The Gaming Den

I very much wanted to start talking about minor changes/tweaks I'd make to reduce bookkeeping, but I have managed to maintain discipline and instead focus on finishing discussing what's in the book, first.

Chapter 5: Campaign Frames

We start on page 254 with a one page description of a 'Campaign Frame'. The next 54 pages cover 6 campaign suggestions, each taking 8-10 pages.

A Campaign Frame is their suggestion for how to map out a campaign.

• A pitch to present to players
• Suggestions for the campaign’s tone, feel, themes, and cultural touchstones that helped shaped it
• An overview of the campaign’s background
• Guidance for how certain communities, ancestries, and classes fit into the setting
• Principles for players and GMs to consider during the campaign
• Unique setting distinctions
• An inciting incident to launch the campaign
• Special mechanics to use during the campaign
• Questions to consider during session zero

Following the guided list, for the first time EVER, they don't just repeat them with a paragraph explanation. Instead we get six different paragraphs.

The Steps to Start a Campaign are:
1)Pitch the campaign
2) Provide the foundations
3) Guide their characters
4) Build the map
5) Run a Session Zero
6) Begin the Adventure

The first campaign suggests a nation invading an ancient forest deity, and a virulent overgrowth spreads throughout the land.




I might have seen this one before

They don't cite Avatar as an inspiration, instead name-checking two Studio Ghibli films, the Legend of Zelda, and The Dark Crystal.

The Campaign Overview has a full typed page of small print that you need to communicate to your players before they play. It's the kind of info dump that players typically struggle through and includes phrases like 'for centuries' and a number of bold terms like 'Shun'Aush the Granite Ophid, the Archmage Phylax, and the Great Owl Nikta.

After the too long info dump it lists all the types of Communities they introduced in the Character Creation Chapter. Rather than saying 'here's some OrderBorne communities in the area with some features, but instead it's just general 'there's totally a coastal border here, and if you are Seaborne you probably live in a small coastal community.

The Witherwild has a day that is equivalent to 7 days long, followed by an equally long night. That probably makes this hard to place in any other campaign worlds. In any case, a magical owl makes the plants grow; it used to also cause them to wither, but the withering was stopped by some people who didn't see a problem with unchecked growth. Now instead of trying to restore the withering, some maniacs want to stop the growth, too, without regard to the future.

Figuring out what can actually solve anything is left to the players and the GM to say yes. Maybe ending the growth is the right answer? I guess that's up to your table to decide.

The next campaign is the possibility of war between 5 nations. You use a long-term countdown to track as each nation tries to establish superiority relative to their neighbors.

The third campaign says it's inspired by Delicious in Dungeon and I believe them. You go beneath the surface of a town and cook up monsters.



Kore wa oishii desu ne

This campaign comes with completely different equipment. Cleavers instead of broadswords, Cooking Knives. A rolling pin. There's an iron skillet, but no adamantium shield that distributes the heat evenly.

The third campaign seed is The Age of Umbra by Matt Mercer. Find a way to save the broken realm before all is lost to darkness.

The fourth campaign features techno-cities and a virus that spreads through machines wandering the wastes between them. Most of the pages are dedicated to a writing system based on visually using a touch-tone telephone keypad (slightly modified because the '1' has ABC and X and Z are included') that looks like circuitry.





This is Daggerheart, or 2(1)1(1)3(1)3(1)2(2)6(3)3(2)2(1)1(1)6(3)7(2)
The final campaign seed has dangerous creatures erupting from beneath the earth to bring terror to gunslingers and outlaws. And it didn't use Tremors 3 as a source.




If you know, you know.


None of the other campaigns included creatures, but this one has several Colossal Creature broken up into body parts that must be defeated individually to defeat the creature.

That completes Chapter 5 and next up is the Appendix starting with the Domain Card Reference.

Domains

While Daggerfall explicitly uses the concepts of Tiers, they also use levels. With Domain Cards, they could have potentially reasonably pegged each effect to a tier, but they didn't. Instead the wrote 3 cards for level 1 of each domain, and 2 cards for the other 9 levels.

Personally, I think setting things by Tier would have been easier. Unless two spells have the same effect and one is clearly better, they can play in the same tier. I think the best way to do this is list the 21 spells of each level in a table with a brief description, then talk about them as a whole.

While that's how I'm doing it, that's not how they do it. There's no 'abilities at a glance' or anything - you just have to read everything and make decisions based on what you can remember. If you're tackling it one level at a time that's manageable, but not desirable.

I didn't specify that some of the spells require you to succeed on a Spellcast Roll, but many (but not all) of them do. If anyone wants more detailed information about a particular spell like restrictions or whatnot, happy to clarify.

ARCANA
Looks like we'll take this one at a time.

