Acquisitions Inc. switching to Daggerheart

[Parmandur]

Back to the more interesting to me question of the relative popularity of Shadowdark and Daggerfall...

Just another incidental point, but the main Subreddits for each game were established about the same time in 2023, and Daggerheart has about 5 times the membrane and activity, not sure if anyone has any data from any major Discords for the games:

 

[zakael19]

That the cards actually help the game design makes it a little bit worse for me, since they had the freedom to design something that would have worked for people without the cards. I am objecting to that design, which seems to be a holdover from D&D and Vancian casting. I hardly feel it is tilting at windmills, because games have been designed that solved for that.

No, not at all. It works fine without cards - you can write down lines on your sheet. But board game design has moved insanely past the stuff we get in TTRPGs from a usability and digest ability perspective, and smart use of tight text that gets an entire ability across in a card you can place in front of you as a visual reference of your current abilities is part of that. See also: Magic et al.

Daggerheart is generally far more on the lines of concise Magic like ability design then say 5e meandering text. The Codex abilities are a great example of this, if you want to go look at the SRD.

And again, tying Recall Cost: 3 Stress in mechanically works fine on a sheet but faster on a card the same way mana costs do.

 

[Parmandur]

No, not at all. It works fine without cards - you can write down lines on your sheet. But board game design has moved insanely past the stuff we get in TTRPGs from a usability and digest ability perspective, and smart use of tight text that gets an entire ability across in a card you can place in front of you as a visual reference of your current abilities is part of that. See also: Magic et al.

Daggerheart is generally far more on the lines of concise Magic like ability design then say 5e meandering text. The Codex abilities are a great example of this, if you want to go look at the SRD.

And again, tying Recall Cost: 3 Stress in mechanically works fine on a sheet but faster on a card the same way mana costs do.

Right, but it could be more elegant even than that: as I said, nobody needs a reminder of how to use Persuasion or Acrobatics.

 

[kermit4karate]

That the cards actually help the game design makes it a little bit worse for me, since they had the freedom to design something that would have worked for people without the cards. I am objecting to that design, which seems to be a holdover from D&D and Vancian casting. I hardly feel it is tilting at windmills, because games have been designed that solved for that.

Books for games today are already well into the hundreds of pages. At what point does it become counterproductive? Speaking of narrative games and incorporating narrative elements into different games, few things are less helpful to story building than having to pause to find something or look through a resource.

 

[Vael]

Right, but it could be more elegant even than that: as I said, nobody needs a reminder of how to use Persuasion or Acrobatics.

Domain cards aren't taking the place of skills, they are modeling feats and spells, things that often need reminders.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Right, but it could be more elegant even than that: as I said, nobody needs a reminder of how to use Persuasion or Acrobatics.

Are you suggesting spells should work like skills? Like, fireball shouldn't be a thing just a general "fire magic" skill?

 

[Parmandur]

Domain cards aren't taking the place of skills, they are modeling feats and spells, things that often need reminders.

Right, but I'm saying Skills could take the place of Spells. Problem solved.

 

[Parmandur]

Are you suggesting spells should work like skills? Like, fireball shouldn't be a thing just a general "fire magic" skill?

100%, absolutely. If you are redesigning this sort of thing from scratch, thst is the way to go.

 

[kermit4karate]

Back to the more interesting to me question of the relative popularity of Shadowdark and Daggerfall...

Just another incidental point, but the main Subreddits for each game were established about the same time in 2023, and Daggerheart has about 5 times the membrane and activity, not sure if anyone has any data from any major Discords for the games:

View attachment 417270View attachment 417271

Well, there's no accounting for taste.

But seriously, Daggerheart wins hands down in the eye candy department. It's a gorgeous game with insanely high production value. I think that explains about 82.5% of its success thus far.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, there's no accounting for taste.

But seriously, Daggerheart wins hands down in the eye candy department. It's a gorgeous game with insanely high production value. I think that explains about 82.5% of its success thus far.

Every report I see is that the game is fun to play and to run, and a joy to homebrew for as well. This success is more than aesthetics.