I run a table. One of the people at the table insisted that I checked out Daggerheart. So I did. And I was very pleasantly surprised.
Why? Well, I admit I had some prejudices against it. First, I sort of made up my mind when I saw the whole licensing issue, Daggerheart basically doing what Wizards of the Coast did with Dungeons and Dragons. But not only that, I also saw red flags in Daggerheart itself: minis.
I saw a video for Daggerheart where the thumbnail showed minis. I was out. I find minis so frustrating. They are in my list of things that I cannot care about. I care about dramatic stories, not combat simulation. I care about intrigue and character growth, not arithmetic. I saw that and assumed that Daggerheart was a combat simulator just like Dungeons and Dragons is. I didn’t even pay attention.
But then my friend insisted that I read about Daggerheart. And so I did.
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that minis are optional. Even more importantly, I was shocked to find a game that effectively is Powered by the Apocalypse. I was especially relieved to not find rules for movement that require trigonometry or strange approximations (unlike Dungeons and Dragons, where there are grids and numbers everywhere).
I found a game that prioritized drama. Yes, it still simulates combat, but it does so in such a simple way that makes me happy to run it.
I’m excited! This would be the first game that I ever play when the game is just released. This would be the first game in which I don’t even have to pitch to the table; the table already wants to play it.
Of course, these are my first impressions. Maybe they’ll change. For now, I’m happy.
I think Daggerheart is interesting in some ways but I think it’s very much tailored to what CR wants to perform rather than what makes a fun game at a table. The mechanics make for predictable narrative peaks and valleys, which give guardrails to DMs with weaker narrative skills. The tradeoff being a more narrow range of outcomes, which is most of the fun in rolling dice.
CR productions have a lot of issues, but I don’t think Daggerheart inherently has those deficiencies baked in. Their main problems stem from trying to scale voice-actors-at-a-table into a multimedia empire with sprawling IP. They can all make and perform a good character, but a bag of strong character concepts doesn’t turn M. Mercer into R. R. Martin.
Publishing a system without that IP baggage was a good/necessary step, Daggerheart will flourish or flop on its own merits. Hopefully it at least breaks DnD dominance a little more and gives room for more independent publishers (can’t resist a bump for Quinns Quest here)
I see Daggerheart as a possible introduction to PBtA style games most strictly DnD tables may be willing to try. License-related news turned me off the game, I was indifferent before. But I’m happy that it inspires enough interest in tables who refuse to try any other game than DnD. There’s nothing wrong with only wanting to play DnD, it’s just a pity to miss the opportunity to experience other styles that may be more enjoyable to the groups who force DnD to fill a roll it’s not equipped to.
I have a friend who’s looking at developing a series on new DM’s entering Daggerheart. I’m really curious to see how the game waxes while Hasbro seems intent on making 5e wane.
I personally really enjoy 5e for casual play, and would probably play Pathfinder with a great roleplaying party. Not sure about Daggerheart, but curious if it grows on me. Hasbro seems intent on forcing D&D into a subscription model, and the CR people have a real opening here.
I…would probably play Pathfinder with a great roleplaying party.
Pathfinder 2e does have some more tools for roleplaying, but the game’s real strength is tactical combat. Pathfinder 2e wants to be D&D 4e done right.
I have yet to meet a pbta game I actually like. I was going to check out dagger heart (I have heard nothing positive about it from my customers), I think I will wait for Anna to get a pdf.
Daggerheart is not at all a PbtA game, though it borrows elements. It borrows pretty heftily from a lot of predecessors besides 5e, like pbta, fitd, cypher/numenera, and SWRPG/Genesys. With imo the last one sharing the most DNA.
Fair enough. PbtA is not for everyone. In fact, sometimes PbtA is not for me; sometimes I just want to hack and slash and strategize with strict rules instead of creating dramatic stories.
Have you checked out the PbtA grandpa, Apocalypse World?
Same here. I was kind of interested in Daggerheart as something to propose as an alternative for my friends who dig the tradgame vibe (I honestly assumed it was going to be very 5e like but with some tweaks and serial numbers filed off), but hearing it’s PbtA-like has dashed all my interest.