Level	Type	Name	Description
1	Spell	Rune Ward	Spend Hope to reduce damage by 1d8
1	Spell	Unleash Chaos	Deal Spellcast Trait d10 damage
1	Spell	Wall Walk	Walk on walls or ceilings for 1 scene
2	Spell	Cinder Grasp	Do 1d20+3 damage; target is on fire
2	Spell	Floating Eye	Spend hope to create a sensor that moves
3	Spell	Counterspell	Use a Reaction Roll to Counter a Spell
3	Spell	Flight	Take a number of actions while flying equal to Agility
4	Spell	Blink Out	Spend Hope to teleport within Far Range
4	Spell	Preservation Blast	Targets in Melee Range take d8+3 damage and move to Far Range
5	Spell	Chain Lightning	Take 2 Stress/Spellcast Roll all targets in Close Range take 2d8+4 magic damage; anyone within close range of them not previously targeted also affected
5	Spell	Premonition	Once Per Long Rest rescind a move and consequences; take your turn again
6	Spell	Rift Walker	Mark a point; you can teleport back to it at any time
6	Spell	Telekinesis	Move target to anywhere in Far Range of original position; throw them for damage
7	Ability	Arcana-Touched	When 4+ cards in Loadout are Arcana gain +1 Spellcast Roll; swap hope/fear once per rest
7	Spell	Cloaking Blast	While Cloaked you are still hidden even if line of sight is established
8	Spell	Arcane Reflection	Spend Hope to reflect magic damage to original caster
8	Spell	Confusing Aura	Create duplicates of yourself (one per Stress taken); attacks may hit duplicates
9	Spell	Earthquake	All targets within Very Far Range must make a Reaction Roll (18) or take 3d10+8 damage and become Vulnerable; Terrain becomes Difficult
9	Spell	Sensory Projection	Sense an area you have been before; you cannot be detected
10	Spell	Adjust Reality	Spend 5 Hope to change a Die Roll to any possible result
10	Spell	Falling Sky	Deal 1d20+2 damage to all adversaries within Far Range for each point of Stress you take

I should have mentioned on the last post that Arcana is available to Sorcerers and Druids.


Blade Domain

Notice that these are all Abilities, none of them are spells. Blade abilities are available to Warriors and Guardians. Neither Warriors nor Guardians have a Spellcasting Trait.

Level	Type	Name	Description
1	Ability	Get Back Up	Spend Stress to reduce damage by 1 Threshold
1	Ability	Not Good Enough	Re-Roll 1s and 2s on damage
1	Ability	Whirlwind	Spend Hope to attack all targets within Very Close Range; additional targets take 1/2 damage
2	Ability	A Soldier's Bond	Once per long rest, you and an ally gain 3 Hope
2	Ability	Reckless	Spend Stress to gain Advantage on an Attack
3	Ability	Scramble	Once per rest negate attack, move out of Melee Range from attacker
3	Ability	Versatile Fighter	Choose which trait a weapon uses; take stress to deal maximum for one die of damage instead of rolling
4	Ability	Deadly Focus	Once per rest gain +1 bonus on Proficiency against target until you attack another creature
4	Ability	Fortified Armor	Get +2 damage threshold from armor
5	Ability	Champion's Edge	On a Critical Hit spend up to 3 hope to choose up to 3 additional benefits
5	Ability	Vitality	Permanently gain two benefits from a list of 3 (+1 Stress, +1 HP, +2 Damage Threshold); this card cannot be used again
6	Ability	Battle-Hardened	Once per long rest, spend a Hope to gain 1 Hit Point when you are at zero
6	Ability	Rage Up	Spend stress for bonus STR damage; you may spend 2 stress for double this bonus
7	Ability	Blade-Touched	When 4+ cards in Loadout are Blade gain +2 Attack Roll; +4 Severe Damage Threshold
7	Ability	Glancing Blow	Spend stress to deal half damage on a miss
8	Ability	Battle Cry	Once per long rest, allies gain +1 Stress, +1 Hope; Advantage on Attack until fail w/ Fear
8	Ability	Frenzy	Get +10 damage and +8 to Severe Damage threshold; cannot use Armor slots
9	Ability	Gore and Glory	On a Critical Success attack roll, spend Hope to clear additional Stress; when you drop a foe gain Hope or clear Stress
9	Ability	Reaper's Strike	Once per long rest, spend hope to make attack roll; GM tells you who it could hit; they take 5 HP
10	Ability	Battle Monster	On a successful attack, mark 4 Stress to deal damage equal to how many Hit Points you have lost
10	Ability	Onslaught	Successful weapon attacks always do at least Major damage; if an ally is attacked you can Mark a Stress to force a reaction roll (15); if failed, target takes 1 HP damage

Bone Domain

Since I'm using Copy/Paste and updating the table, it's striking how many abilities have the same naming convention (Arcana-Touched, Bone-Touched, Blade-Touched) in the same levels. That points to procedural generation.

