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Achievments earned by playing?

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Redcap
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Funny idea I had while looking at some video games, the idea is that players gain achievements by playing the game and winning while meeting certain criteria. So for example if this was to be applied to ticket to ride you might have an achievement of "Professional Track builder" that you would win when you get 200 points in a single game. Or if you were playing Small World there might be an achievement like "Undead Master" where you would have to get all the possible skeleton tokens onto the board.

I was thinking this would be used for my own games, and not for Ticket to Ride or anything like that. The achievements would just be listed on a piece of paper with a line for players to write their names once they won the achievements.

Curious on any thoughts on the subject.

innuendo
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Video games have achievements

Video games have achievements because game designers realized that there wasn't enough of a reward system in a 10 hour game. Beating a level every hour wasn't enough to keep a player motivated, they needed little goals along the way to keep the pavlonian dinner bell ringing as the player progresses through the game.

Board games don't last 10 hours. They last 30 minutes - 2 hours on average I would say. Plus with most board games you are already working towards several smaller goals through out the game. Take Catan for example. "build this road to there", "get enough sheep for this", etc. Players are constantly making their own little goals and achieving them and then get to see their results instantly in the form of more control of the board.

Video games don't have this so they give players achievements or trophies mid game so they can see what they just did, as well as reward the player for playing the game. I don't think it's needed in boardgames, although it never hurts to experiment.

Marx
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I tend to agree with

I tend to agree with innuendo, however there are a few ways this might work.

You might attempt to use achievements over the span of multiple games, giving players who have unlocked certain achievements certain advantages. Or perhaps they unlock a new item/card/player/ability after a set number of achievements (5, 10, 15, 20, ...).

As a less "meta" solution, you could instead give players bonus points at the end of the game for any achievements they've gained. Catan actually does this in some fashion with the "longest road" and "largest army" cards. I think it could add a fun element to the game, especially if you have multiple players attempting the same achievement. IIRC, Metropolys does something like this wherein in each player has a set of "secret goals" they can work on to gain extra points. I suppose in your case though, the goals would be on a first come first serve basis.

simons
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Reason for achievements

I guess the thing I'd ask is what would be the purpose of these achievements? I mostly got out of video games before achievements were invented, so perhaps I'm missing something, but as far as I can tell, they exist for 3 reasons: 1) to show to other people in the online community how much you've played and how good you are, 2) to give players an extra dimension of things to do, rather than just win, and 3) to give people a reason to keep playing and playing, so that they can unlock new powers.

In terms of #1, unless there is an in-game benefit, I don't see a good reason for it. If you do something really fancy, you can brag about it ("Hey, do you remember the time I had a road that was 12 spaces long?"), whether or not you get an "achievement" for it.

#2 actually seems to encourage sub-optimal play. For example, I've seen a friend of mine run around a WWII battlefield with nothing but a knife, because he was trying to get a "Jack the Ripper" award (or something like that). In "Small World," I have trouble picturing someone sticking with skeletons longer than is optimal (or trying harder to get skeletons, even if it is a few races back), just because he wants to get the "Undead Master" award. Alternatively, I could see someone doing that, and it making the game less fun for others (because suddenly you have a playing who is just screwing around, rather than playing to win).

#3, well, in video games there is really something that can stop you from playing with all of the upgrades, whereas in board games there isn't (besides saying "pretty please"). I don't think that requiring players play X games or win some number of times before they can use advanced rules would actually make the game more fun. Similarly, I don't think that giving one player an advantage (such as better weapons) just because he's played more will make the game more fun either.

For both #2 and #3, I'm not sure why it is (though I have some guesses), but it seems like video games can still be fun, even if not everyone is playing on the same level, whereas board games it is not so much the case.

So, all that said, if you can come up with another good reason to have achievements, then have achievements. I like what was said about "Longest Road" in Settlers, that achievements like that are good because they encourage (and reward) a particular style of play. If you can give another good reason, then great. But, I'm not sure if I see the benefit behind having a "Hall of Fame"-style list of achievements that each player keeps with them.

