So about Daggerheart

[Xervous]

I haven’t seen a blip of discussion here about the Daggerheart open beta. Observing that it is definitely one of the systems of all time, I am curious what others’ thoughts are on the playtest material.

[Darth Credence]

We will be doing a playtest within the next month. I had a selection of four possibilities, my main players reviewed them, and we have selected the adventure. It's going to be an intrigue plot in the Underdark with minimal combat and hopefully a lot of roleplaying. I am currently writing it and we will schedule playing once I'm done.

We have been using the Daggerheart Nexus tool to create characters. It is a great tool - I would highly recommend it to anyone planning on creating a character.

As I said, we have no experience playing yet, but we do have experience with the character creation. Thus far, I am not a fan of the system, although I don't hate it. It has a long way to go to replace D&D even acknowledging all of D&D's flaws.

I like the classes - I think they've done a good job with them for the most part. The ancestries seem a little too all over the place - half are kind of normal fantasy, and half are cutesy animal species. I am worried about how experiences are going to play out - I think I will either need to be way too involved in them or some players are going to be much better at getting something out of them.

I could get into more detail, but a lot will have to wait until I have played.

[Vogie]

I want to playtest it with my group. However, I'd have to figure out how to print them all out - I just have a crappy B&W printer.

Initial lookover -

• Reading over it makes me want to become an editor. It's the world's longest quickstart guide, play examples, rulebook, and DM tips thrown into a blender.
• The dueling metacurrency generation is a really cool concept that seems to be applied wildly and executed poorly. Hope doesn't seem to have a ton of uses and Fear seems to be unwieldy. I had just gone over the Hollows Playtest before that (a d20 roll-under modern system based loosely on the Bloodbourne video game) which had an incredibly clever Doom & Threat mechanics which fear could have been. Also, it seems to imply that each result should be independently narrated in either direction, which sounds exhausting.
• The cards for the wizard look hilariously broken compared to the rest. I don't mind them having big effects (they are wizards, after all) OR more effects, but instead they had both. If I had to give suggestions, they should redo the book multispells kinda like the Charms or Commands from Magic: the Gathering - 3 decent effects per card that have a unifying theme, with some way to occasionally choose two.
• I like the myriad of free actions. It'd be broken if it were turn-based with the unlimited number of free actions, but since everybody has an arbitrarily number of actions anyway, it doesn't feel that out of sorts. It does feel like some combinations have a bunch of free actions, while other just are bereft, but that might shake out while actually sitting down and using it in practice.
• Speaking of Actions, the economy needs some balancing. If I'm reading it properly, if the party is facing any target with a resistance to a damage type, those who do mainly that damage type should... not take turns. If they succeed, they'll do a pittance; if they fail, they're handing fear to the GM - and either way, they're giving the GM an Action. Having the optimum strategy for those moments be "ask your group if you can get them something from the corner store" seems wildly unfun.

[Xervous]

Shelving my more colorful commentary, my general impression of the playtest is “a thrown together apology letter for 5e D&D with improperly implemented reflections of other storytelling systems’ methods.”

Hope always being handed out is bad. With a static chance for any given roll to generate hope the game is all but telling players to only roll for stuff they are good at. Doing THING is better than not doing THING, and failure with fear is a double whammy that smells like a potential fringe % death spiral. If hope was only given out on failures and crits it would exert a damping force on the trajectory of play. Long strings of lucky rolls would naturally put the players against lots of fear without hope to help them, and runs of bad luck in the party would feed them hope to stabilize. It would also give low skill characters a reason to consider attempting a task, as they’d have a decent gamble at netting a hope.

With the turn passing to the GM on failure or fear, again we see a strong disincentive for trying anything outside your character’s specialty. “Do nothing, give the GM a chip and pass turn order for a coin flip at netting a hope? Aw bummer, failure with fear.” There’s also a fringe % positive feedback loop that can be entered if the GM lacks fear to interrupt, wherein players continuously roll successes with hope to the point that they kill some enemies and hand over so many action tokens. With a big pile of tokens, fewer monsters to activate, and no/negligible fear for interrupts, combat ends with a low ratio of monster actions taken to player tokens spent. On the other side there’s a death spiral wherein multiple failures with fear add up to a chain of uninterrupted monster actions with added nastiness.

The free for all of player action taking in combat is supremely ripe for sowing discord. Play by committee is inevitable, the value of all your possible actions isn’t just getting weighed against one another, it’s weighed against all the other characters.