Level	Type	Name	Description
1	Ability	Deft Maneuvers Up	SPend Stress to move within Far Range without rolling
1	Ability	I See It Coming	For attacks made from beyond melee range, mark a stress for +1d4 Evasion
1	Ability	Untouchable	Gain Evasion bonus equal to 1/2 Agility
2	Ability	Ferocity	Spend 2 hope to gain bonus Evasion equal to damage you dealt until after the next attack against you
2	Ability	Strategic Approach	After a long rest gain tokens equal to Knowledge; use a token for one benefit when closing to melee; attack with advantage/clear 1 stress from an ally/deal additional d8 damage
3	Ability	Brace	Mark a stress to use 2 Armor slots to reduce damage
3	Ability	Tactician	When helping an ally, they can spend Hope to gain your Experience bonus in addition to Advantage; when Tag Teaming, roll d20 for Hope instead of d12
4	Ability	Boost	Jump off ally within close range; attack target within Far range with advantage and d10 additional damage
4	Ability	Redirect	When an attack from beyond melee range fails against you, Roll d6 x Proficiency; if any roll a 6 spend a stress to direct the attack against an adversary within Very Close Range
5	Ability	Know They Enemy	Make an Instinct Roll; if successful, spend 1 Hope to learn one of the following: Target HP & Stress remaining/Difficulty & Threshold/Tactics & Standard Attack Damage/Features & Experiences; you may also spend Stress to remove 1 Fear from the GM
5	Ability	Signature Move	Once per rest roll d20 as Hope Die; on success, clear a Stress
6	Ability	Rapid Riposte	When a melee attack misses, mark a stress and deal your weapon damage to attacker
6	Ability	Recovery	Make a long rest move during a short rest. Spend hope to let an ally do the same
7	Ability	Bone-Touched	When 4+ cards in Loadout are Bone gain +1 Agility; once per rest spend 3 hope to make an attack miss
7	Ability	Cruel Precision	On a successful attack, gain bonus Damage of either Agility or Finesse
8	Ability	Breaking Blow	After a hit spend stress to make next hit deal 2d12 extra damage
8	Ability	Wrangle	Make an Agility Roll against creatures within Close Rage; Spend a Hope to move targets and willing allies anywhere within Close Range
9	Ability	On the Brink	With 2 HP or fewer, ignore Minor damage
9	Ability	Splintering Strike	Spend hope to attack all adversaries within range; once per long rest, on a success against any targets, add up the damage dealt, then redistribute that damage however you wish between the targets you succeeded against. When you deal damage to a target, roll an additional damage die and add its result to the damage you deal to that target
10	Ability	Deathrun	Move in a straight line; your attack roll can hit every target in that line; for each opponent after the first reduce the damage by one die
10	Ability	Swift Step	When an opponent misses you, clear a stress; if you are at full, gain 1 Hope

I know these are hard to read guys, but join me in killing myself over how bad Cruel Precision (Level 7 is). You likely have a 5 for Agility at that point, but best case this pushes you from 2 HP to 3 HP. The only reason it isn't a 1st level ability is because they didn't think of it sooner, and they already had 3, I'd wager.

I have no idea what splintering strike (level 9) is saying to do, so I didn't summarize. What I think they mean is that if you deal 3d8 damage and hit two people, you have 6d8 damage to assign, so you can make one target take 5d8 and one target take 1d8; plus you get an extra die so one would take 6d8 and the other 2d8. If that's right they've just introduced Bag of Rat Fighters. But maybe they figure the game is broken by level 9 anyway???


Next up is the Codex Domain, and each card has 3 completely unrelated powers, so that may be a chore.

Codex Domain

The Codex Domain is available to the Wizard and the Bard. Both have Spellcasting. Wizards use Knowledge, Bards use Presence.

In addition to Spells and Abilities, the Codex Domain (and only the Codex Domain) has Grimoires. Those are the collection of unrelated spells I mentioned before, but it does have a few 'normal spells', too.

Level	Type	Name	Description
1	Grimoire	Book of Ava	-Push target to Far Range, deal d10+2 -Spend 1 Hope to give +1 to Target Armor Score -Summon ice to deal d6 Physical damage to target within Far Range
1	Grimoire	Book of Illiat	-Target within Very Close Range becomes Asleep -Once per rest spend Hope to deal 1d6 per Hope to target within Close Range -Spend 1 hope to mentally communicate
1	Grimoire	Book of Tyfar	-Deal 2d6 magic damage to up to 3 targets within Melee range -Summon hand like your own within Far Range -Create thick fog that obscures within Very Close Range
2	Grimoire	Book of Sitil	-Magically disguise yourself -Spend 2 Hope to allow you or an ally to attack 2 targets within weapon range -Create a visual illusion
2	Grimoire	Book of Vagras	-Magically lock an object so only specified creature(s) can open it -Spend 1 hope to create a portal from your location to a point within Far Range that allows one person to teleport -Discover anything magically hidden within close range
3	Grimoire	Book of Korvax	-Lift a target and move them within close Range of their original position -Spend 1 hope to save or forget last minute of conversation -Take 1 Stress to create a circle. Adversaries approaching take 2d12+4 damage and are moved to Very Close Range
3	Grimoire	Book of Norai	-Target creature is restrained and takes 1 stress; flying creatures are grounded -Target and all creatures within Very Close Range of them take d20+5 damage
4	Grimoire	Book of Exota	-Once per rest, cancel magical effect blocking it from affecting allies -Spend 1 hope to create an animated construct that deals 2d10+3 damage
4	Grimoire	Book of Grynn	-Once per long rest spend 1 Hope to negate damage within Very Close range -Object is locked in place until your next rest -Create flaming wall within Far range; passing through deals 4d10+3 damage
5	Spell	Manifest Wall	Once per rest spend 1 Hope to create a Wall within Far Range
5	Spell	Teleport	Once per long rest, teleport yourself and willing targets within Close Range of you to destination of your choice; if you fail your spellcast roll, you end up somewhere unexpected
6	Spell	Banish	Roll d20s equal to spellcast trait; highest roll determines TN for target to avoid banishment; if you succeed with Fear Target gets another save to return
6	Spell	Sigil of Retribution	When you cast this spell GM gains 1 Fear. When target creature deals damage to your or an ally gain a d8 to a max equal to your level; if you damage target roll all accumulated d8s as additional damage
7	Grimoire	Book of Homet	-You and creatures touching you pass through wall or door within Close Range -Once per long rest open a portal to a dimension you have previously visited
7	Ability	Codex-Touched	With 4+ Codex cards in your loadout gain two abilities (1) Take 1 stress to add Proficiency to Spellcast Roll (2) Once per rest replace this card with any card from vault without paying Recall
8	Grimoire	Book of Vyola	-If Target Creature fails GM will reveal all memories regarding specified question -Once per long rest spend a hope to choose two willing creatures; if either would mark a stress they can decide who marks it until their next rest
8	Spell	Safe Haven	Spend a few minutes and 2 Hope to summon an interdimensional home; while resting make an additional downtime move
9	Grimoire	Book of Ronin	-Transform into an inanimate object until you take damage -Once per long rest target becomes permanently Vulnerable
9	Spell	Disintegration Wave	Once per long rest kill any number of adversaries with a Difficult of 18 or lower within Far range by spending 1 Stress per target
10	Grimoire	Book of Yarrow	-Freeze time for everyone except yourself until you take an action that targets another creature Spend 5 Hope to become immune to Magic damage until your next rest
10	Spell	Transcendent Union	Once per long rest spend 5 hope on two or more willing creatures; connected creatures can choose who takes Stress or Hit Point damage

