What do YOU plan on doing with Daggerheart?

[Reynard]

I think for the same reason I've seen games in nearly every genre for 5E: it's what people are comfortable with.

I get that, but DH is a little new for people to decide they must use it for EVERYTHING, isn't it?

 

[SteveC]

I get that, but DH is a little new for people to decide they must use it for EVERYTHING, isn't it?

I think people are just excited for it. It's the current shiny. Will that last? Well, Draw Steel and other games will be out in the not-too-distant future, so let's see. I, foolishly or not, have backed a lot of stuff that will get released this year.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Obviously I'm not saying that, least of all literally, so why claim I am?

You are saying using the rules as written is "fighting the system".

I'm saying that particular approach is mechanically completely unsound and the game is specifically not designed around you randomly deciding the PCs have to be unarmoured at times.

And by claiming I'm "randomly deciding" rather than crafting a scenario that deliberately plays to the event in question you are making it pretty obvious that any claims of not engaging in good faith coming from you are pure projection.

Also you're flatly wrong - if there "wasn't supposed to be a normal fight",

There isn't. It's supposed to be a Sword of Damocles situation where if the PCs mess up badly enough to start a fight they feel glad to have escaped with their lives. A fight where the PCs are not armoured is 100% using the RAW - and it is also 100% not a normal situation. However by having the rules there in the rulebook it is something that the rulebook is explicitly enabling happening.

If it was meant to be a never event there wouldn't be an explicit rule for it. Daggerheart isn't some GURPSeque system which tries to have rules for everything. It isn't even some 3.Xesque system with massive piles of modifiers. It is a pretty lean system. And it is a pretty lean system which made the deliberate choice of having unarmoured characters being extremely vulnerable rather than e.g. starting them with thresholds of 4/10 and +2 to evasion (possibly even with 2 armour points).

So tell me in your own words why do you think Daggerheart made unarmoured characters so vulnerable? I see only three options:

• Because they didn't care.
• Because they thought it would be realistic
• Because it could lead to interesting and dramatic situations

Me, I think the only answer consistent with Daggerheart is the third option.

the NPCs would not have damage thresholds identical to those of NPCs who are explicitly combat NPCs, but in fact they do

It might have escaped your attention but NPCs do not use the same rules in Daggerheart as PCs. If the values were the same then armoured NPCs would have armour points.

- and in some cases they're even higher than the combat NPCs! If they're for "non-combat" situations where everyone is unarmoured,

And now you are creating a complete strawman. They aren't intended exclusively for non-combat situations. And why do you think a petty noble who literally has a rapier on their person in the statblock is unprotected given they made the deliberate choice to walk around carrying the rapier? Or the merchant, prepared for trouble with a club isn't wearing a gambeson?

You can't have it both ways. You're effectively giving NPC's Schrodinger's armour (i.e. they're not wearing any unless the fact is tested, in which case they are), which is dumb and anti-fiction in a fiction-first game.

Nope. You're effectively assuming I do things the daftest way possible. And don't e.g. have all the nobles disarmed in the presence of the paranoid emperor, with his guards still wearing full body armour.

Now, if we're being real, we know they just have those numbers for if a fight breaks out - but it's ridiculous to break the game in this way and attempt to force PCs into using unintended numbers, especially if you do it repeatedly.

Do you really think that there are any unintended numbers in the Daggerheart rulebook?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Again, the point isn't that you can't do these thing in DH. The question is why bother when you can use a system designed for them?

And the simple answer is "because I want to do a range of things as part of a varied campaign where we get to keep the same characters rather than use a system that has one job". With this premise and it feeding into long term character growth doing things in 5e rather than a dedicated system makes perfect sense.

And if 5e makes perfect sense then "Will it do it better in DH than 5e (or PF2e, Shadowdark, Fate, or Draw Steel)" is a meaningful question.

 

[zakael19]

And the simple answer is "because I want to do a range of things as part of a varied campaign where we get to keep the same characters rather than use a system that has one job". With this premise and it feeding into long term character growth doing things in 5e rather than a dedicated system makes perfect sense.

And if 5e makes perfect sense then "Will it do it better in DH than 5e (or PF2e, Shadowdark, Fate, or Draw Steel)" is a meaningful question.

IMO any system with multiple resources opens the aperture to some really good play, FITD being my favorite example. About the only style of horror I think DH simply won’t handle is one where powerlessness/fragility is the core mechanism. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to consider what a “play to find out” high-fantasy mystery might look like though. DH gives you the baseline to handle that, and just needs a Frame mechanic.

