat bots that still seem to be quite a ways from passing the Turing Test.) and 2) MMOs, the human-interaction version of video games, have yet to sway the players out of ignoring role-playing.  As a result, driven by the competitive nature of the players and the need for positive feedback from completing goals, video games turned to achievements.

In a role-playing game, the achievements are less-tangible but more rewarding for the players.  First they get to figure out how to beat the dragon, interaction with a group of other players to build an open-ended solution to the scenario.  Then, later, they get to recount and share the experience with other people.  This recounting and sharing is a common part of D&D culture.  You can't sit through a single session without someone telling the story of what they did in some other campaign.  Our RPG culture is already built on achievements in the stories we tell and retell.  For some famous examples, refer to my earlier post of the Wubba Wubba story or the infamous story of Eric and the Dread Gazebo.

So what are achievements in RPGs?  They certainly aren't little medals or icons you put on your profile page.  I think achievements are a much more tangible thing that the GM can design into the game -- interesting stories:

• RPG achievements are designed as an opportunity for a good story. Think about the Wubba Wubba story.  No one wrote the Wubba Wubba story; they lived it.  It was, however, enabled by some non-traditional mechanics that the GM inserted to keep things interesting; and it worked.
• You can't force them or necessarily predict them.  A good example is one of the stories that gets told and retold in my Friday Night Pathfinder group.  The thief tries to pry a jewel out of the casting circle in the lair of an evil necromancer they just defeated.  Unfortunately, the thief slips (bad roll) and shatters the gem, unleashing a wave of wild magic.  As a wild magic result (another roll), the thief is enlarged.  The group also found a large cauldron in the room for making undead minions.  It just so happened the next room contained a white dragon, not very large, but very hostile.  A plan emerges for the rogue to run into the room (with a dice check to get the surprise) carrying the cauldron (another check he can make thanks to being enlarged) and slams the cauldron over the dragon's head.  The plan works, the cauldron blocks the dragon's breath weapon, and it shatters in doing so.  The party then easily fights off the dragon.  Later, of course, the greedy thief finds out that the cauldron itself was worth twenty or thirty thousand gold pieces, which only serves to make the story funnier.  There is nothing in that plan that I saw in advance.
• You can help the story along by introducing interesting things.  If the game ends up as nothing but hack and slash, you are going to end up with hack 'n' slash achievements.  Oh wow, we killed a big monster.  The really interesting stories almost always come from interesting non-combat mechanic interactions.  The GM can always encourage the players to look at non-combat options.  It is also good to add new non-combat mechanics.  My favorite is the karma point -- an abstract point that players can earn and spend to undo bad rolls, avoid death, and most important, do all sorts of things they might not normally be able to do.  This mechanic gives the players a way to act like heroes when the time is right.  Wild magic is another mechanic with a lot of potential.  When anything unplanned happens magically, have a set of wild magic tables ready to go to find out what strange things might occur.
• Let them enjoy it.  It is important for the GM to let stories be a part of the game.  When a players has a good story, let it slide.  It might slow down the game a bit, but it is a big reason we play the game.

-GM