Daggerheart First Impression

My party ran the playtest and we used demiplane. The only physical stuff we had were tablets, dice, and poker chips for the action tracker. It really is a non issue. The inclusion of tokens and cards are there really just to normalize accessibility tools. It's like a ramp next to stairs. No one is harmed by the ramp being there, but almost everyone benefits to some extent.

Happy to be one of the 100!

I'm a veteran of both 5e, fantasy flight, and narrative systems like, dungeon world and other PbtA systems. My experience with narrative systems is that they are more accessible to new players, I personally like initiative-less combat, at my tables we never roll initiative and we haven't really missed it. I've played a little bit of daggerheart and the tokens and cards are completely optional. We played on demiplane and I have seen plenty of one-sheet templates. But good feedback that's exactly what play tests are for.

I played Chrono Trigger on an emulator because it was never released in Australia 😭

Many games already employ a system with multiple stages of success. For example monster of the week uses a system with success with a complication. These types of rolls tend to create interesting stories as they move the story forward, all the while creating more drama. Everyone can have their own likes and dislikes, but the success/fail mechanic here isn’t really unique except for the hope and fear resources that are being created by the rolls.

I know it's how it's written in the quickstart, but you are overthinking the success/fail with hope/fear mechanic. It really isn't all that bad. It doesn't need to be instant improv of things the GM hasn't planned for. So you lockpick a door. A success with hope is you open it silently without any problems. A success with fear can mean that you open it, but damage the door somehow, making it clear the party has been through there, or they damage their lockpick possibly making it unusuable until the party rests up. Maybe even in the course of trying to jimmy the lock then the PC hurts himself in some minor fashion. A fail with hope can simply be that you fail to open it with no consequence. And a fail with fear is as simple as they don't unlock it and make a hell of a lot of noise in their frustration, once again possibly alerting guards. And to be clear, even if there is a potential consequence for fear, it doesn't need to be a definitive consequence. If there's no enemies in the area, then you can, as a DM, still say that the amount of noise they made may alert their enemies because the PCs don't know whether there are enemies around or not. You don't have to plan for 4 different outcomes, you really don't. The putcomes are still success/fail and you throw in some flavour based on what you know about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and where they are doing it. We do that as DMs all the time to add flavour to ability checks. Hope/fear just tells us what flavour it should be.

Interesting video, I've been keeping an eye of Daggerhart for probably the same reason as most people. Moving away from 5e is inevitable at this point. I haven't looked into the actual mechanics of the game but I can already tell from your video that this is not a system for me. I don't really understand the idea of replacing rules with narrative which is definitely a trend a lof of more indie RPGs have gone for but I never saw 5e as narrative lite so I guess I dont understand the issue they're trying to fix. If I want to just imagine a story I don't need a rules framework for that, conversely if I want to play a game, that game needs rules to work.

My guess they wanted to name Chrono Trigger at the “this game was inspired by” section but was probably afraid of getting sued by sue happy Square enix.

2:11 Jesus, it says it right there in the damned book: the rules are a tool to run the game, not the absolute law. Never needed an healer in any party I ever played. It's D&D, not WOW...

Fungi are nice, but what about Conrasu?

I agree completely and I feel your frustration on this. This game either has a severe identity crisis, or was mostly cobbled together without much thought for why certain mechanics exist or how they interact. It feels like most mechanics (the cards being a great example) exist purely for the sake of themselves—or if I’m being cynical, for the sake of selling more peripheral products. And the fact that as you use a card, it gets shuffled back into your Library is just… strange to me. If I use some sort of martial ability, I just… forgot how to use it for the rest of the day? Why… ? That makes a vague amount of sense for Vancian Magic (not a Vancian fan myself, but I understand its purpose), but for everything else… ? Super strange and lacks believability. Daggerheart feels mostly like equal parts boardgame/TCG, and storygame with an odd amount of crunch. It seems to not have much in common with TTRPGs in a traditional sense, yet feels like that’s the crowd it’s romancing rather than the former two. In my opinion, if it cut the fat on one side or the other (either embracing itself more as a storygame, or leaning more heavily into being a boardgame/TCG), it’d be a much stronger product and greater serve its intended niche. Instead it feels like 3 different people tried to make 3 different games, and then just cut the edges off their puzzle pieces and shoved ‘em together and called it a day. Maybe future playtest material will paint a different picture, but as it stands right now, I can say that neither as a player nor a GM am I interested in Daggerheart, and I’m truly not sure who it was designed for.

I disagree with most of what you said, but still think it's a great first impressions video! It's funny how many people want to move away from 5E...without moving away from 5E.

I don’t like cards or tokens. I love 5E… I’m not even looking at daggerheart at all.

Some of your complaints are definitely down to personal preference for sure regarding how a tabletop game goes, but I definitely agree on the strange “four options for a single roll” context. The hope and fear system really needs to be worked on in terms of skill checks because it seems super weird and sporadic. The idea of it working in combat tho feels really nice. Maybe work it so that rolling a “fear” like three times is something that a GM can or cannot act on, or just make it only apply to combat in general. Dunno, definitely the part of the game that I think is distinctly flawed.

I dissagree, but it was interesting to hear your opinion.

haha good video, but I'm not buying the not liking "stuff" line--said by the goodwill by the pound king himself

What a bad-faith interpretation of "not my system." "Not my system" and "not my game" are two completely separate things. "Not my system" is just recognising that a given system is unable to engage you. This is how I feel about D&D. "Not my game" is that there's something in the game that keeps you away from engaging with it. If the problem is that you're unable to be the main character then you have problems co-existing with others.

wtf are you on about the battlemap and different sections for skills in battle? the skill system in this game us open ended precisely because skills can be used in or outside of combat, and the range/movement system makes no assumption about what kind if map you use or whether your group uses maps at all.

there are plenty of games for people who are jerks and can't work together. Magic the gathering and Warhammer 40000 come to mind.

I can name specifically the niche that this 'system' is made for their names are: Matt, Marisha, Liam, Sam, Laura, Travis, and Ashley they took the features and mechanics that catered to themselves personally. I mean they made a bunch of token for Laura to collect. this isn't a game its a big list of improv prompts. Critical Role has lost touch with what makes a game fun to PLAY. I can imagine Daggerheart being fun to WATCH but not to play. anyone who, as an adult, has tried to play action figures with a 6-year old knows: rules make a game fun. and modern game designers in general have completely forgotten that the roles of the player and DM are what made DnD so fun and successful the DM and ONLY the DM is the storyteller. it is their job to craft a story and narrate it to an audience and then adapt based on their reactions. players are the audience. their job is to invest themselves in the story being told, not to tell a story themselves.