Daggerheart Discussion

[Tigris]

Daggerheart's focus is not on interesting tactical gameplay, to be honest.

Well then why does it use so much space and such a huge percentage of the player options on combst options then?

Compared with 13th age which has tactical combat (with theater of mind) Dagger Heart does not look less combat focused

• It has a quite complex ressource management system with stress, hope, armor, health + maybe ressources on ability cards (and fear). Typical for combat heavy games with attrition. 13th age only has 2 per default (health and healing surges). All with short and long rest.
• It has more complex equipment with different weapons and armor (13th age has this abstracted). It also has more different ranges.
• From the class options almost only the background and the 2 "skills" are for non combat (although normally 1 of them will be used in combat). Spells (except minor image) most class abilities, the 3 hope abilities, are all just for combat
• Combat also takes quite a bit of time in a session. Its not 1 roll and over.

I Know that for non combat one needs generell less mechanics/rules, however, why add so much specific content for combat when its not meant to be tactical?

 

[Reynard]

So we're leveling faster than what's recommended in the book. We average a level every 2-3 sessions. That will end up a 25-30 session campaign to 10th level, which is actually a great pace for my interest level. (We're nearly to 8th level.)
IMO, there's not enough to interest players for a "long" campaign in Daggerheart. Rewards like magic items are ho-hum. There's not a lot of enemies to create varied encounters. Players are stuck in patterns, using the same abilities in every fight. The fact that character death is in the players' hands means there's no combat tension.
I love Daggerheart. It's probably the best game for my style that I've GMed this millennium (since the WotC era of D&D, essentially). But it's a "mid length campaign" system - nothing that could last a year or more.

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

 

[Retreater]

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

I can tell you that mine did not. Daggerheart has been the perfect answer to my frequent TPKs that have ended practically every D&D campaign I've DMed since 3rd edition.
Most combats in DH seem thrilling - even if it's completely illusionary.

 

[Retreater]

If I had a complaint about Daggerheart, I'd say that the production speed has stalled the adoption of the game. I'm hoping there is still some lightning in the bottle for when it does come out.

I think Critical Role sticking with D&D is what hurt adoption the most.
I think also that you can't really sell traditional RPG products for Daggerheart. Adventures are pointless because they're created at the table and supposed to be "loosey-goosey." Campaign settings provide too much detail.
Monster books, magic items, and class supplements are what's needed. Basically stuff that WotC doesn't make for D&D.

 

[Reynard]

I think Critical Role sticking with D&D is what hurt adoption the most.
I think also that you can't really sell traditional RPG products for Daggerheart. Adventures are pointless because they're created at the table and supposed to be "loosey-goosey." Campaign settings provide too much detail.
Monster books, magic items, and class supplements are what's needed. Basically stuff that WotC doesn't make for D&D.

I think Savage Worlds style "plot point campaigns" are perfect for DH and can also showcase player options.

I also disagree that campaign settings are a bad fit. You could easily do a campaign setting and also include a half dozen campaign frames in that setting.

 

[Retreater]

I also disagree that campaign settings are a bad fit. You could easily do a campaign setting and also include a half dozen campaign frames in that setting.

I guess so. That's sort of a different way of handling campaign settings than traditional fantasy RPGs which are just collections of maps, names, and histories. Traditionally, any campaign specific rules apply to the entire world.
But if a Daggerheart campaign setting would be like "Here's Eberron. Here's how you run a campaign set in the Mournlands and ONLY the Mournlands. If you want Sharn, that's in the other chapter and you need different characters." That's certainly a thing that could be done, but it's not like anything I've ever seen in the 50+ years of TTRPG publishing.

 

[SteveC]

I think Critical Role sticking with D&D is what hurt adoption the most.
I think also that you can't really sell traditional RPG products for Daggerheart. Adventures are pointless because they're created at the table and supposed to be "loosey-goosey." Campaign settings provide too much detail.
Monster books, magic items, and class supplements are what's needed. Basically stuff that WotC doesn't make for D&D.

I definitely get that, and I've heard it from more than one person. In CR's defense (and they don't need me defending them) I'd say that CR is the largest thing in RPG circles outside of WotC. It's huge. And changing it up to a new system would be a tall order. And they didn't know that it would be as successful as it turned out to be, so it would have been a risk.

I am not sure of what will and won't be successful as follow-up products. I think the additional classes are going to be a big it, and I've seen the majority of people who have a criticism of Daggerheart say "not enough monsters." As far as magic items, that's going to really depend on how they're presented.

I am really interested in the extra Environments, so that's something I'll want.

How could you do an adventure? I really like the style of Grimwild's adventures, which present the environment and starter situations (despite Grimwild's author disappearing, they did some very interesting things). I am willing to think that they will be able to do a "campaign" but ... I don't reallty know.

 

[Umbran]

Well then why does it use so much space and such a huge percentage of the player options on combst options then?

Compared with 13th age which has tactical combat (with theater of mind) Dagger Heart does not look less combat focused

It is almost like the actual words I chose matter: I said TACTICAL combat focus.

In a game like D&D 3E or later, combat is designed so you can show off how well you play the combat rules game - making specific decisions, round by round, to test your ability to play a tactical wargame.

Daggerheart is less about those very detailed tactical choices, and more about having a cool dramatic time in a fight scene.

This can be seen, for example, in how D&D deals in 5' square granularity, and Daggerheart has broad range categories.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm supposed to be playing in a one-off session of DH in about six weeks. I've read the SRD but I'll be interested in seeing my feeling after playing that, since its a bit off my normal tastes I think.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It is almost like the actual words I chose matter: I said TACTICAL combat focus.

In a game like D&D 3E or later, combat is designed so you can show off how well you play the combat rules game - making specific decisions, round by round, to test your ability to play a tactical wargame.

Daggerheart is less about those very detailed tactical choices, and more about having a cool dramatic time in a fight scene.

This can be seen, for example, in how D&D deals in 5' square granularity, and Daggerheart has broad range categories.

I'm not sure the last there proves your point. Movement and distance in 13th Age are very loosey-goosey too, but I think most people with experience with its combat would still describe it as having a pretty tactical combat focus, even accounting for the big-picture focus in parts of them.

I think a view of "tactical" that limits it to tight battleboard usage is overly narrow.