Achievement based progression

#1

I’ve had an idea that I stumbled into. And that is the idea of giving your players a character or class goal to work towards during the session and if the complete that goal then they “level up.”

I had the thought that this might also be a tool that could lead the characters to details and clues about their quest that they might not find otherwise.

At the beginning of the session, each hero is given a personal goal to achieve throughout the adventure.

If they achieve their goal by the end of the adventure then they get a milestone towards their character build.

Example
Your earn a milestone in progression if you achieve:

Shadow - sneak attack 5 different monsters

Guardian - take more damage than any other character

Mage - be cautious and search for magical stuff

Archer - keep cover during the battle and while attacking

Priest - say a prayer and bless the party at the beginning of each battle.

Wildling - find a way to defeat an enemy using your environment

Commander - empower your party with a battle cry during combat

Blade - be the first to strike your enemies

Community Annual 2019
#2

I love this idea of achievement based milestones. Really cool.

#3

I dig it. To have some more fun with it, write goals down on index cards and hand them out randomly to the players. Avoids the thief always getting sneaky/stabby goals, etc. Get the fighter sneaking around, the mage drawing monster ire.

#4

I like this idea. I also like Shadymutha’s suggestion to not always have goals that are too tightly bound to what you would expect of the character class.

Personally I think it is a bit difficult to come up with new goals for higher tiers of milestones. Now that I think about it I probably wont use achievements as the trigger to get the milestone, but rather unlocks. Hm… how to explain… I have a campaign and I know that the players should get 5-6 milestones during gameplay, but in order to get them they must have unlocked the potential to get the milestone by doing the achievements. I just want to avoid having players rushing to do their milestones and then immediately get the milestone.

Maybe during the course of a session they achieve the goals early, but only get the milestone on successfully completing their quest. If not… they have to do another quest or such…