Interested in DIY cards for Daggerheart and D&D? Let me know below and why not sign up to my mailing list for updates and a chance to win free loot every month? www.dandmadeeasy.com/newsletter Interested in my custom D&D Journal? bit.ly/441mars Use code UA-cam10 for 10% off! I recorded this video based on the Playtest v1.2. It’s already been updated to v1.3, and quite a few things have changed. Relevant change from the video: - When a player rolls fear, the GM can now either gain a fear token or take a GM move, they don’t get to do both You can play the Daggerheart playtest for free here: www.daggerheart.com/play Happy adventuring!
-- Love hearing about your working off prompts rather than prep. A great way to evolve the campaign and showcasing a use of the narrative-forward system I haven't seen others mention before! -- You heeding the motivations of even direwolves is a great lesson for running more interesting combat. -- I suppose with hope/fear rolls still gaining the player or GM hope/fear as a resource, that's pretty good justification of not needing to introduce new story elements every time. Potentially, you could detach the story elements from the rolls in favour of just the resources? -- Trackers on once-an-X cards is a cool idea :D Great video, mate, on the points, the experience, and the presentation.
Thank you - it's always great to have feedback! I really did want to run the game based on Daggerheart's tips etc. rather than how I would run a game otherwise, both to give the system a fair review and so I could explore and expand my experience and abilities as a game master. It worked very well, particularly the narrative roleplaying aspect, and I really did love that this gives us the ability to rock up to a session with nothing other than access to the adversary list and loot and consumables tables. I have another one shot next week, and I hope that will go similarly well. Players making their characters together seems particularly helpful in supporting this prep-less approach to running games. On your point 3 - hope and fear and shifting narratives, I think you're right - I just hope that Daggerheart changes the way they talk about the system to imply that it's optional rather than required. Otherwise, I imagine some people that like to follow the rules as written could get very tired very quickly. On trackers - I'm really impressed with the character sheet and cards, but it would be great to see this added. They have already made some improvements to the cards (e.g. specifying when things require an action), so here's to hoping they do! As a creator, it can be easy to just go with the status quo, but that's the death of innovation. I did my best to take a blank slate to the design of my print at home player aids, and ended up adding level indicators to each usage circle (e.g. what level do I get how many 3rd level spell slots?), and refresh markers for each ability (does the ability refresh on a short or long rest?) to make it even easier to understand what's going on.
Ok … here is my view (context - I’m an old far who’s been playing RPGs since 1978 - and im an executive product manger) First / there are a lot of really good mechanics for increasing narrative splay and fast combat resolution. But they’re not new, for the most part; hope and fear are interesting as new dice mechanics, but as narrative mechanics check out Coriolis, and the essentially action free economy is interesting to break the “role for initiative” transition between non-combat and combat pilots. As a mechanic new, by fate, cortex, mutant zero engine, forged in the dark, have the same essentially zero transition. These are great ideas The execution is dire. The base mechanics of their game are board game meets deck building game, with narrative role play / awesome. Then the rules should be a 20 page booklet with core rules and card rules that modify with specific trumps general … LCGs I’m looking at you!! Arkham and Earthbourne Rangers I’m looking at you !! Instead this narrative game comes with 400 pages of rules It the big big problem of this game despite being pre-Alpha is the amount of money spent on art and concept - this creates so much inertia in ANY design that it leads to failure I love Scum and Villainy, but with OC and now DH, Simon is showing he is a very bad game designer It sucks because MM ideas are good here I hope the critters love keep CR from bankruptcy
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, always great to hear from a Grognard! I had another (my second) game of Daggerheart the other day, and I felt very much the same way I did from my first play. The game does some great things (especially interesting characters and narrative roleplay), but there's quite a bit of refinement as a lot of things are on the wrong side of awkward (for me at least). Narrative roleplay can be taken to any system, and I'll try to bring more of it to my 5E games. My second game didn't go quite as smoothly as my first at the beginning as it was harder to get the narrative to emerge, but it was a great session and I feel like I passed the narration over to the players more. I didn't even take the adversary list this time and just set stats etc. as I felt fit the narrative best. If I were to make a game myself, I'd give players as much choice as there is in Daggerheart or more in terms of being able to do interesting things (but it would probably be a classless system because I'm a customization nerd). I really like that you can get weapons tied to every trait. FYI I'm also in product management, but not in the TTRPG space.
Where’s the fresh ideas? Every mechanic in the game at this point is taken from some other existing ttrpg. The novelty is using cards to explain skills and spells instead of writing them on your character sheet, but even this isn’t new. The damage system is a mess, they have just made it more complicated than it needs to be.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I love the way Daggerheart synthesized many existing mechanics into a game that mostly feels smooth and fresh. It's pretty rare that there's ever an original thought! I don't mind the damage system, and that's one of the things that feels fresh to me. Having fewer health pips makes it easier to track things, which is nice. There are some things I don't like about the system, and it feels a bit awkward in places, as I shared in another video: ua-cam.com/video/DTQig9FE0gY/v-deo.htmlsi=6QiBtLonAfw18Tuw
Interested in DIY cards for Daggerheart and D&D? Let me know below and why not sign up to my mailing list for updates and a chance to win free loot every month?
www.dandmadeeasy.com/newsletter
Interested in my custom D&D Journal? bit.ly/441mars Use code UA-cam10 for 10% off!
