Some understandable confusion in the comments. This is all from my playtest session at PAX unplugged, not the recent closed beta behind NDA. This playtest didn't have an official name (as far I know), so initially I called it pre-beta, but it's not a preview of the open beta coming next week, so just I changed the title from "pre-beta playtest" to "alpha playtest". Turns out those numbered playtests for One D&D are really straightforward! lol
I'm in that closed beta, signed the NDA a couple of days ago and everything. So my immediate thought when I saw this video was "damn, how is he getting around the NDA?" Lol
IDK I just do character concepts first, then I just search for ways to make that concept work mechanically. Like, "I guess if I want to play as a dryad, I should only pick druid spells that affect plants. Or reflavor other spells to make them more plant-y.
I love that they moved the steps of character creation around. It makes it easier to create a character because you don't need a general idea of what you want to do before the start. You can just choose as you go and this is perfect for new players.
Daggerheart looks very interesting. I know my current DM is eying the system, not to use it for traditional fantasy but for a *Darkest Dungeon* setting with the whole fear and hope system they have. They absolutely LOVE that game.
While the suggested descriptive words do have a "Mercerian" touch, they're also right at home in a D. Vincent Baker rules environment. Apocalypse World's method of quickly shaping characters works incredibly well, and it's wonderful to see it has been taken up by new designers outside of the specific PbtA niche. Remember, all you designers: what players really want is all the best techniques for a style of play rolled into a single rules set. Daggerheart might manage to be the first rules set to actually facilitate creating the stories that players and DMs have struggled to make with D&D 5th Edition for over a decade.
NGL, the second you showed the class wheel I thought that it looked cool but wondered where the room for growth was. Then you immediately mentioned it, glad I wasn't alone in my thinking lol.
@@votch2798 so I never played magic and maybe it’s no problem. But would it maybe take something that was supposed to be simple and start making it overly complex? Or does it not pan out that way?
Aside from combining two domains across the circle, I think the minimum requirement for expansion would be 1 domain and 2 classes. it would be like: existing domain - new class - new domain - new class - existing domain So the circle would start to form a sphere
it can grow as any game... more circles... think Last Airbender moving on to Korra... or Rock paper scissors, going into ROCK PAPER SCISSORS LIZARD SPOCK .... there is ALWAYS room for growth :D
I generally choose my class first in d&d as well... Well, I usually have an idea first that is an easthetic and the class and lineage kind of come out of that simultaneously, but whatever.
Waaaat?! Literally yesterday, I've decided to take a break from buying D&D Kickstarter things for a while and now you come in to slap me in the face? Ugh.. Can't wait to see what you have in store, Bob :)
Oh boi oh boi! ~Rubs my lil goblin hands together~ Just spent my day reading through DC20s rules. My brian is wired and ready for digesting rules. Gimme the good stuff Bob! Oof love those domains
I'm also in the private beta. I haven't had the time really to sit down and really build a character, but it's a very interesting system so far. It feels kinda like 5e with less math.
Thank you Bob for sharing more of the character creation process from your PaxU session! It’s also really cool that just like Peril in Pinebrook, which was designed for teaching new players, the “Descriptions” on the Daggerheart Character Sheet come with an array of evocative choices to help players who are new to RPGs decide some broad strokes elements of their PC, without feeling overwhelmed. I think that will help onboard players who struggle with analysis paralysis or don’t always feel creative.
It looks like they made Daggerheart really easy to get into for people who are new to the system. That is, for everyone. That's very important. I predict that in the future they will make character sheets that are not class-specific. But for a first time player, a character sheet that's already mostly filled-in is a great boon. Last week I introduced a group of new players to DnD 5e and filling the character sheets took a long time, probably more than a hour. So anything that facilitates character creation is a huge benefit.
!! Friend, there are class specific character sheets out there! By Emmet Byrne on Dungeon Masters' Guild, for a pay-what-you-want fee. They are form fillable in a pdf format, and have the base class(With open blocks for subclass abilities to be added). Happy Adventuring.
Good to see PC connections are built into Daggerheart, but the concept is one that's been adopted by most new TTRPGs that have come out in the last 5 or so years. I'd be surprised if it wasn't there.
I say this with all the love in the world for your and your content... But it would take a team of the worlds top archeologists to decipher the hieroglyphics that are your handwriting.
I love those connection prompts! That's a perfect example of the adage that restrictions breed creativity. Some players love to go ham and create a super detailed backstory all on their own, but lots of people (myself included) find the "blank canvas" extremely intimidating. I like this approach.
actually for the 8 domains bit, if you look you produce 8 domains shared between the 8 classes, which means you can put 8 more between those 8 domains and use that to create 8 more domains that can link 8 more classes and so on and so forth infinitely like a multidimensional class tunnel idk how this would translate to other languages, but it works with english (alternatively, you could do a plutchik's wheel model and just have varying degrees of intensity for the words, but instead of intensity it can be a different axis like evilness to create evil counterparts of each class, or whatever works for your homebrew setting/campaign)
quick example: ... >self (sage) -- self & rise >rise (chaos) -- rise & fall >fall (midnight) -- fall & dark >dark (grace) -- dark & light >light (splendor) -- light & perserverence >perserverence (valor) -- perserverence & bend >bend (blade) -- bend & break >break (bone) -- break & self >self ... if you imagine the first ring (of 8 classes) as the top layer, and the 8 domains as the second layer, a third layer would be 8 more domains, and the bottom layer would be the 8 new classes you could piece together from this, and you can keep going, creating a gradient tunnel of domains and classes that can even loop back around like a tubular band or you could even have 6 separate flat rings of 8 that all connect around the 8 domains, and at the intersection of their contact points, each intersection produces a domain meaning the rings/classes can be traversed through these shared domains/contact points
second ring example: (if the first ring was for domains that link between the other domain, this would be the classes those domains produce) monk -- self & rise enchanter -- rise & fall illusionist -- fall & dark elemental mage -- dark & light zealot inquisitor -- light & perserverence oathbound fighter -- perserverence & bend berzerker -- bend & break painbearer -- break & self (the class names are just hinting at the kind of utility/specialization the class would have based on the 2 domains it has)
(and the way they would connect is, if they're all offset the way they are, then monk lines up precisely where the sage domain is, meaning monk can share that as a sort of split-domain, as well as the self & rise domains, and likewise the ranger class lines up down to the self domain, meaning it can share that as a split-domain)
I do like games that bake connections between PCs into character creation, though when it's question prompts the entire process can live or die on how well crafted the questions are (But my favourite piece of game writing comes from one of those - Wanderhome's Shepherd playbook offers the question to ask either to the left or the right, "Why should I trust you less than I do?" which has so much delicious nuance baked into the question that I just love. The question itself, no matter the response, creates a cool dynamic between the characters. And I'm speaking as someone who's never played a Shepherd in Wanderhome, and don't think I've played at a table with a Shepherd.)
