Daggerheart Discussion

[zakael19]

when I run DH my base heuristic is generally something like the following:

• success with hope: clean.
• success with fear: get it with a cost. Maybe that’s just giving me a fear, or “hey mark a stress, why do you struggle doing this?” or maybe if it’s dramatic and interesting I spend the Fear on an environment feature (written or improvised) and prompt for a reaction roll to avoid.
• failure with hope: fail-forward with complications. You don’t get what you wanted, but the situation changes into something else, ideally more dramatic. You sneak through the courtyard and into the halls beyond, but you hear arguing voices ahead in the direction you needed to go - the Duke and another smooth voice, and the clanking of armor from their guards. What do you do?
• failure with fear: consequence and cost. You unspool the tracking sigil from your car with your magic, but it had an anti-tampering hex and now the shadows under the cars are gathering into a massive creature…

My litmus test is “what would follow forward that makes this scene more dramatic” and if I got nothing, I’ll take a fear and assign a resource cost and move on.

 

[Umbran]

These discussions always give me the sense that some portion of the Very Opinionated have never actually played Daggerheart. It's exhausting.

Humans have this unfortunate quirk that they find being told they are wrong difficult to take - admitting being incorrect, to the human hindbrain, is likely a loss of status.

Yes, it is exhausting. The only real approach I've ever found regularly successful is disengaging from that person, and finding other things in the discussion to work on.

 

[Reynard]

I know I can be a little evangelical about DH, and I am sure others find THAT exhausting. I just wish folks who are turned off by the idea that it is a "narrative game" would give it a shot because the extent to which it is narrative is entirely up to the group playing it.

 

[Umbran]

... and there's tons of posts across the internet (and again, my apparently invalid personal experience including multiple players who have been inspired to go run DH themselves) saying the same thing, that not doing pre-written adventures works great for most people playing this game.

The Daggerheart game I'm playing in is a conversion of Humblewood, so the races have been changed, and the adventure is more or less pre-written.

And I'm coming away from most sessions with a feeling that it is fun, and I enjoy the mechanics moment-by-moment a great deal, but I think it would be better either played with something more native to the system - either pre-written expressly for Daggerheart, or using the more improvisational style.

 

[Reynard]

The Daggerheart game I'm playing in is a conversion of Humblewood, so the races have been changed, and the adventure is more or less pre-written.

And I'm coming away from most sessions with a feeling that it is fun, and I enjoy the mechanics moment-by-moment a great deal, that I think it would be better either played with something more native to the system - either pre-written expressly for Daggerheart, or using the more improvisational style.

Aren't all RPGs better with a more improvisational style?

 

[Zaukrie]

I know I can be a little evangelical about DH, and I am sure others find THAT exhausting. I just wish folks who are turned off by the idea that it is a "narrative game" would give it a shot because the extent to which it is narrative is entirely up to the group playing it.

This seems totally real to me, as someone who had only read it so far. I tried going to the discord, but let's just say there is a strong opinion that there is a right and wrong way to play.... Hence my comments here, hoping we talk about what is good or bad

I've used hope and fear in my DND games to manage initiative, and it really ramps up tension near the end of a fight.

 

[Umbran]

Aren't all RPGs better with a more improvisational style?

I don't believe so, no. There are lots of cases where a particular system, or a particular genre, or a playstyle, or even just a particular GM, is more enjoyable (to me) with pre-written adventure content.

But that's really a whole different conversation.

 

[Tigris]

I've used hope and fear in my DND games to manage initiative, and it really ramps up tension near the end of a fight.

Ah I can really see that. In the end hope and fear initiative is kind of alternating between sides. And in a combat with many participants else you will have towards the end less enemies, so it becomes a lot easier for the players.

With initiative changes not scaling with number of enemies left this helps to have the tension still high.

 

[zakael19]

This seems totally real to me, as someone who had only read it so far. I tried going to the discord, but let's just say there is a strong opinion that there is a right and wrong way to play.... Hence my comments here, hoping we talk about what is good or bad

I've used hope and fear in my DND games to manage initiative, and it really ramps up tension near the end of a fight.

I mean, let’s again be clear - while the game does the 5e “run this however works for your table” stuff instead of taking a harder line up front, the entirety of the non-mechanical rules on how to play Daggerheart are focused on a specific style of play.

It does what most FITD/PBTAs do which is go “so the intended experience game is all of this stuff, but you can drop X and you’ll be missing out, but Y’s got you” until in this case you’re down at streamlined 2d12 conventional “D&D” (or even just “the conversation”).

 

[darjr]

Having mechanics tied to what is stated in the book doesn't really mean much. People play D&D totm, disregarding a lot of the tactical rules.

There's no problem playing DH as D&D with 2d12s, if everyone is having fun, that's what's important.

Imho it’s also actually pretty good at this.