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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Lewis" data-source="post: 9696292" data-attributes="member: 6667921">Jumping in late on the OSR vibe...Personally, I don’t think it’s useful to try and measure Daggerheart against the “OSR gold standard” of attrition-based, room-by-room exploration. I think most of us agree that DH just isn’t built for that. It doesn’t mean you can’t hack it to approximate that feel, but the system as written clearly leans toward scene-framed play, narrative pacing, and emotional storytelling, not procedural movement and resource counting.But that doesn’t mean you can’t do a satisfying dungeon crawl. You just need to reframe what that means in Daggerheart terms.If you think of a “dungeon” as a pressure-cooker of danger, mystery, and resource tension, then the system already gives you a lot to work with:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Countdowns are built in and can handle everything from wandering monsters to torchlight, awareness, spiritual contamination, etc.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fear tokens can trigger surprises, twists, and environmental hazards (traps, darkness, reinforcements).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Rest limits and Stress mechanics already model a form of attrition—just less granular.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You can even use downtime access as a soft measure of dwindling supply. No Supply? Downtime becomes less useful, more costly, or unavailable. </li> </ul>The beauty is, you don’t need to bolt on tons of systems. Just lean into what’s already there, and design your dungeon to highlight:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">escalating consequences</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">difficult trade-offs</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">limited recovery options</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">moments where Fear and Stress shape the flow of exploration</li> </ul>If you want procedural rigor, yeah, you’ll probably be happier with another system. But if you want emergent tension with a strong narrative spine, Daggerheart can totally do that—as long as you let it be itself. I'm confident that there can be a sweet spot between OSR vibes and Daggerheart’s design.</blockquote>

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