As you read the prompts/questions, I can’t help but wonder if you have any experience with PbtA games or stuff like Wanderhome or Kids on Bikes? Questions and descriptions like that are not specifically a Mercer thing. They are par for the course in modern indie games with a narrative bend.
I got my hands on the pre-Beta playtest materials though after reading I admit I was less jazzed about it than I was hoping. It didn’t help that Advanced Fantasy Dungeons was released for free around the same time and man is that game so cool.
It seems very "First Timer hoping it will be like CR..." friendly. But in a year or so when you are playing your fourth fighter and having to answer the same three f"+£ing questions with the same stat array, (because you worked out the rather obvious "optimum/meta" on your first character) it has the potential to get stale. But they'll probably have Kickstarted 2E for 20 million dollars by then...
@@andrewtomlinson5237 The backstory questions are excellent actually. The full rules have plenty of guidance that would address your specific complaint. I was disappointed by the way damage works (I had a previous, wrong idea of it) and I think their two Heritage steps are super bland despite their potential.
@@qarsiseerI still think that after a while most RPG groups and players will eventually ignore them as a gimmick in favour of either writing their own standard 12 page bio. or just put a line through and get on with playing, and thats assuming the mechanics of the game system stand up to regular campaign play and they relase enough supplementary content to allow the sort of people who want to play "The Critical Role" game to copy their favourite UA-camrs. This is the thing people forget about "Narrative" roleplaying... its not about a system that accomodatesthat, or box ticking or form filling, its about having a good story in the first place. You can do that in ANY RPG. The best way that happens is if the players roll with what the DM provides them with and feed into it, rather than competing with each other for the spotlight. THIS is the main thing "Critters" get wrong when playing "other games". Once you understand that, it just comes down to the game system and mechanics and whether the game itself plays well over long periods of time..
Class first makes a lot of sense. I’ve made a ton of TTRPG characters over the years. In all of those characters, my first decision is almost always based on a story beat/arc I’d like to see (I want to make a character whose obsession with revenge is beginning to tear them apart and examine how that singular destructive focus can be moved past), an aesthetic (corvid themed character wearing scale armor made of feather damascus), or class. I’ve never in all my years of gaming said, “I’d like to make a dwarf” and had a character spin out of that. Other people’s mileage may vary, but that approach makes perfect sense to me, as even with the first two approaches, class is almost always the first mechanical decision I make.
I think that’s much of what they are going for. Thank you for articulating this so well. How effectively those different styles of mechanics hold together to help the table create fun stories remains to be seen. I’m hopeful though that they will all mesh well together.
Rapier: Presence melee weapon Ah, yes, the Errol Flynn build. ...god, that's an old reference. Actually, that was an old reference long before I was born. Still holds up, though, which is - was he really the last time we had someone doing that sort of fairy-tale chivalric fencing unironically on screen? Dang; I love my dark and terrible wizards, but if they've got no Arthurian knights to cackle and menace at, then - what's even the point?
@@tomkerruish2982 Would you call The Princess Bride unironic? I suppose there's an argument to be made, though it's still _very_ '80s. Danny Kaye... I'm not as sure about that one. (I'm not arguing there aren't people around who could _do_ the role, BTW - it's just they seem to be cast in superhero movies instead. Which isn't necessarily bad; just different.)
@LordJazzly I may easily be missing your meaning. At any rate, in both movies, the sword fights are presented as serious affairs and are well-choreographed. It is in those regards that I consider them to be unironic.
@@tomkerruish2982 Ah, that's fair, and I suppose 'ironic' is a bit of a broad word to use for what is quite a narrow intended meaning. As for what that meaning is - eh; I think Princess Bride is a good stopping point. A lot of people love it, and I'm happy for them to love it, even if I _really_ don't enjoy it at all. But it's come up, and I feel like getting into the weeds here would therefore probably not end up in a good place, so I'd rather not; sorry about that.
I'm looking forward to Daggerheart and the MCDM game. I'm curious why 13th Age is so overlooked as an RPG system. It fixed a bunch of stuff that MCDM has been toying with (though not everything) and has game mechanics specifically designed to encourages players to roleplay and add to the story. It is such a hidden gem. Any fans out there?
Have yet to play it, but the rules from it seem to have informed or are shared by the more modern game systems that eschew specific feet measurement for ranges, provide touchpoint backgrounds instead of skills, and provide room to tie narrative choices to mechanical advantages (icons). Not sure whether those mechanics were originated in 13th Age, but those all seem to be popular design choices among the designers of Shadowdark, Daggerheart, etc.
13th Age suffers from its attempts to be unique. Escalation die? Awesome. Having powers that vary based on rolling even or odd or if its a tuesday or friday? not so much. Also, high-level you roll WAY TOO MANY dice and its a slog. Its a cool system, don't get me wrong, but it took a few wrong turns that became pretty big obstacles to new players. (Icons are another big one that turns a lot of people off to running the system).
@@noraptorshere8206 That's a fair criticism. I house-rule a bunch of stuff for the game. What I LOVE is that they try to make mechanics to get the players to add to the story...Icon relationships, background abilities, One Unique Thing, "Fail Forward". I think too many TTRPGs focus on the "TT," boardgame, "move a piece on a board and roll dice" aspects of the game rather than the "RPG" aspects.
As a potential developer, Daggerheart seems like a really fun engine to play around in, assuming they go with ORC or a similar license. I really want to give this a spin with Sci-Fi.