Totally valid. I assume you like combat simulators like Dungeons and Dragons. Is that the case? If not, what do you dislike about PbtA?
Short version: I’ve just never managed to feel enjoyment while playing any of the ones I’ve tried. I dont think theyre bad, I just think they dont really click for the way I like to run games. And it has almost nothing to do with combat, which takes up very little table time in my preferred games (combat tends to go no longer than 3 rounds, usually less than 3 minutes each for a table of 6 – by then, PCs are either victorious, making an expeditious retreat, or dead).
Long version: I just can’t find a good rhythm with Monster of the Week, Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Apocalypse World (the three games in this style I’ve tried). Most of it comes down to how much more mental work it is for me to watch out for move triggers (and memorize the set of moves for each playbook, plus the GM moves. While I already do most of the things the GM moves are meant to encourage in my games of choice, I’m not really thinking of them as I do them – they feel very fluid, like natural reactions to my players. Hinting at future danger, presenting a hard choice, etc. PbtA games have made it feel much less natural, far more mechanical, and it pulls me out of the natural conversation of a game.
I also dont really like the way it wants me to use dice. Normally, I take the approach that if a PC has the tools, the time and the skills, their desired action automatically succeeds unless it’s truly impossible. To put that in PbtA terms, sometimes I want to make a move so soft it’s not even there. But PbtA games tend to not accept this, so you have players rolling more often and coming up with mixed success more often than not, which can burn me out and lead the PCs into a death spiral of mixed success, especially when I’ve gotten worn down and can’t come up with anything reasonable to tack on. It’s frustrating and anti-fun for me.
And then I think the core malfunction that underscores all of this for me is that PbtA is not really there to emulate a living world, but instead focuses on genre emulation. There’s nothing wrong with that, except I’ve yet to find one that tries to be a genre I like in the way I understand that genre. It seems like my choices are “angsty, sexy, teen drama,” “angsty, sexy, adult drama,” or “cozy,” with not much for me to hang my creative hat on. I didn’t watch Buffy, Angel or X-Files growing up, so MotW hit a little soft. I dont care for Apocalypse World’s picture of post apocalypse storytelling, so that also didnt really fit for me. And tbh, I can’t figure out what TSL is trying to be – it doesn’t really mirror my own queer experience (maybe because I’m not a lesbian?), and doesn’t seem to point to any other stereotyped fiction. So it all just feels empty.
Hopefully that explains it, but I love talking about RPGs (even ones I didn’t enjoy), so if its confusing I can try to clarify.
Not the person you asked but I’m taking this opportunity to talk about why I wouldn’t play pbta as my main game.
One, I rarely feel like my character is competent. I’m usually rolling mixed success, and that feels bad. A good GM can take the edge off there. they can make it so the problem was circumstances or the strength of your enemy, instead of your fuck up. But most GMs aren’t good, they’re average.
Related, and I think this might have been a result of not liking the GM, when I do get a mixed success it often feels like the GM is just fucking with me. It felt very unilateral. They decide what happens with no buy-in from the table needed. When I run Fate, mixed successes are a proposal the player can accept, decline, or suggest another idea.
Third, playbooks feel like mad libs instead of writing. So much is already defined, typically, it’s constraining and anchoring. I don’t feel like I’m really making something of my own. I can see how that’s really helpful for some people but I don’t enjoy it. I much prefer the utterly freeform mode of Fate. I want to be a chaos magick using librarian? I can just write that down.
I had fun doing a one shot of rapscallions a couple weeks ago, but I wouldn’t make it my main game.
For me it’s not so much combat I’m looking for as competence (and due to this, D&D 5e irritates me for largely restricting competence to combat by various means). PBtA rubs me the wrong way primarily because, when combined with a system that makes “yes, but” the most common result, moves feel less like the things your character can do well and more like the things characters try to do despite not being good at them.
Also, PBtA games tend to dictate *who* your character is more than most.
Gotcha.
I see what you mean. Apocalypse World is not on the side of brutally hard or the side of trivially easy; it sits in the middle, in “yes, but”. Some games make certain things impossible (“No, you can’t jump to the moon”). Other games make things trivial (“Sure, use your ‘ultra high jump’ ability”). In other games, the difference between “you can’t” and “sure” is just your character’s level.
