Daggerheart Discussion

[Thomas Shey]

This. And there's a whole lot of utter nonsense I feel empowered to play and my players accept as fair simply because I spent a Fear which would feel unfair if I just did it with no resources. I sometimes refer to Fear as my shoulder demon.

Well, in a way it says it right on the tin in the name of the resource.

 

[zakael19]

And on the page about using Fear, as I posted. That’s playing as intended! They wanted to give GMs an excuse to do big dramatic fantasy nonsense to make scenes cooler, with some limits and guidance.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, as I said, I'm not always a big fan of massive GM handwaving, but its not like that doesn't get done in other games, just without any framework around it.

 

[zakael19]

Is it "massive handwaving" when you're making a move the game tells you to do, gives you considerable guidance, a series of examples, and mechanical scaffolding to improvise off of? Or just playing the game as designed and intended?

There's 3 pages worth of explicit "this is what Fear is and what yo can do with it" and most adversaries and the Environments have "Fear features" that provide additional context and frameworks to work within.

 

[aramis erak]

I betvthe majority of D&D campaigns don't reach 30 sessions.

the surveys show most dont make it past 20 (about 5-6 months)

 

[Scribe]

Well, as I said, I'm not always a big fan of massive GM handwaving, but its not like that doesn't get done in other games, just without any framework around it.

Its not handwaving though, unless I'm missing part of the conversation. Its literally built into the game, it has a framework around it, and the book goes into explicit detail on it.

Its...the opposite of handwaving. Its the literal intended, supported, and mechanically core (couldnt be more core) play loop.

Its easily my favourite thing in the system, that I am carrying forward into my own little game.

 

[Retreater]

Yeah, that's probably too short a time. When I was running Monster of the Week, I learned that we should really do the end-of-session questions every other session, because otherwise they were advancing way too quickly.

Well, yeah. But it is what it is.
I'm fortunate that our sessions are mostly consistent and all players show up. I'm also running for several players with attention difficulties, so going much longer and they'll get squirmy.
Back in the day, my groups would do 6+ hours. We'd regularly lose focus or have very unhealthy habits such as lots of caffeine or sugar.
I'll take the trade off.

 

[zakael19]

Well, yeah. But it is what it is.
I'm fortunate that our sessions are mostly consistent and all players show up. I'm also running for several players with attention difficulties, so going much longer and they'll get squirmy.
Back in the day, my groups would do 6+ hours. We'd regularly lose focus or have very unhealthy habits such as lots of caffeine or sugar.
I'll take the trade off.

I run 3 hour games too(with a religiously adhered to break in the middle), for some of the reasons you list. In DH we’re leveling at 5-6 sessions per, and I haven’t had any issues in my other narrative games with their XP systems…

Seems to feel great.