After thinking about the class wheel challenge, it suddenly occurred to me that the first place I would find fun class ideas would be playing a character with two different abilities from across the circle - say, bone and codex to make a Necromancer, or grace and blade to make a Knight.
Adding new classes is easy if you add domains and loop those as an outer ring. For example, blade branches to valor and bone. Add a third branch for Blade+Rage and the Barbarian class. Leave it as a spur or perhaps add darkness and connect that with valor. So you rage+darkness for the Fury Class and darkness+valor for the Revenant class..
It's nice to see Dagger Heart incorporating some of the things that have been common in indie rpgs for the past 10+ years. (That's not meant to be snarky. I genuinely think this is a good development.)
I'm in the closed beta, just recently got the character building rules. It's important to remember that these are extremely early beta rules and are highly subject to change. Like this video is literally already somewhat inaccurate based on the latest material. But, so far I'm very intrigued by the system. Several in my group, including myself, want to play a few games in it.
Have not looked at this before, but sounds very DungeonWorld/PBTA. The weapon/equipment list looks nice...it's not just "here's a few swords...oh and there's also a few other things that nobody will use because META!" (looking at all you rapier-wielding rogues, don't bother trying to roll to hide😂). Overall though it does sound like a great starter system, kind of like the original D&D basic/box set in the 80s...enough to get started and go for a while, but not get mired in a dozen archetypes, a hundred sub-archetypes, and an encyclopedia of ledgermain that isn't vital to the immediate task.
The domain stuff doesnt really sound appealing. but I really like the "Connection" section which you can implement to any game, but cant really fill those out when you play in a "jump in" style of game, or... Just met. Though filling those boxes out as the group grows together sounds fun.
In an ongoing campaign when a new player joins or an existing player rolls up a new character does the character have to have history with all the PCs? That sounds really limiting. If they don't, why do they have to if multiple characters are being introduced? That also sounds limiting? It makes sense for the start of a campaign to build characters that have prior knowledge of each other to simplify the rational of why they're adventuring together, but that eliminates many role playing options. I prefer to go with the rule that your character has to have some kind of history with at least one other PC and then let the players work out who knows who and how. It usually works out that everybody in the party knows everybody else or knows somebody that knows them and no one is a complete stranger to anybody. To rephrase, everybody in the party is a friend or the friend of a friend.
I always build my dnd characters class, background, race, class proficiencies. your class dictates everything about your game, you have to pick first that so you can know what stats and features you want from your race.
In hardcore AD&D you started by rolling stats, 3d6 in order and chose your class and race based on those stats. This resulted in a lot of players stuck with characters they didn't like. We quickly changed to rolling 4d6 pick best three and order anyway you want. It still resulted in people getting stuck with lousy characters, but far less frequently.
Right, his handwriting is surprisingly almost not eligible 😅 I’d slow down and try a little harder if I knew I’d be making a video with my character sheets later.
I like the materials provided for reference when making characters, but my biggest issue I've seen so far is it looks *very* narrow in terms of character creation. Maybe they'll add supplements to let people create their own thing easier. Who knows. But so far it reads to me like a Pathfinder 2e Lite
Hm... when I introduce d&d to new players and help them build their characters, I always start by asking how they want to play (usually fight style and magic)... meaning I start with Class. ...I guess I've been doing it wrong this whole time? 🙃
About the standard array. You have said that they are focosing on the roleplay aspect, including combat. So i find it plausible that minmaxers wont have a whole lot to work with. Like, there is not lot to minmax with if there are like 3 to 5 diffrent choices you make. Certainly some more or less optimal choices. But i suspepct Dnd will keep their minmaxers, which also is possible because they have so much content.
What I see becoming a problem are these last character questions. Don’t get me wrong, they are cool as hell, but if you make your third warrior, why would he also get betrayed on the battlefield, and why does he also want to visit some legendary place. I know, changing these questions will be easy, but if the need the be changed after only a few times, do we need them at all?
That’s a fair criticism. The prompts may be more for newer players to help codify some personality pillars. Like Ideals, Bonds and Flaws in 5E. But since they hold real-estate on the character sheet, I think they could get stale as you say if all Warriors have the same type of concern/goals.
For a system that stresses character customization to require that all fighters have been left for dead seems a lot stereotypical. I imagine Rogues will have to detail the time they got caught sleeping with a noble's wife and had to jump out of a second story window, naked!
@@fred_derf While it’s true that the prompts might run out of steam between characters, or with multiple instances at the table, I’m sure the guidance would be that you can use whatever you like. My impression from watching Spenser’s interviews is that all of the more narrative elements at character creation are less requirements and more meant to provide structure for those who might need some inspiration.
@@matthewsnow-zj1cu If you want a section of the character sheet with areas to fill in goals, fears, dreams, etc. Even "Why did you decided to become an adventurer?" I have no issue with it. But when the character sheet has a question on such a specific scenario in your past, *"Somebody defeated you in battle years ago and left you to die. Who was it and why did it seem like such a betrayal?"* it isn't there for guidance -- if it is it's doing a really bad job of it. It's a statement of who you character is -- and if you want to play an overconfident fighter who was the best in her village and has never lost a fight (because she's always fought people weaker than her) and is going to have to come to grips with not being the best when she inevitably gets her butt kicked -- well poor you, you can't. If this was just for the playtest, OK, but it was still a stupid question. Better questions would be things like, "what is your biggest failure?" "what is you biggest regret?" etc.
@fred_derf You can just write that scenario down if you want. I doubt that's precluded. As far as what is or isn't a "good guiding question", I submit that has to do with how different people think. Your example of a good guiding question is, to me, an absolutely useless and frustratingly vague question. There's no guidance there. I suspect their intent is by offering the hold-your-hand guidance they make it accessible for people like me whereas someone like you can just ignore or replace that stuff. I haven't seen anything beyond previews though so it's just conjecture.
Love everything about your content and Daggerheart so far. My only gripe is that the classes/races are so similar to DnD it might well feel like a clone. I wished they had done something different, like unique style of magic casters instead of a literal copypaste of the classes. After the great ideas in combat, I think the fact it's so similar is what will make most people not move on from DnD. What a shame.
