Thanks to Tom for running this. And, my fellow players! I had a lot of fun and it will be really cool to see how Darrington Press makes changes based on feedback.

@d20play

3 ай бұрын

Glad you could make it Teos!

Thanks for the play and the reflection at the end!

Thanks for the play demonstration. The feedback on the system at the end was a good listen as well. I think the secret to a 'narrative' system is that it provides enough character customization to stoke imagination without being too complex, and that the resolution mechanics are extremely simple to employ, even in combat. This frees up mental bandwidth for people to use on the narrative for their character's actions. Basically the rules need to 'get out of the way'. To play narratively means having an understanding of how a story is written, and to use that knowledge to heighten the game. Rather than, "I attack. I hit. 15 for damage", use something simple like, "I wipe sweat from my brow and swing my blade , cutting a line of red across their forearm. I grin at them, relishing the coming victory". It doesn't have to be high prose, and it must be as concise as the moment needs it to be, but that's pretty much it. You don't need a system to tell you how to play narratively. You need a system that 'lets' you play narratively. If you want to learn how to play narratively, and add greatly to the story, learn how to write fiction.

Great video and a fun session! I now have a good overview on how a Daggerheart session will play out. Because i use roll20 too, which default Character sheet did u use to get that simple macros and trackers? Especially the armor tracking with the armor "condition"?

@d20play

2 ай бұрын

Thanks! I do everything with token macros, here is how I do it: kzread.info/dash/bejne/X2yE2qWggJO1Zc4.html

@filzahfiantama

2 ай бұрын

Nice! Thanks for the reference 👍

I think it would have been good to have players narrate more of their cool moves. “What does that look like?” I think you do have to build players expectations that they are contributing in a narrative game. For the initiative, I think I would “move the spotlight” rather than stick to strict turns as you did. After each players actions ask if anyone wants to “spark off that”. If not just move clockwise around the table. Once players realise they can Help and jump in they will be contributing much more. You can also use the Gms turns to move to a neglected player and have them take a turn straight after as a riposte. I think fear tokens and action tokens are probably what I will use.

The playtest wording does a lot of discouraging instead of disallowing things. For example the gm generally shouldn't spend multiple actions on a single monster during a gm move unless that monster has relentless. However the gm reserves the right to do so if they find it necessary whether the creature has relentless or not. There's a lot of stuff like that.

Are the Maps that you all used where they together in a single map pack or where they mixed and matched from different themes?

@d20play

2 ай бұрын

I found them on Reddit as individual files but I put a link to the cartographer’s page in the description. They are both by the same cartographer.

My party played this in person over the weekend. We all brought phones and tablets and used demiplane to track resources. We rolled our own eice and used board game meeples as our action tokens. We drew maps on a wet erase hex mat. The swingiest part was fear and hope. There were times it felt like a famine or glut in either direction and when it strayed too far from average. We played with 2 PCs and a GM. Our party was the quick start rogue and a wizard. We never felt like either the party or GM took too many actions because it was paced by the number of players there were and the actions we were taking.

@davidmc8478

3 ай бұрын

I think the current playtest would work really well with a small party like 2 because you can follow the Initiative system as written. With bigger groups (like Critical Role!) it’s going to be hard to make sure everyone is getting a turn.

@Lessly007

2 ай бұрын

We played the Playtest material with 4 Players and a DM in person and used differently colored poker chips to track Hope, Fear, Stress and Hit Points openly at the table. The game played exeptionaly smooth and we never felt that one side was having more actions than the other. Concerning the amount of turns the individual players had, everyone got to show off their abilites and cool situations came about naturaly. For exemple a narrated Tag Team attack between the Ranger and the sorcerer to attack the Specters at range, or Garrick who finished off 3 damaged skeletons narrated as a kind of blade dance. The liberal action economy was really refreshing in that regard and was able to let such scenes happen.

Where did you find that action tracker? I am DMing a playtest of this tonight and that would be helpful!

@d20play

3 ай бұрын

I think the image I took it from was near the end of the playtest adventure.

Anyway to purchase these maps? Would love to use them when I run this for my players!

@d20play

3 ай бұрын

Search for The Mad Cartographer (and Daggerheart). I believe they posted them for free.

the asymmetry of the d20 is to speed up gameplay. If you only roll d20+X it means you only add 2 numbers per creature instead if 3. Rolling gm advantage as 2d20d1 means you are just comparing dice and not adding them. For players I find the 2d12 system +d6 fir advantage is generally more straightforward for a player compared to like, rolling 3d12 but discarding the lowest dice and which one is hope etc etc.

You just got unlucky - there's statistically less than 50% chance of rolling with Fear. So if you played a lot more, things would even out over time.

4e had lengthy and complex power cards as well, and people didn't like them. I'm not exactly sure why they thought that was a good idea. Way too many resources to keep track of. And Fear is a bad mechanic imo. If you are giving the GM an advantage, it should be because of a player choice IMO. Fate chips from Deadlands are a good example.

@d20play

3 ай бұрын

Tracking the constant changes of fear and hope was aggravating. Recommend they happen less often and/or just back what fear does into the base challenge of the world and the adversaries.

@soundkerempuh4034

3 ай бұрын

How many resources do you track in D&D? from spell slots to abilities per rest and all the other crap on the sheet and beyond it?

@TheManyVoicesVA

3 ай бұрын

@@soundkerempuh4034 Dnd doesnt claim to be a simple or rules-light game. There is also less going on. Avoidance, armor, damage threshold, and how much HP you take in damage. That's 4 steps for each attack alone. And you mark 2 or more resources with each attack depending on the ability(stress or hope, and then remind the GM that you attacked with fear, to take his fear token, so it's more like 7-8 things in a single attack.) There is just way too much going on here. A game can be a simple narrative story-telling game, or a crunchy combat game, not both. This system is trying to have it both ways, and ends up just feeling very sloppy. Dnd has alot of resources, sure. But attacks are still fairly simple, u hit or u dont. Then roll damage. Maybe you adjust numbers because of ragr or something... or your cleric has to remind you of bless. But again, DND is mainly a combat game.

@leffed2109

3 ай бұрын

"People didn't like them" Everyone I know who played 4th including me liked them. So this system with cards is amazing to me 😆

@TheManyVoicesVA

3 ай бұрын

@@leffed2109 I didn't like having so much complexity. It was very wargamey. And I'm someome who likes crunch... it was kind of paralyzing to have like 6 different abilities to choose from all the time.