Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[Ruin Explorer]

Char-op is a problem in that regard.

It literally is not. First off, CharOp in DH is limited in much the same way 5E is - we're talking PCs basically between 7/10 and 10/10 power, not 1/10 and 12/10 like 3.XE/PF1 or 3/10 and 11/10 like 4E.

Second off, unlike in D&D, in DH spotlight sharing is entirely social and disconnected from the power of PCs.

Speaking specifically about my group, the PC who got disproportionate amounts of time spent on him was not the Druid, who was the most optimized. Nor the second-most optimized, which was the Guardian! Rather it was the Rogue, who kept going off by himself, but who was, in fact, somewhat ineptly optimized, and indeed, had to be talked into putting his +2 into Finesse, despite the fact that most of his rolls came off Finesse and he wanted to use daggers!

If we looked carefully at the numbers, who did the most damage? Probably the Druid. Who took the least relative to the amount of attacks sent their way? Definitely the Guardian. Who was the most pivotal character to how things went down? Probably the Druid. But who, if we wrote the story of the session would appear to be the "main character"? Definitely the Rogue. The Druid particularly also immediately gave away the spotlight after every action - he and the Wizard were by far the most generous (and actually the most sensible) re: handing over the spotlight.

This is on-topic, to be clear, because it's important to understand how Daggerheart works and differs from other RPGs. The spotlight mechanism is not unique but it is noteworthy and very different to the strict turn-based structure of most D&D-adjacent RPGs (which actually tend to functionally cause more spotlight on more powerful characters simply because their turns take longer and more happens on them). You can have a very optimized PC and still be generous with the spotlight, or you can have a terrible PC who you made terrible choices with and still keep insisting the spotlight stick with you.

 

[Imaro]

This discussion of optimization is interesting... moreso because I am making my way through AoU episode 4. There's an interesting exchange in the beginning of that episode where Matt has to shut Taliesin Jaffe down because he tries to use an overly vague experience... "i'm absolutely supposed to be here" to aid in traversing/navigating a jungle... and Matt is like No.

I think this is something many newer (and even some experienced) GM's may have to deal with, whether through a player trying to optimize, being unintentionally vague or the boundaries of every experience not being discussed beforehand.

I'm actually glad this happened in their AP and that Matt said no, since the majority of advice online is either.. that won't happen if you play according to the principles and/or dont play with jerks which are, IMO, not solutions based in actual play... especially when a narrative game starts to expand its audience. I think Matt handled it perfectly and it made me realize that one of the reasons I like Daggerheart over many narrative games is because the game still establishes a central authority figure for the fiction and game...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This discussion of optimization is interesting... moreso because I am making my way through AoU episode 4. There's an interesting exchange in the beginning of that episode where Matt has to shut Taliesin Jaffe down because he tries to use an overly vague experience... "i'm absolutely supposed to be here" to aid in traversing/navigating a jungle... and Matt is like No.

I think this is something many newer (and even some experienced) GM's may have to deal with, whether through a player trying to optimize, being unintentionally vague or the boundaries of every experience not being discussed beforehand.

I'm actually glad this happened in their AP and that Matt said no, since the majority of advice online is either.. that won't happen if you play according to the principles and/or dont play with jerks which are, IMO, not solutions based in actual play... especially when a narrative game starts to expand its audience. I think Matt handled it perfectly and it made me realize that one of the reasons I like Daggerheart over many narrative games is because the game still establishes a central authority figure for the fiction and game...

I think that bolded bit is quite a big point and yes it definitely helps differentiate DH from other narrative games for better and worse.

Re: Experiences, yeah, you do sometimes have to say "Er I don't think so mate", but it was pretty rare so far, especially as they cost Hope, which prevents people "chancing it" like they would if they were free. The ones my PCs had were:

Druid - Fight Like A Tiger, Forged In Fire
Wizard - Healer, Itinerant
Rogue - Convincing, Take You Down A Peg
Guardian - Hold The Line, Memorable

Almost all of them got evoked at least once.

 

[zakael19]

I think Matt handled it perfectly and it made me realize that one of the reasons I like Daggerheart over many narrative games is because the game still establishes a central authority figure for the fiction and game.

Are there any major fiction-focused games out there that don’t have a GM with fictional authority apart from the spend of metacurrency?

I think that bolded bit is quite a big point and yes it definitely helps differentiate DH from other narrative games for better and worse.

Is this a contrast to like, FATE or Fabula Ultima or something?

To me the one difference between DH and something like most mainline PBTAs or BITD is that the player isn't guaranteed by the system to pick the action they're rolling (in the former, by triggering the fiction; in the latter by teh rules). Otherwise generally the authority partitions seem pretty similar - inclusive of DH wanting the GM to collaborate at all times instead of imposing their singular vision.

 

[zakael19]

Oh the "optimizer" discussion, my only problem player in that regard has been a player who was just a freaking spotlight hog across the board; and then built their character to own said spotlight. As others have noted, that's just a crappy player.

I have an optimizer in my Stonetop (PBTA) game, who spends a good bit of his effort optimizing the fiction to set up advantageous situations for his goals & specific moves. That's cool stuff.