On the playtest, I was stymied by step 12, "Generate Experience". The instruction text confused me with regard to assigning the +1 and +2 values to narrative words we... invent? Is it something like "blacksmithing +2, dancing +1"? Or is there an actual list somewhere like 5e skills? How would this be useful? There didn't seem to be any guidance with this step so I wasn't sure what it represented. That was the only character creation step I had trouble understanding.
My understanding is that this is open ended similar to the “Background” choice in 13th Age. You select different Experiences that reflect a part of your backstory, and any time a relevant challenge comes up, the player can ask the GM if they can add the bonus from that Experience. Spenser Starke explained this as choosing “Pirate” as an Experience +2 and any time you had to roll to keep your footing on a boat, swing from a rope, navigate the sea, or maybe even fast talk a guard, you could ask the GM if you could add that bonus to your rolls.
Is this based on PBTA? because the initial stats distribution and the playbooks(classes in this case) plus the questions about connections all scream PBTA
I would like to point out, since each class is made up of 2 domains, warrior being Blade and Bone, along with Ranger being Sage and Bone (see the overlap?) Due to this, assuming you can have other domain combinations (Arcana and Bone doesn't exist), then there are a grand total of 36 possible Class Domain Configurations if you're designing a new class for homebrew, that's not even counting homebrew subclasses you could make There's only 8 pairs chosen, which leaves 28 unfilled options.
Generally, I think of Matt's descriptions as more concrete and less poetic. He can get flowery from time to time, be he usually is specific with the sense and foes not tell you how your character feel. "Eyes like the sea" could mean watery, calm, full of debris, or be referring to color or ever moving. The story prompts remind me of the PbtA games, and the lack of space with the character classes is probably intended as it sounds more and more like a pbta game the more it is described. It is a "closed system" so you are not meant to home brew and the options with the base mechanics make it hard to fit something in there that does not cover ground by another class. It is the type of design you would want for a game that relies on cards and peices to play as they want you to buy the expansion box.
You can add another level around the "core" classes and in this wider circle with new domains that are wider and maybe combine the core domains. or something
Tbh I don’t know if I ever do Ancestry or Class first when creating characters. I think I come up with them about the same time, changing either one as I develop the character.
As a zoologist, I’m still looking for a system that just goes with the elegant “Nature & Nurture” we know and love instead of race/ancestry/other & background/culture/other
If you're talking about terminology, I see your point, however "Nature" is already an established term in e.g. D&D, so it might confuse some people to start using it differently. "Nurture" also sounds a bit like a skill or spell or something a player can DO in this context (as does "Culture," potentially, but we're more used to defaulting to that as a noun rather than a verb in everyday English). Of course & as always - there's nothing stopping anyone from using these terms at their own tables, if it makes sense to everyone playing! Or any other words. I'm a dog trainer which means I have my own biases for which conceptual hooks I hang these sorts of hats on, and how I view their interplay (in fiction/fantasy realms). If I were to ever design a game system that would probably influence my choices!
@@buld0z0r50 Nature and Nurture is a way to describe the different factors that influence an organism’s (often a human) development and behavior - consider a male lion - big muscles, a mane, competes with other males for a pride - these are features that will develop in “on their own” - genetics are the major contributor to its nature - Nurture refers to external factors - you could starve the lion or give it anabolic steroids to affect its muscles - you could raise it with other creatures to make it more comfortable around them - you could train it to be more submissive - these are all nurture - this is a common short hand that appeals to me more than using “race” and “culture” in RPGs
💥 Czepeku: www.patreon.com/czepeku
"for as long as I find it fun" lol that's perfect.
Some understandable confusion in the comments. This is all from my playtest session at PAX unplugged, not the recent closed beta behind NDA. This playtest didn't have an official name (as far I know), so initially I called it pre-beta, but it's not a preview of the open beta coming next week, so just I changed the title from "pre-beta playtest" to "alpha playtest". Turns out those numbered playtests for One D&D are really straightforward! lol
I'm in that closed beta, signed the NDA a couple of days ago and everything. So my immediate thought when I saw this video was "damn, how is he getting around the NDA?" Lol
Let's be real. We all already choose class first, then decide race and background later for D&D (or that's just my group at least)
My group loves picking ancestry first
Depends on the idea you have
I prefer making a character first and then give them a class that fits their style and personality 😊 guess everyone is different.
IDK I just do character concepts first, then I just search for ways to make that concept work mechanically.
Like, "I guess if I want to play as a dryad, I should only pick druid spells that affect plants. Or reflavor other spells to make them more plant-y.
I love that they moved the steps of character creation around. It makes it easier to create a character because you don't need a general idea of what you want to do before the start. You can just choose as you go and this is perfect for new players.
I tend to always start with the class, sometimes based on die rolls. The rest like race and background just fills in the gaps.
Daggerheart looks very interesting. I know my current DM is eying the system, not to use it for traditional fantasy but for a *Darkest Dungeon* setting with the whole fear and hope system they have. They absolutely LOVE that game.
I love all Bob World Builder videos!
PRAISE THE MACHINE SPIRITS AND THE OMNISSAH!
While the suggested descriptive words do have a "Mercerian" touch, they're also right at home in a D. Vincent Baker rules environment. Apocalypse World's method of quickly shaping characters works incredibly well, and it's wonderful to see it has been taken up by new designers outside of the specific PbtA niche. Remember, all you designers: what players really want is all the best techniques for a style of play rolled into a single rules set. Daggerheart might manage to be the first rules set to actually facilitate creating the stories that players and DMs have struggled to make with D&D 5th Edition for over a decade.
NGL, the second you showed the class wheel I thought that it looked cool but wondered where the room for growth was. Then you immediately mentioned it, glad I wasn't alone in my thinking lol.
you do the same thing magic the gathering did - make more circles. You can easily pair up domains differently to allow more classes.
@@votch2798 so I never played magic and maybe it’s no problem. But would it maybe take something that was supposed to be simple and start making it overly complex? Or does it not pan out that way?
I don't see why that seems hard. You just make another circle. It doesn't need to make it more complex.
Aside from combining two domains across the circle, I think the minimum requirement for expansion would be 1 domain and 2 classes. it would be like:
existing domain - new class - new domain - new class - existing domain
So the circle would start to form a sphere
it can grow as any game... more circles... think Last Airbender moving on to Korra... or Rock paper scissors, going into ROCK PAPER SCISSORS LIZARD SPOCK .... there is ALWAYS room for growth :D
I like the series of linked choices better than a total free-for-all. Some structure can make things consistent and grounded in the setting/theme.