This means that, no matter how weak or strong your character is, you can try anything. This does not mean, however, that all characters in Apocalypse World are equally competent. In Apocalypse World, an incompetent character usually has a -2 stat, while a very competent character has a +3 stat. The difference between -2 and +3 is quite massive, even if it doesn’t seem at first.
You can be sure of it by checking out this graph that Vincent Baker, the creator of Apocalypse World, made:
Notice that your odds of a strong hit go from 5% to 55%. Your odds of at least a weak hit go from 30% to 90%. If a teacher saw their student go from 30% to 90%, they’d think the student changed, grew, became more competent.
Well, but aren’t other games more dramatic in their character stat growth? Aren’t other games in the extremes of brutally hard or trivially easy? Probably, but I’m not sure that this is a bug. To me, it’s a feature.
My players can try anything. They want to burn the whole realm in a single Move? They do it. And I get to think about how that changes the world. I get to think about how the fire destroyed their own home. I get to think about what new societies arise from the ashes. I get to think about how the players’ NPC friends are now plotting against them. In other words, the fact that players can try anything at all makes the game very interesting to me and to my friends. I never tell them “nope, you can’t”. I also never tell them “obviously you can”. Instead, they can always genuinely try. And the world constantly adapts. There is no status quo. That’s the feature, not the bug.
If players can try anything, how come their character sheets are so over-constrained? This is a good point. I agree with you. If you dislike the character sheets in Apocalypse World, it’s kind of a bummer. However, the way that Apocalypse World does characters is decidedly not how all PbtA games do characters. Vincent Baker himself has said that his character playbooks are a sort of historical accident and that other PbtA games could be entirely different (1). And, indeed, there are PbtA games that are entirely different.
Take Ironsworn or Starforged. Both of those games are Powered by the Apocalypse and have an explosion of options for character creation. During character creation, you’re given a deck of cards, and you get to pick three of them for your character. Each card represents a special feat, ability, companion, tool, magic, vehicle, or other options. In Ironsworn there are 75 assets, which gives you 405,150 different combinations for your character. In Starforged there are 87 assets, which gives you 635,970 different combinations for your character.
How does Daggerheart fare in this regard? Does it over-constrain characters? In short, it’s nowhere close to Apocalypse World. Yes, it doesn’t have Ironsworn and Starforged’s explosion of options. However, they do have a card system in which you can choose your character’s ancestry and community. You also choose different cards every time you level up, cards that are specific to your class. This is definitely not an over-constraining game.
So, to recap, the difference between a competent Apocalypse World character and an incompetent one is great. However, players can still always succeed or always fail, which I think is not a bug, but a feature; the world is always adapting to what players do! Finally, Daggerheart is nowhere close to Apocalypse World in terms of over-constraining characters.
(1) Here Vincent Baker shows that Playbooks are even optional to the Apocalypse World model.
Would be interested to know how it diverges from PbtA? Sounds cool though!
Look also to one heir of PbtA: Blades in the Dark.I’m biaised, I like mist of this game (including Deep Cut).
I’ve heard good stuff about blades in the dark, I’ve got time for that. Hell, more than half the time I’m a player I just play someone crazy about dying anyway
Play your character like a stolen car.
It’s even in the rules.
So rare to feel truly understood these days.
EDIT: Oh… I just realized you asked how it DIVERGES from PbtA, not how it is similar to PbtA. lol my bad. I’ll come back with a more informed response later!
So far I can confidently tell you that the Player Principles in Daggerheart are very much like the Principles of Apocalypse World:
- Be a fan of the character
- Address the characters
- Look through crosshairs
- Play to find out what happens
In other words, it gives clear guidance on what it means to be an MC/GM. It’s explicit about not railroading. It’s explicit about not pulling the rug underneath your players (“Oops! You didn’t check for traps! That’s 999999 bludgeoning damage coming your way!”). I like when games are this explicit; it’s easier to have a conversation about what good and bad GMing looks like.
I also know that it doesn’t just have success and failure (and critical successes and failures). Instead, it has successes and failures that aren’t as extreme, so small complications pop up more often.
