D&D General Hope and Fear In D&D

[bedir than]

ah, that is different from the original ‘if both die succeed vs if one does’

Yep, I'm thinking it accomplishes both goals of integrating ad/dis with hope & fear

 

[Reynard]

Yep, I'm thinking it accomplishes both goals of integrating ad/dis with hope & fear

I'm still not sure why you want to do that.

 

[bedir than]

I'm still not sure why you want to do that.

Because it feels weird to roll three dice on d20 tests.
The even/odd technique would do similar.
But also I don't think there needs to be narrative riders on EVERY roll. Narration should already occur without the weight of Hope & Fear.

 

[Reynard]

But also I don't think there needs to be narrative riders on EVERY roll. Narration should already occur without the weight of Hope & Fear.

That may be true, but does having advantage or disadvantage make the roll inherently more "narrative friendly?" I don't think so.

Maybe on way to bridge that gap if for players and GMs to start with Hope and Fear resources, and you use them to activate the narrative. That is, after the roll is made and everyone can see whether the dice are even or odd, the players or GM can spend one of their currency to "with Hope" or "with Fear." That way it is limited and intentional. Just a thought.

 

[Nightfly]

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

I love that. With enemies that are unusually hard or easy to hit, there will be a little variance from 5%, but that strikes me as a feature not a bug. Nice work!

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?

Well, if "just play DH" were the final answer, there'd be no point in this discussion at all. Daggerheart is a great game and I strongly recommend people play it, but the idea of putting the hope/fear mechanic into 5e interests me a lot too.

Since "hope" and "fear" aren't hardwired into the 5e rules, you'd need to ad lib it in terms of what hope points do. But I don't view that as a bad thing, at least not with the right group of players. My players like to push it in terms of what their characters can do, and setting a price in hope for whatever slightly outrageous thing they want to do today seems cool. Yes, if you have 8 hope points, you CAN stealth past God!

 

[Reynard]

I love that. With enemies that are unusually hard or easy to hit, there will be a little variance from 5%, but that strikes me as a feature not a bug. Nice work!

Well, if "just play DH" were the final answer, there'd be no point in this discussion at all. Daggerheart is a great game and I strongly recommend people play it, but the idea of putting the hope/fear mechanic into 5e interests me a lot too.

Since "hope" and "fear" aren't hardwired into the 5e rules, you'd need to ad lib it in terms of what hope points do. But I don't view that as a bad thing, at least not with the right group of players. My players like to push it in terms of what their characters can do, and setting a price in hope for whatever slightly outrageous thing they want to do today seems cool. Yes, if you have 8 hope points, you CAN stealth past God!

I love improv too, but I also like a solid structure under which to improv, if that makes sense. I would not be comfortable just ad hoc-ing Hope and Fear mechanics for a while campaign.

 

[Nightfly]

Well then, how could we put concrete Hope effects into 5e fairly easily?

• Probably the most obvious way is inspiration/rerolls.
• Could also be tied to recovery mechanichs like Arcane Recovery.
• Might be tied to short rests -- you have to spend Hope to recover, or maybe to take a short rest at all. Could be a nice way to kill the five-minute adventuring day.
• What if potions of healing were dirt cheap and plentiful, but cost Hope to use?
• If we want to get cuter, what if Bless cost Hope points but not a spell slot? What if Bless were a cantrip but it cost Hope to receive Bless?

 

[Tesral]

I have one metric. Does the additional complication add to the enjoyment of the game? This can vary depending on your group. Frankly it is nothing you can chart. It is something you can see within your gameplay however. Give it a try, if it works for your group, continue. If not, admit the failure and drop it.

 

[Parmandur]

I have one metric. Does the additional complication add to the enjoyment of the game? This can vary depending on your group. Frankly it is nothing you can chart. It is something you can see within your gameplay however. Give it a try, if it works for your group, continue. If not, admit the failure and drop it.

The Cosmere RPG has a very similar Skill system smallscale gameplay loop to 5E, and the Plot Die element is a great addition. It should translate well in theory.