Thanks for the video, eager to see how Daggerheart develops as it goes. Also can't wait to hear about your Kickstarter!
I generally choose my class first in d&d as well...
Well, I usually have an idea first that is an easthetic and the class and lineage kind of come out of that simultaneously, but whatever.
Waaaat?!
Literally yesterday, I've decided to take a break from buying D&D Kickstarter things for a while and now you come in to slap me in the face?
Ugh.. Can't wait to see what you have in store, Bob :)
Oh boi oh boi! ~Rubs my lil goblin hands together~
Just spent my day reading through DC20s rules.
My brian is wired and ready for digesting rules.
Gimme the good stuff Bob!
Oof love those domains
I was able to get into the private beta. I tried to recreate a few of my favourite PC's.
Im definitely a fan of a lot of the games direction
Side note. Bob, I think you were a pharmacist in another life. That handwriting is kinda rough 😂
I'm also in the private beta. I haven't had the time really to sit down and really build a character, but it's a very interesting system so far. It feels kinda like 5e with less math.
Thank you Bob for sharing more of the character creation process from your PaxU session!
It’s also really cool that just like Peril in Pinebrook, which was designed for teaching new players, the “Descriptions” on the Daggerheart Character Sheet come with an array of evocative choices to help players who are new to RPGs decide some broad strokes elements of their PC, without feeling overwhelmed. I think that will help onboard players who struggle with analysis paralysis or don’t always feel creative.
It looks like they made Daggerheart really easy to get into for people who are new to the system. That is, for everyone. That's very important. I predict that in the future they will make character sheets that are not class-specific. But for a first time player, a character sheet that's already mostly filled-in is a great boon. Last week I introduced a group of new players to DnD 5e and filling the character sheets took a long time, probably more than a hour. So anything that facilitates character creation is a huge benefit.
!! Friend, there are class specific character sheets out there! By Emmet Byrne on Dungeon Masters' Guild, for a pay-what-you-want fee. They are form fillable in a pdf format, and have the base class(With open blocks for subclass abilities to be added). Happy Adventuring.
Awesome. Thank you for posting this. I'm really looking forward to Daggerheart and seeing more of your videos about it.
I love your daggerheart coverage, keep it up, and I’m also curious about your kickstarter. 🗡️❤️
I play d&d with kids a lot and they always focus on class first. So maybe that’s a good choice to start there!
Good to see PC connections are built into Daggerheart, but the concept is one that's been adopted by most new TTRPGs that have come out in the last 5 or so years. I'd be surprised if it wasn't there.
I like what I'm seeing and I hope it works out for them. I'm just glad it's not another clone.
Love the, “For as long as I find it fun!”
I say this with all the love in the world for your and your content...
But it would take a team of the worlds top archeologists to decipher the hieroglyphics that are your handwriting.
Am I crazy? I found his handwriting very easy to read
Awesome job! Good luck on the Kickstarter, Bob!
Me writing my own rpg and looking at the rules for others to see what mechanics I can steal: hey that class customization looks fun
I love those connection prompts! That's a perfect example of the adage that restrictions breed creativity. Some players love to go ham and create a super detailed backstory all on their own, but lots of people (myself included) find the "blank canvas" extremely intimidating. I like this approach.
actually for the 8 domains bit, if you look you produce 8 domains shared between the 8 classes, which means you can put 8 more between those 8 domains and use that to create 8 more domains that can link 8 more classes and so on and so forth infinitely like a multidimensional class tunnel
idk how this would translate to other languages, but it works with english
(alternatively, you could do a plutchik's wheel model and just have varying degrees of intensity for the words, but instead of intensity it can be a different axis like evilness to create evil counterparts of each class, or whatever works for your homebrew setting/campaign)
quick example:
...
>self
(sage) -- self & rise
>rise
(chaos) -- rise & fall
>fall
(midnight) -- fall & dark
>dark
(grace) -- dark & light
>light
(splendor) -- light & perserverence
>perserverence
(valor) -- perserverence & bend
>bend
(blade) -- bend & break
>break
(bone) -- break & self
>self
...
if you imagine the first ring (of 8 classes) as the top layer, and the 8 domains as the second layer, a third layer would be 8 more domains, and the bottom layer would be the 8 new classes you could piece together from this, and you can keep going, creating a gradient tunnel of domains and classes that can even loop back around like a tubular band
or you could even have 6 separate flat rings of 8 that all connect around the 8 domains, and at the intersection of their contact points, each intersection produces a domain meaning the rings/classes can be traversed through these shared domains/contact points
second ring example:
(if the first ring was for domains that link between the other domain, this would be the classes those domains produce)
monk -- self & rise
enchanter -- rise & fall
illusionist -- fall & dark
elemental mage -- dark & light
zealot inquisitor -- light & perserverence
oathbound fighter -- perserverence & bend
berzerker -- bend & break
painbearer -- break & self
(the class names are just hinting at the kind of utility/specialization the class would have based on the 2 domains it has)
(and the way they would connect is, if they're all offset the way they are, then monk lines up precisely where the sage domain is, meaning monk can share that as a sort of split-domain, as well as the self & rise domains, and likewise the ranger class lines up down to the self domain, meaning it can share that as a split-domain)
I'm actually hoping to convince my D&D group to do a Daggerheart One-Shot, just to see what they think.
I do like games that bake connections between PCs into character creation, though when it's question prompts the entire process can live or die on how well crafted the questions are (But my favourite piece of game writing comes from one of those - Wanderhome's Shepherd playbook offers the question to ask either to the left or the right, "Why should I trust you less than I do?" which has so much delicious nuance baked into the question that I just love. The question itself, no matter the response, creates a cool dynamic between the characters. And I'm speaking as someone who's never played a Shepherd in Wanderhome, and don't think I've played at a table with a Shepherd.)
As you read the prompts/questions, I can’t help but wonder if you have any experience with PbtA games or stuff like Wanderhome or Kids on Bikes?
Questions and descriptions like that are not specifically a Mercer thing. They are par for the course in modern indie games with a narrative bend.