Which does it want to be? A storytelling system or something a whit more tactical? “Sit down and shut up your character is a waste of actions” does not strike me as appealing for a general mode of play.

[Vahnavoi]

I know barely anything about this game, the only part that's stuck out is the attempt to disown player turns. Which seems to be what leads to Xervous's criticism above. I have no idea where this comes from or why anyone would think that's a particularly good way to do things in a tabletop roleplaying games. I would understand if they were trying to make a reflex-based or competitive game engine, but that doesn't seem to be case?

[BRC]

I know barely anything about this game, the only part that's stuck out is the attempt to disown player turns. Which seems to be what leads to Xervous's criticism above. I have no idea where this comes from or why anyone would think that's a particularly good way to do things in a tabletop roleplaying games. I would understand if they were trying to make a reflex-based or competitive game engine, but that doesn't seem to be case?

That take on action economy works from a specific perspective, and if the CR team are really the ones designing Daggerheart, or if "We want a game system that will be good to play on stream with a large group of players" is one of the primary concerns in the design space, it makes a lot of sense. Combat goes a lot faster, and is much better television, when PC's only go when they're in a position to make a major impact or do something cool, and a PC who isn't in such a position just doesn't take a turn. It's great for giving certain characters extra spotlight in a scene and not bogging things down with the entire group.

If you're viewing the system as a story generation tool, then this sort of action economy works quite well.


I don't know all the details, but I could also see it being fairly harmless in a low-pressure table. Give everybody a turn, and people are chill if their turn doesn't go well even if it would have been better for them to just not do anything.

It also works quite well if you've got a group of people experienced in improv storytelling who have a good instinct for passing focus around, or are okay with sitting back and just watching the show for a while.
(Coincidentally, it also works quite well if you have a bunch of actors who are getting paid to show up and put on a good show, rather than a bunch of people trying to have fun for it's own sake)


If my understanding is correct however, the system is disastrously bad when approached with the same strategic mindset of a D&D game, where PC's are mechanically punished for taking a turn that produces more Fear for the GM. This means the strategic pressure on the group is to have any PC's not suited for the encounter just sit out and give their actions to the ones that are.

[Xervous]

I don’t consider it remotely valuable for generating stories in its current state when compared to other offerings out there. It’s a chaotic resolution method mostly bereft of features that might otherwise encourage the pursuit of tropes, themes and relevant genre conventions. At no point is the game coming along to ask “Do you want to try stopping the villain here? It would be very hard. But if you accept that he gets away because… burning orphanage needs to be saved, you get some meta currency.” Or “here’s a setback related to your backstory. You can either buy your way past it, or accept the scene and its consequences in exchange for getting some meta currency.” It’s mostly just a loose framework for randomness that’s all too frequently held back by trying to look like 5e D&D.

Something like Blades in the Dark is of comparable complexity, but there’s room for anyone to reasonably attempt most things. Furthermore the various playbooks include some powers that work at the narrative level, directly delivering on genre conventions, to say nothing of flashbacks.

[BRC]

I don’t consider it remotely valuable for generating stories in its current state when compared to other offerings out there. It’s a chaotic resolution method mostly bereft of features that might otherwise encourage the pursuit of tropes, themes and relevant genre conventions. At no point is the game coming along to ask “Do you want to try stopping the villain here? It would be very hard. But if you accept that he gets away because… burning orphanage needs to be saved, you get some meta currency.” Or “here’s a setback related to your backstory. You can either buy your way past it, or accept the scene and its consequences in exchange for getting some meta currency.” It’s mostly just a loose framework for randomness that’s all too frequently held back by trying to look like 5e D&D.

Something like Blades in the Dark is of comparable complexity, but there’s room for anyone to reasonably attempt most things. Furthermore the various playbooks include some powers that work at the narrative level, directly delivering on genre conventions, to say nothing of flashbacks.

I can't speak to the game as a whole, just that that's the logic I see behind the action system in particular.

I don't think it's good design, at least not for anything remotely rules heavy/ including any sort of real tactical combat subgame, but I can see why somebody might think it's a good idea.

[icefractal]

I don’t consider it remotely valuable for generating stories in its current state when compared to other offerings out there. It’s a chaotic resolution method mostly bereft of features that might otherwise encourage the pursuit of tropes, themes and relevant genre conventions. At no point is the game coming along to ask “Do you want to try stopping the villain here? It would be very hard. But if you accept that he gets away because… burning orphanage needs to be saved, you get some meta currency.” Or “here’s a setback related to your backstory. You can either buy your way past it, or accept the scene and its consequences in exchange for getting some meta currency.” It’s mostly just a loose framework for randomness that’s all too frequently held back by trying to look like 5e D&D.

