Daggerheart General Thread [+]

[Arilyn]

I'm not against spending a Fear to "Compel" a PC experience. Oh that mayor's son was assassinated by the Sapphire Syndicate so best not let your affiliation get out. Tbh, I've been thinking of ways to spend Fear outside of combat and making pseudo compels seems like a good idea.

Outside combat is a great way to spend fear. During combat I mostly use fear to take monster turns and to fuel their abilities. I agree with the pseudo compels as well.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm not against spending a Fear to "Compel" a PC experience. Oh that mayor's son was assassinated by the Sapphire Syndicate so best not let your affiliation get out. Tbh, I've been thinking of ways to spend Fear outside of combat and making pseudo compels seems like a good idea.

Neither am I, in theory. It is, however, not in scope for the rules-as-written mechanics of Experiences.

 

[zakael19]

Generally something leveraging an experience with potential downsides would come under "Reveal an Unwelcome Truth/Unexpected Danger" (the noble's bodyguard steps around him and peers closely at you, she seems to be narrowing in on that Azure Assassin tattoo you have), or "Use a PC's Backstory Against Them." I would probably lean into this if they used their Experience for a boost to a roll and then failed with Fear, or succeeded with fear and I wanted to heighten the ensuing situation.

Otherwise yeah, you're into a home-brew mechanic, which I think is pretty cool - I'm not super familiar with Compels but I really like the mechanic in Blades Deep Cuts where you can "Invoke Trauma/harm" to complicate the situation. But then again, these other systems give the player a carrot of XP or such and Deep Cuts lets the character opt to Tough it Out for stress cost if they dont want to deal with the threat.

I do think that integrating Experiences in a more explicitly mechanical way from the GM side would be nice.

 

[darjr]

My players hit a milestone and leveled to level 2! A big fight through trees and dryads and a chaos storm that plunged them into the deep ocean. Players turned into sea creatures to survive.

 

[aramis erak]

I did a bit of anydice work... adapting code from 4d6 Drop Lowest
If one is in a random PCs mode... (middle 1 of 3d4)-2 for each.

ABILITIES: 6 d [middle 1 of 3d{2,1,0,-1}]
loop P over {1..6} {
 output P @ ABILITIES named "Ability [P]"
}

Generates:

	+2	+1	+0	-1
Roll 1	63.92%	34.52%	1.56%	0%
Roll 2	23.83%	65.23%	10.89%	0.05%
Roll 3	5.27%	60.36%	33.69%	0.69%
Roll 4	0.69%	33.69%	60.36%	5.27%
Roll 5	0.05%	10.89%	65.23%	23.83%
Roll 6	0%	1.56%	34.52%	63.92%
⸻⸻	⸻⸻	⸻⸻	⸻⸻	⸻⸻
Number where most likely	1	2	2	1

These are lopped off at 0.01% precision by Anydice.

This produces an expected array of [+2, +1, +1, +0, +0, -1].

Going to 5d4km1, the array doesn't match, being [+1,+1,+1,+0,+0,+0]
switching to a 1d{+2, +1, +1,+0,+0,-1} (a d6 marked +2, +1, +1, +0,+0,-1)

	+2	+1	+0	-1
Roll 1	66.51%	31.93%	_1.56%	_0.0%
Roll 2	26.32%	62.74%	10.87%	_0.07%
Roll 3	_6.23%	59.40%	33.5%	_0.87%
Roll 4	_0.87%	33.5%	59.4%	_6.23%
Roll 5	_0.07%	10.87%	62.74%	26.32%
Roll 6	_0%	_1.56%	31.93%	66.51%
⸻⸻	⸻⸻	⸻⸻	⸻⸻	⸻⸻
Number where most likely	1	2	2	1

Again, more dice makes it [+1,+1,+1,+0,+0,+0]

trying 1d{2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0,-1,-1} (d10)

ABILITIES: 6 d{2,2,1,1,1,0,0,0,-1,-1}
loop P over {1..6} {
 output P @ ABILITIES named "Ability [P]"
}

gives

	+2	+1	+0	-1
Roll 1	73.79%	24.65%	_1.56%	_0.1%
Roll 2	34.46%	54.6%	10.78%	_0.16%
Roll 3	_9.89%	55.74%	32.68%	_1.70%
Roll 4	_1.7%	32.68%	55.74%	_9.84%
Roll 5	_0.16%	10.78%	54.60%	34.46%
Roll 6	_0.01%	_1.56%	24.65%	73.79%
⸻⸻	⸻⸻	⸻⸻	⸻⸻	⸻⸻
Number where most likely	1	2	2	1

So, if you're missing the random, several comparable ways to do it.

 

[John R Davis]

My players hit a milestone and leveled to level 2! A big fight through trees and dryads and a chaos storm that plunged them into the deep ocean. Players turned into sea creatures to survive.

Yeah. You get quite a lot at level 2, it was very nice. And when we hit level 3 some of the spells get very tasty

 

[Aldarc]

I don't think that rolling for attributes is appropriate for this sort of game. It's not D&D. It's much closer to PbtA.

 

[clearstream]

I don't think that rolling for attributes is appropriate for this sort of game. It's not D&D. It's much closer to PbtA.

So far I'm finding it fits very much in the space of neotrad.

Our GM comes to it from GMing Avatar (PbtA). Two players come to it from D&D and one from MotW. I come to it from my own wide-ranging tastes. We're commencing a coop Ironsworn campaign on the side with some of the same players (both of the D&D players). I mention all that because I feel like we're not drifting it toward trad... we're doing what the game demands. Such actual plays as I've listened to, to see what others may be doing, reinforce this impression.

The GM/player relationship is quite traditional. I noticed that game text like Campaign Frames keeps players in actor and audience mode, without suggesting authorship, even while reminding of Fronts. Or similarly that the things players can do with hope that I've thus far seen are diegetic. Class abilities are more like D&D class features than PbtA moves. The class+ancestry+community structure mirrors 5e mutatis mutandis, with community features carrying out the job that D&D backgrounds do, just with more efficiency/constructive ambiguity (scopes aren't broken out into a separate skills list.) The handling of adversaries of course reminds of 4e.

There's undeniably a great many mechanics inherited from PbtA and its offshoots (and while many are more important, "The Inciting Incident" made me smile). I think we'll continue to see that trend in new releases.

What excites me the most however is to try to identify where there have been innovations through synthesis. Which one would expect to bear fruit as neotrad evolves.

 

[Aldarc]

So far I'm finding it fits very much in the space of neotrad.

That's all well and good, but none of that is relevant to the point that I am making about rolling for attributes.

 

[clearstream]

That's all well and good, but none of that is relevant to the point that I am making about rolling for attributes.

I mean that it could be appropriate to roll for attributes, if one sees it as a synthesis and not purely or even mainly one or other.

EDIT Another way to put it could be -- roll for attributes will draw it more toward traditional D&D so does that equate with group preferences? Noting that the latest version of D&D offers Standard Array as its first option (+2, +2, +1, +1, +0, -1) which is more like Daggerheart (+2, +1, +1, 0, 0, −1).