Grace Domain

Grace Domain is available to Bards and Rogues. Both have access to spellcasting, bards via Presence and Rogues via Finesse.

Level	Type	Name	Description
1	Ability	Deft Deceiver	Spend Hope to gain Advantage on a lie
1	Spell	Enrapture	Target within Close Range is Enraptured; once per rest you may take 1 stress and target takes 1 stress
1	Ability	Inspirational Words	Gain tokens equal to presence; spend a token to benefit an ally by -Clear 1 stress -Clear 1 Hit Point -Gain 1 Hope
2	Spell	Tell No Lies	Target cannot lie; refusal to answer causes one stress ending effect
2	Ability	Troublemaker	Taunt target rolling proficiency d4; target takes stress equal to highest d4 rolled
3	Spell	Hypnotic Shimmer	Once per rest on a success, stun targets in front of you within close range. Stunned targets mark 1 stress and cannot act.
3	Spell	Invisibility	Mark a stress and gain tokens equal to spellcast trait. Target creature is invisible, using one token for each action. When last token is spent, spell ends. Attacks against invisible creatures are made with disadvantage
4	Ability	Soothing Speech	When tending another's wounds during downtime, heal +1 HP to them and +2 HP to yourself
4	Spell	Through Your Eyes	You can hear and see using target within Very Far Range senses, switching back and forth between your own until resting
5	Spell	Though Delver	Spend a hope to read surface thoughts of target within Far range; Spellcast roll to read hidden thoughts
5	Spell	Words of Discord	With success target takes 1 stress and attacks an ally
6	Ability	Never Upstaged	Take 1 Stress and gain a token for every HP damage you take from an attack. On your next attack deal +5 damage for each token.
6	Spell	Share the Burden	Transfer stress from target to yourself; gain +1 Hope per Stress transferred
7	Ability	Endless Charisma	Spend Hope to reroll one duality die on social roll
7	Ability	Grace Touched	With 4+ Grace cards in loadout you can -Mark an armor slot instead of stress -Convert HP damage you deal to Stress
8	Spell	Astral Projection	Once per long rest, take 1 Stress to manifest a physical copy of yourself anywhere you've ever been
8	Spell	Mass Enrapture	Target all creatures within Far Range to Enrapture; Take 1 Stress damage to cause all affected to take 1 Stress damage, ending spell
9	Spell	Copycat	Once per long rest copy an ally's Domain Card; you must spend hope equal to half the card's level
9	Ability	Master of the Craft	Permanent +2 to two experiences or +3 to one experience; card can only be used once
10	Spell	Encore	When an ally within Close range damages a target, you can attempt to duplicate the damage again. If successful this card is placed in your vault.
10	Ability	Notorious	Take 1 Stress to gain +10 on social role; reduce cost of goods; this card does not count toward your loadout total

With 5 down, I feel like we all have a very good sense of what remains. If anyone wants a summary of any of the remaining 4 (Midnight, Sage, Splendor, and/or Valor) I'll do them.

Following the Domain Summaries are Character Sheets, Quick Reference Guides for Character Creation, Actions, Equipment, Downtime, GM moves, the Druid's available Beast Forms, Ranger Companions, and Maps and tracking sheets for the suggested campaigns. The book ends with an Index. My favorite entry is 'VERY'. If you decide to look up Very in the Index you get to decide if you were looking for VERY CLOSE or VERY FAR but both are on page 103.

While that ends the book, the PDF includes additional pages of supplemental materials. That includes Character Sheets for each class, and the physical cards that you can print and cut out.

There are also Class Cards, Community Cards, and Ancestry Cards. And that gets us to the very end of the PDF, page 415 of 415.

Next up for me is probably discussing my thoughts about the game and the mechanics in hopefully a more easily digested format.

Thoughts About the Game

At the beginning I said that I'm happy that this game is released. I don't think that there is 'one true way' as far as gaming goes, and I think having lots of products that appeal to lots of different types of gamers is generally a good thing for the hobby. I love that Critical Role is attracting a more diverse player base to RPGs generally, and migrating toward their own intellectual property is almost certainly going to be necessary based on WotC traditional efforts to shake-down anyone that makes a buck from anything related to D&D.

