Achievments earned by playing?

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.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.