I'm always trying to add things into my game to make it more fun/challenging and with more and more console/PC games and shipping with achievements I figured why not...even the SR console game has achievements. But that it where I have stumbled, I seem to have hit a bit of a block and some help to get things back on track.

So far I have come up with the following achievements, each one is worth 1 good karma and each player can only achieve one once:

- Heal 20 boxes of damage for your fellow runners.
- Kill 10 enemies in continuous actions without using combat pool to soak/dodge.
- Kill 20 enemies with your summoned spirits.
- Kill 100 enemies with the Katana.
- Kill 20 enemies with a light pistol.
- Kill 100 enemies with a Minigun.
- Kill 100 enemies using vehicle weaponry.
- Kill 20 enemies using explosives.
- Kill five enemies with one grenade.
- Make 5 headshot in any one combat scene
- Kill 20 enemies while blinded.
- Jump in the way of a Deadly hit meant for someone else.
- Survive 3 headshots in any one combat scene.
- Play an entire campaign using only pistols.
- Survive and entire combat scene without any player taking damage.
- Fence 500,000 worth of paydata.
- Banish 20 spirits.
- Take control of 20 spirits.
- Get a maximum initiative roll.

My main concern is that I seem to have a lot of 'kill' ones and I don't want the game to spiral into (more) mass slaughter, so I would like your help coming up with ideas for achievements that are a bit different.

KILL IT!
KILL IT WITH FIRE!
And i mean the idea of handing out achivements for things in SR . .

Torches, gasoline,tar and feathers in place, sir. Just give the word!

I think i just did O.o
Seriously? What's the point?
Rather award them with karma, be it good or bad, for certain things.
If they are funny, neutral karma. If they are holy samaritarians, bad karma.
If they are sociopathic assholes? good karma.
It's allready in there and it has an effect on the game/characters.
Seeing the "Heal 20 Boxes of Damage" . .
Players will do the following: Weakest character in the round will bitch slap the combat monkey while the latter is not wearing armor.
The latter will not dodge or anything and hold back enough dice to take exactly one box of damage.
weakling will heal that one box.
rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

I think someone's taking the idea of light-hearted XBox 360 style achievements a little too seriously.

Also, I think someone didn't notice that each one can only be done once.

I didn't ask if you thought it was a good idea, just help in expanding things. Sure I'll give it a go and it might work wonderfully or turn the game on it's head but I won't know until I try.


Yeah, how dare I try to make it fun for my players.


The GM giveth and the GM taketh away, if they abuse the system it's gone.

I don't see WHY such a thing would be needed.
Karma-Reward is right there.
And if you must be picky, Kill it with fire is a valid response.
Explain to me please how such things are going to make it fun.
I don't seem to be capable of understanding that somehow.
I like playing Fallout3, and i did not even try to get the Achievements.
They just pop up some time and i don't really pay any attention to them.
In the worst case scenario i get distracted by them in a combat and die <.<

But if you really REALLY wanna do this . . take a look at the notority/street-cred rules.

Well, Dave, I like your idea, and I'd certainly like to help you come up with some non-killing achievements.

- Get on three illegal drugs at the same time, and survive the consequences
- Finish an extraction without any party member dealing physical damage to anyone.
- Finish an extraction without any party member dealing ANY damage to anyone
- Fast-talk a Mr. Johnson into giving away something he didn't mean to (of course, they're usually pretty damn tight-lipped)
- Seduce a character who has good reason to be your enemy (i. e. you snuck into the facility she's guarding, you robbed him, etc. etc.)
- Convince a significant character (not just some random beatlehead off the street) of something (there is no god, all Muslims are scum, Elves are plotting take over the world) that has a permanent effect on his/her worldview
- Kick a moderate (or worse) addiction (which involves more roleplaying than "fine, I pay 20 karma to not be addicted to BTLs any more")
- Get below 1 Essence
- Experience a serious change to your body (I'm thinking latent awakening/technomancer/dracomorphosis/metagenetics etc. etc.)
- Survive a journey to the Metaplane of Death
- Astrally perceive in a mana void, and live to tell the tale
- Cast a spell at force 10 or higher in a combat situation, and remain standing
- Bind a spirit of force 8 or higher, and remain standing
- Start a magical group or technomancer guild, and collect 10 members
- Hack a Technomancer's biological node (only available to Technomancers, unless your hacker invents a way to spoof a Resonance signature)
- Banish/decompile a spirit/sprite and then register/bind it for yourself
- Thread a Complex Form to rating 14 or higher
- Disrupt a threatening (i. e. not force 2) enemy spirit without using spells, Killing Hands, a weapon focus, any application of the Banishing skill, or spirits of your own (in other words, while not being Awakened)
- Write a program rated 7 or above
- Deal with a dragon and come out ahead (not necessarily ahead of the dragon, but having gained from the deal with no great loss)