Eg: take the Clue and Countdown mechanics from Bump in the Dark would be perfectly suited to DH investigation play with a time limit. A marauding monster, a murderous assassin, a cult’s dark plan. Etc.

 

[Reynard]

And the simple answer is "because I want to do a range of things as part of a varied campaign where we get to keep the same characters rather than use a system that has one job". With this premise and it feeding into long term character growth doing things in 5e rather than a dedicated system makes perfect sense.

And if 5e makes perfect sense then "Will it do it better in DH than 5e (or PF2e, Shadowdark, Fate, or Draw Steel)" is a meaningful question.

Sure. I read the initial post that started this thread as a "list of campaigns I would run with DH." It may be that I misread it.

I am absolutely on board with running genre divergent sessions/adventures as a change of pace -- regardless of the system. I was reacting to the idea of running a whole campaign that seemed to conflict with the basic design ethos of a system. I would have been just as opposed to running solar punk high fantasy campaign with Call of Cthulhu.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

• Because they didn't care.
• Because they thought it would be realistic
• Because it could lead to interesting and dramatic situations

I am very confident it is "because they didn't think it through", because it's completely inconsistent with the unarmoured opponents in a way that the rest of the game isn't - it's not just asymmetrical in the way the game generally is. Guarantee that whenever DH2E comes out, if they still use the Threshold system, either the unarmoured Thresholds of PCs will go up, or the same will come down for unarmoured NPCs (more likely the former).

It's definitely not the middle one, we can hard-exclude that because of the inconsistency.

They aren't intended exclusively for non-combat situations.

I mean, some of them clearly are, I would suggest, and I think it's a bit weird and D&D-ish that those have combat stats at all given their combat performance is truly abysmal.

Do you really think that there are any unintended numbers in the Daggerheart rulebook?

Absolutely! It's a first edition of a game put together in a slightly Frankenstein-ian way and which underwent repeated significant changes in playtesting (for the better). There are tons of weird and unexplained inconsistencies particularly around the stats of the NPCs/enemies! Even when they're explaining how they're building various types of NPC/monster they're being inconsistent in some really weird ways, it's actually been discussed a fair bit on the subreddit and other places, so it's certainly not just me who thinks this.

Or the merchant, prepared for trouble with a club isn't wearing a gambeson?

Yeah I am confident that he is not intended to be wearing a gambeson, nor the courtier, who has the same stats, unless that's normal clothing in the setting. I don't think having a club means he's "prepared for trouble" either - to me that's just part of the slightly weird decision to give all social NPCs weapons (no exceptions, not even the Courtesan or Village Elder, despite the latter being basically a pacifist!). There are simply no unarmed social NPCs, statblock-wise.

Nope. You're effectively assuming I do things the daftest way possible.

I mean, maybe I can be forgiven for thinking that when you appeared earlier to be suggesting you were going to repeatedly force the PCs to not wear armour in combat (because otherwise why does it even matter?) in a game balanced entirely around them wearing armour.

And don't e.g. have all the nobles disarmed in the presence of the paranoid emperor, with his guards still wearing full body armour.

So you'd also lower the relevant NPC Thresholds to the same or lower values than the PCs given you believe they're intended to imply armour? That would make more sense. That's not really a horror scenario to me but I don't see a problem with it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I mean, maybe I can be forgiven for thinking that when you appeared earlier to be suggesting you were going to repeatedly force the PCs to not wear armour in combat (because otherwise why does it even matter?) in a game balanced entirely around them wearing armour.

And this shows that even all this you still haven't understood basic motivations.

In D&D a common tension draining thing from e.g. stealth or social missions is that the characters were designed to kick ass and take names. And the PCs know that if they fail and a fight breaks out they are going to have to carry it out unarmed and, especially unarmoured.

So you'd also lower the relevant NPC Thresholds to the same or lower values than the PCs given you believe they're intended to imply armour? That would make more sense. That's not really a horror scenario to me but I don't see a problem with it.

I shouldn't have got so sidetracked. The relatively important NPCs in the situations often aren't unarmoured. They just aren't expected to fight.

You can't go into the king's presence armed or armoured - unless you are one of the Royal Guard. Who are standing right there with halberds and ornate and very visible armour. The PCs are now sweating buckets at the interview the way they ought to be.

The guests at the wedding or ball left combat gear behind ... and then one of the PCs realises that the orchestra have crossbows and have been practicing The Rains of Castamere. They probably have a few minutes - but if they are visible in alerting people the massacre can be triggered early and charging in is brave but probably suicidal.

The PCs have been captured and want to escape, and there are patrols around.