After having read the game, I am not surprised that they didn't choose to make this the focus of their next campaign. I do have issues with 5th edition/Next, and since this shares some DNA it's my contention that this game creates new problems.

But did it do anything right?

Massive Damage Breaks D&D, but Daggerheart is Insulated

If you're a character in a game world and fire-breathing dragons are your reality, it stands to reason that you'd develop tools to defeat dragons.



Or at least learn to use them against your enemies

That is to say, both Players and Characters have an interest in figuring out some manner of dealing a huge amount of damage, rendering any threat in the game inconsequential. However, nothing but easy victories and hitting an 'I win' button gets old fast. So if you can figure out how to do 700 damage in a single attack, and you do it regularly, the game definitely suffers. Overcoming difficult challenges rewards players and provides a dopamine hit.



An easy win SOMETIMES is fun, too, but it shouldn't be every time

In Daggerheart, if you figure out how to do 700 damage in a single hit, your reward is....doing 3 damage. That's also true if you do 200 or 1200. There's no such thing as a single attack that can drop a level-appropriate foe (outside of minions). The Jagged Knife Bandit, a Tier 1 Standard, has 5 Hit Points. A 'standard encounter' for 4 1st level PCs might include 7 Jagged Knife Bandits and 4 Minions (or 6 bandits and 12 minions). It doesn't appear that these bandits can reduce damage, but the PCs must do 8+ damage to deal 2 HP or 14+ to deal 3. That's a tall order at 1st level; even with multiple attacks you might deal 1d8+1d6 using a special ability. So badguys take a minimum of 2-3 hits.

A Tier 3 Standard (Stag Knight) has 7 HP, a threshold of 19/36 and requires a 17 to hit. At Tier 3 you're doing 3d8+3d6+6 with standard attacks (call it 30) so you're going to need....2-3 hits. Using some of your bigger powers make that marginally faster, but if you could do 36 damage without your super, there's no reason to use a super and deal 50 or 100 damage - every bit of overkill is wasted.

If you're a wizard using the 6th level Codex Spell Sigil of Retribution you can get up to 6d8 additional damage against the target. Wielding a Tier 3 Advanced Quarterstaff that deals 3d10+9 you might get ~50 damage. Tag-Team with a partner and make it ~100. If the total hit points of the opposition was roughly based on expected damage, it might be possible to one-shot powerful opponents that would be a slug-fest using regular attacks over and over.

That said, there's a ton of complexity dedicated to calculating damage. You're potentially considering equipment, special abilities, spells, tokens, etc. It's possible that the complexity is necessary to disguise the fact that the underlying game isn't very complex. Going through the cycles of adding up damage, then comparing against a target number, then applying 1-3 damage might be sufficiently convoluted that players feel they're doing something meaningful, and maybe they feel more special when the damage roll is 50 versus 36 even though the in-game consequences are the same.

I posit that the game would play the same if you rolled 1d6 after every hit where a 1 or 2 equated to 1 damage, a 3-4 to 2 damage, and a 5-6 to 3 damage, and if you use a special ability shift it by one so a 1 equates to 1 damage, a 2-3 equates to 2 damage, and a 4-6 equates to 3 damage. At the very least, close enough that I don't think anyone would be able to tell the difference if that's what the GM did. From a MECHANICS point of view, all the damage rolls are extra steps to obscure the underlying simplicity. Since many RPG players aren't great with math they probably won't automatically realize that you could simplify everything; they think the steps are IMPORTANT for generating the result, but they're really just really there to make it seem like what you're doing is important. Psychologically that may be required.

While usually an attack targets a single individual, there are situations where attacks hit multiple targets (like all opponents within Close Range). While you only make a single attack roll and a single damage roll, each enemy may potentially have a different 'Difficulty' (like Evasion for PCs, but the target number for affecting them), and even if they all have the same Difficulty, they may all have different Thresholds. So for the GM to be accurate he needs to compare your damage against the Thresholds for a Leader, a Solo, 2 different Standards and a Brute. And even though they all have different numbers, it's still probably going to be '2'.

While I think 'counting hits' has some benefits to ensure your enemies remaina challenge, I think the extra complexity this game adds is unnecessary, ungainly, and inelegant.


Tracking Resources is Too Fiddly and Rolling Offers Perverse Incentives Contrary to Play

In Standard D&D, you're always tracking something. You've got hit points to worry about. You might be tracking which spells you've already cast. Maybe you're tracking rounds before a spell ends. The more things you track, the more likely you are to forget something, even if individually they're relatively easy. In this game you're constantly 'marking' and 'unmarking' various resources. You literally can't roll a die without someone needing to either add Hope or Fear - so every roll either the GM is taking an extra action or the player is taking an extra action. I pity you if you're using a pencil and eraser on regular paper. Laminating it and using dry erase might be better (though that comes with it's own perils and pitfalls). Every time you roll a die you have to ask if you add a Hope, or remind the GM to add a fear, and 1/12 of the time you clear a Stress.

You might think that having a token for hope would make it easier. Maybe a giant pot in the middle that you pull from and toss back into? I didn't harp on it, but the game is very insistent that you have tokens at hand for tracking your bonuses to die rolls. I can see how counting on tokens is easier for some people, but it's another physical object taking space on the table. Getting rid of tokens to track Experience Bonuses on your roll and other sources of a bonus (or penalty) might help.