I tried to throw in a bunch of achievements for Awakened, because they need the karma most, but love must be spread. These are just more suggestions.

Stay strong, brother.

In one combat-heavy game where the players were fighting through a bunch of Loup-Garou, I told the players whomever killed the most would get 1 extra karma. It worked, the players had a lot of fun trying to out do each other

And THIS is what i meant.
And THAT is why i can't understand.

I would also add to your list:
* Make it through an entire run without causing any non-essential casualties (ie no injuring the mooks).
* Covering your tracks (on the physical, astral, and matrix areas) so that it is impossible to trace your group after you finish the run.
* Related to the above, redirect blame to some third party so they take the rep for your run.
* Staying in character the entire game session.

So you basically told the Face "Fuck you".

I think this is a fun idea.
Also, I would make it a point to explain to my players that if they set out to achieve an achievement, they won't. It's not something that their characters think about.

Another idea is to personalize achievments for characters. Choose a number of achievements for each character to accomplish, based on their background and personality. Once they achieve them, they can try to achieve
a higher "rating" of that achievment, for the 1 point karma bonus. "heal 20 boxes" becomes "heal 30 boxes", for example (a lame example, but still).
After a while, when the team is more experienced and team members are more comfortable together, you can choose a number of "group achievements"

Accumulation-based achievements are good for computers (where every activity is explicitly programmed and counting is cheap). For humans? What a pain.

P&P RPG Achievements are best done like this:

• Your opponent is me!: hit a flying paracritter with a sword (i.e. monosword) in melee
• Mistakes of one's youth: hit a target with a flying kick delivered using a bipedal drone
• I'm sorry: kill a teammate whilst berserking, under the influence of a mental manipulation or illusion, due to the effects of brainwashing, or whilst under the effects of Influence, Compulsion or similar powers
• Battle Damage: violate public nudity ordinances as a result of hostile acts on the part of another
• But I did not shoot the deputy: confess to a crime as an alibi for another
• I call her Vera: solve a major problem with inventive application of a firearms skill
• Please lend me your lighter: persaude the team that your native language isn't

Just a single act. It's easier to check for and can be hidden from the player (since no independant counting needs to be done). It also meshes best with how people actually think achievements should work - they're a notable act in and of themselves.

The best thing about this? You can just make them up when people do cool things. That's the point of Achievements in P&P RPGs - a witty title to comemorate your awesomeness. This has existed since forever.

I'll agree with Stahlseele and Doc Chaos, the trend towards treating PnP Games like another fricking video game is just wrong. Instead you should just award Karma for roleplaying and "Holy Shit that was awesome!" moments.

Yeah... i am against it too.

While the idea may be funny, and one could make smart use of achievements, it is completely wrong for a Pen&Paper game. See, in computer games, Achievements are there to recognize the player for beeing good, tenacious, smart, or having a sense of humor. It is about the PLAYER.

In a P&P game, the player IS the character. So you just accomplish that character aren't acting as themselves, when the players are hunting achievements. Suddenly you have passive, nice guys hunting for kills. People who may horrible fail at something try it, instead of letting their specialist do it... and much much more. It is chaos. P&P are not videogames. The D&D guys in their forth edition forgot that too (With balancing the classes, and providing static healing for quicker dungeon-grinding and such)

We should stop trying to meld these two in this fashion.

That is all.

I don't remember who, but someone on these boards i think posted a story in which the combaty characters in the group called each others shot and made them too . .
Char1:"The Elf! One Bullet. Left Eye in, right Ear out!"
Char2:"The Ork! Left Nut in the Sack!"
And through some minor twinkery n the characters and good dicerolls actually made these shots and got the much more numerous Enemy to back off, because the Enemy could HEAR them tell each other exactly who was going to be shot where . .
In Instances like these for example, Major Karma Award!

