I am surprised I am still excited for Daggerheart

[Aldarc]

Don't believe so. It had an extremely successful Kickstarter. People just seem to want to tear this game down as a heartbreaker. As long as it delivers, and I see no reason why it wouldn't, it's not a heartbreaker. Heartbreakers are unsold games sitting in designers' garages.

From what I can tell, the success for a lot of these one-man-band designers is not about being the biggest games ever. Instead, it's simply about creating a sustainable community of fans, which is easier with sites like Discord and Patreon. Obviously this is what Dionne Kelsey was also going for - in the manner of her friend and mentor Hankerin Ferinale (Runehammer) - but she also happened to capture lightning in a bottle with Shadowdark.

I will add that sometimes the insular nature of Discord can make it seem like certain games have no communities because a lot of the primary community discourse for games is now happening on Discord, often directly with the creators, instead of forums or even Reddit.

 

[Reynard]

Many won't. Some genuinely can't.
I'm lazy, and I'll admit it. I prefer to use published expansion material.

But not without a certain minimum of support, at least IMO.

AW got a lot of support early on, not in books, but in Vincent, and his friends (including Luke Crane and Jared Sorenson, and of course, Meg) answering questions on it in various places. That created a lot of people able to grasp it and provide support...

There are multiple kinds of support. The ones I am interested in for a typical dungeoncrawler are canned dungeons.
For non-dungeon, I want NPCs, settings, and plots. In other words, adventures.

For Alien and Coriolis, I want more ships and more hull sizes, more character archetypes. Adventures are good, too.

Most in print games have discussion board as a form of support, too...

Again, why are people suggesting that Daggerheart will have no support?

 

[The Soloist]

Again, why are people suggesting that Daggerheart will have no support?

It's based on past experience with Candella Obscura.

 

[Reynard]

It's based on past experience with Candella Obscura.

That is weird, considering that Candela Obscura does, in fact, have support.

 

[Aldarc]

That is weird, considering that Candela Obscura does, in fact, have support.

It does?

 

[Reynard]

It does?

Yup.

 

[Aldarc]

Yup.

Nice. Good to know. I had not heard anything about this, and this didn't show up when looking on Darrington Press's website shop.

 

[The Soloist]

Yup.

Interesting, but it's not from Darrington Press. Most buyers want new material by the creators of the game. Otherwise they feel it's 'dead' or 'abandonned'. Which ties back to the other thread by SlyFlourish.

 

[Reynard]

Interesting, but it's not from Darrington Press. Most buyers want new material by the creators of the game. Otherwise they feel it's 'dead' or 'abandonned'. Which ties back to the other thread by SlyFlourish.

You know that the first 5E adventure was not by WotC, right?

 

[Kichwas]

A game can be complete and good without constant support.

I don't know where Daggerheart will land on a lot of things because Darrington is being rather quiet on plans.

But I kind of hope it does NOT get a 'core / default' fleshed out setting.

Give me a modern tRPG, with complete rules and guidelines for things and stuff, where it is presumed that the GM and players will make their own setting and their own stories.

My main game right now is Pathfinder 2E which is like playing a themepark MMO. The setting is the most detailed published setting out there - maybe double the info you'll find for Glorantha (Runequest), and maybe 4-5 times as much detail as Forgotten Realms.

There are adventures pre-ready for everything and ever level range.

It's basically all made for you, and you just digest it. You're basically watching a movie with dice.

And that's fine. Sometimes.

And more and more games seem to feel they have to do this.

"Back in my day" we opened the redbox of D&D up and made characters with original names like 'Thorin' and 'Bilbo' ( ) and just rolled dice and told stories in our head in the land of 'some kid's imagination'.

I still like my themepark game, but I also want some sandbox time.

I'm really looking forward to Daggerheart because it feels like a chance to get players at a table without a lot of preconceived notions in play. "Hey folks, you're in the inn, there's stuff and things around you, and something is going on outside, you over there - what do you see and what do you do?"

Give me back the feeling that my imagination matters.