I recorded this video based on the Playtest v1.2. It’s already been updated to v1.3, and quite a few things have changed. Relevant change from the video:
- When a player rolls fear, the GM can now either gain a fear token or take a GM move, they don’t get to do both
You can play the Daggerheart playtest for free here: www.daggerheart.com/play
Happy adventuring!
-- Love hearing about your working off prompts rather than prep. A great way to evolve the campaign and showcasing a use of the narrative-forward system I haven't seen others mention before!
-- You heeding the motivations of even direwolves is a great lesson for running more interesting combat.
-- I suppose with hope/fear rolls still gaining the player or GM hope/fear as a resource, that's pretty good justification of not needing to introduce new story elements every time. Potentially, you could detach the story elements from the rolls in favour of just the resources?
-- Trackers on once-an-X cards is a cool idea :D
Great video, mate, on the points, the experience, and the presentation.
Thank you - it's always great to have feedback!
I really did want to run the game based on Daggerheart's tips etc. rather than how I would run a game otherwise, both to give the system a fair review and so I could explore and expand my experience and abilities as a game master.
It worked very well, particularly the narrative roleplaying aspect, and I really did love that this gives us the ability to rock up to a session with nothing other than access to the adversary list and loot and consumables tables. I have another one shot next week, and I hope that will go similarly well. Players making their characters together seems particularly helpful in supporting this prep-less approach to running games.
On your point 3 - hope and fear and shifting narratives, I think you're right - I just hope that Daggerheart changes the way they talk about the system to imply that it's optional rather than required. Otherwise, I imagine some people that like to follow the rules as written could get very tired very quickly.
On trackers - I'm really impressed with the character sheet and cards, but it would be great to see this added. They have already made some improvements to the cards (e.g. specifying when things require an action), so here's to hoping they do! As a creator, it can be easy to just go with the status quo, but that's the death of innovation. I did my best to take a blank slate to the design of my print at home player aids, and ended up adding level indicators to each usage circle (e.g. what level do I get how many 3rd level spell slots?), and refresh markers for each ability (does the ability refresh on a short or long rest?) to make it even easier to understand what's going on.
Ok … here is my view (context - I’m an old far who’s been playing RPGs since 1978 - and im an executive product manger)
First / there are a lot of really good mechanics for increasing narrative splay and fast combat resolution. But they’re not new, for the most part; hope and fear are interesting as new dice mechanics, but as narrative mechanics check out Coriolis, and the essentially action free economy is interesting to break the “role for initiative” transition between non-combat and combat pilots.
As a mechanic new, by fate, cortex, mutant zero engine, forged in the dark, have the same essentially zero transition.
These are great ideas
The execution is dire.
The base mechanics of their game are board game meets deck building game, with narrative role play / awesome. Then the rules should be a 20 page booklet with core rules and card rules that modify with specific trumps general … LCGs I’m looking at you!! Arkham and Earthbourne Rangers I’m looking at you !!
Instead this narrative game comes with 400 pages of rules
It the big big problem of this game despite being pre-Alpha is the amount of money spent on art and concept - this creates so much inertia in ANY design that it leads to failure
I love Scum and Villainy, but with OC and now DH, Simon is showing he is a very bad game designer
It sucks because MM ideas are good here
I hope the critters love keep CR from bankruptcy
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, always great to hear from a Grognard!
I had another (my second) game of Daggerheart the other day, and I felt very much the same way I did from my first play. The game does some great things (especially interesting characters and narrative roleplay), but there's quite a bit of refinement as a lot of things are on the wrong side of awkward (for me at least).
Narrative roleplay can be taken to any system, and I'll try to bring more of it to my 5E games. My second game didn't go quite as smoothly as my first at the beginning as it was harder to get the narrative to emerge, but it was a great session and I feel like I passed the narration over to the players more. I didn't even take the adversary list this time and just set stats etc. as I felt fit the narrative best.
If I were to make a game myself, I'd give players as much choice as there is in Daggerheart or more in terms of being able to do interesting things (but it would probably be a classless system because I'm a customization nerd). I really like that you can get weapons tied to every trait.
FYI I'm also in product management, but not in the TTRPG space.
Where’s the fresh ideas? Every mechanic in the game at this point is taken from some other existing ttrpg. The novelty is using cards to explain skills and spells instead of writing them on your character sheet, but even this isn’t new. The damage system is a mess, they have just made it more complicated than it needs to be.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I love the way Daggerheart synthesized many existing mechanics into a game that mostly feels smooth and fresh.
It's pretty rare that there's ever an original thought!
I don't mind the damage system, and that's one of the things that feels fresh to me. Having fewer health pips makes it easier to track things, which is nice.
There are some things I don't like about the system, and it feels a bit awkward in places, as I shared in another video: ua-cam.com/video/DTQig9FE0gY/v-deo.htmlsi=6QiBtLonAfw18Tuw