Assassins while the PCs are asleep and they don't sleep in armour (and the watch failed). The assassins would be slaughtered in a straight up fight - which is all the more reason not to fight fair. This is the only one where a fight is actually intended rather than simply the stakes having got a lot higher and things have gone very wrong.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You can't go into the king's presence armed or armoured - unless you are one of the Royal Guard. Who are standing right there with halberds and ornate and very visible armour. The PCs are now sweating buckets at the interview the way they ought to be.

The guests at the wedding or ball left combat gear behind ... and then one of the PCs realises that the orchestra have crossbows and have been practicing The Rains of Castamere. They probably have a few minutes - but if they are visible in alerting people the massacre can be triggered early and charging in is brave but probably suicidal.

The PCs have been captured and want to escape, and there are patrols around.

Assassins while the PCs are asleep and they don't sleep in armour (and the watch failed). The assassins would be slaughtered in a straight up fight - which is all the more reason not to fight fair. This is the only one where a fight is actually intended rather than simply the stakes having got a lot higher and things have gone very wrong.

Okay, but none of these are horror situations (which is the cause of this discussion), nor are they regular situations, so to me those aren't what we were discussing, but I guess we were talking past each other? Additionally, I think many/most groups wouldn't even bring all the PCs into them, especially not in DH, which works extremely well with split parties unlike most TTRPGs. Especially given two-way radio stones are a common treasure in DH and only likely to be confiscated or even searched for in the first scenario.

The first scenario would also honestly would be dangerous even with the PCs in full gear. Like, I dunno about you, but I've run that situation a few times in RPGs over the decades, and in some of them the PCs have been disarmed, some armed, absolutely none "disarmoured", but players/PCs have sweated even in full armour and with their weapons, because like, why wouldn't you? It's going to be very messy at best.

This is the only one where a fight is actually intended rather than simply the stakes having got a lot higher and things have gone very wrong.

Seems like a fight is inevitable with Rains of Castamere as well unless it's just a case of alerting the right single person who will then send guards in and surround the orchestra who then surrender, but like, given they'd be executed for being involved in that in most fantasy societies, why would they surrender? I guess the fight might not involve the PCs is the thing.

I can't help but note all of this list trends away from "heroic fantasy" towards "gritty realistic fantasy". It's all very Game of Thrones. I guess that fits with the Five Banners campaign frame at least.

Assassins while the PCs are asleep and they don't sleep in armour (and the watch failed). The assassins would be slaughtered in a straight up fight - which is all the more reason not to fight fair.

I'd be interested to see how this played out mechanically because it seems like a couple of bad Duality rolls from PCs could lead directly to a TPK unless the DM point-blank refused to spend Fear, given that literally every hit on the PCs would be 3 HP and most PCs only have 5-6 HP at lower levels and you'd presumably be using the Ambushed event (giving 2 Fear for free and auto-spotlighting one of the DM's guys). If you spent much Fear you could probably just wipe the PCs essentially unopposed with say, 4 skulks of the same tier as the PCs, with all PCs unarmoured and initially unarmed. I guess the flipside is PCs in DH don't die unless they want to, so the "assassins", if successful, would have to either capture the PCs (rather undermining the being assassins thing) or just wander off after the TPK leaving everyone for dead, even though no-one actually was! So I guess no harm no foul lol?

This is an interesting discussion for me because it does highlight both good points and limitations of DH1E (which I do not expect to be the "final" DH).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Okay, but none of these are horror situations (which is the cause of this discussion), nor are they regular situations

If you think that The Red Wedding isn't a horror situation then we have a strong difference of what horror situations are. If you just mean "Buffy horror" rather than grittier horror then Daggerheart does that just fine. Honestly the main difference is grit - and that's what I'm adding.

Seems like a fight is inevitable with Rains of Castamere as well unless it's just a case of alerting the right single person who will then send guards in and surround the orchestra who then surrender, but like, given they'd be executed for being involved in that in most fantasy societies, why would they surrender? I guess the fight might not involve the PCs is the thing.

It depends how it's handled. The PCs trying to find ways to have bathroom breaks and get their equipment before mugging the orchestra might be one option. The PCs deciding it's a lost cause and trying to escape might be another

I'd be interested to see how this played out mechanically because it seems like a couple of bad Duality rolls from PCs could lead directly to a TPK unless the DM point-blank refused to spend Fear, given that literally every hit on the PCs would be 3 HP and most PCs only have 5-6 HP at lower levels

5-7 and yes it's an ultra hard fight if it would even vaguely resemble a fair fight with armour (to play this sort of scenario at tier 1 it would probably be an inkeeper and his wife). I think I'd use one tier down for the NPCs for this or heavily outnumbered.