I'm sure this is a question on some peoples minds, but I thought I would bring it up.

If someone could break down the whole "dog tags" thing to me that would help as most of the info I've seen online is pointless.

I've stabbed people from behind but yet I have like 1 dog tag and the one I have is from Battlefield 2 and it's in dark gray and I cannot use it.

The only one I have besides the Mass Effect 3 ones is one from my Veteran status in Bad Company 2 that I can use.

Can someone explain to my a little better how they work? I understand tags that are on the "left" side for the most part but not the right.

Also, can someone break down medal progression, etc too.

Thank you so much!

The dog tags are simply a collectible type thing. Some you will never unlock but can see what they look like if you "steal" it from someone who has unlocked the tag. To see the dog tags you have unlocked and collected just hit click stats>dogtags in your battlelog. The medals I believe are like in-game challenges for you to complete for bonus XP.

@eastcoasteric: The ones you collect, you can not use afterwards. They simply show up in your collection. I also thought that they would be available. It still is neat. In BC2 they really only differed by rank of the player it was taken from.

Unlocking works by achieving certain in game goals. This is probably different for each goal. So for example for 10 Resupply ribbons you got a little emblem that you can use on the left Dog-Tag. At 50 Resupply ribbons I got a Medal and a secondary Dog-Tag dynamically showing the number of resupplies I did. 10 and 50 seem the magical numbers.

Dogtags are vanity items. Something you can show off to your players - and something that other players can steal from you to 1) have a trophy for sneaking up on you 2) shaming you for letting them sneak up on you.

Medals are what you get for completing the prerequisite and they are all worth 10k points and will net you a unique right dogtag that continues to track w/e it is it was tracking. Like, get 50 Avenger ribbons will get you the Avenger medal and the Death Debt dogtag which will display your current number of Avenger kill bonuses obtained.