It should be noted that in many streaming TTRPG shows, they don't go into author stance in front of the audience, so a system which encouraged or required doing so would be a bad fit. I think it does (although not uniquely, a lot of systems do this) support a style of:

1) The group collaborates between sessions on story direction, future developments, etc.
2) At the table, they primarily stick to character-stance and maintain kayfabe that any plot development is arising organically from in-game events.

[Pauly]

I had a cursory glance through the setting, characters and raced. I came away with the impression that it's basically a JAD (Just Another D&D clone). Which basically is of no interest to me. If I wanted to play something like D&D I'd play D&D.
When I want to play a fantasy RPG that's not D&D I want something that is different to D&D, and has something interesting and unique to say. Some examples of games that would interest me in committing to a campaign include
- Runequest
- Lo5R
- Conan
- WFRP
- Pendragon
- Ars Magica

I'm probably not the core target market, but I'm not interested in a different way to play D$D.

[KorvinStarmast]

I had a cursory glance through the setting, characters and raced. I came away with the impression that it's basically a JAD (Just Another D&D clone).

Or as described some years ago "yet another heartbreaker"

[Anonymouswizard]

I had a cursory glance through the setting, characters and raced. I came away with the impression that it's basically a JAD (Just Another D&D clone). Which basically is of no interest to me. If I wanted to play something like D&D I'd play D&D.

Yeah, it sprung from the OGL fiasco and a desire to make sure they had a way to avoid paying licensing fees I'd they tried to pull a 4e with the next edition's licence.


Honestly I gave up at 'at level five you'll have more cards than you can fit in your loadout'. My issue isn't with cards, both Paranoia and Savage Worlds make great use of cards as a gameplay mechanic (and I hear that Deadlands goes even further than SW), but I had no clue as to what the cards did or even if they mattered and this limitation theoretically won't show up for many sessions.

[Rynjin]

I took a quick flip through the book and it read as a system specifically designed to create good moments to WATCH. From an observer's perspective (specifically the type of observer who literally cheers when a Natural 20 is rolled, and cries in anguish when a 1 comes up, which is a distressing chunk of the people who started RPGs with 5e), the Hope/Fear mechanic is really interesting, and provides an almost math-less approach to the degrees of success and failure mechanics some other systems run with.

However it seemed that in their pursuit of a game designed to create Good Content (TM) the team forgot to make a game that was actually...fun to PLAY, not just watch.

There's a lot of rules light systems on the table (Godbound, Morkborg, etc.) and I would prefer to play just about any of 'em.

[Dhavaer]

I like that there are no stats that everyone wants like Con or Dex in D&D. You have your class's attack or spellcasting stat and otherwise everything is about equally useful, so you aren't obliged to have a minimum in anything else.

[Psyren]

I'm glad this thread got made because I've been wanting to talk about this, but wasn't sure anyone was interested.

Short version: I'm probably going to hold out for MCDM and Valiant as my D&D alternative.

Longer version: I watched a couple of videos on it (e.g. Insight Check) and I have three main problems with it.

1) Ability Checks: - I strongly dislike that nearly every check you call for will need 5 outcomes defined (Critical Success, Success With Hope, Success With Fear, Failure with Hope, Failure with Fear), especially when those results procedurally generate the world, like "you failed with fear when unlocking that door, turns out it was trapped!" And yes, I know the goal is for the players and DM to better collaborate on the story, e.g. "I hope I can pick the lock, but I'm afraid the patrol will catch us while I'm fiddling with it" and now the GM can run with that suggestion depending on how they roll but... maybe I didn't want the patrol to be near them to begin with, but they don't know that. Or maybe I'm planning to have them succeed regardless of their roll, but lower rolls will impose a complication or setback of some kind. I can see DH's system being great if you like a procedurally generated world, but a handcrafted one (even if said crafting is done as much by a module author as by me) is much more my style.

2) Damage Thresholds: - I understand the point behind them, Dagger Heart wants to de-abstract HP and make them much closer to being "meat," and so they use thresholds as a way of showing that certain classes as well as certain protections (like armor) give you higher thresholds and thus more incoming damage before you have to worry about your"meat." I can definitely see what they're going for and functionally it's not that different from just having a bunch of HP to chew through (minus the godawful armor repair thing), but it still feels fiddly and I much prefer the abstraction where I get to decide what HP loss represents in the fiction for a given character.

