I am surprised I am still excited for Daggerheart

[aramis erak]

It seems like most "Movie/TV IP merchandized" RPGs sell like absolute hot cakes then no-one actually plays them! Which I guess is kind of ideal for the people making them, because they can just keep churning them out! The only exception I can immediately think of is the Alien RPG, which seems to have a decent number of people playing it.

Star Trek
Star Wars
Alien

All three of which are on their 2nd or later license, all three have significant player bases. Trek's player base is strongly divided... but it's divided by system used. FASA, LUG, Decipher, Prime Direcitive 1e... all having player bases unhappy with STA (Star Trek Adventures), but STA has a strong fanbase.

Also worth noting: all three have thriving fan literature, official expanded universe presence, and computer/console games. Alien is, to be honest, the weakest ecosystem of the three.

I could easily see doing a 30's/40's/50's pulp sci-fi with Daggerheart... but only two big names in that come to mind: Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. Lots of one-off movies, tho'.

 

[Reynard]

One thing that struck me as I was scrolling through both reddit and YouTube: the only game that people seem to feel is being challenged by Daggerheart is 5E. You don't see any threads or videos about how you should stop playing Pathfinder or Savage Worlds or Blades in the Dark to play Daggerheart...

 

[zakael19]

One thing that struck me as I was scrolling through both reddit and YouTube: the only game that people seem to feel is being challenged by Daggerheart is 5E. You don't see any threads or videos about how you should stop playing Pathfinder or Savage Worlds or Blades in the Dark to play Daggerheart...

I mean, PF2 is "I want even more tactical fighting and tighter math to my D&D" right? I can see DH being an interesting middle ground between PF2 and a PBTA as well; but I'm not sure how many people are heading in that direction (and tbh - somebody who's open to PF2 is probably already breaking out of the 5e/D&D silo anyway).

FITDs are deeply premise tied, but I do actually think that DH is going to handle "High Fantasy adventuring" better then most of the FITDs I've seen that are working on this (none that have really hit mainstream because of the need to adjust the core play loop). The one exception being if people (like me!) are down with granular non-fiction first combat. But there's a lot of overlap between the FITD community and games like Lancer / 13th Age / etc, so I see plenty giving it a shot instead of running another 5e game.

Im actually really curious if it'll grab any folks from the Dungeon World side of the house. As I said in the other thread, this seems to be focused on creating the same sort of premise as DW2 with a lot of the same core ethos; but with some additional conventional trappings instead of wrapping Critical Role / modern 5e play culture trappings into PBTA design.

 

[TiQuinn]

One thing that struck me as I was scrolling through both reddit and YouTube: the only game that people seem to feel is being challenged by Daggerheart is 5E. You don't see any threads or videos about how you should stop playing Pathfinder or Savage Worlds or Blades in the Dark to play Daggerheart...

I think that makes sense since D&D is the 800 pound gorilla in the space - it's what people want to talk about. However, it's very possible that Daggerheart displaces other games rather than D&D. I suspect that would actually be the case, but there's likely not great metrics to say that for certain.

 

[Vael]

Tbh, I knew nothing about Daggerheart until this week, hadn't been following the news. But now that it's out, I'm actually impressed and debating acquiring it. I like having class features and such on cards, eases char gen. The game hits a lot of notes I like, although I have not DMed a PBTA game, so GM moves is not a thing I'm experienced with.

I will say, I really like char gen and advancement system, I'm having fun just making characters using the SRD.

 

[overgeeked]

Tbh, I knew nothing about Daggerheart until this week, hadn't been following the news. But now that it's out, I'm actually impressed and debating acquiring it. I like having class features and such on cards, eases char gen. The game hits a lot of notes I like, although I have not DMed a PBTA game, so GM moves is not a thing I'm experienced with.

I will say, I really like char gen and advancement system, I'm having fun just making characters using the SRD.

GM moves are not that new or weird. It's just naming and codifying what most referees were doing anyway as a means to talk about it and therefore teach newer GMs how to run games.

When the PCs do something in the fiction, that's a PC move. When the GM responds, that's a GM move.

When a PC roll badly, something bad should happen. That's a soft GM move.

When a PC roll really badly, something really bad should happen. That's a hard GM move.

When the players pause to see what happens next, the GM should make something happen. That's a GM move.

Basically, as the GM do whatever makes the most sense in the fiction in response to the PCs' actions. That's your GM moves in a nutshell. The games that use GM moves generally provide a nice big list of your more typical things, but they're not exhaustive lists nor are you as the GM bound to only doing those things.

 

[mamba]

One thing that struck me as I was scrolling through both reddit and YouTube: the only game that people seem to feel is being challenged by Daggerheart is 5E. You don't see any threads or videos about how you should stop playing Pathfinder or Savage Worlds or Blades in the Dark to play Daggerheart...

I wouldn’t read anything into it other than D&D being the dominant game

 

[zakael19]

When a PC roll badly, something bad should happen. That's a soft GM move.

That's generally not how that's used? A soft GM move provokes tension or escalates and then turns it back over to the players: "you hear rustling in the bushes, like a creature coming towards you, what do you do?" On a miss is when you make a move "as hard and direct as you like" in classic PBTA play - and as Daggerheart says "this fiction happens without allowing the PCs to intercede."

It does provide some context around considering a less hard/harsh move on a failure with hope; taking the fiction into account; and has the nice heuristic of tiering the moves in order of severity / directness.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I am repeatedly surprised and giddy as I read through this book. It's amazing to me that both Matt Mercer and Matt Colville have recapitulated D&D 4E in wildly different ways as their flagship games. So many best of and greatest hits of D&D 4E were brought forward in Daggerheart. So many things refined and revised and simply improved upon. If the mechanics hold together in play like they read on paper, this just might be my go-to fantasy RPG going forward. I can't wait to see what the community and Darrington Press deliver in the months and years ahead.

This is really interesting. This year we have three different RPGs inspired by D&D 4e: 13th age v 2 (I just got the near-final PDFs a couple of days ago), Daggerheart (PDF on my desktop, physical book on the way), and Draw Steel coming out in a few months. All three also have open community licenses to ensure people can write products for all of them for as long as we can see.

I don't want to hear another "I sure wish WOTC would go back to 4e" statement again. We have tons of 4e-influenced RPGs developed by passionate designers unconstrained by the marketing whims of a big publicly traded company. It's a pretty awesome time!

 

[zakael19]

This is really interesting. This year we have three different RPGs inspired by D&D 4e: 13th age v 2 (I just got the near-final PDFs a couple of days ago), Daggerheart (PDF on my desktop, physical book on the way), and Draw Steel coming out in a few months. All three also have open community licenses to ensure people can write products for all of them for as long as we can see.

I don't want to hear another "I sure wish WOTC would go back to 4e" statement again. We have tons of 4e-influenced RPGs developed by passionate designers unconstrained by the marketing whims of a big publicly traded company. It's a pretty awesome time!

Each one has a pretty different take on things too. DS is leaning fully into the deep tactical combat side; 13th age is probably in the middle; and DH leans far more into the narrative side.