Daggerheart General Thread [+]

A Solo + some Hordes or similar as minions (something to either threaten from range or get up in faces depending on how you build the solo) + an Environment with ground features worked pretty well to do some serious challenge to my T1 party. I don't imagine that would change much going up.

Since I'm running both DH and DS! right now, it's interesting to contrast them a bit. DH is so generic that it's really easy to reskin it to whatever you want with like a few hours of work to set the scene for players. Combat is relatively short and fluid, but also doesn't really have much "going on" (a bit more interesting then I've usually found 5e, but not as narratively satisfying as say pure PBTA or as cinematic and engaging as DS!). I'm cooling a bit on the hope/fear mechanic, I like how you can wrap it into the design of things but wish the outcomes were as fixed as pretty much everything else I play (just flat known tiers of success based on a dice outcome; no need for secondary calculations or setting of difficulties).

I think I actually like DH more for non-generic heroic fantasy stuff because of how easy it is to finagle the ruleset over to that (eg: my modern urban fantasy game). That + simple rules bundles works really well with the base engine in a way that most other games I'm playing need a lot more work to get to a place that feels good, and in that game at least we're emphasizing things outside of conflict as a major gameplay engine. Whereas for Heroic Fantasy Nonsense I find DS! far more interesting because of how much more enjoyable the combat is as a Thing.
 

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I think I actually like DH more for non-generic heroic fantasy stuff because of how easy it is to finagle the ruleset over to that (eg: my modern urban fantasy game). That + simple rules bundles works really well with the base engine in a way that most other games I'm playing need a lot more work to get to a place that feels good, and in that game at least we're emphasizing things outside of conflict as a major gameplay engine. Whereas for Heroic Fantasy Nonsense I find DS! far more interesting because of how much more enjoyable the combat is as a Thing.
Yeah, I'm on the same page. I think that Daggerheart does 5e better for most tables than 5e but I don't think that's where its strength truly lies. Instead I think that it's an excellent gameplay engine for heroic games in just about any setting.

It's not the tight We Are Doing This of e.g. a good PbtA game or Draw Steel. Instead it's a solid basic larger than life relationships, challenges, and consequences game that will happily work for heroic fantasy, urban fantasy, cyberpunk, steampunk, X-Men and other supers, off brand Star Wars, and more.

And we need more domain decks and classes to get there but I think it's a solid supportive but not too opinionated generic system
 

I'm nine sessions into my DH game and I have very positive thoughts. I think DH works well and it does very much feel like a crossover between 5e and more narrative style games. Early on in this thread there was feedback on Fear being overly abundant but I haven't had any issues with that. I do think that the rough guideline in the book on how much Fear to spend per scene is very very rough and largely it just boils down to "spend a little Fear" or "just spend Fear as you wish".

Main complaint is that I wish there were more adversaries ready for the GM. Of course the book has page count limits so it's understandable that we can't have everything, but more adversaries would help with both enemy inspiration as well as just having more variety mechanically. We could also use more magic item and consumable examples.
 

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