Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[Scott Christian]

To be blunt - not a fan.

It's a way for experienced GMs or players to hold an edge over the inexperienced, or worse, the ones that can't seem to figure it out. There is a reason so many games use random things like dice, drawing cards, etc. That's because they still want the novice to be able to win.

 

[aramis erak]

This is exactly the effect I anticipated when I first saw Daggerheart's initiative system but people were dismissive and said it's not gonna play like that in practice.

For my groups, it didn't play out that way. It's a case where only some are paralyzed by it, but them who are are likely heavily impaired by it.
I think a big part is players realizing the GM isn't the enemy get on with it, while those in GM=Enemy mode dread their turns.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

That isn't inevitable. It does require that players actually be engaged and willing to fail, tho.

I'm willing to fail. I'm just not comfortable pushing in front of everyone to fail on a communal turn unless the thing I'm attempting is very clearly a good move on average or extremely cool. I mostly have fun with Daggerheart, it's just that in the places where it's initiative system doesn't work for me it really spectacularly doesn't work. Not only do I get to have my character kind of suck for the moment, but I get to potentially negotiate uncomfortable social dynamics at the table around my character kind of sucking and my decision to take a turn.

 

[mamba]

Dude. When they marched on Sauron and his armies, Sauron surrendered, because he couldn't beat them

Pretty sure that was not a one on one fight between Aragorn's grandpa and Sauron, that was about numbers

 

[mamba]

You do know that he was attacked by around 100 orcs, was not in particularly defensive terrain, and many of the orcs had bows. He still killed TWENTY of them.

Regular folks can't do that.

Eh, that makes him a good fighter, nothing more. At Helm's Deep and at the battle on the Pellenor some people did the same

 

[Reynard]

I'm willing to fail. I'm just not comfortable pushing in front of everyone to fail on a communal turn unless the thing I'm attempting is very clearly a good move on average or extremely cool. I mostly have fun with Daggerheart, it's just that in the places where it's initiative system doesn't work for me it really spectacularly doesn't work. Not only do I get to have my character kind of suck for the moment, but I get to potentially negotiate uncomfortable social dynamics at the table around my character kind of sucking and my decision to take a turn.

It is really, really hard to "suck" in Daggerheart. I would suggest players to be proactive and not worry about the possibility of failure. Anything you do moves the game forward.