3) Initiative: - While I disagree with the last two, I can at least see where they were coming from or what they were trying to do. This one just baffles me, largely due to all the death spirals/feedback loops/perverse incentives it creates described by e.g. Xervous and BRC. And yes, I get that it's designed primarily as a system that's more fun to watch than play but here's the thing, lots of systems are more fun to watch than play. I'd probably be able to watch the CR folks or Dimension20 play Fate or GURPS or Shadowrun or WoD and be decently entertained. That doesn't mean I'd ever have a desire to shell out for those systems, nor that I think this approach is in any way superior to regular turn-based initiative (or MCDM's "pass the baton" initiative.)

[Vahnavoi]

If you're viewing the system as a story generation tool, then this sort of action economy works quite well.

See, that doesn't seem to follow from anything. I've played a lot of story generation games, from freeform roleplaying to structured card-based games, and they almost invariably work better with clear turn order. The one positive effect you ascribe to the system - skipping over players who have nothing to contribute - is done exactly as well or better in a turn-based game by the player skipping or passing their turn.

[Actana]

I find lacking a strict turn structure works just fine for me, and while I can't say how well it'd work in Daggerheart (having not yet read the system), it has worked fine in a lot of games like Blades in the Dark, Spire, or other various Apocalypse World derivatives like Masks. In fact, I tend to prefer it these days.

[Errorname]

We're going to see a boom of games that started development during the OGL fiasco, and I think this one has a good chance of sticking around. Not because it looks particularly good or anything, but because if this is even halfway competent it's going to be able to coast on the goodwill from the recorded campaigns and cartoons that are Critical Role's actual product. This thing needs to be able to support making episodes the cast enjoy working on and not provoke major fan backlash, and if it can accomplish those two goals it basically doesn't matter how well it sells or catches on outside of Critical Role.

[Unoriginal]

We're going to see a boom of games that started development during the OGL fiasco, and I think this one has a good chance of sticking around. Not because it looks particularly good or anything, but because if this is even halfway competent it's going to be able to coast on the goodwill from the recorded campaigns and cartoons that are Critical Role's actual product. This thing needs to be able to support making episodes the cast enjoy working on and not provoke major fan backlash, and if it can accomplish those two goals it basically doesn't matter how well it sells or catches on outside of Critical Role.

Game could be the worst TTRPG ever written and there would still be a large percentage of the CR fans willing to give them money for it.

[Kardwill]

Game could be the worst TTRPG ever written and there would still be a large percentage of the CR fans willing to give them money for it.

Like most licensed games, really. "I don't know if the game is good/my style, but I'm a fan of the book/the series/the movie, so I bought it anyway" is something many of us did at some point.

[Anonymouswizard]

Like most licensed games, really. "I don't know if the game is good/my style, but I'm a fan of the book/the series/the movie, so I bought it anyway" is something many of us did at some point.

I was really disappointed by the Doctor Who RPG, I wanted essentially a sourcebook for the Whoniverse.

[Easy e]

Honestly, to me it feels a bit .... like it doesn't have a clear game design philosophy. Instead, it feels a bit Kitchen sink and trying to take a bit from a lot of modern game systems/designs while also appealing to what people like about D&D. Doing none of it that well.

The final analysis is that this is just another Fantasy Heartbreaker.

[KorvinStarmast]

Instead, it feels a bit Kitchen sink and trying to take a bit from a lot of modern game systems/designs while also appealing to what people like about D&D. Doing none of it that well.

The final analysis is that this is just another Fantasy Heartbreaker.

Great minds think alike.

While I tip my cap to Matt and the crew for how they are monetizing CR's success, I have not cared for his homebrew so I'll give this a pass as well.

Game could be the worst TTRPG ever written and there would still be a large percentage of the CR fans willing to give them money for it.

It's what got me to buy Iron Crown Enterprise's / Rolemaster Middle Earth stuff back in the day.

[Psyren]

We're going to see a boom of games that started development during the OGL fiasco, and I think this one has a good chance of sticking around. Not because it looks particularly good or anything, but because if this is even halfway competent it's going to be able to coast on the goodwill from the recorded campaigns and cartoons that are Critical Role's actual product. This thing needs to be able to support making episodes the cast enjoy working on and not provoke major fan backlash, and if it can accomplish those two goals it basically doesn't matter how well it sells or catches on outside of Critical Role.

I dunno about "boom" - depending on whether you count Candela Obscura I'd say there are about 4 with halfway decent brand recognition, and they're as likely to steal market share from each other as they are from WotC.