While tracking it can become a headache, the way its refreshed creates additional problems.

It's probably okay that characters want to to roll in combat. It's not as good if players are ASKING to roll when it isn't really necessary. If I'm going to make a climb check and the GM determines that it isn't INTERESTING there's no need to roll. But rolling generates bennies for me. So being told that I don't NEED to roll prevents me from getting Hope. That's not an issue when I'm full, but if I'm down, having more is definitely to my benefit. Even risking giving the GM more Fear half the time isn't really a problem. It's a bigger problem that 'Fail with Fear' creates complications. So I'm incentivized to find 'easy rolls' that I'm allowed to make to generate Hope as a resource. That's not 'playing the game as intended' but that's why INCENTIVES should ALIGN with game objectives.

I honestly don't think there's any point in saving the 'Roll with Hope' or 'Roll with Fear' mechanic. Despite the advice to the contrary, 'Success BUT' is really hard to describe without turning it into a failure. Failure is pretty easy, Success is pretty easy, it's the Success with Fear that's hard. If we take away generating Fear/Hope on a roll we can can focus instead on success/failure. In either case, the GM could 'spend a fear' to add a complication. That's a GREAT way to keep the story going. All the advice about allowing success is great. You succeed in unlocking the door, and just in time. As the lock clicks open [GM tosses a Fear Token out] you can hear the sounds of approaching guards from where you entered. It sounds like they may have found the guard you left unconscious. Having the GM spend a currency prevents it from feeling like your success was completely invalidated.

So if you don't get Hope/Fear from rolling as suggested, how do you get it? Well, PCs start with 2 Hope to begin with. There's no reason they can't start with 6. When they roll a critical (and only when they roll a critical) they should get a choice of a) getting 1 Hope or b) clearing 1 Stress or c) Removing 1 Fear from the GM. How does the GM get Fear? He starts with a pile, too. Probably 4 per PC. Then when players roll a failure he gets one and he gets to introduce a Free Complication. Players won't be trying to make rolls they're likely to fail with the hope that they generate Hope, so the incentives for play are aligned with what is good for the game.

Abilities that Matter

D&D has robust combat rules. It's very clear what you can do in combat and how those actions lead to the defeat of your enemies. Daggerheart tries to keep robust combat rules with a collection of special actions that you can take based on an adversary's relative position. They also have 'moves' for Downtime and some spells that have out-of-combat uses like Astral Projection. But even though the game gives an example of a wizard enemy using 'arcane power' to cause a parapet to collapse it's not clear who else can do that and in what circumstances. Can a player declare that they're using their magical power to collapse a wall? If the enemy wizard can collapse a parapet why couldn't that same power be applied to breaching the castle wall?

For a game that expects to be narratively driven and cooperative, it is imperative that players understand what they can do. You can play Mother-May-I instead of an RPG if you want, but the more players understand about the game world and their abilities, the more PROACTIVELY they can engage with the world. In D&D when a spider crawls toward the party clinging to the roof of the cave 20' above, I know I could try to find a stalagmite to allow me to get close enough to swing a sword, or that I can shoot my bow. If I have spider climb I know that I can walk right up to it and engage in melee just as easily as if it were on the floor of the cave. This game has Wall Walk, a 1st level Arcana Power, so I don't think that a player could make an argument that their 'undefined magical powers' ought to allow that. When the spider misses them they're allowed to say 'my arcane warding protects me' just as much as they're allowed to say 'my full plate armor easily withstands the blow' - that's flavor and it's a miss so it doesn't CHANGE reality. Using your narrative powers to change the world or the game state is more limited, in part because to maintain the narrative once the GM says yes, for the sake of consistency they should always say yes.

There are very few powers, they are very specific in what they can do, and every action that changes the game world is subject to GM interpretation. Your best case is that you're offered a roll with a TN determined entirely by the GM where success permits you to do what you like.

This is fine for a script - the director tells you what he wants you to do and we evaluate you based on how well you follow those instructions and whether you emote well - but it's NOT what you need for a player-driven (at least in part) narrative.


Final Thoughts

I think Daggerheart is trying to strike a balance between mechanically complex and rigidly defined powers (like D&D Next) and Narrative games where die rolls determine what happens on an almost entirely ad-hoc basis (like Bearworld) and they're not easily merged. Once players recognize that the apparent mechanical complexity doesn't have any meaningful impact on the way the game plays I expect players to tire of it quickly. I've heard people say that this game is designed for one-shots and not really to support longer campaigns, and I think there's an element of truth to it. While you might expect high level games to involve 'cavorting with Gods', the TNs for that level of play aren't supported by corresponding bonuses. The longer you play, the worse you are relative to the types of challenges you'd expect to face. Something like a fixed +4 bonus per tier would mean that someone who is Tier 3 might actually have a chance for TN 30 outcomes; and there's no reason that godlike outcomes need to be POSSIBLE for Tier 1 characters. Other games have you on a treadmill....




There are even memes about it

Where you're doing the same things but the descriptive language makes it sound more interesting. Fighting EPIC land-crabs instead of Giant land crabs. The thing with a treadmill is that you should be holding steady relative to your opposition and expected challenges. Here you may hold steady with the expected opposition, but you can't actually advance to more interesting challenges.