The character progression checklist also looks straight up from an Apocalypse World character sheet (in a good way!). [Edit 2: I learned that the checklist might be similar to Apocalypse World, but there’s this whole card system where each level involves choosing new feats or abilities or things like that, all related to your class]
Standing by! Haha
What is PbtA? Well, the Baker’s definition:
“Powered by the Apocalypse” isn’t the name of a kind of game, set of game elements, or even the core design thrust of a coherent movement. (Ha! This last, the least so.) Its use in a game’s trade dress signifies ONLY that the game was inspired by Apocalypse World in a way that the designer considers significant, and that it follows our policy wrt others’ use of our creative work.
Is Daggerheart inspired by Apocalypse World? I think so: Meguey Baker co-authored Apocalypse World and the post-apocalyptic “Motherboard” campaign frame in Daggerheart. I would be surprised if Mercer would not have credited PbtA somewhere. If Darrington Press would like to, Meg and Vincent would probably approve with the “PbtA” stamp.
It doesn’t use the “2d6+stat” role mechanic but that is not essential just like all the other game mechanics.
I’m sorry. This is probably not very helpful. Maybe a more precise answer could be given if you ask how it diverges from “Dungeon World” or some other PbtA game you know.
That’s cool, I didn’t realise PbtA was such a broad term in its own right. I’ve played a little Dungeon World and others, but not enough to know the background of all that.
Compared to Dungeon World, the Hope/Fear counters are a difference.
I’m not sure where they got it from. To me it seems somewhat like Fate points.
Dang. That’s a cool dice mechanic. I must be spoiled with ORE, but it feels like a lot of work to get one dice roll out of the way. It doesn’t bog things down, do you find?
Youtube interview of Mercer about the Hope-Fear mechanic.
I had no chance to try it myself.
I get it now. I like the idea of having a visual build-up of threat stemming from dice rolls.
I would be interested in reading through this if they release a free rules version. I can’t justify paying for a RPG ruleset if I am not going to be playing it. Have they released one yet? There wasn’t when I last checked it out.
You mean like a System Reference Document?
Yeah!!! I love a SRD. Looks like I know what I am doing while goofing off at work today
The (VTT) game I’m a player in is moving to DH next campaign after playing the initial pre-releases for a few months and really enjoying it. Next campaign won’t be for 4 to 6 months though, so I’ve haven’t gone in to look at what changed.
I think that the Critical Role crew has done their utmost to conflate DnD with improv stage performance and that Daggerheart looks like nothing more than a platform to continue their failing brand.
Idk, it might be fun — don’t let my personal feelings about Critical Role cloud your judgement. I just have been very disappointed with Critical Role and have decided to vote with my wallet.
Huh. Thanks for sharing. I’m totally up for critically evaluating Critical Role and Daggerheart.
I do agree that Critical Role’s play style was a bit like a square peg in a round hole. Other games could’ve been more appropriate for them. Arguably a more appropriate game for them is Daggerheart.
As to not letting your personal feelings about Critical Role cloud my judgement, thanks for caring about not biasing me. At the same time, I’m sure you have good reasons to be critical of Daggerheart. Understanding why we say what we say sounds like a good plan, and I’m curious to hear what you think:
What is it about Daggerheart that makes you think it’s nothing more than a platform to continue their failing brand?
thanks for caring about not biasing me
Games are games, I try not to yuck anyone’s yum.
What is it about Daggerheart that makes you think it’s nothing more than a platform to continue their failing brand?
I think that if you look at campaign 2 and 3 of Critical Role — there is a very clear decline in quality. This decline in quality has retroactively permeated things like Legend of Vox Machina (Pike, the cleric, suddenly deciding ‘Gods r bad’. Very clearly mimicking the poor narrative decisions Matt has made.).
Now, I don’t know if Daggerheart is bad — really it just sounds like it’s a platform for improv performance, which I don’t dislike! I also think you’re right on the money about the square peg in the round hole. I think what I need to see from Daggerheart is that it’s worth the amount of effort they put into it, considering how they’ve treated their DnD campaigns.
TL;DR — it’s hard for me to separate the lack of quality in CR’s recent campaigns from Daggerheart. I gave up on CR a long time ago, Daggerheart needs to prove itself to me, and can’t be through CR.