Calm down Captain Righteous, there was no Face. Combat-heavy game. Everyone had fun, even the tech specialist, who had his moment to shine earlier in the game.

- 20 deaths by falling objects
- Longest fall by a PC
- Collateral damage from a single event in excess of $5,000,000
- Survive (i.e. no death, no arrest) in a police chase for twenty minutes from when the first police vehicle locks onto yours
- Seduce 5 individuals with significant security responsibilities related to your run(s)
- Set 50 people on fire
- Survive an entire non-matrix, non-astral, non-rigging run wearing only a single article of clothing, smaller than a jacket.

You need the loser achievement too. The one awarded at the end of the campaign for finishing the game without achieving a single achievement.

Use the rules in Shadowbeat to bring back disco.

Many thanks to everyone who has posted, your replies have certainly given me a few things to think about.


It never left!

Wouldn't happen in any group i ever played with.

I think its actually a average idea. but go on and do it, i'm inspired for bonus karma for various "achievments"

I think what would be a better idea is to have one secret goal for each archetype in the game and if a player hits that goal then give them a bonus karma point. The rest of the bonus karma should go for role-playing, making the gaming session enjoyable (for everyone), and staying in character (and the last time I checked SR was about sneaking rather then straight up gun fights).

The list is looking like the trophies list of some hack and slash game.

SR is about sneaking? I thought we'd established that SR is what you make of it in an earlier thread. That's my take, anyway.

However, a quick run through the SR4A Gear Listing shows 13 pages for blades/clubs/guns/grenades/armour and... let's see... 5 pages of security systems, a page for security devices plus B&E gear... let's count the 2 pages of survival gear (most of it's useful for sneaking) and a page of disguises, for a total of 9.

So at the very least it's open to interpretation.

Also, you're right about the OP; it's very much about killing, and then killing some more. Since I would imagine that your proclivity for stealth has given you experience playing games where it is featured, what do you think some good achievements would be for a session that's less Serious Sam and more Sam Fisher?

P. S. to clarify my tone, I think you're saying that Dave's proposal is a too arcade-y, which is valid (particularly if you play a different kind of SR game), but I think there's nothing wrong with it (especially because the list he wrote probably reflects what's impressive in the sort of game he plays/runs), and I have a sort of knee-jerk reflex to disagree with "SR is about" statements. It's probably because, IRL, a lot of people try to tell me what "life is about," and disagreeing with them only gets me so far.

Similar to the NYC SR Missions, actually. You get secret objectives based on your faction alignment, and if you succeed, you get a little reward.

Aye, I woudl support something like that, especially if the little "bonus misssions" sometimes ran counter to each other or maybe even the run as a whole.

How about an achievement for NOT killing anyone.

Nahm life is cheap Chummer, and going out of your way not to kill anyone should only earn you the honor of being wormfood.

Actually me and my friends used something similar to this in a Pathfinder DnD game and it worked out great. I never gave them the list but I did inform them of it. The achievements were made so I could easily remember them and pass out extra experience/awards when they completed one. NOTE This DnD game was more warcraft like as in you saw dwarves with fire arms and goblins with air ships which is why there are explosives related achievements. A few we used were

Fast Ball Special: Throw one of your team mates at an enemy and either deal damage with your living projectile or have the person harm the target mid flight (Completed by my cousin 4 sessions in when his half orc fighter punted our gnome rogue over a charging force of skeleton warriors to kill the wizard controlling them. The gnome literally landed right on target plunging the daggers straight into the wizards face.)

Wait...wheres Bob?: Take out (either through death or incapacitation) at least 4 enemies without any of the others knowing. (Completed ironically by our wizard instead of our rogue by using a sound manipulation spell so they wouldn't notice the kaboom of his fireball.)

Pow! Right in the Kisser!: Take out (either through death or incapacitation) an armored opponent with your bare hands. (Done by our cleric when he epically took down a lich by himself as the rest of the party had already been downed. He got quite an extra chunk of experience because not only did he do it basically on his own, he kept the rest of the party alive while doing it. He brought the lich to his knees then to emphasize his awesome backhanded him for the killing blow. Everyone then took turns pissing in his phylactery before destroying it.)