Simon

Redcap
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The more I thought about this

The more I thought about this the more I agree with you. I think it would encourage sub-optimal play, wierd play, and detract from the game. Now with that said, if the achievements were not strange ways to play, but rather impressive feats like earn 200 points in Ticket to Ride, I think it could act as a bragging right to the group you play with.

Pastor_Mora
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Game Log

Good to take a break of all that Rust reading... ;)

I didn't see a drawback in game "records" per se until the the sub-optimal gameplay argument. That's a good one. Still, taking what Redcap says, the idea could take form in a game log. Say, like a small booklet with different pages to log game records. Then you would read in page 2 "The highest score so far" title, and below, the score, name, date and signature of the player. In page 4 "The longest whatever", in page 6 "The fastest something", etc. Maybe like a personal Guiness book of records for the game where you and your friends can track back their history together playing that game. I think it may not be too expensive a component and could spawn much braging noise in the online community (free publicity).

Nice idea. Keep thinking!

SiddGames
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I think achievements have

I think achievements have really taken off thanks to the Xbox 360, on which every game released must have achievements programmed in, and then some games have taken their lead and added in-game achievements (the challenges in the Call of Duty multiplayer mode come to mind). Game designer/Imagineer/games professor Jesse Schell touches on this in this excellent DICE presentation: http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/DICE-2010-Design-Outside-the-Box-Presentation/

As for non-digital games, I have seen recently that the Warhammer: Invasion LCG from FFG has a league achievement card. You must earn them while playing games at league night. The tournament or league director signs off on the checklist for you on your card, and they are very similar to online achievements (inflict 10 points of damage on a capital in one turn, win a game with only units in your deck, etc.). There are also threads on BGG for Knizia's free pnp dice game Decathlon for tracking "world records" and personal bests in the events.

People like a sense of progress or achievement. I think if they have no game effect, they can only help long term interest in a game. If they have in-game rewards, then one must tread more carefully.

Sasachaz
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Achievements

Redcap, I hit on this a couple years ago, and it's changed my design process... I am using achievements as global objectives that render players victory points. I've found it tremendously helpful in giving a sense of multiple paths to victory.

These achievements aren't like video games in that they don't carry over to the next game, but they are kind of like 'longest road' in catan. It's an achievement, but it plays into the game and has a real and clear purpose.

Just my take on it.

Cheers, -Cody

Candika
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i have also thought about it

I have thought about it and my conclusion is that its very hard to implement it.

However there are some ways to implement a kind of achievement.

Games Workshop did it in their old game Battle Cars, strangely "translated" to Combat Cars in Sweden.
Where a player that win a game get experience points.

When you have a couple of experience points you can exchange them for a permanent die roll modifier when shooting or driving.

That really added to the experience if i recall it right (long time ago).

However these achievements or experience points was stimulating "kill the king" or "bash the leader" behaviour but that was something you had to take if you entered a game with a lot of experience points.

Something like this could be done today i believe, but its not everyones cup of tea.

Redcap
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I think the achievements

I think the achievements guiding how to play the game, such as longest road, is a brilliant idea that I never thought of. So for example a game that you get points might have +5 points for the player who opens the most doors; thus encouraging movement. Or +5 points for the player who gets hit the least, thus encouraging non-babarian style of fighting tactics.

Interesting.

JensT
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Achivements

I'm thinking about a semi-cooperative zombie game and I have been playing around with the idea of adding in achievments. The general idea of the game is that a group of players have to get from one side of a grid based town save some civilians and get back whilst zombies spawn in their track and chase them across the board. Players after spending their movement points will draw an area exploration card which mostly will have an d10 test on it relating to their stats. for example "Roll a fight tests: reward 50 points" My character have a 5 in fight and success on a 5 or lower earning the 50 points I can spend in a shop between rounds to buy weapons and armor increasing my stats and bettering my chances to get a success on the harder tests and earning more rewards allowing me to buy even better equipments. The idea is that you play togheter untill someone gets hurt enough that they turn into a zombie and then starts playing for the zombie team. The game goes for three rounds and after the rounds either the human side or the zombie side have won.