I had a little trouble getting started but liked it overall. Hope I can play a version of it with folks at GenCon this summer
Love your videos, dude, and super interesting to see the development and stuff from a new TTRPG!
I got my hands on the pre-Beta playtest materials though after reading I admit I was less jazzed about it than I was hoping. It didn’t help that Advanced Fantasy Dungeons was released for free around the same time and man is that game so cool.
It seems very "First Timer hoping it will be like CR..." friendly. But in a year or so when you are playing your fourth fighter and having to answer the same three f"+£ing questions with the same stat array, (because you worked out the rather obvious "optimum/meta" on your first character) it has the potential to get stale.
But they'll probably have Kickstarted 2E for 20 million dollars by then...
@@andrewtomlinson5237 The backstory questions are excellent actually. The full rules have plenty of guidance that would address your specific complaint. I was disappointed by the way damage works (I had a previous, wrong idea of it) and I think their two Heritage steps are super bland despite their potential.
@@qarsiseerI still think that after a while most RPG groups and players will eventually ignore them as a gimmick in favour of either writing their own standard 12 page bio. or just put a line through and get on with playing, and thats assuming the mechanics of the game system stand up to regular campaign play and they relase enough supplementary content to allow the sort of people who want to play "The Critical Role" game to copy their favourite UA-camrs.
This is the thing people forget about "Narrative" roleplaying... its not about a system that accomodatesthat, or box ticking or form filling, its about having a good story in the first place. You can do that in ANY RPG.
The best way that happens is if the players roll with what the DM provides them with and feed into it, rather than competing with each other for the spotlight. THIS is the main thing "Critters" get wrong when playing "other games".
Once you understand that, it just comes down to the game system and mechanics and whether the game itself plays well over long periods of time..
I mean, let's not forget this is super early, very beta, pre official playtest material. You can't expect it to be fully refined.
@@brewdaly1873 Then tell people to stop raving about it as well.
Class first makes a lot of sense. I’ve made a ton of TTRPG characters over the years. In all of those characters, my first decision is almost always based on a story beat/arc I’d like to see (I want to make a character whose obsession with revenge is beginning to tear them apart and examine how that singular destructive focus can be moved past), an aesthetic (corvid themed character wearing scale armor made of feather damascus), or class. I’ve never in all my years of gaming said, “I’d like to make a dwarf” and had a character spin out of that. Other people’s mileage may vary, but that approach makes perfect sense to me, as even with the first two approaches, class is almost always the first mechanical decision I make.
Thank you for the content! I've been going crazy(er) waiting for this game
Thanks for sharing these. This is such a cool series!
feeling like a mix between D&D (combat), Magic the Gathering (feat-like card mechanics)and Powered by the Apocalypse games (prompts)
I think that’s much of what they are going for. Thank you for articulating this so well.
How effectively those different styles of mechanics hold together to help the table create fun stories remains to be seen. I’m hopeful though that they will all mesh well together.
Thanks for covering Daggerheart Bob. I know the algorithm doesn't like it, so I definitely appreciate your service.
Rapier: Presence melee weapon
Ah, yes, the Errol Flynn build.
...god, that's an old reference. Actually, that was an old reference long before I was born. Still holds up, though, which is - was he really the last time we had someone doing that sort of fairy-tale chivalric fencing unironically on screen? Dang; I love my dark and terrible wizards, but if they've got no Arthurian knights to cackle and menace at, then - what's even the point?
The Princess Bride. Also, The Court Jester. There are likely others.
@@tomkerruish2982 Would you call The Princess Bride unironic? I suppose there's an argument to be made, though it's still _very_ '80s. Danny Kaye... I'm not as sure about that one.
(I'm not arguing there aren't people around who could _do_ the role, BTW - it's just they seem to be cast in superhero movies instead. Which isn't necessarily bad; just different.)
@LordJazzly I may easily be missing your meaning. At any rate, in both movies, the sword fights are presented as serious affairs and are well-choreographed. It is in those regards that I consider them to be unironic.
@@tomkerruish2982 Ah, that's fair, and I suppose 'ironic' is a bit of a broad word to use for what is quite a narrow intended meaning. As for what that meaning is - eh; I think Princess Bride is a good stopping point. A lot of people love it, and I'm happy for them to love it, even if I _really_ don't enjoy it at all. But it's come up, and I feel like getting into the weeds here would therefore probably not end up in a good place, so I'd rather not; sorry about that.
@@LordJazzly No worries. Peace out!
I’m not sure I’m sold on this game yet
I’ll have to wait and see
This reminds me of Pbta/dungeon world a lot. Especially the class based character sheets
I got to enjoy the closed beta rules, and it's so much fun as a creation system (even if I think there's shortcomings)
I'm looking forward to Daggerheart and the MCDM game.
I'm curious why 13th Age is so overlooked as an RPG system.
It fixed a bunch of stuff that MCDM has been toying with (though not everything) and has game mechanics specifically designed to encourages players to roleplay and add to the story.
It is such a hidden gem.
Any fans out there?
Have yet to play it, but the rules from it seem to have informed or are shared by the more modern game systems that eschew specific feet measurement for ranges, provide touchpoint backgrounds instead of skills, and provide room to tie narrative choices to mechanical advantages (icons). Not sure whether those mechanics were originated in 13th Age, but those all seem to be popular design choices among the designers of Shadowdark, Daggerheart, etc.
13th Age suffers from its attempts to be unique. Escalation die? Awesome. Having powers that vary based on rolling even or odd or if its a tuesday or friday? not so much. Also, high-level you roll WAY TOO MANY dice and its a slog. Its a cool system, don't get me wrong, but it took a few wrong turns that became pretty big obstacles to new players. (Icons are another big one that turns a lot of people off to running the system).
@@noraptorshere8206 That's a fair criticism.
I house-rule a bunch of stuff for the game.
What I LOVE is that they try to make mechanics to get the players to add to the story...Icon relationships, background abilities, One Unique Thing, "Fail Forward". I think too many TTRPGs focus on the "TT," boardgame, "move a piece on a board and roll dice" aspects of the game rather than the "RPG" aspects.
Thanks for the video!