Humilation Thy Name is Defeat: Add insult to injury in a most comedic manner after beating your opponenet *GMs Discretion* (End of example above)

You Shall Not Pass!: Die while protecting your team mates. (Since in DnD you can be revived and in Shadowrun your "death" could be a mistake reversed with burnt edge this one can be viable. Happened when our troll paladin cut the ropes of the bridge the team ran across because the enemy would have caught up to them either way because they were to fast. He then removed the focus crystal from his armor, homebrew rule that all enchanted items have something about the that keeps the magic contained, and turned himself into a bomb. 10 turn cycles later after holding 10 + enemies and downing 6 of them the armor exploded bringing down the cave. Was later brought back by the BBEG as a Revenant (like a death knight but even worse) but was reformed by the party cleric and in doing so became a Paragon (good version of Revenants).

So...who brought the Marshmellows?: Kill an opponent with an ordinary open flame (cannot be magical or brought on by ammunition) (Completed when our dwarf spilled his drink over a rail on an enemies head and then the ranger grabbed a torch and lit him up with it.

As you can see most of these are combat oriented but they were the first ones completed.

Of course the best achievements are the ones that end in "accidentally".

Riffing on nezumi

Tornadoes Suck: 20 deaths by falling objects accidentally
Stupid Pot Holes: Longest fall by a PC accidentally
I Guess That's A Load Bearing Wall: Collateral damage from a single event in excess of $5,000,000 accidentally
Asleep At The Wheel Of A T-Bird: Survive (i.e. no death, no arrest) in a police chase for twenty minutes from when the first police vehicle locks onto yours accidentally
Pornomancers Are People Too: Seduce 5 individuals with significant security responsibilities related to your run(s) accidentally
Malls Are Allergic To Fire: Set 50 people on fire accidentally
I Knew I Forgot Something This Morning: Survive an entire non-matrix, non-astral, non-rigging run wearing only a single article of clothing, smaller than a jacket. accidentally

That is indeed a significant improvement!

Here would be my list of secret objectives:
Street Sam: Cover up any necessary/unavoidable kills or damage in such a way that evidence of you and your group are not discovered until after the run is over (if ever).
Mage: Do what is needed to remove any trace of you and your group magically at the site of the run (this would include eliminating all magical threats, magical tracking (spirits/spotters/etc), and cleansing an area if needed).
Hacker/Drone Rigger: Steal all possible pay-data and subvert the target security system in such a way that you and your group are not discovered until after the run is over (if ever).
Vehicle Rigger: Do what is needed to deploy and extract the team while leaving no way to trace you and your group.

Group: Make it through an entire run without triggering a single alarm (magical, technical, or personnel).
Group: Eliminate any evidence of your involvement in the run (bonus if you can get someone else blamed).

Shadowrunners are professional criminals, which means that they get jobs based on how undetectable they are. There use to be rules in SR3 for notoriety and reputation. Your notoriety was how well know to the police, and general public you were. The higher your notoriety the harder it was for you to go in public without getting noticed and possibly arrested. Your reputation was your track record on how many completed missions you had. A higher reputation meant you were more likely to get more jobs and better paying jobs.

I'll play along. Thanks to Acheivement Hunter, I can understand the concept behind this thread.

I Sveah I Vill Naht Keel Ehnivon: Willingly incapacitated all opponents with non-lethal gunfire.

Barneki? Barneki? He Owes me Money!: Hiding Out In A Unoccupied House While The Real Owners Are Away.

No, THIS one goes here, THAT one goes there!: Helping a Teammate with the correct repairs during a firefight.

I'm John McLane: Spend the whole run without any shoes.
Didn't learn his lesson: Didn't watch his back, ran out of ammo and cut a deal with a dragon in the same run.
Mushroom Addict: Killed an enemy by jumping on him

I think anyone that is upset by this is taking their fun a Little Too Seriously. God forbid what you'd think if I told you about the run where the PCs smuggled baskets of kittens for a christmas delivery.

