# Gamification on a fantasy forum
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/gamification-on-a-fantasy-forum/354514
**Category:** Community Building
**Created:** [February 25, 2025, 11:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/gamification-on-a-fantasy-forum/354514 "2025-02-25T23:25:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@manuel](https://meta.discourse.org/u/manuel)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2025, 11:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/gamification-on-a-fantasy-forum/354514/1 "2025-02-25T23:25:31Z")
Well, basically I’m just playing around with my [Heroes theme](https://meta.discourse.org/t/heroes-fantasy-theme/354452) here. So this is like the non-themable version that has assets I can’t re-distribute, experimental styles, additional theme components, and a lot of adjusted site settings and texts..
But I’d like to share some gamification ideas, for the sake of documenting them and with the hope to get some further inspiration and feedback. These are ideas that I find generally valuable.
## General view
* * *
The setup drops the default “More” dropdown, re-names categories as _Realms_ and adds a custom section _Journey_ that picks up some of the links that are by default bundled under “More”: Badges as _Achievements_, Users as _Fellowship_ and Groups as _Paths_.
## Badges / Achievements
* * *
I added a distinct look for the Basic trust level and aligned it with all “First time”-type badges. This clearly sets these badges apart as plain onboarding steps. I’d love to be able to move all bronze and silver badges out of the “Getting Started” section, but it seems I can’t do this on the admin backend.
I think having a distinct starter badge could be generally helpful in Discourse, because it clearly marks an onboarding stage and raises the value of the Bronze badges as actual community-related achievements.
## Groups / Paths
* * *
I added a lot of Gamification based on groups, re-framing them as _Paths_ members can take. Each path provides a distinct ability that a member can assume as a role. Group membership is re-framed as _Unlocking a path_ and can either be assigned manually (for staff groups like admins or moderators) or achieved by being granted a badge (as enabled by [User Group Membership Management Through Badges](https://meta.discourse.org/t/user-group-membership-management-through-badges/281836)).
### Admins / Guardians
Guardians are essentially Admins that have full access to all backend features, including banning or silencing members.
### Moderators / Keepers
Keepers are Moderators, but could also be Group Moderators. The role is focused on curating rather than policing. It’s a distinction I generally like about the group moderator role.
### Lovers
This group can be unlocked by a badge like “Gives Back” or “Empathetic”. I set up the special group ability so only lovers can use emoji reactions:
Regular users can only give likes. This could be build upon further by only counting reactions as cheers and thus making _Lovers_ the exclusive curators of a leaderboard. I’d be curious to see how this could play out in practice.
### Mythmakers
The _Mythmaker_ group can be unlocked by badges that reward great content and dedication. For unlocking a group it could also be nice to require several badges, rather than only one.
Their special ability is elevating the content of other members. I set this up by giving exclusive access to tags to this group:
This could also be further build upon by a component that features topics based on these tags, so this group would be the curators of featured content.
### Scribes
_Scribes_ are the Experts group. Their posts are distinguished with a highlighted background:
Simliar to other implementations of Experts, they could also be group moderators in a knowledge category.
## Implementation
One implementation challenge I’d be curious to solve is how I could restrict special abilities to a member’s primary group. So even though members could unlock several paths, they’d need to pick one at a time.
This works for example with my implementation of the _Lovers_ ability, as reactions are just made available with CSS, limited to a primary-group class. But I wonder if there’s a way how I could limit a group right - like the access to a tag - to that group being the primary group?
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### Author:  [@nat](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nat)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2025, 4:14am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/gamification-on-a-fantasy-forum/354514/2 "2025-02-26T04:14:34Z")
This looks sooooo gooood!! It’s making its round in our internal community.
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### Author:  [@manuel](https://meta.discourse.org/u/manuel)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 8:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/gamification-on-a-fantasy-forum/354514/3 "2025-02-28T08:20:32Z")
I hadn’t wrapped this up yet, so this would be my suggestions to improve gamification options in general:
- Allow to change the group section for default badges. I understand that their logic can’t be changed, but why not make it possible to present them in a different order? Currently, this feature isn’t accessible.
- Create a distinct badge type for “First time” badges and the basic trust level. This would provide more clarity by distinguishing between onboarding steps and actual community accomplishments. Additionally, it could make it easier to silence or disable the First time badges.
- Allow the selection of multiple badges using the automation script “User Group Membership through Badge”. It would improve the options if it’s not limited to a 1:1 logic:
- Enable assigning group rights based on a group being the primary group. I’d love this feature, although I’m unsure how it could be implemented in a simple way.
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### Author:  [@TRgala\_Murat](https://meta.discourse.org/u/TRgala_Murat)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2025, 2:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/gamification-on-a-fantasy-forum/354514/4 "2025-02-28T14:45:26Z")
There’s no game without points. Don’t forget the points. You’re doing great, boss!