Like most licensed games, really. "I don't know if the game is good/my style, but I'm a fan of the book/the series/the movie, so I bought it anyway" is something many of us did at some point.

I was really disappointed by the Doctor Who RPG, I wanted essentially a sourcebook for the Whoniverse.

That reminds me, I've heard good things about the Alien/Aliens Horror TTRPG.

(How the heck would a Doctor Who TTRPG work? Are the players all companions who die horribly go on fun and totally safe adventures?)

[Kardwill]

(How the heck would a Doctor Who TTRPG work? Are the players all companions who die horribly go on fun and totally safe adventures?)

That's one of the problems. The game offers some ways to dodge the issue (normal humans fumble into an abandoned TARDIS and get lost in time and space ; the Doctor disappears and the campaign will be about finding him ; UNIT/TORCHWOOD agents doing their job...) but the main playmode is that one of the players will play a completely overpowered Doctor, and the way the game tries to balance the situation (giving the Companions more hero-points so that they can get out of hairy situations and take the narrative focus) is simply not enough to compensate the way the Doctor player tends to dominate the game.

It has some nice stuff (I like the "talkers-doers-runners-fighters" initiative, the fate-like heropoint system or the fact that the lethality of combat -A Dalek will one-shot-you're-dead ANYBODY- really encourages diplomatic or creative non-fighty solutions), but on other points I find it kinda clunky and old-fashioned (I was really disappointed to find a "GM should just fudge" paragraph, instead of actual advice/rules on how to setup and run skilltests so you don't have to fudge to get out of an unwanted result)

[Rynjin]

Yeah, I did a quick glance at it when I was buying the stuff for Wrath and Glory (good game BTW, do recommend for anyone who's even vaguely into 40k) and it seemed very unappealing. Never been a big fan of when one character is the de facto main guy, even when it arises naturally.

[Anonymouswizard]

That's It has some nice stuff (I like the "talkers-doers-runners-fighters" initiative, the fate-like heropoint system or the fact that the lethality of combat -A Dalek will one-shot-you're-dead ANYBODY- really encourages diplomatic or creative non-fighty solutions), but on other points I find it kinda clunky and old-fashioned (I was really disappointed to find a "GM should just fudge" paragraph, instead of actual advice/rules on how to setup and run skilltests so you don't have to fudge to get out of an unwanted result)

Honestly the only reason I'd use the system is because I might want to run Rocket Age and anything's better than 5e.

Yeah, I did a quick glance at it when I was buying the stuff for Wrath and Glory (good game BTW, do recommend for anyone who's even vaguely into 40k)

Nah, skip it and pick up Imperium Maleficerum/Dark Heresy 3e: Not Just Inquisition instead

[Slipjig]

If any given combat is brief, I think the "stand back, I've got this" mechanic is fine. But I also think it might make sense to include options for players with the wrong damage type to contribute. If a character can debuff the enemy (Grapple, Shove Prone, or manipulate the environment), that's still helpful even if it's not dealing damage.

Though, not having read the rules, I'm curious: is the "can't contribute" issue because of the structure of the game, or is it because characters are built around a single gimmick that isn't relevant in this case? e.g. Is this a thing where all Fighters don't get to play, or a situation where Sword-o the Sword Guy can't contribute because doesn't do anything but Slashing damage in melee?

[Xervous]

If any given combat is brief, I think the "stand back, I've got this" mechanic is fine. But I also think it might make sense to include options for players with the wrong damage type to contribute. If a character can debuff the enemy (Grapple, Shove Prone, or manipulate the environment), that's still helpful even if it's not dealing damage.

Though, not having read the rules, I'm curious: is the "can't contribute" issue because of the structure of the game, or is it because characters are built around a single gimmick that isn't relevant in this case? e.g. Is this a thing where all Fighters don't get to play, or a situation where Sword-o the Sword Guy can't contribute because doesn't do anything but Slashing damage in melee?

In my reading the concern isn’t so much that certain characters are unable to contribute, it’s that they’re suboptimal choices for ‘who takes an action?’

The pool of options for actions spans the entire party. If you know the cleric provides the greatest contribution per action then you’re not going to have the fighter take actions until something changes to make that optimal.

[Unoriginal]

In my reading the concern isn’t so much that certain characters are unable to contribute, it’s that they’re suboptimal choices for ‘who takes an action?’

The pool of options for actions spans the entire party. If you know the cleric provides the greatest contribution per action then you’re not going to have the fighter take actions until something changes to make that optimal.

Funnily/sadly enough this would likely interact *really* badly with the CR cast members' habits and play styles.