You also earn the honor of not pissing off someone because the security guard was their cousin. Body counts are bad news for people trying to be secretive. Everyone is related to someone.

Aye, and in the Sixth World that plus a couple of nuyen will buy you a small soykaf at your local Stuffer Shack.

As presented... the idea seems like a loser... especially the bits about... slay as many people as possible. There's a time and a place to leave no witnesses... but it's not all the time.


I'd think that it'd be far better to use 'achievements' as sort of a role playing guide and reward system.

This is this characters background, this is what he's done, this is where he thinks he's going.
Draw up a short list of stuff and share it with the character, if you can accomplish this, here's a little reward for advancing the character in-character. You might even occassionally add, remove, or modify one as appropriate.


And this is where it can get good... the goals you give individual players don't necessarily need to work together and can even be in conflict. You could even get some elements of "Paranoia" going. That could be good for getting a little bit of in party tension.

While I would never really use the idea in a game I run as any tangeable reward, the base concept amuses me greatly, so for your amusement I present the folowing:

HAX!: turn a piece of enemy cyberware against him through hacking.
Dr0wnd: Hijack a hostile drone through hacking.
Fool Me Once...: Catch a double cross from Mr. Johnson before it happens and foil it.
That's Never Happened Before: Have the initial plan you devise for a run go off flawlessly as planned without any hitches or on the fly adjustments for unaccounted for variables.
It's Coming Right For Us!: Defeat all hostile paracritters involved in the run.
That Damn Good: Gain critical success on all skill checks for the run.
Passing Shadow in the Night: Perfectly stealth a run that involves any degree of breaking and entering.
It Was the One Armed Man: Successfully pin the blame of a run your team performed on some other shadowrunner team.
Public Enemy: Gain 5 points notoriety.
Straight Arrow: Earn 100 Karma without gaining a single point of Notoriety.
Luck has Nothing to do With it: Successfully complete a run without using a single point of edge.
Beginner's Luck: Critically succeed a longshot test.
Lazarus: Be resuscitated.
Faust: Enter into a pact with a free spirit.
*TCHINGTCHING*: Defeat an uninjured enemy in a single stroke of a katana.
The One: Get in a massive gunfight in the run and come out of it uninjured defeating all opposition, then successfully hack the enemy's node and steal their paydata and crash their node.
Stroke Fishing: Kill someone with manabolt or manaball cast through a dangling fiberoptic feed, such as the feed from magesight goggles.
The Internet is for Porn: Infect a commlink with the Jingle virus (unwired page 122).
Goku: Deliver a come from behind victory via grossly overchanneled spells.
Mana Menace: Successfully overcome a foe through astral combat.
Newb: Perform a matrix run using a stock commlink and operating system.
Twink: Get the Gm to enforce the dicecap rule on you.
BOOM headshot: Defeat an uninjured foe with a single gunshot that inflicts 4 more boxes of damage then nessecary.
Agent Smith: Use more then 5 agents simultaneously.
OMGWTFBBQ: Successfully sneak either a heavy machine gun, grenade launcher, assault cannon, rocket launcher, missile launcher or flame thrower into the opposition's territory undetected. And then use the weapon in question to deliver a surprise attack.
Dude, Where's My Car?: Successfully recover a vehicle your runner has lost.
Inconcieveable!: Trick someone into drinking poison.
My Name is Indigo Matoya...: Avenge the death of a loved one.
Dukes of Hazard: Jump off of a ramp during a car chase.
Do I Want to Know Where You Were Hiding That?: Successfully conceal a piece of equipment with a concealability modifier of +6 or higher against someone actively patting you down and searching for contraband.

If anything you can annoy your GM by showing up to the game with all these various achievements on a checklist and silently check them off as you accomplish them. I'm sure the whole table will love you.

but I love thoses

OK, now those are funny ^^
And yes, annoying the GM is allways a good thing for the rest of the Group too ^^

Thanks omae.

For extra bonus happy fun, get a bunch of these in the shape of a bingo sheet and cross them off as you see them. When you get a full row shout bingo. For even more fun don't explain what you are doing and smile at the perplexed looks your gather at the table.

