Neonchameleon
Legend
Sorry to hear that. Sometimes the dice just hate you. (And on one occasion we found out why; one of the players was rolling a 20 sided d10 by mistake).
What do YOU plan on doing with Daggerheart?
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Make sure the GM is following the spotlight and fear rules correctly. I have seen some people complaining online and it turns out sometimes the GM is either multi-spotlighting adversaries they should not be allowed to, or is spotlighting all of them for one fear, etc. It is of course possible that the dice were just that bad, but user error happens with new systems.
John R Davis
Hero
He has being doing it correctly
Yes, I think it’s not very clear how the GM uses Fear and that’s somewhat down to trying to split the difference between PbtA rules (“GM makes a Move in reaction to PC moves/results and when it’s appropriate”) and D&D etc rules (“NPC goes when it’s their turn”).
As noted, the GM gets slightly less Fear than players get Hope, on average, but can accumulate more. If the GM doesn’t spend much Fear early on then they can end up blowing all their Fear in the last fight and making the PCs’ lives very difficult, which is what can happen with Trouble/Doom pools in Cortex.
I do like the creative uses of Fear in the Adversary listings, such as Scapegoat for the Courtier (spend Fear to make a major NPC or crowd believe a PC is to blame for something) or Exile for the Petty Noble (spend Fear to exile the PCs from the noble’s territory, giving them Disadvantage to do social stuff there).
As noted, the GM gets slightly less Fear than players get Hope, on average, but can accumulate more. If the GM doesn’t spend much Fear early on then they can end up blowing all their Fear in the last fight and making the PCs’ lives very difficult, which is what can happen with Trouble/Doom pools in Cortex.
I do like the creative uses of Fear in the Adversary listings, such as Scapegoat for the Courtier (spend Fear to make a major NPC or crowd believe a PC is to blame for something) or Exile for the Petty Noble (spend Fear to exile the PCs from the noble’s territory, giving them Disadvantage to do social stuff there).
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
In my playtests I’ve had to fight to keep from capping fear constantly. The suggestions in the book re: how much fear to spend depending on the scene is garbage as far as I’m concerned. If I’d have done that I’d be sitting at 12 fear most of the game.
I ended up with a lot of fear in my playtest, too, despite spending it constantly because I was rolling so poorly. But one session is not really enough to go by.
Neonchameleon
Legend
I've ended up with a lot of fear in every session I've run. I don't mind; it sets the players on edge in the right way and is very freeing to have this resource the game wants me to spend so the players will not thing things are unfair.
Ok, going to actually start working on an Urban Fantasy frame now. I've been batting around the idea of something set in an early 00s Seattle for a while (was drafting a PBTA based on DW at one point), just had some great ideas for how to incorporate a couple of the ancestries (big Japanese immigrant population there, so the Infernis are clearly Oni; the Galapa are Kappa).
Time to noodle.
Time to noodle.
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
One of the things I found from running DH is that you make fewer rolls in it than in other games (like 5E). This means any individual check means more. If you only make three checks all game outside of combat, three fails with fear can have more of an impact. In a typical 5E session (and I just played in one, so it's fresh in my mind), you roll the dice a lot, assuming your DM isn't coming over from a PbtA game (or DH!) I think that's the cause for a lot of the comments on how bad the dice system can feel.
The thing is, it's usually just one session, and over a campaign, you'll see how you succeed more often than you fail, but if all you're playing is the quickstart, the GM should think about it.
What I did, behind the scenes, is tally failures for each player. If they happened to fail three times in a row, I was prepared to narrate something happening and give them a Hope. In the game I ran, this never occurred so my rule never came into play. And yes, I suspect you might think this is unnecessary, but I am the nice one.
The thing is, it's usually just one session, and over a campaign, you'll see how you succeed more often than you fail, but if all you're playing is the quickstart, the GM should think about it.
What I did, behind the scenes, is tally failures for each player. If they happened to fail three times in a row, I was prepared to narrate something happening and give them a Hope. In the game I ran, this never occurred so my rule never came into play. And yes, I suspect you might think this is unnecessary, but I am the nice one.
While that may* be true outside of combat, the number of rolls in combat is equivalent to 5E and that is where most of the Hope and Fear come from.
*"May" because this is a stylistic choice, especially for 5E GMs moving to DH.
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