The idea I have for acheivements is that if you for example goes a whole round whitout getting hurt you get a card that says "Sergant Badass: +1 to defense" or something simmilar. The acheivements should either be small and hard earnt additions to your base stat or special abilites since everybody start with the same base stat.

NativeTexan
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Clever

JensT wrote:
The idea I have for acheivements is that if you for example goes a whole round whitout getting hurt you get a card that says "Sergant Badass: +1 to defense" or something simmilar. The acheivements should either be small and hard earnt additions to your base stat or special abilites since everybody start with the same base stat.

I really like that mechanic. I think this is elegant, relevant to the gameplay, and gives it the feeling of things evolving over time. It would keep things interesting and give you some in-game goals to hit.

Kyle Gabhart
Driftwood Games
www.driftwoodgames.com

JensT
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Yes I want it to tie in to

Yes I want it to tie in to the progression based history arch of the game, but I'm not sure about the balancing of things, I think becouse the cooperative nature of the game bashing the leader will not be a problem, earning an achievemnt should rather be something good for the group, until that is, the player becomes a zombie. But that is something that I need to playtest due to my lack of skill whit numbers :P

Cogentesque
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First I would need to totally

First I would need to totally define achievements: are they persistant? What do they do? Why should I want them? etc.

If they are merely "Get 4 clay to be "master of the clay" and have an additional house" then we can distill this right down to its purest form "House - Cost: 4 Clay" which is the same thing. IS this an achievment? If so, then this form of achievement I suppose, could be a simple "renaming" of otherwise existing game mechanics. In which case this is going against one of the prime rules for boardgame design: make everything as simple and elegant as it realistically can be (cant find the bgdf link, here's the bgg one http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/693766)

I think the sticking point is if they are persistant: "bragging rites" may as well be a little badge that says: "I <3 Slayer" or "I am in Mensa!". When Magic the gathering does it's official tournaments, everyone gets promo cards (achievements) or standing in the national tables (achievements) but at any time you can say "Hey...I am number 4 in the world, look at my special card that I got for coming second" as very few others have these, making you special in some way. And when computer games do it: people can see that you do or do not have these little badges. More over, when you load up your game again - it says "HEY, you got these rainbow badges from killing 100 clowns! Remember?"

Wheras a boardgame starts and stops in (normally) about an hour. When you pick it up again, there is no guartneed way of it telling you "Hey last time you plaid, you got this special achievement!" because, you could simply pick the card that tells you you have, it is worthless. Wheras the games, you cannot simply go into them and give yourself these achievements, you MUST earn them. Wheras in a boardagme, you could just "have" them, if it gave you anything persistant, (+1 attack whenever you played) it would be more of a scenario as oopsed to an achievement. Eg, in the rule manual "try playing at an advantage of +1 attack!" which is just a different game setting, which is just a balancing mechanism, which is just the gameplay - again we're back to the above problem.

The one way I can see it becoming is when you have a score to beat on your own, or something to gloat about with your friends.

I think Sid Miers civ games do a good example when they tally your points up at the end, and then attribute you a ranking depending on your total points: eg 50 points: "...The meak" 100 points: "...The wary" 500: "...The strong" 1000 "...The conquerer" this would probably be my best manifestation of achievments. Then it gies you (in solo play) or gloating rights (in copo/vs play) "Remember that time where I was "The Vallant" man that was a tough game!" I think these would be the closest to achievements you could get, other than simply adding a new mechanism to a boardgame.

JensT
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Thanks

@ Cogentesque

Thanks for the link, I'm going to read it over and contemplate, but it would be nice to figure out some neat way of doing achievements.

edgd00
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Careful Implementation

Cogentesque wrote:

I think Sid Miers civ games do a good example when they tally your points up at the end, and then attribute you a ranking depending on your total points: eg 50 points: "...The meak" 100 points: "...The wary" 500: "...The strong" 1000 "...The conquerer" this would probably be my best manifestation of achievments. Then it gies you (in solo play) or gloating rights (in copo/vs play) "Remember that time where I was "The Vallant" man that was a tough game!" I think these would be the closest to achievements you could get, other than simply adding a new mechanism to a boardgame.