Here's a few extra:

Hollywood Car Chase: Drive through a fruit stand, a pane of glass, and a pile of crates all during the same car chase.
SPOOOOOON!: Run into an gunfight using nothing but unarmed combat, take hits, but suffer no damage and win the fight.
Big Brother Is Watching You: Blackmail someone using footage you acquired from hacking the sensors of their household applainces.
That's Totally a Guy: Seduce someone of the same gender as you over the matrix by posing as someone of the opposite gender.

After reading everyone's thoughts, suggestions and ideas I think I am going to throw out my initial idea and go for a small, 'secret' list of achievements for each character/archetype and have a truly bizarre list (kudos to ccelizic) for additional fun and frivolity.

Appreciate all the posts.

Actually a secret list would be the best way to do it if you were in fact going to do this in any way shape or form. That way you keep the players from actually trying bizarre stunts in game. However I would not award karma, I would award booby prizes. Such as buttons, or shiny stickers, or a baseball cap or maybe a strangely shaped potato chip or the honor of making a drink run for the rest of us. By not attatching any mechanical value to the achievements you make it a purely humor thing which might work for some game groups.

I Use it to Hunt: Get caught by the police with a forbidden firearm.
Ninja: Assault a guard who is unaware of you with melee combat and defeat him before he can raise alarm.
She Told Me She Was Human: Get it on with a shapeshifter.
Wyrm Food: Irritate a dragon through your actions.
Recluse: Complete all your duties for the run using drones, the matrix, or both all without leaving the safety of your home.
Dog Whisperer: Render a hostile canine docile through non-violent methods.
Sunday Driver: Kill someone by running them over.
Mad Max: Take part in a high speed road vehicle combat involving at least 5 vehicles.
Shoop da Whoop: Take out someone using the Ares Heavy MP Laser.
Made in Mexico: Complete a run by Aztechnology.
God of War: Complete a run for Ares Macrotechnology.
Dealt With a Dragon: Complete a run for Saeder Krupp.
Belmont: Kill a HMHVV infected invidual using a whip type weapon.
Bond: Get someone to change alliegance through the use of seduction.
Bloodied: Take out a blood magician.
Decontaminator: Take out a toxic shaman.
Orkin Man: Take out an insect shaman.
Obviously Fake: Get THOSE implants. You know, the ones from Augmentation page 35 table, "Cosmetic Cyberware Implants." No, not the horns fangs or fiberoptic hair. Yes, those ones. No, I don't care if you mismatch type to gender its your body, but don't be surprised when every astrally percieving being gives you "The look".
Better Sex-Life Through Technology: Successfully pick up a member of the appropriate gender for your character by using the implants from "Obviously Fake" as a part of your sales pitch.
Confusing Bedroom Moments: Discover the person from Better Sex-Life Through Technology has non-standard equipment installed.
Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh, He Said Johnson: Get Mr. Johnson to say four things that would sound wrong out of context in a single meet up.
Sticking it to the Man: Rip off a corporate target for more then the run objectives entail.
Mafia Politics: Accept an offer from a Mafia member that results in you betraying your Johnson (must be a mafia Johnson).
You're Going to Need a Bigger Boat: Defeat an aquatic foe that's larger then your boat.
Trinity: Pilot a vehicle you've never touched before through the use of skillwires.
Not Worth the Bounty: Successfully kill off a team that is after you due to a bounty on your head.
Dunklezahn's Will: Recieve something from the Draco Foundation on behalf of any item on Dunklezahn's Will, the most likely means of doing so are the standing bounties on blood magi and toxic shamans.

Do monowhips count?

Well at the risk of sounding silly be arguing something silly I'd just say I'd call it a whip type weapon. If anything yo ucan make the player wear that silly leather armor costume while doing so!

I've never needed anything more: Perform all your gun-related activities successfully without having to go any higher in calibre during the mission.
Royal With Cheese: Knowing what your favorite fast-food item is called by in at least three different countries.
They call me Straight-Razor: A new Street Samurai player completes his first mission successfully without getting killed, wounded AND following the rules.
Local Boys Repel Capitalist Horde: Successfully demolish the same single-level dwelling with your vehicle at least TWICE.

Steve Austin: End up needing to replace both legs, one arm, one eye, and one ear as a result of a single incident.

Genius!!!

With all the great stuff on here I'm going to end up with a list longer than the writeup for my next run...