Daggerheart Discussion

[mamba]

The irony of finding the "perfect" system - I can't argue online of how to improve it, I can't spend lots of time outside the game planning, etc.

it still seems to be lacking content, so if you ‘need’ to talk about it, maybe that is the angle for it

 

[Reynard]

it still seems to be lacking content, so if you ‘need’ to talk about it, maybe that is the angle for it

There is a decent amount of 3rd party material for it, some of it pretty good. But I agree that it feels like Darrington could have planned support better. There is obviously stuff coming from their partners, but I am afraid some folks are going to have already "played out" Daggerheart by the time it gets here and have moved on.

 

[zakael19]

I was talking to my wife last night and expressing some disappointment with Daggerheart. It's a great system for many things and my players enjoy it, but I'm eager to move on at the end of my current campaign.
First, I've been running two campaigns (Witherwild and Motherboard) for close to 6 months. I have seen almost everything the core system offers. I've used most all the enemies, multiple times. Between two campaigns (one of which had two sets of characters), I've seen nearly every power used, and every class. The only way to make it feel different is to re-skin powers and adversaries - and that's just an illusion of new content.
Second, I feel out of the loop about talking about the hobby. There's just not much discussion about it going on - not like there is with D&D or Pathfinder. There's just not much of a community to interact with.
Third, I can't really do anything outside the session. I can't prep adventures, create worlds, etc. It's a narrative system that is intended to unfold organically at the table in play. The players create the world. My job is just to bring the game to life during the session.
The irony of finding the "perfect" system - I can't argue online of how to improve it, I can't spend lots of time outside the game planning, etc.

DH's Subreddit has ~26k weekly visitors and a lively discussion. Their discord is also quite busy. If you want lively discussion about games that aren't like the top two in the market (5e & PF2), you gotta find the spaces where people congregate around it.

I can't speak to your idiosyncrasies around feeling "content done" since I play PBTAs and FITD games with way less "content" repeatedly.

And your Third point is also entirely on you. There's nothing stopping you from doing prep (I built the entire city of Verella for my campaign and we've spent 10 sessions there over two levels; I built the core of the world at a FITD level for two games for us to riff off of as a basic crystallization), you're just supposed to "leave blanks" and have space for your players to add things. I think you might've knee-jerked way over to the far side of things here. Most far, far more Play to Find Out games have an expectation of GM prep to have a degree of GM rigor about the world and the dangers therein.

Make some adversaries that speak to the fiction you want to bring around factions or places, it's fun! You've played 4e, that's a great starting point to port over stuff (check out the Carrion Crawlers for instance, super fun little actions). Prep situations full of questions and open ended possibilities. Walk around your neighborhood and write down lists of impressions you see IRL and then think about how to build that stuff out for your fictional spaces, and then the questions you want to ask your players to build on that core.

Edit: sessions across 3 games, 15 (currently level 3); 13 (currently level 2); 6 (currently level 2) for 34 total. Feels like we're barely scratching the surface of the stories and worlds we're exploring so far. I'm using almost entirely custom adversaries after T1.

 

[Scribe]

Third, I can't really do anything outside the session. I can't prep adventures, create worlds, etc.

Huh? Make your own frames, with your own rules, with your own restrictions or additions, with your own monsters, environments, traps, whatever.

Of course you can do stuff outside the session.

 

[Retreater]

Huh? Make your own frames, with your own rules, with your own restrictions or additions, with your own monsters, environments, traps, whatever.

Of course you can do stuff outside the session.

"Are we being too literal?"
"No, you fool, we're following orders!"
--Spaceballs

I haven't created anything because the game is like "don't create a campaign before people come to the game - just have a few outlines they can vote on." "Just have the vague notion of a story - don't write an adventure."
So I've literally not been preparing anything.
Is that ... Not how you do it?

 

[zakael19]

"Are we being too literal?"
"No, you fool, we're following orders!"
--Spaceballs

I haven't created anything because the game is like "don't create a campaign before people come to the game - just have a few outlines they can vote on." "Just have the vague notion of a story - don't write an adventure."
So I've literally not been preparing anything.
Is that ... Not how you do it?

"And your Third point is also entirely on you. There's nothing stopping you from doing prep (I built the entire city of Verella for my campaign and we've spent 10 sessions there over two levels; I built the core of the world at a FITD level for two games for us to riff off of as a basic crystallization), you're just supposed to "leave blanks" and have space for your players to add things. I think you might've knee-jerked way over to the far side of things here. Most far, far more Play to Find Out games have an expectation of GM prep to have a degree of GM rigor about the world and the dangers therein."

When running a player-driven game, you can take the characters’ details, backgrounds, connection questions, and worldbuilding notes your players provided both in and out of your session zero (see the upcoming “Session Zero and Safety Tools” section on page 169) and use those as a palette to paint an exciting world. Fill it with vibrant adventures that showcase rich cultures, take the PCs to wondrous places, and introduce them to dangerous creatures. Strive to ground all of this in a place that honors the motivations and personhood of everyone, from preeminent high nobility and demigods to humble farmers and artisans.

Try to prepare situations without expectations about the solutions the players will find or create. While preparing adversaries and appropriate maps can help make for exciting scenes, always know you can adjust or completely throw out plans to follow inspiration when it strikes at the table.

In dramatic or even commonplace moments, you might ask questions about a character’s motivations, emotions, and history, then connect the answers to the current moment.

Tantalize players with a suspicious line muttered under an NPC’s breath, illustrate the signs of a lingering magical threat shimmering among the trees, hint at future danger looming over the distant horizon. Throw out hooks and see what catches their interest. Foster an environment of creative inquiry at the table and allow that curiosity to lead you to incredible places.

Daggerheart is designed to be played with a great deal of improvisation to allow the players a large amount of creative agency—the group builds and discovers the world together. The game is also built to be player driven, where the PCs’ backgrounds and connections serve as the primary fuel for the plot. For these reasons, we recommend leaving space for the story to breathe.

The game works better when more preparation time goes into situations for the characters to explore rather than scripting entire scenes and a set progression of story beats. Every GM’s style is different, and you may find that you benefit with more time spent on forms of preparation that allow you to utilize player agency and creativity.

Prep with an eye on what your players say interests them, what they've talked about in their backstories + session 0s + etc. Drop hooks and see what they grab instead of plotting an entire story. Create situations where they can surprise you.

Idk man, that sounds like a lot of great space to be a super creative GM to build the scaffolding the players will fill in during play.

 

[Agamon]

"Are we being too literal?"
"No, you fool, we're following orders!"
--Spaceballs

I haven't created anything because the game is like "don't create a campaign before people come to the game - just have a few outlines they can vote on." "Just have the vague notion of a story - don't write an adventure."
So I've literally not been preparing anything.
Is that ... Not how you do it?

Not personally, no. I prep possible scenes with a few points each, I create new adversaries (I've made zero D&D monsters, but I've enjoyed creating 6 adversaries and 2 environments for the 6 DH sessions I've run so far), I flesh out already encountered npcs with motivations, and I list out campaign secrets that may be revealed during the game. Not everything needs to be created or contributed to by the players.

 

[Scribe]

So I've literally not been preparing anything.
Is that ... Not how you do it?

Reading a bunch of @zakael19 posts?

No, that doesn't seem to be optimal in any way. I'd review everything he's clearly created and prepped since the games released.

You don't need to be a slave to only what's in the book. The campaign Frames alone show this.

I don't understand the conclusion you've come to at all.