I consider 13th Age combat cinematic but not very tactical. Likewise Daggerheart - possibly slightly more tactical than 5e (but possibly not than 5.5 - it's that close) but certainly no 4e, Draw Steel, or Lancer.
13th age is definitly tactical, given its constraint that it has only abstract movement. There is only so much you can do (without adding tons of complicated mechanics on top). Cinematic for me is something like Feng Shui 2. In 13th age you need to consider how to use your ressources best over a whole adventuring day. When to best use your abilities (and thanks to the escalation dice its not always turn 1 like other games).
Are other games with clear movement more tactical? Sure, at least some of them (4E yes, Beacon yes, Wyrdwood wand yes, Lancer most likely, Draw Steel maybe, PF2 not really).
I think its perfectly fine to give yourself some constraint like Theater of Mind and then try to be as tactical given this mode of play. Similar to how I would consider Fabula Ultima tactical, given it has no movement at all.
In the end I do not care about "an objective point of view" and I'm not sure it even exists. I care about half a dozen or so subjective views. The subjective views of those round the table. No one else matters. And from a subjective viewpoint it almost always feels better to see what you have created built on by someone else than it does to see something that may be objectively better but isn't yours.
No. Not everyone has the tendency to overestimate things just because they made them themselves. I definitly know enough people who dont value things higher just because they made them themselves, and can openly say when other things are better.
On the other hand it is, as a player, much easier to get a game that is to your taste and that suits your character when you have been empowered to have a hand in the worldbuilding (as Daggerheart encourages) than it is to play a "better" campaign that has a setting that is entirely independent of your character.
No, it may be for you, but you value things made by yourself higher than other things, but this is just not the case for everyone. I like things where I do NOT need to do the work. Thats why I buy things. When I buy a game or adventure, then I want the gamedesigners to have created something for me, not me needing to do half the work.
Also because this has the chance tobe something new, where when its something which I had partially created, then it cannot be completely new because its based of my existing knowledge, so I learn less from the experience.
YMMV. For me the best one shots have been where everyone has contributed to all parts and that could only have appeared from that group.
I guess you are a GM? (as in maybe you also play as a player but you do GM). GMs just have normally a quite different view from pure players.
There may be some people not familiar with Daggerheart in the thread, so I thought I'd clarify this in case they don't know.
Characters have an ability called proficiency that determines the number of dice they roll for damage. Proficiency starts at 1, and increases to 6 by the highest Tier.
Weapons have a damage die and a mod. When you hit, you roll your proficiency in dice and add the mod once. That's the damage you cause.
Opponents have three damage thresholds: Minor, Major, and Severe. You take a look at the damage you cause and if it causes any damage, that usually does minor damage. If you do Major damage or more, that's 2 HP, and Severe is 3 HP.
The GM I played with used a rule where, as soon as you did Major or Severe damage, they told you what the Threshold was, so you'd know next time how many HP you caused and could just tell them. I used that with the Quickstart, and it seems like a good option.
Now, some abilities just cause a set amount of damage, and if you crit, you cause max damage + rolled damage.
And those are the basics.
In the demo version leading up to the actual release, this was more complicated (and players I played with hated it), but the final version flows well once you experience a combat or two.
I think this is a good overview, just some small additions to make some things clear.
Abilities with "fixed damage" do not scale with proficiency, but still use damage dice. Like "up to X D10 where is X is your casting stat" for a spell I had.
Also some non weapon attacks (like druid animal form) also scale with proficiency and some special attacks can add temporary more proficiency. And you can choose (once) when leveling up to increase your proficiency. This means as a level 2 character its possible to have 3 proficiency (1 from level 2 as default, 1 as default starting, 1 from level up selection). In addition a druid or others can get abilities at level 2 which give up to +2 proficiency for an attack, so it may verry well be that you attack at level 2 with 5d8 + 6 damage. Which means its 5 additions and dealing 11-46 damage, which will then be transformed into 1-3 actual HP loss.
I think that GM houserule is a good rule, but its not the default. And I also experienced a "3D20 roll under + manipulate rolls with skill and then divide skill rest by 3" system to flow well at the table, but its still definitly more complex (and takes more time) than a simpler system in the end.
So much discussion about this game is about the "right way" to play it is hard for me to understand what is actually good or bad.....
On reading, I love a lot, but the PC options seem a bit limited to me?
What for me was good was:
- Basic rules are really easy to explain even to newcommers, so its enough if 1 person reads the rules and then explains for 20 minutes max. Like a good board game.
- The components, the cards, are really good and help to create an easy to understand character at the table in a short time. This kind of card use is in general great, also in Ironsworn it felt good to have character abilities on cards.
- As a small negative: The player sheet on the other hand is not as good as it could be. Especially it does not have the cards in mind. A good sheet would make sure one could place the cards well on the sheet (to save space) and would be able to still see the important information. This made looking up stuff on the character sheet just flow less good than things on the cards.
- The GM can prepare some cool scenes with potential cool "events" which they could trigger when the GM gets a lot of fear. This can be really fun since it can be really surprising and because of the fear mechanic (and a cost to the GM) these events do not feel unfair. Also because they need fear it will not feel just completly scripted, and different plays could feel different because you might trigger different such events (in different scenes). I really think one could make some really cool premade adventurers this way!
- And with such scenes, and fear (and negative effects) you can also creat some negative events which still feel good and fun for the players not just punishing.
- If your group is full of nice people (not antention grabbers), its easy as a group to make sure that also timid players will get their spotlight from time to time.
- There is not a lot of discussion needed, especially given that its a relative open ended skill system. (If you play with all nice people and a non annoying GM). Like yes things are vague, but its perfectly fine to interpret things broadly and as a player want to get an advantage from a feature. And because the game feels not really punishing, and negative consequences can also be fun (when they are not just damage but narrative), as a player you are also more willing to not try to game the system too much and also sometimes roll without features added (at least at level 1, I guess in higher levels its more needed).
About player options: Yeah its not that good, especially if you can see a bit behind the veil and into the mechanics (like that your spell with Xd10 is not that different mechanically from your basic attack of Yd6+3 in the end).
I think though that some options are really cool, especially for races, but the balance is unfortunately really just not that good. Some spells are so much better than others, same with races, backgrounds and even classes:
(of course this is not 100% objective, but just showing what impressions from players are).
OK, so how is the D&D magic system with its hard coded slots and domains not very specific about e.g. relationships with the gods and how magic works? I suppose the warlock provides some flex.
Flavour is always free and not really part of the mechanics. There are many D&D articles (like in older dragon) how to reflavour things if you dont like it.
The spell system in Daggerheart is also not that much free. You get 1 spell of your level every time you level up. You can replace a spell with an ability, which makes not that much of a difference, and you have max 6 spell slots.
You can get when leveling up a spell slot a bit earlier (but thats hardly worth it if you plan to leveling up to level 4+) .
You have a bigger selection of spells (especially cantrips) and subclasses in 5E than in daggerheart. You also have just more overall choices with origin feat, fighting styles, normal feats and more impactfull subclasses etc. (and especially with subclassing if you want). (The cool races in 5E and daggerheart are roughly the same impact, but 5E ones do give more choices with subraces).