 

[Imaro]

Are there any major fiction-focused games out there that don’t have a GM with fictional authority apart from the spend of metacurrency?

Is this a contrast to like, FATE or Fabula Ultima or something?

To me the one difference between DH and something like most mainline PBTAs or BITD is that the player isn't guaranteed by the system to pick the action they're rolling (in the former, by triggering the fiction; in the latter by teh rules). Otherwise generally the authority partitions seem pretty similar - inclusive of DH wanting the GM to collaborate at all times instead of imposing their singular vision.

I'm admittedly not familiar with a ton of narrative games but many of the the ones I have read usually phrase it as... When a question of whether something like an experience is appropriate it should be a group discussion... Which (when followed) is a different procedure from giving the GM authority to veto.

 

[Imaro]

I think that bolded bit is quite a big point and yes it definitely helps differentiate DH from other narrative games for better and worse.

Re: Experiences, yeah, you do sometimes have to say "Er I don't think so mate", but it was pretty rare so far, especially as they cost Hope, which prevents people "chancing it" like they would if they were free. The ones my PCs had were:

Druid - Fight Like A Tiger, Forged In Fire
Wizard - Healer, Itinerant
Rogue - Convincing, Take You Down A Peg
Guardian - Hold The Line, Memorable

Almost all of them got evoked at least once.

I have one experience from a player I think might be a problem... She's a sorcerer who took Survivor as a background. I'm going to discuss what that actually entails this Saturday before our game to make sure we are on the same page or to maybe revise it into exactly what she is trying to relate about her character.

Funnily enough I had a problem with a background like this in a game of 13th Age... where the player tried to use it for nearly everything... and it just got tiring and turned the game into a slog as they tried to use mental gymnastics to justify all kinds of applications.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I have one experience from a player I think might be a problem... She's a sorcerer who took Survivor as a background. I'm going to discuss what that actually entails this Saturday before our game to make sure we are on the same page or to maybe revise it into exactly what she is trying to relate about her character.

Funnily enough I had a problem with a background like this in a game of 13th Age... where the player tried to use it for nearly everything... and it just got tiring and turned the game into a slog as they tried to use mental gymnastics to justify all kinds of applications.

Personally Survivor feels narrow enough for me assuming the player isn't a chancer. I.e. it seems like they'd mainly use it on rolls where their life was on the line, or where they were doing to have to fight tooth and nail to get through something, which wouldn't be most rolls. Definitely worth discussing if you don't know what the player meant exactly tough - I did re: "Fights Like A Tiger" for example.

I would be more concerned in a different game, one where you didn't have to pay a resource to invoke the trait, where it automatically applied for free, but I think that's the key limiting factor here. Even if you do have a pretty broad trait, you still only have so much Hope. Like "Fights Like A Tiger" could have been applied to easily 5x more rolls than it actually was, but as it cost Hope, the player didn't do that, and the much narrower "Take You Down A Peg" actually got applied to more rolls. I was surprised how well "Memorable" was applied too.

 

[zakael19]

I have one experience from a player I think might be a problem... She's a sorcerer who took Survivor as a background. I'm going to discuss what that actually entails this Saturday before our game to make sure we are on the same page or to maybe revise it into exactly what she is trying to relate about her character.

Funnily enough I had a problem with a background like this in a game of 13th Age... where the player tried to use it for nearly everything... and it just got tiring and turned the game into a slog as they tried to use mental gymnastics to justify all kinds of applications.

Yeah, I'd ask "survivor of what?" If it's "Survive at all costs" that's going to mean different things then "survivor of the war" or "survivor in the wild" or...

And once you start getting some answers, keep asking questions about how that Experience plays in to do the thing the book talks about regarding "discovering your character through play." And then maybe in the future the "Surive at all costs" experience turns into "rely on my friends" or gets firmed up into something else.

 

[Imaro]

Personally Survivor feels narrow enough for me assuming the player isn't a chancer. I.e. it seems like they'd mainly use it on rolls where their life was on the line, or where they were doing to have to fight tooth and nail to get through something, which wouldn't be most rolls. Definitely worth discussing if you don't know what the player meant exactly tough - I did re: "Fights Like A Tiger" for example.

I think (only because I have gamed with this player for years), and I'll revisit this after Saturday to confirm... they mean more in the vein of a survivalist... hunting, tracking, building shelter, etc. But I could also see your interpretation and may bring it up as I think it would compliment them being a Slyborne very well.

I would be more concerned in a different game, one where you didn't have to pay a resource to invoke the trait, where it automatically applied for free, but I think that's the key limiting factor here. Even if you do have a pretty broad trait, you still only have so much Hope. Like "Fights Like A Tiger" could have been applied to easily 5x more rolls than it actually was, but as it cost Hope, the player didn't do that, and the much narrower "Take You Down A Peg" actually got applied to more rolls. I was surprised how well "Memorable" was applied too.

I agree that the hope as limiting factor definitely reigns it in from 13th Age's more... use it whenever approach.