I have heard that the Critical Role people are exciting and engaging to listen to, and I'm sure that they can take a game like Daggerheart and use the prompts to create something that's exciting and engaging to listen to, but I really do believe that it would be a harder lift than standard D&D. Maybe good marketing and popular performers will be enough to raise this game's profile above that of D&D (any edition), but my take is that it isn't going to happen because of innovative game play or exciting mechanical elements.

I'd certainly love to hear what other people think of the mechanics as I've described them and if they have a different take on gameplay. I've mostly tried to accurately describe what the game says to do and make sure my commentary throughout was separate and didn't color the mechanics. I am certainly happy to delve into more sections or go into more detail on any specific elements like classes or the other domains. That said, don't forget that you have access to all that via the SRD in PDF format.

I received my physical copy today in the mail. In addition to the main book there are physical cards for all the Domains and Communities.

The book is approximately 9" by 11 1/2". The cards are in a box with the same dimensions. The book and cards are joined by a sleeve. Together they measure approximately 2 1/2" thick. The book includes two ribbon book marks (one purple, one gold), which is something I appreciate if you're likely to be flipping back and forth between sections of the physical book.

The card box appears to be fairly durable cardboard. It includes magnetic clasps and a carved indentation with a ribbon pull tab to make opening it easy. The slip-sleeve probably won't survive long-term, but I think it's mostly designed for shipping and not for storage or transport.

On the physical side, it's an attractive product. I'm actually surprised at the quality given the price.

From the exterior, the colors and clean lines suggest a sci-fi product rather than fantasy.

The website does appear to allow honest reviews. They're currently scored at 4.89 with 731 total reviews. Of the two one-star reviews, one only has a positive thing to say and the other is upset that they hadn't received a physical product before others received the PDF(s). Two of the 2-star reviews complain about not getting Character Sheets and Dice in the core set; only one of them notes that the 'GM decides' and attempt to abstract elements of the game creates confusion. On the subject of dice, I can't remember a time where I didn't have more d12s than I had things to roll them for, but if you had only one set of dice the Duality dice could be a pain; having a clearly marked Hope/Fear die could be helpful.

It appears they will be offering a Daggerheart dice set that will include 3d12; one that is part of the 'regular dice' and two that are duality dice. At $20 for a set, these seem to include a larger mark-up than I would expect based on the book price.

One three star review complained about the product being damaged in shipping. I didn't have that issue. The book and cards were shrinkwrapped; then wrapped in a white cardboard protector, and that was placed in a 12x10x3 cardboard box. There wasn't a lot of room for things to shift. One reviewer claims that the domains aren't balanced and that Codex is OP as is the druid's shapechange, and that power-gamers are already ruining it. That I find hard to believe.

finished chapter 2, not chapter 3.

Extremely disappointing to find out that the ONE method of interacting in the game, attacks and damages, is also an illusion, because you roll damage rolls that don't actually matter anyway. I mean I wasn't expecting much from the game, but still amazingly bad. I made the decision to, in Kultivation, do exactly 1 damage on attacks unless they have the extra damage modifier, because it made sense for the genre for people to mostly go down in "a very specific number of hits" and there didn't seem to be much to gain, but apparently they decided that, and then..... just lied about it.

Also love the Meteor that bounces off your skull doing 60 damage (3HP) so you basically are just like... Oh, another meteor strike? That's just this week. Damn.

Yeah. Pretty much.

I had some more to say in my final thoughts (it's the section with Indiana Jones shooting the falchion wielder) but they're pretty much aligned with what you're saying.

What I probably didn't harp on enough is the RNG. They try to keep it pretty contained; it's 2-24 and you're supposed to really care about whether you get a +3 or not. But having multiple allies roll 1d6 and allowing the best to apply means 'aid another' is usually good for a +6 (bringing your bonus to +9) and a bard can give you a Rally Die to get another +1d6. You can be rocking a +12.5 for an important roll (giving you about a 20% chance to hit a TN 30 at first level.

Nothing really increases those odds substantially, either. You might get a +5 bonus and a +1d8 Rally die so you have that same +9 bonus without aid another (and probably your GM has put the kibosh on helping each other by this point). So besides the 'all damage is an illusion', the RNG essentially allows characters of all levels roughly the same chance of success and difficulty against opponents scales at the same speed of increase. Basically high level characters are stuck on the same TN as low-level characters, and the constraints that they seem to imagine just aren't really there - high level characters aren't better at requesting the aid of a god than a 1st level character.

I've said some things about the class powers (mostly that they're boring, don't lend themselves to narrative impact on the game world, and primarily interact with the damage system which is designed to create the illusion of impact).

They're basically like spells, and there's a big list of them in the book. You don't get very many, so you could just write down your powers pretty easily whether you're using a character sheet or the cards that come with the game.

And even though the cards exist and you can purchase a full set of them, the team at Darrington Press launched a kickstarter so you could buy extra sets of cards for your favorite class for [b)$20 each[/b]!!!

Or you could save $5 and buy all of them for $175.

Now I'm pretty sure I got a full set of cards for $60 along with the physical copy of the book, but I didn't read the kickstarter very carefully.

It looks like most of the 1k people who participated bought the full set.

While I'm pretty confident that this is undeniable proof of a significant portion of the TTRPG hobby base being absolutely moronic, clearly nobody failed to make a buck by underestimating the intelligence of their target demographic.