As a potential developer, Daggerheart seems like a really fun engine to play around in, assuming they go with ORC or a similar license. I really want to give this a spin with Sci-Fi.
After thinking about the class wheel challenge, it suddenly occurred to me that the first place I would find fun class ideas would be playing a character with two different abilities from across the circle - say, bone and codex to make a Necromancer, or grace and blade to make a Knight.
I love all Bob World Builder videos! Thanks for covering a variety of rpgs.
Adding new classes is easy if you add domains and loop those as an outer ring. For example, blade branches to valor and bone. Add a third branch for Blade+Rage and the Barbarian class. Leave it as a spur or perhaps add darkness and connect that with valor. So you rage+darkness for the Fury Class and darkness+valor for the Revenant class..
Love the World Builder channel. Thanks for this next review of the playtest game you got to participate in.
👍👍👍👍😎😎😎😎
0:39 i thought he said “nen” class. i thought homie was a hxh fan 😭🙏
I always say Bob The World Builder for some reason
So there will be a division between serif, and sans serif parties…
This comment incentivizes me to name my first Seraph character Garamond. I approve.
Very timely!
It's nice to see Dagger Heart incorporating some of the things that have been common in indie rpgs for the past 10+ years. (That's not meant to be snarky. I genuinely think this is a good development.)
Bob, I had no idea you were a GP doctor. That's absolute peak medical handwriting
I don’t know why but I like that it has two of every letter except D, H, and T. DaggerHearT
I may be 3 days late, but I love ALL Bob World Builder videos - thank you for all your great content good sir 😁✨😎🙌
Bob is doing a kickstarter? I'm eager to see what he is trying to do.
I'm in the closed beta, just recently got the character building rules. It's important to remember that these are extremely early beta rules and are highly subject to change. Like this video is literally already somewhat inaccurate based on the latest material.
But, so far I'm very intrigued by the system. Several in my group, including myself, want to play a few games in it.
I'm so excited for the open beta! I'm going to force my gaming group and talk to my LGS to run DHRPG
The character sheets remind me of Dungeon World playbooks.
Have not looked at this before, but sounds very DungeonWorld/PBTA. The weapon/equipment list looks nice...it's not just "here's a few swords...oh and there's also a few other things that nobody will use because META!" (looking at all you rapier-wielding rogues, don't bother trying to roll to hide😂). Overall though it does sound like a great starter system, kind of like the original D&D basic/box set in the 80s...enough to get started and go for a while, but not get mired in a dozen archetypes, a hundred sub-archetypes, and an encyclopedia of ledgermain that isn't vital to the immediate task.
You can see the direct line from powered by the apocalypse which is fine if you have a good enough GM. I haven't had a lot of luck with that system
The domain stuff doesnt really sound appealing.
but I really like the "Connection" section which you can implement to any game, but cant really fill those out when you play in a "jump in" style of game, or... Just met. Though filling those boxes out as the group grows together sounds fun.
In an ongoing campaign when a new player joins or an existing player rolls up a new character does the character have to have history with all the PCs? That sounds really limiting. If they don't, why do they have to if multiple characters are being introduced? That also sounds limiting?
It makes sense for the start of a campaign to build characters that have prior knowledge of each other to simplify the rational of why they're adventuring together, but that eliminates many role playing options. I prefer to go with the rule that your character has to have some kind of history with at least one other PC and then let the players work out who knows who and how. It usually works out that everybody in the party knows everybody else or knows somebody that knows them and no one is a complete stranger to anybody. To rephrase, everybody in the party is a friend or the friend of a friend.
A half-giant rouge who specialises in seeming clumsy to cover her theft? There's a story there..
A.G.
I always build my dnd characters class, background, race, class proficiencies.
your class dictates everything about your game, you have to pick first that so you can know what stats and features you want from your race.
In hardcore AD&D you started by rolling stats, 3d6 in order and chose your class and race based on those stats. This resulted in a lot of players stuck with characters they didn't like. We quickly changed to rolling 4d6 pick best three and order anyway you want. It still resulted in people getting stuck with lousy characters, but far less frequently.
jesus bob your handwriting
Right, his handwriting is surprisingly almost not eligible 😅 I’d slow down and try a little harder if I knew I’d be making a video with my character sheets later.
nice vid mate keep um coming love the content
Still not sold on the whole "Hope" Mechanic. Seems incredibly rigid and limited. But I guess we'll see.
more Cairn please! It's Cairn 2 kickstarter will be out soon!
I like the materials provided for reference when making characters, but my biggest issue I've seen so far is it looks *very* narrow in terms of character creation.
Maybe they'll add supplements to let people create their own thing easier. Who knows. But so far it reads to me like a Pathfinder 2e Lite
Thanks, Bob! (Totally original comment. Has anyone ever said this??)
Love learning about new rpgs!
Hm... when I introduce d&d to new players and help them build their characters, I always start by asking how they want to play (usually fight style and magic)... meaning I start with Class.
...I guess I've been doing it wrong this whole time? 🙃
Whatever works for you and them is the right way.
I just wonder. Why only you give us any daggerheart scoop?
I'm grateful
I love ALL Bob World Builder videos ;)
I love all Bob World Builders videos
About the standard array. You have said that they are focosing on the roleplay aspect, including combat.
So i find it plausible that minmaxers wont have a whole lot to work with. Like, there is not lot to minmax with if there are like 3 to 5 diffrent choices you make. Certainly some more or less optimal choices. But i suspepct Dnd will keep their minmaxers, which also is possible because they have so much content.
Everyone starts with class in their brains so starting with class by design makes sense lol
When i play pathfinder i roll stats then pick class then race and if i remember i'll pick traits at the end, but usually they're so minor i forget.
Traveller has the best character creation and I'll fight anyone who disagrees...except my character died at creation.
What I see becoming a problem are these last character questions. Don’t get me wrong, they are cool as hell, but if you make your third warrior, why would he also get betrayed on the battlefield, and why does he also want to visit some legendary place. I know, changing these questions will be easy, but if the need the be changed after only a few times, do we need them at all?
That’s a fair criticism. The prompts may be more for newer players to help codify some personality pillars. Like Ideals, Bonds and Flaws in 5E.
But since they hold real-estate on the character sheet, I think they could get stale as you say if all Warriors have the same type of concern/goals.
