Daggerheart Discussion

[Vael]

Do you use environments right out of the book, or take them as ideas to build your own as applicable to your narrative?

Both. I've used Cult Ritual and Heist (from The Void, and expected to be in Hope & Fear) as written and they've more or less allowed me to run a whole session with them. But I've stolen the Cult Ritual's Desecrated Ground passive in a few other areas. Sometimes with the added "Players may mark a Stress or spend a Hope to ignore that effect on an action roll". I really like Environments, they've done a lot to up my game as a GM

 

[zakael19]

Both. I've used Cult Ritual and Heist (from The Void, and expected to be in Hope & Fear) as written and they've more or less allowed me to run a whole session with them. But I've stolen the Cult Ritual's Desecrated Ground passive in a few other areas. Sometimes with the added "Players may mark a Stress or spend a Hope to ignore that effect on an action roll". I really like Environments, they've done a lot to up my game as a GM

Gotcha, yeah. I've mainly built custom ones that fit what I need. One thing I've been exploring is doing Event encounters following a little along the style of Draw Steel!'s Malice Actions: specific abilities that suggest what it's like to encounter that faction that you can pick and choose from to flavor the specific moment. Like, is this cultish stronghold? Were the players lured into back alleys filled with dangers?

Eg: for the insurgent Sons of Alagondar, Actions/Reactions around their knowledge of the terrain/traps/ambushy things. For the Ashmedai devil cultists, marks of how they've brought the power of the hells in defilement, looping countdowns that represent the heat dialing up, unstable portals summoning in demons, etc.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I AM NOT PICKING A FIGHT WITH 13TH AGE!

This thread is about Daggerheart. I may have responded to a post that mentioned 13th Age, but my comparison was with D&D! My point is not about 13th Age! I didn't claim any comparison to 13th Age. I don't care about 13th Age.

Frankly, I don't care if you were or not; what you indicated was the lack of carefully managed movement was an indication DH was not intended to be tactical, and 13th Age was an example where that clearly wasn't the case. I was arguing with your premise, and using an immediately at hand counterexample to indicate why.

I could probably come up with another half-dozen games with a fairly strong tactical focus that also do broad-strokes movement if you'd prefer.

 

[Faolyn]

So we're leveling faster than what's recommended in the book. We average a level every 2-3 sessions. That will end up a 25-30 session campaign to 10th level, which is actually a great pace for my interest level. (We're nearly to 8th level.)

How long are your sessions?

 

[FrozenNorth]

Well then why does it use so much space and such a huge percentage of the player options on combst options then?

Compared with 13th age which has tactical combat (with theater of mind) Dagger Heart does not look less combat focused

• It has a quite complex ressource management system with stress, hope, armor, health + maybe ressources on ability cards (and fear). Typical for combat heavy games with attrition. 13th age only has 2 per default (health and healing surges). All with short and long rest.

I disagree that the complex resource management has anything to do with combat. Having players mark stress, armor, hope and HP are the principal means I use to enforce consequences outside of combat, whether it social contests or encountering exploration obstacles.

In fact, other systems lack of a stress mechanic is one of the principal reasons I find them more combat focussed than Daggerheart.

 

[Reynard]

I disagree that the complex resource management has anything to do with combat.

Anything? Really?

 

[Umbran]

I was arguing with your premise, and using an immediately at hand counterexample to indicate why.

My premise was that Daggerheart isn't really designed for heavily tactical combat.

Detailed, granular movement was expressly presented as an example of a design element that (I feel) is common in, and frequently is used to support tactical combat design. I was not claiming it was an absolute indicator, so a single game doesn't really dismiss my example.

If you'd like to make the argument that many games without granular movement are highly tactical, feel free to make it. That, at least, might take a bite out of my example, or lead to a discussion of what folks really feel amounts to "tactical focus", which might be interesting.

Meanwhile, I've already also quoted the game itself noting it as narrative-focused. If you want to argue that the writers of Daggerheart are lying, incompetent, or otherwise incorrect, and have instead created a highly tactically oriented game, make that argument.

 

[Teemu]

I find that the more granular choices in combat are a spice or a side dish in DH, not the main course as it can be in a game like D&D. They're there to give more oomph and flavor to the dramatic scene but they're not going to be enough on their own if the scene is only about defeating a group of enemies.

 

[Kichwas]

I think this is very much not borne out at all by the larger community. Without a feeling of loss being on the table (not dying but losing), the narrative you're making together starts to kinda have less impact. My players have absolutely highlighted the "highs" they feel when they pull out an arc-concluding fight by the skin of their teeth with people making death moves; or the sudden right turn into a really difficult fight resulting from their choices in the moment. The consequences in both of those would've been narrative in nature - you lose the fight, things happen.

Yeah.

Most of my time in the tRPG hobby - the 80s through mid 00s - was as a GM of super hero RPGs.

Player death just isn't a thing in most of those and I don't think I've GM'd a player death since the 70s. There might have been one when I was a Pathfinder GM, but I can't recall it - just a vague sense that surely there must be one in there somewhere.

So yes, PC death, even the risk of PC death, is absolutely not important. In some games I've run even mission success is a sure thing - and the enjoyment is in various other elements.

But you absolutely can have high stakes action genre gaming with a 0 body count on both sides. As a Gen-Xer, those were my Saturday morning cartoons. I didn't need to see limbs and heads flying across the screen in He-Man, Justice Friends, Tom and Jerry, or the Smurfs - thank goodness HBO wasn't in charge of any super hero or fantasy franchises back then.

It's not even all that hard to tell a good thrilling story without mutilations and murders.

So having a 'low body count', or one only among the enemy - that's trivial.

 

[Retreater]

How long are your sessions?

Around 3-3.5 hours. We play weekly.