Anyways, I despair of ever seeing a well-designed TTRPG - instead I anticipate a broad trend of trying to turn every mechanic into a montizable bauble that is 'required for play'.

Not the worst thing in the world today by any stretch of the imagination, but on top of everything else it's just too much to bear.

How I THOUGHT the fear/hope die mechanic worked is when you roll with fear, the GM CAN spend that on the spot to summon quantum bears, or they can bank their “fuck you” point for later. I actually liked this. But if the game expects the GM to do BOTH, that’s kind of bull shit.

The thing that bugs me about fail forward systems is their mechanics often move the window of success, defined here as a result that doesn’t kick you in the taint for trying to play the game, to the further end of the scale. What I mean by this is, using pbta as an example, dice mechanics like:

Roll 2-6 =punish
Roll 7-9 =punish
Roll 10-12=yay!

It’s like these games feel their novel mechanics are wasted if the players aren’t shitting their pants 75% of the time they do ANYTHING.

But whatever. I’m going to be the one running it. I’ll just do so like I originally thought it was supposed to work.

My biggest gripe, which I think deaddm brought up, is the game can’t decide whether it wants to be crunchy or rules light. I mean some of the domain abilities read like m:tg cards to me, but they fucking forgot to include an actual action economy.

I’d be willing to bet if someone took daggerheart and either hacked a lighter system or a crunchier one, either would ultimately be a better game.

The other thing that irks me are the domains. Seems a lot of decisions were made just to fill out that class/domain graphic.

Also, why is this still surgically attached to d&d assumptions? I understand the ancestries, but why is sorcerers a class in this game? Does the distinction between innate and learned spell casting really deserve its own class outside the context of d&d?

Kaelik wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 08, 2025 9:34 pm

finished chapter 2, not chapter 3.

Extremely disappointing to find out that the ONE method of interacting in the game, attacks and damages, is also an illusion, because you roll damage rolls that don't actually matter anyway. I mean I wasn't expecting much from the game, but still amazingly bad. I made the decision to, in Kultivation, do exactly 1 damage on attacks unless they have the extra damage modifier, because it made sense for the genre for people to mostly go down in "a very specific number of hits" and there didn't seem to be much to gain, but apparently they decided that, and then..... just lied about it.

Also love the Meteor that bounces off your skull doing 60 damage (3HP) so you basically are just like... Oh, another meteor strike? That's just this week. Damn.

You ever looked at Panic At The Dojo? It’s an indie rpg made to emulate 90’s arcade fighters like street fighter and mortal Kombat.

I know it’s not the same thing as xianxia, but there’s a lot of conceptual crossover.

So Daggerheart released a new class: The Bloodhunter.

That's the PDF to the character sheet and cards. You could also look at the page introducing the class. Apparently they also have multiple other new classes:

The Brawler (Martial Artist/Juggernaut)
The Warlock (Pact of the Endless/Pact of the Wrathful)
The Assassin (Executioner's Guild/Poisoners Guild)
The Witch (Hedge/Moon)

The Bloodhunter is a Blade+Blood class. You may remember from the chart provided that each class in the book is a combination of two 'power sources', and they're arranged in a circle and each power source is used by two classes; each getting that plus a different source and creating the differentiation. A Warrior is Blade + Bone; a Guardian is Blade + Valor.

So now we have Blade + Blood.

All the symmetry is gone.

If you have a physical set that has all the cards (and a place for all the cards) you now have a set of cards that doesn't fit in your physical set.

AND.....

This class has all the same general problems as the others.

For example one of your 10th level spell options is Sanguine Feast.

Make a Spellcast Roll against an adversary within
Close range. On a success, spend 2 Hope to mark
1–3 Hit Points, and the target marks twice the
number of the Hit Points you marked. If this causes
the target to mark their last Hit Point, you can
clear the Hit Points you marked to cast this spell

So you can deal 3 hit points to yourself to deal 6 hit points to an enemy. Now hit points are 'real damage' unlike weapon damage, which you roll and usually if you do 20, that does 1 hit point, and if you do 30, that does 2 hit points. So bypassing weapon damage rolls and doing actual hit point damage is more straightforward.

The thing is, there are Tier 2 enemies (levels 2-4) with 5 hit points. At those levels this spell might actually be worthwhile - you could potentially drop an opponent in a single hit (probably not a boss, but a War Wizard). It still costs you two hope even if you get the hit points back. So once again a spell that you might think was worth something 5 or 6 levels ago is given as an 'ultimate' and it's just boring.

I'm past caring, but since I sometimes see articles related in my feed, I thought I'd share.

Bigdy McKen wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 14, 2025 6:35 pm

You ever looked at Panic At The Dojo? It’s an indie rpg made to emulate 90’s arcade fighters like street fighter and mortal Kombat.

I know it’s not the same thing as xianxia, but there’s a lot of conceptual crossover.

Only modestly on topic, but I want to point out that the theming on Panic at the Dojo delights me: it's basically set in the world of Scott Pilgrim, where every petty conflict is resolved by martial arts duels. The auto scaling enemy rules looked too much like a treadmill to me, and my rates run less complex these days, but I think there's a lot to like about Panic.

Critical Role is CRAP.
Anything to do with Critical Role is CRAP.

I have no opinions about Critical Role - it seems popular and a lot of people seem to enjoy it. I know they don't play Daggerheart. It's possible that the actors could make it seem fun. But the underlying system is, in my opinion, crap.