For a system that stresses character customization to require that all fighters have been left for dead seems a lot stereotypical. I imagine Rogues will have to detail the time they got caught sleeping with a noble's wife and had to jump out of a second story window, naked!
@@fred_derf While it’s true that the prompts might run out of steam between characters, or with multiple instances at the table, I’m sure the guidance would be that you can use whatever you like.
My impression from watching Spenser’s interviews is that all of the more narrative elements at character creation are less requirements and more meant to provide structure for those who might need some inspiration.
@@matthewsnow-zj1cu If you want a section of the character sheet with areas to fill in goals, fears, dreams, etc. Even "Why did you decided to become an adventurer?" I have no issue with it.
But when the character sheet has a question on such a specific scenario in your past, *"Somebody defeated you in battle years ago and left you to die. Who was it and why did it seem like such a betrayal?"* it isn't there for guidance -- if it is it's doing a really bad job of it. It's a statement of who you character is -- and if you want to play an overconfident fighter who was the best in her village and has never lost a fight (because she's always fought people weaker than her) and is going to have to come to grips with not being the best when she inevitably gets her butt kicked -- well poor you, you can't.
If this was just for the playtest, OK, but it was still a stupid question. Better questions would be things like, "what is your biggest failure?" "what is you biggest regret?" etc.
@fred_derf You can just write that scenario down if you want. I doubt that's precluded.
As far as what is or isn't a "good guiding question", I submit that has to do with how different people think. Your example of a good guiding question is, to me, an absolutely useless and frustratingly vague question. There's no guidance there. I suspect their intent is by offering the hold-your-hand guidance they make it accessible for people like me whereas someone like you can just ignore or replace that stuff.
I haven't seen anything beyond previews though so it's just conjecture.
Love everything about your content and Daggerheart so far. My only gripe is that the classes/races are so similar to DnD it might well feel like a clone. I wished they had done something different, like unique style of magic casters instead of a literal copypaste of the classes. After the great ideas in combat, I think the fact it's so similar is what will make most people not move on from DnD. What a shame.
On the playtest, I was stymied by step 12, "Generate Experience". The instruction text confused me with regard to assigning the +1 and +2 values to narrative words we... invent? Is it something like "blacksmithing +2, dancing +1"? Or is there an actual list somewhere like 5e skills? How would this be useful? There didn't seem to be any guidance with this step so I wasn't sure what it represented. That was the only character creation step I had trouble understanding.
My understanding is that this is open ended similar to the “Background” choice in 13th Age. You select different Experiences that reflect a part of your backstory, and any time a relevant challenge comes up, the player can ask the GM if they can add the bonus from that Experience. Spenser Starke explained this as choosing “Pirate” as an Experience +2 and any time you had to roll to keep your footing on a boat, swing from a rope, navigate the sea, or maybe even fast talk a guard, you could ask the GM if you could add that bonus to your rolls.
seems like every class will distribute points the same way... but I guess that's s thing for all ttrpgs. right?
Is this based on PBTA? because the initial stats distribution and the playbooks(classes in this case) plus the questions about connections all scream PBTA
CZEPEKUUU~!!!
Just arrived here from my journey through the notifications
I would like to point out, since each class is made up of 2 domains, warrior being Blade and Bone, along with Ranger being Sage and Bone (see the overlap?)
Due to this, assuming you can have other domain combinations (Arcana and Bone doesn't exist), then there are a grand total of 36 possible Class Domain Configurations if you're designing a new class for homebrew, that's not even counting homebrew subclasses you could make
There's only 8 pairs chosen, which leaves 28 unfilled options.
Generally, I think of Matt's descriptions as more concrete and less poetic. He can get flowery from time to time, be he usually is specific with the sense and foes not tell you how your character feel. "Eyes like the sea" could mean watery, calm, full of debris, or be referring to color or ever moving.
The story prompts remind me of the PbtA games, and the lack of space with the character classes is probably intended as it sounds more and more like a pbta game the more it is described. It is a "closed system" so you are not meant to home brew and the options with the base mechanics make it hard to fit something in there that does not cover ground by another class. It is the type of design you would want for a game that relies on cards and peices to play as they want you to buy the expansion box.
This game really looks like it was made for people who need everything written down in a TTRPG
You can add another level around the "core" classes and in this wider circle with new domains that are wider and maybe combine the core domains. or something
Christ you should be a doctor with that writing!
Tbh I don’t know if I ever do Ancestry or Class first when creating characters. I think I come up with them about the same time, changing either one as I develop the character.
As a zoologist, I’m still looking for a system that just goes with the elegant “Nature & Nurture” we know and love instead of race/ancestry/other & background/culture/other
can you explain more about Nature & Nurture, it's the first time I came across it?
Would love to hear more about this “ Nature & Nurture”
You mean like splitting ancestry and culture? Instead of just lumping them together like most RPGs do? Isn’t that what Daggerheart is doing here?
If you're talking about terminology, I see your point, however "Nature" is already an established term in e.g. D&D, so it might confuse some people to start using it differently. "Nurture" also sounds a bit like a skill or spell or something a player can DO in this context (as does "Culture," potentially, but we're more used to defaulting to that as a noun rather than a verb in everyday English).
Of course & as always - there's nothing stopping anyone from using these terms at their own tables, if it makes sense to everyone playing! Or any other words. I'm a dog trainer which means I have my own biases for which conceptual hooks I hang these sorts of hats on, and how I view their interplay (in fiction/fantasy realms). If I were to ever design a game system that would probably influence my choices!
@@buld0z0r50 Nature and Nurture is a way to describe the different factors that influence an organism’s (often a human) development and behavior - consider a male lion - big muscles, a mane, competes with other males for a pride - these are features that will develop in “on their own” - genetics are the major contributor to its nature - Nurture refers to external factors - you could starve the lion or give it anabolic steroids to affect its muscles - you could raise it with other creatures to make it more comfortable around them - you could train it to be more submissive - these are all nurture - this is a common short hand that appeals to me more than using “race” and “culture” in RPGs
I love all Dungeoncraft Videos
domains??? jjk reference?
ryokie tenkai
Im curious what those domains do
@bobworldbuilder what happens if your ranger companion dies?