Acquisitions Inc. switching to Daggerheart

[Seramus]

Oh boy, yeah, good point. Maybe doing as Derik suggests and when the spotlight goes to the players, the gm throws it to a specific player, asking how they respond to the gm move.

Specifically for PBP, I couldn't make the DH initiative work in a reasonable timeframe (reasonable to me being everyone goes at least once within 2 days). Like, throwing it to a specific player according to how often they tend to check? That sort-of works when the most active player checks in 3 times a day, then you pass it to the girl who checks twice a day, then juggle the last two players who check once per day, but we just ended up missing lots of time that way.

Using an initiative tracker is faster, but can also take a very long time if it's not the players turn when one of your Once A Day checkers swings by and see's they can't post. You could set up some kind of delayed post situation, where they write their action but it doesn't happen until a player turn comes up again. There's probably some merit in that.

In the end, we went with Sided Initiative instead. All of the players take their actions and make their rolls, then I count up how many Failures or Fears they rolled and arbitrate the results + take the appropriate amount of GM moves. And you make a good faith effort to not dogpile anyone specifically with your glut of actions.

That's certainly not playing Daggerheart as intended, but the alternative took catastrophically longer. DH initiative might work okay in PBP with an extremely responsive group where everyone checks multiple times a day, though.

 

[Reynard]

As an aside, I recently asked in the Shadowdark reddit whether people actually use the "always on" initiative rule, and the overwhelming answer was no.

I have run it a bunch and used always on initiative just once, the first time. I adds nothing that I could discern. I also abandoned real time torch timers relatively quickly.

 

[Agamon]

Specifically for PBP, I couldn't make the DH initiative work in a reasonable timeframe (reasonable to me being everyone goes at least once within 2 days). Like, throwing it to a specific player according to how often they tend to check? That sort-of works when the most active player checks in 3 times a day, then you pass it to the girl who checks twice a day, then juggle the last two players who check once per day, but we just ended up missing lots of time that way.

Using an initiative tracker is faster, but can also take a very long time if it's not the players turn when one of your Once A Day checkers swings by and see's they can't post. You could set up some kind of delayed post situation, where they write their action but it doesn't happen until a player turn comes up again. There's probably some merit in that.

In the end, we went with Sided Initiative instead. All of the players take their actions and make their rolls, then I count up how many Failures or Fears they rolled and arbitrate the results + take the appropriate amount of GM moves. And you make a good faith effort to not dogpile anyone specifically with your glut of actions.

That's certainly not playing Daggerheart as intended, but the alternative took catastrophically longer. DH initiative might work okay in PBP with an extremely responsive group where everyone checks multiple times a day, though.

Some of this is just an issue with pbps in general. I've played some "normal init" games in pbp, and waiting for the player whose turn it is comes with the format.

But yeah, I can see playing pbp DH being a struggle...

 

[Agamon]

I have run it a bunch and used always on initiative just once, the first time. I adds nothing that I could discern. I also abandoned real time torch timers relatively quickly.

As some who hasn't played SD, does init work differently from dnd-style turn-based init if you ignore "always on"? Because now I'm wondering what Mike meant...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As an aside, I recently asked in the Shadowdark reddit whether people actually use the "always on" initiative rule, and the overwhelming answer was no.

I think if you ask in most RPG reddits or message boards if they actually play the game they have so many opinions about, the overwhelming answer is also no.

I've been running Shadowdark since early in the first Kickstarter campaign two years ago and am running it as an ongoing campaign now. While I don't use the initiative every second of every game, it's intended as a guard rail to make sure everyone gets a turn and the most enthusiastic extroverts don't dominate play. When I see that's happening, I kick the system back on and go back to going round-robin again.

I suspect that's what's happening at most tables. Kelsey suggested that's how she does it as well.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As some who hasn't played SD, does init work differently from dnd-style turn-based init if you ignore "always on"? Because now I'm wondering what Mike meant...

As I recall, he was explicitly talking about online play, where people commonly accidentally speak over each other (anyone who's done conference calls has experienced this). He was saying that Daggerheart's loosey goosey initiative system could lead to either people either speaking over each other and boxing some players out or, out of fear of doing so, no one speaking up and grinding play to a halt.

In contrast, with everyone taking a turn in the Shadowdark system, you avoid that problem.

 

[Kichwas]

Shadowdark. Exploration-focused dungeon crawl game. The initiative system facilitates dungeon exploration by having each PC act during their init, even outside of combat.

Ah so that’s what SD meant.

Yeah I would hard pass on a game like that.

Some might love it but to me that’s the same as playing Clue or Checkers. A GM using initiative while running the influence system in PF2E is what finally “broke me” on Pathfinder. After that experience I started struggling with the entire game and even with roleplay at a completely different table because my frame of mind had just been shattered for the format and if I’d not stumbled into Daggerheart and Legend in the Mist I would probably be taking another multi-year break from the hobby right now.

 

[Seramus]

Some of this is just an issue with pbps in general. I've played some "normal init" games in pbp, and waiting for the player whose turn it is comes with the format.

Yeah, Sided Initiative is a pretty common go-to for many PBP games. It's not DH specific at all.

Like, a game of D&D that uses normal initiative might go something like: Player 1, Player 5, Enemy 3, Enemy 1, Player 2, Enemy 2, etc.
Then you wait half a day for Player 1 to go, another half a day for Player 5 to go. You get Enemy 3 and 1 done pretty quick. Player 2 takes another half day to reply, you're busy that day so you don't get Enemy 2 finished until the end of Day 2, and that's just half the round.

Where Sided Initiative for D&D is just, "I wrote my turn. Everyone try to get their turn in before I check back in tomorrow." Then you resolve their turns in the order they posted them, unless one of your players specifically says "Oh, I want to cast Bless before Bob and Jane go!"

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ah so that’s what SD meant.

Yeah I would hard pass on a game like that.

Some might love it but to me that’s the same as playing Clue or Checkers.

You are getting a very weird idea of what Shadowdark is from this thread. It was the runaway winner of most of the biggest Ennie awards back in 2024. It's absolutely an RPG.

 

[darjr]

I think DH can be played in a very Bkuebeards Bride style and also supports not doing it that way. Sorta at the same time too depending upon the GM and table.

I think it’s one of its strengths, like the amorphous qualities of 2014 D&D. Many people could play it very differently and it still mostly holds up.