I think the idea of achievements is a neat idea that could be implemented to some degree in games. I agree one has to be careful that this "meta game" does not interfere with actual gameplay too much or even at all. I think simply as bragging rights could be fun. A group could even go so far as printing their own badges to give out to players who earn an achievement. I think earning achievements should be an end of game thing; players earn their points or whatever based on how the final state of the game. Having to figure out extra stuff during play I think would be harmful to most games as the game flow is usually careful designed. Extra steps can possibly ruin the experience. This idea of achievements is similar to something I am working on called the "Meta Game Domination" which i posted elsewhere on BGDF (http://www.bgdf.com/node/5371). Perhaps the two ideas can be combined. I'm envisioning a website, where people can post comments of bonuses and achievements that their groups have come up with so that other groups can perhaps implement them or improve upon them. There could also be downloads of badges, house rules and maps.

bonsaigames
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Thanks!

SiddGames wrote:
Game designer/Imagineer/games professor Jesse Schell touches on this in this excellent DICE presentation: http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/DICE-2010-Design-Outside-the-Box-Presentation/

Fantastic Presentation! A little dated (he calls the Kinect the Natal), but a great thought exercise. If you haven't watched it, you should!

bonsaigames
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Achievement Decks

This is a great conversation and I think we as game designers should take it seriously and be consistently looking toward the future of game design.
At Bonsai, we have prototyped a set of smaller cards designed to grant Achievement points for older American board games.
I for one, have groaned when the family pulls out one of these games for family board game night. Not everyone has our appreciation for Designer Games and for some people these classic games hold a special place in their hearts. So I designed a set of Achievement Cards for Monopoly to provide a more in-depth play experience. We deal these cards out at the beginning of the game and as a player achieves the goal printed on the card, he or she plays it, earning X points.
These points have nothing to do with who wins Monopoly, but it allows me and others who like a deeper experience to work toward these small, achievable goals (trade one RR property / buy a property for less than the price on the board / use a get out of jail free card / etc...) then at the end of the game players tally up their achievements and they get two tiers of game experience; the actual winner of the Monopoly game AND the player with the most Achievement Points.
We have designed cards for most classic American games and we are working on cards for some of the most popular RPGs.
If we want to continue to thrive as an industry, we can't look back at what has worked in the past, but we must look forward at trends and expectations from those who will fuel this market moving forward and they will expect a deeper experience than what has come before.

Levi Mote
www.bonsaigames.net

Yamahako
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I think a Risk Legacy style

I think a Risk Legacy style game could actually work with true achievements since the purpose of a game like that is to evolve as people play it.

To mean, Achievements represent a rare, or complex, or ridiculous occurrence that happens during a game. The idea of rewarding those is kind of nice though. Whether its through VP's, or game currency, or what have you.

While I agree, that it MAY represent sub-optimal play (though perhaps if the reward is high enough, it would become optimal) to go for an achievement - it could be an interesting way for a more experienced player to make a good game for a less experienced player. The kind of situation where it wouldn't be a fun game due to skill cap anyway. The experienced player can try for some absurdly difficult way of winning in lieu of dominating the game.

There's an example I would call an achievement in a very old game - Hearts. Shooting the Moon, to me, is the kind of achievement reward system that could be emulated in a board game that's non-persistent.

Alextfish
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Levi mentions an idea which I

Levi mentions an idea which I find utterly intriguing. I think there's something very interesting in his mention of "two tiers of game experience; the actual winner of the Monopoly game AND the player with the most Achievement Points".

Suppose this idea were broadened to say that some particular game has two winners. For example, a Civ-building game might have a Military Winner and an Economic Winner. Neither is inherently superior to the other and both players win.

Some players might find their playing styles align themselves to being the Military Winner, while others find the opposite. Some gamers might aim to win in both ways, but the expectation should be that it's exceptionally difficult to manage those as they need investment in different ways.

I just think "this game has two different winners" is a fascinating suggestion that's simple to understand but I've never seen in any board game I've played.

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