Critical Role Announces Age of Umbra Daggerheart Campaign, Starting May 29th

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

That's historically been the criticism of him when he runs other games. He always defaults to D&D/Pathfinder ways of doing things. That said, I'd love for him to tackle more things in adjacent spaces, like OSR games or a Borg game.

Click to expand...

I saw a comment elsewhere (Reddit maybe) that suggested he shifted a little in episode 2 toward the narrative mechanics. I'll be interested to see if that isctrue.

In either case, I thought the fight was fun. There's plenty of crunch and action options there.

Reynard said:

I saw a comment elsewhere (Reddit maybe) that suggested he shifted a little in episode 2 toward the narrative mechanics. I'll be interested to see if that isctrue.

In either case, I thought the fight was fun. There's plenty of crunch and action options there.

Click to expand...

I thought episode 2 was more Daggerhearty than episode one. Tag team rolls, important rest choices, consequences for not balancing actions between players in combat, at least one combat combo that would have been difficult to pull off in an initiative based combat, and serious death choices.

Matchstick said:

I thought episode 2 was more Daggerhearty than episode one. Tag team rolls, important rest choices, consequences for not balancing actions between players in combat, at least one combat combo that would have been difficult to pull off in an initiative based combat, and serious death choices.

Click to expand...

Cool. I am looking forward to it.

I thought ep 2 was a way better showcase for the system than the first ep. And the Death Moves was genuine fire in actual play -- loved how that brought the table to life.

Mercer still doesn't bother to describe and change the fiction according to how people rolled with hope/fear and simply based on the rolls themselves, far too many times given it's actually in the text of the game he co-designed.

How does the fiction change based on what the characters have done is a huge deal in this style of gaming.

Elvish Lore said:

I thought ep 2 was a way better showcase for the system than the first ep. And the Death Moves was genuine fire in actual play -- loved how that brought the table to life.

Click to expand...

NO SPOILERS!!!!

Elvish Lore said:

Mercer still doesn't bother to describe and change the fiction according to how people rolled with hope/fear and simply based on the rolls themselves, far too many times given it's actually in the text of the game he co-designed.

Click to expand...

How much Mercer contributed to the design is up for debate. He is listed among half a dozen "additional designers" and you can get those credits for coming up with a singular element of the design.

Elvish Lore said:

How does the fiction change based on what the characters have done is a huge deal in this style of gaming.

Click to expand...

The fiction always changes based on what the characters have done. that's just RPGs. But whether the ficiton changes purely based on the meta roll is the question here. Even the book does not overly emphasize it. I think the intent is for people to be able to run DH even if all they know is 5E. And this is anecdotal, but based on r/daggerheart A LOT of people are getting behind the screen for the first time with DH -- which is super cool.

Reynard said:

The fiction always changes based on what the characters have done. that's just RPGs. But whether the ficiton changes purely based on the meta roll is the question here. Even the book does not overly emphasize it. I think the intent is for people to be able to run DH even if all they know is 5E. And this is anecdotal, but based on r/daggerheart A LOT of people are getting behind the screen for the first time with DH -- which is super cool.

Click to expand...

I agree.

I think whilst I would use that playspace a bit more, because I like granular results rather than binary ones, I don't think it's like, "legally required to count as Daggerheart" to go into Hope/Fear based benefits/complications on every roll (beyond the tokens). The book definitely implies the fiction changes based on Hope/Fear, but it also makes clear that it's optional to really do that, and is incredibly clear that the right DMing style is your DMing style, and those are allowed to vary.

yea but it's best practices based on fiction-first gaming and the book's own text and that he often fails to do it is not a great showcase of the system.

Elvish Lore said:

yea but it's best practices based on fiction-first gaming and the book's own text and that he often fails to do it is not a great showcase of the system.

Click to expand...

Sure. Like I said, mercer runs it like her runs D&D. I am just saying that the game itself is not extremely militant about it in the way many other narrative games are. the rules themselves allow for Hope and Fear to be little more than play currency.

I'm not gatekeeping here like I've seen others.. just remarking on Mercer and this particular campaign.

I'm glad the game seems accessible to a wide variety of folks.

Elvish Lore said:

yea but it's best practices based on fiction-first gaming and the book's own text and that he often fails to do it is not a great showcase of the system.

Click to expand...

No actually.

The book describes best practice - and that's DMing in your own style.

And fiction-first doesn't mean dice-first, it means fiction-first. Sometimes that's going to mean paying pretty limited attention to what the dice say, and for some DMs, it's going to mean paying limited attention to roll with Hope/Fear beyond the mechanical most of the time.

As for "not a great showcase of the system", is that one element of the system so profoundly important that it not really being engaged with much means the whole thing is a failure? Because with some PtbA games, especially very doctrinal ones who have a very fixed "right" and "wrong" way to run them, I'd agree, that would be "not a great showcase", but with DH? I don't think that's really true.

Elvish Lore said:

I'm not gatekeeping here like I've seen others.. just remarking on Mercer and this particular campaign.

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone should suggest you are. But equally I don't think this particular point of the system is quite as central to "showcasing" DH as you appear to be suggesting. If anything, I think him playing it a bit different to the example and it still working very well is a bit of a testament to the system.