Daggerheart 1.3 playtest dropping Tuesday.

[Reynard]

Watching the stream now: it looks like they took the fear pool issues seriously and redesigned it a bunch.

 

[Reynard]

I really like the Advantage/Disadvantage change.

 

[overgeeked]

Watched the stream.

Not sure about some of the changes. Most of them seem to be pulling back on or attempts to mitigate the fiction-first and narrative focus to bring back the minis wargame stuff they were intentionally removing. If you try to please both sides of that you’re going to end up pleasing neither. Pick a position and accept you’re losing the players who don’t like your choice.

Love the sigh of disappointment from Matt around 57:40 when explaining that RPGs are not competitive games to be won and optimizing play with initiative and action economy isn’t fun so maybe don’t be a jerk with the whole action tracker optimization nonsense. And Spencer talking about “RP your character…the characters don’t know there’s an action tracker” and “come on, it’s a narrative game.”

It keeps going back to gamers will optimize the fun out of the game if given the chance.

 

[Reynard]

FYI looks like Demiplane has been updated with the new document as well.

 

[Zaukrie]

Of those that actually played, did any group not take turns for the most part in combat? Was someone hogging the spotlight an issue for anyone?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Each player is given a number of tokens at the start of a combat, with the suggestion being three. Those tokens refresh after everyone has used all of their tokens.

That's an idea so cute I'm now actually going to read the playtest instead of studiously ignoring Daggerheart!

EDIT - Ooof 631mb, what have they got in there? Fascinating.

 

[SteveC]

That's an idea so cute I'm now actually going to read the playtest instead of studiously ignoring Daggerheart!

I'd be interested to see what you think. It's crunchy, but it takes a lot of inspiration from PbtA games. The revised playtest is much more open about this. I like the theory of PbtA, but I've found a lot of issues in play. So far, Daggerheart is giving me what I want. It all depends on what my group wants to do, of course.

 

[EldritchHistory]

Seems like a lot of people had much different experiences running this game than I did. I felt like I never had enough Fear, and couldn't give my players enough stress for it to matter. And they were great about taking turns in combat.

 

[Stalker0]

It keeps going back to gamers will optimize the fun out of the game if given the chance.

This misunderstands the mindset of optimizers. For an optimizer, optimizing IS the fun of the game.

Ultimately they are offering up an OPTIONAL rule for people that want to have a little more rigidity in initiative and for the rules to put in the guardrails of "hey 1 player shouldn't go again and again". For groups that didn't have that problem, nothing has changed, so I can't see the issue here.

 

[overgeeked]

This misunderstands the mindset of optimizers. For an optimizer, optimizing IS the fun of the game.

Note how I never said optimizers. For gamers winning is the goal. So they will play games is the most grindy, boring way possible so long as it is the safest and easiest path to victory.

That’s exactly what we see here. The fun is everyone collaboratively takes turns and enjoys just playing a game together with a loose initiative.

Then the gamers step in and find the exploit or grind that removes risk and fun to win the game in the easiest possible way, in this case by denying your fellow players their ability to actually play the game.

Ultimately they are offering up an OPTIONAL rule for people that want to have a little more rigidity in initiative and for the rules to put in the guardrails of "hey 1 player shouldn't go again and again". For groups that didn't have that problem, nothing has changed, so I can't see the issue here.

Yes, it’s an optional rule for people who don’t like the whole loose, free-flowing, narrative-first game the designers seem to think Daggerheart is designed to be.