Amazing Secrets Revealed: Make a brilliant campaign with this one weird trick

Achievements

Okay, the clickbait lies. But we all knew that, right?




I've been playing around with the idea of achievements in the game unlocking things like new races and classes, but in my other games I've found that it isn't that practical, as you generally want all your options on the table right at the beginning, since it's a bit difficult to change, say, races in the middle of a game. At least, if you're aiming for any kind of continuity.




In this game, though, it kind of makes sense. The other races wouldn't be available to begin with, but should a character die on the journey, if they'd already met one of the other races, those races would be available - contingent on the successful relations the party had with them. The same goes for classes like the wizard, which wouldn't be one of the starting classes due to its focus on reading (I'm imagining that Stone Age-type people, even in a magical world, hadn't invented things like writing/storing information in any form, or maps, or any other kind of abstract communication).


That said, the other race/class combos wouldn't be earth-shatteringly unique or anything - just a few of the core races reskinned. For the pygmies, the obvious choice is halfling/gnome (dwarves don't seem appropriate to the setting to me), while the Cro Magnon "Tallfolk" would be elves. I don't know; maybe players would find such options later in the game annoying. In that case, I'd just stick with the "humans/vetted classes only" rule for the Neanderthals.




Other achievements could result in boons, which I like the idea of without actually having encountered many in any games I've played. Things like armor, knowledge, boosts to checks, or mundane but useful equipment are all rewards I'm thinking of including. Or how about this: dinosaur mounts. Why not go big? :D I like the idea that they're earned by clever roleplaying, rather than handed out like participation awards.

Skill checks

I also like the idea of skill checks that make having different skills valuable and add tension to a scene, but as I understand it, the excitement of a skill check stems from the player and the DM rolling dice against each other... and since I handle all the rolls behind the scenes in my game, this would just result in another description of events to react to, rather than boosting interest and stakes. I guess my options here are either to make the players do the rolls on a forum like Paizo's or invisiblecastle.com or something, or to try to turn skill checks into something more tangible to online players. I'd like to go with the second option, but my creativity appears to have failed me. Halp?

Mythic rules

I've never tried to run these before. Anyone have any advice? I thought they'd be a nice bonus to allow the party more epic encounters. I like Kobold Press' intention of making low-level play epic, not through higher CR encounters, but through "iconic" moments. Things that make players go, "Whoa, that was AWESOME," rather than, "Huh, that was a tough fight."


I am open to suggestions.