D&D General Hope and Fear In D&D

[MostlyHarmless42]

Look. I'll say it. I just want 3 things from my tabletop game:
1) The death of initiative or players who actually pay f%%%ing attention to the game and not just exclusively when it is their turn.
2) Players who actually understand how to play their f%%%ing characters.
3) Players who actually will play in person and not over the hellscape that is online games.

Daggerheart thus far seems to be helping me address the first two issues while D&D seems to be consistently failing at both spectacularly.

Now if only I could solve the 3rd issue.

 

[Nightfly]

I've thought of this myself, and I wonder how well it would work to replace the d20 with two d10s. Obviously that changes the flat slope to a bell curve, but that's not necessarily bad. It might be rough when fighting a monster with unusually high AC. We'd also need to figure out how to do crits in that system, but that could be done.

If that's a viable idea we could literally just put the hope/fear mechanic in 5e almost as is.

 

[Reynard]

I've thought of this myself, and I wonder how well it would work to replace the d20 with two d10s. Obviously that changes the flat slope to a bell curve, but that's not necessarily bad. It might be rough when fighting a monster with unusually high AC. We'd also need to figure out how to do crits in that system, but that could be done.

A crit could be doubles as long as that still hits. That should be roughly the same probability.

If that's a viable idea we could literally just put the hope/fear mechanic in 5e almost as is.

It isn't that easy. Hope powers a lot of abilities in DH. What are the 5E characters going to do with those Hope points? Less importantly but still relevant, some monster abilities are powered by Fear. I would not use the metacurrency aspect in order to avoid having to redesign the core assumptions. Why do that when you could just play DH?

 

[Parmandur]

A crit could be doubles as long as that still hits. That should be roughly the same probability.

It isn't that easy. Hope powers a lot of abilities in DH. What are the 5E characters going to do with those Hope points? Less importantly but still relevant, some monster abilities are powered by Fear. I would not use the metacurrency aspect in order to avoid having to redesign the core assumptions. Why do that when you could just play DH?

The Cosmere RPG also has Opportunity and Complication results baked into each Adversary state block, to create some unique personality.

Doing the two axis results seems doable for D&D.

 

[mamba]

Hope is when you roll with ad/disad and BOTH results are success
Fear is when you roll with ad/disad and BOTH results are failures

so you only ever get hope on a success and fear on a failure, rather than being able to get it in either case like in DH

 

[Artamo]

I'd lean into what D&D already does, and since ad/disad is frequent in 2024, use that --- but different.

Hope is when you roll with ad/disad and BOTH results are success
Fear is when you roll with ad/disad and BOTH results are failures

This could help generate more variety in success and failure if you don't want to do graduated results per @Benjamin Olson post

Just chiming in to say I really like this approach and may give it a try the next time I’m in the DM chair.

 

[Reynard]

so you only ever get hope on a success and fear on a failure, rather than being able to grt it in either case like in DH

Yeah, this defeats the whole purpose of having the Hope/Fear axis.

 

[mamba]

Yeah, this defeats the whole purpose of having the Hope/Fear axis.

yes, it no longer even is a separate axis, it is an extension of the same axis that only gets used when you roll with advantage.

You then can 1) succeed with hope, 2) succeeed regularly, 3) fail with fear. The last one interestingly makes failure worse than if you failed the same check without advantage, which is kinda an odd outcome for something you have advantage on.

To me it would be better if you then simply gained hope if you passed the check by more than x and fear if you failed it by more than x. Still one axis, but the anomaly is gone

In any case, neither replicate the fear axis, for that you need something that is independent from the test roll, like a second die or your odd/even rule

 

[bedir than]

so you only ever get hope on a success and fear on a failure, rather than being able to get it in either case like in DH

Yeah, this idea is more like a narrative amplifier rather than Daggerheart's style.

I already use degrees of success but those don't have the same heft that Hope & Fear do.

Maybe something using the non-chosen die... I still want to connect Hope & Fear to ad/disad, rather than rolling a third die to hit/succeed a d20 test.
Perhaps;

When rolling ad/disad if the non-chosen die is single digits Fear is generated. If it is a natural 1 two Fear are generated.
When rolling ad/disad if the non-chosen die is double digits Hope is generated.

This would generate slightly more Hope, but that fits D&D's modern heroic ethos. I do like the idea of Fear in D&D being able to insert an enemy turn into the order off cycle.