Daggerheart "Description on Demand" a GM DON'T

[Kichwas]

I wanted to like Legend in the Mist. I really did... loved the art style and the stated intention of the game.

But the tag system is kind of a mess, inelegant in play, and it feels like they just added in 'narrative' results in a very convoluted method.

See I had the opposite reaction.

For me Daggerheart isn't going far enough. What many in this thread describe as an option you can safely ignore sets up a fatal flaw of Daggerheart for me - that you can ignore Painting the Scene.

Mist falls down when people start debating tags rather than roleplaying them.

I'm concurrently listening to about 5 different actual plays split across Legend in the Mist and Otherscape and so I've heard in a short span of time a wide range of players and GMs.

Some of the players will drag a moment out trying to struggle for the tag combo that will win. They've brought a gamist approach to a narrative structured improv story telling event.

If you fight the GM over tags. Even if you do it politely. If the GM fights the GM over tags (which has happened in some podcasts) - it breaks down.

But that can happen in Daggerheart with Experiences. It can happen with 'what do I say in regards to a result with hope vs fear'. But yeah the tag system is in your face and so it's much easier for it to happen there.

But if you're doing vibrant narrative roleplay before, during, and after working through an action, and if you're good with on the fly spot choices / decisions, then it works out perfect.

And on the fly improv is my 'zone'. Whereas a structure can drive me nuts. I think just a few hours ago I noted how I like very well defined rules so that I don't need to make house rules for everything. I know this reads like the opposite of that statement to pretty much anyone who's brain doesn't work like mine does...

But I look at those tags and the structure they provide and I see a wrapper around the chaos that seems just right. And I've found that in some of the actual plays as well.

You have to approach it as a collaborative story. You don't try to game the tags, you use them to tell a story and guide where a given character lands in that story.

As for making a character with no stats, only semi-freeform tag descriptors that you wrap into connected themes of your own making (themselves a wrapper tag) - that's those tags, being used as a structure to set up that narrative play, instead of a gamist metric. Daggerheart halfway embraces this, and on your sheet you've got a few 'Experiences' instead of a skill system. But Mist fully embraces it.

And if you don't narratively play it then yes: it becomes a mess.

But if you do. Those safety prompts people keep noting in this thread to keep narrative play from getting out of control, to keep players from abusing it, to keep GMs from getting lost... it's right there on a Mist system's character sheet. The guideline to keep narrative play contained within theme is the tags. Especially given how you have to wrap them in themes, figure out the type for each theme, put a weakness in there which each theme, and keep them connected. That structure guides the chaos.

One or two of the Otherscape podcasts have gone on for well past 10 sessions and you can hear the players slowly embrace the format and start to 'get it'.

I suspect that in time we'll see the same thing with any Daggerheart actual plays that last. Dodoborne just got lucky in "getting it" as a group right out of the gate. But I've listened to a few others that seem to be 'getting in sync' as they go.

 

[Cergorach]

He talks about this being immersion breaking because it requires a shift in the POV. I disagree, it doesn't necessarily. Asking a player "what do you see that's different about the bark on these trees?" is just that player imagining seeing something, and describing it.

It doesn't matter that you disagree, it matters what the DM/players of a particular game think.

The issues can be many, as you describe, one of those issues could be putting a player on the spot that isn't that creative ad-hoc. My personal pet peeve would be that I, as a player would be creating parts of the world I should not have influence on, like the structure of the bark on a tree, that is the domain of the DM. If my character made something, it would be a different matter, how my character looks, and dresses, how he made his keep, etc. All fine. In the end it all comes down to: it really depends on the players and the DM.

As a matter of fact, I'm currently DMing something for my group that is very adjacent to this concept and I have to approach it very carefully, as different players are comfortable with it (or not) on very different levels. They characters have lost their memory + timeloop, they are redoing and rediscovering things they've already done and things they've already become. Essentially new decisions they make now becomes reality, an example: a player gained a level and multi-classed into Wizard, finding out there was a spellbook in their backpack with more first level spells in there then there should be... They currently have way more agency in setting their reality through their choices, but it's still not completely creating that reality. But it leans heavy enough against the description on demand stuff that it takes folks out of their comfort zone. The advantage is that I indicated before that I would go outside people's comfort zones to spice things up a bit, but it's balancing on an edge to keep everyone having fun.

Pnp RPGs tend to be a balancing act between player agency, fun for everyone, and world building. When a world feels like it's make out of very soft goo, many people won't like it. Just like DMs fudging dice regularly is not a good idea, or constantly adjusting encounter difficulty up and down for the party, makes many players feel like they have no agency and/or nothing they do matters.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

That's a good theory but what do you do when you have a whole group going up and one guy insists on dragging them down?

Lets hypothetically overstate the mismatching player here's preference for an example.

No matter how much of a nice guy that one person is, do they get to hold the sway?

If his thing is counter to the enjoyment of their thing - the larger group's interest should win out.

I've voluntarily left groups a number of times when I realized I was the one pulling in the wrong direction. That's the responsible thing to do.

One thing to note about this style is it really needs full group buy in to work at its best. Listen to the Dodoborne podcast I noted a bit ago. Pick any one member of the cast and imagine them not going along and just being a traditional tRPG player and the whole thing falls apart.

In the advice quoted in this thread from DH, the first portion on some basic ways to ask for info from the player would work with partial buy in. But if the group wants to do the 'going further' bit you can't leave anyone out and pull it off.

So at some point the table has to pick a style based on the majority of those present. When that style hasn't been mine, I've politely excused myself so they could fill with someone more to their vibe. That's the right move. The wrong move is making everyone else hold to the wishes of one.

This is your and your groups choice, Do you kick him out or not? I probably would not but work around him but I accept that other groups look at matters differently.

 

[TiQuinn]

That's a good theory but what do you do when you have a whole group going up and one guy insists on dragging them down?

Lets hypothetically overstate the mismatching player here's preference for an example.

No matter how much of a nice guy that one person is, do they get to hold the sway?

If his thing is counter to the enjoyment of their thing - the larger group's interest should win out.

I've voluntarily left groups a number of times when I realized I was the one pulling in the wrong direction. That's the responsible thing to do.

One thing to note about this style is it really needs full group buy in to work at its best. Listen to the Dodoborne podcast I noted a bit ago. Pick any one member of the cast and imagine them not going along and just being a traditional tRPG player and the whole thing falls apart.

In the advice quoted in this thread from DH, the first portion on some basic ways to ask for info from the player would work with partial buy in. But if the group wants to do the 'going further' bit you can't leave anyone out and pull it off.

So at some point the table has to pick a style based on the majority of those present. When that style hasn't been mine, I've politely excused myself so they could fill with someone more to their vibe. That's the right move. The wrong move is making everyone else hold to the wishes of one.

It’s simple. The player who is not enjoying the game should gracefully leave and come back when the table is playing something more in line with their interests.