Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[Neonchameleon]

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

The big reason I am entirely unconcerned about min-maxed Experiences is that it's more efficient to spend a hope to give an ally advantage (unless they already have it) by helping them than it is to spend a hope to give yourself +2. And that's seldom the best use for hope.

 

[Vael]

And specifically for Druids ... I would want to bank Hope for those stress free augmented Beastforms.

 

[innerdude]

Question for those of you familiar with print production business --

After the near-immediate sellout of the first print run, Amazon showed the Daggerheart core listing as out of stock.

Late last week, I checked the Amazon listing again and it showed up in stock with a guaranteed delivery date of ~July 2nd or 3rd.

Looking at the Amazon listing today, it's still showing direct fulfillment from Amazon, with delivery date of July 6-9, so it appears at least on the surface that a second, possibly third shipment of stock has at least made its way to Amazon. (It also still shows as the #140 most popular book title across all of Amazon, which is still pretty impressive.)

I can't recall who specifically mentioned it, but I recall seeing (I believe on this site) from a well-known RPG publisher (maybe someone from Green Ronin or Steve Jackson Games?) that an RPG title that sells 5,000 copies is a very strong product.

So my question is, what would be a common initial print run for a book like the Daggerheart core --- of the same type, size, weight, paper texture, color print type, etc.?

Would the first printing have been 10,000 copies? 15k? 25k?

And what would be a typical count and lead-in time for a second printing? Once the printer gets word a second run is needed, how long does it take to print and bind?

Mostly curious because I've yet to see a single copy of Daggerheart in any one of 5 FLGS's I frequent off and on. My current market (Salt Lake City) is a hugely popular "nerd zone" (Salt Lake has its own Fan-X con every year), so I can't believe that the local game stores are simply choosing not to carry it. So curious if it's still a function of the downline demand still eating into the print backlog, etc.

Or possibly that it's still considered an "indie press" product, so isn't included in the major distributor channels?

I mean, obviously I could ask one of the folks at one of the stores to order it in, but I frankly hate having to deal with what passes for "customer service" these days. I hate having to play the song and dance with the customer service folks. Half the time they don't even know what you're talking about, or they can only get stuff through their preferred distributor. Then even if their distributor carries it, then having to wait for the distributor to stock in, then order it, then half the time they don't even contact you when your order arrives, etc.

In all seriousness it's much less painful to order it off Amazon than order it direct to a store, obviously to the detriment of the FLGS's.

 

[Reynard]

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.

One of the things (for me personally) about treating experiences like aspects is that , like aspects, they are always true in the fiction -- even when the player doesn't spends Hope for the +2, the fact of the experience is still true. Depending on the precise experience and the circumstances, this can Provide a Golden Opportunity, or otherwise allow the GM to make a move.

 

[Faolyn]

Incredible Creatures an Adversary and Environment book for Daggerheart on Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/icv1/incredible-creatures-adversaries-for-daggerheart

Ooh. I'm making a bunch of monsters myself, but there's always room for more. I'll have to wait to see what the art is like though, first.

 

[Faolyn]

So we are just going to assume optimizers are going to play nice? Sorry, I don't buy it. It is exceedingly rare for people to optimize their character and then not Hog the spotlight, but I will concede that it does exist.

But in the end, in a narrative game charop just doesn't make any.sensr.

There's an optional rule that gives everyone a set number of action tokens per "round" (suggestion of three). To take an action, you spend a token. When you've spent all your tokens, you can't take any more actions until everyone else is also out of actions. Then everyone gets three more tokens. This is especially designed to prevent spotlight hogging, should it be necessary.

 

[overgeeked]

Question for those of you familiar with print production business --

After the near-immediate sellout of the first print run, Amazon showed the Daggerheart core listing as out of stock.

Late last week, I checked the Amazon listing again and it showed up in stock with a guaranteed delivery date of ~July 2nd or 3rd.

Looking at the Amazon listing today, it's still showing direct fulfillment from Amazon, with delivery date of July 6-9, so it appears at least on the surface that a second, possibly third shipment of stock has at least made its way to Amazon. (It also still shows as the #140 most popular book title across all of Amazon, which is still pretty impressive.)

I can't recall who specifically mentioned it, but I recall seeing (I believe on this site) from a well-known RPG publisher (maybe someone from Green Ronin or Steve Jackson Games?) that an RPG title that sells 5,000 copies is a very strong product.

So my question is, what would be a common initial print run for a book like the Daggerheart core --- of the same type, size, weight, paper texture, color print type, etc.?

Would the first printing have been 10,000 copies? 15k? 25k?

And what would be a typical count and lead-in time for a second printing? Once the printer gets word a second run is needed, how long does it take to print and bind?

There are lots and lots of factors involved. For a short-run print (up to about 5k) of hardbacks it can take 5-6 weeks, depending, just to print and bind the things. The more you print, the longer it takes. There's also printer's proofs, the cards, the card box, and the slip cover to consider. Plus assembly. Then there's shipping. They're printing in China so it takes awhile to ship to the EU and US. This is probably why Australia got books months ahead of time.

There's also the printer's schedule to consider. They're a business so don't like to stand around doing nothing. They'll schedule printing various projects to keep things steady and give time to perform maintenance on the machines. So it all depends on when DP can get back into the schedule for a second printing.

One issue this can cause it variation in the product. Even if the same printer using the same machines prints your stuff for the second go around, there will be variation from the first. Using different machines at the same printer increases the variation. Using a different printer cranks that up.

Considering the waves of books hitting distribution it's likely they did a big print run and are simply pushing them out as fast as they can. You allot a certain amount to go to different places. Ship these 5k here, those 5k there, etc. So when that allotment runs out, that place is sold out. As new shipments come in, they get allotted and sent to different distributors.

Mostly curious because I've yet to see a single copy of Daggerheart in any one of 5 FLGS's I frequent off and on. My current market (Salt Lake City) is a hugely popular "nerd zone" (Salt Lake has its own Fan-X con every year), so I can't believe that the local game stores are simply choosing not to carry it. So curious if it's still a function of the downline demand still eating into the print backlog, etc.

Or possibly that it's still considered an "indie press" product, so isn't included in the major distributor channels?

It mostly looks like demand was wildly higher than DP ever considered possible. So they didn't print enough books and will be scrambling for months to fill demand. I just hope it's not a fad or FOMO that dries up because that's dangerous for publishers. I've seen a few publishers fold because a book was more popular than they expected and they rushed to print a bunch more only for the fad to pass before the new printing was available so they were stuck with thousands or tens of thousands of books they couldn't sell.

I mean, obviously I could ask one of the folks at one of the stores to order it in, but I frankly hate having to deal with what passes for "customer service" these days. I hate having to play the song and dance with the customer service folks. Half the time they don't even know what you're talking about, or they can only get stuff through their preferred distributor. Then even if their distributor carries it, then having to wait for the distributor to stock in, then order it, then half the time they don't even contact you when your order arrives, etc.

In all seriousness it's much less painful to order it off Amazon than order it direct to a store, obviously to the detriment of the FLGS's.

That's one reason Amazon does so well, quite a few local game stores aren't that friendly.