my players really like the little game of deciding if they should spend armor slots or not. It makes taking damage interactive. We're big fans of it. I think daggerheart knows exactly what its trying to do. Its just doing a bad job of communicating it to its audience because its worried making the design goals crystal clear will limit the broad appeal. - I think daggerheart is trying to be a game where the PLAYERS get to play a crunchy game, but the GM plays a rules lite game. I think the end goal is to provide a dnd 5e experience, but taking a lot of the burden off the shoulders of the GM. Make prep easier, make running combats easier etc etc. But if you simplify the mechanics that make prepping and running combat easier, then you need to add in ways to keep the combat satisfyingly complex for the players. The armor slots are one way they did this and I think its very successful. The character building flavored as deck building is another attempt. One that I think requires more refinement but is conceptually fine. I think the problem is that, they are worried that if they advertise the system as "crunchy for players, light for GM's" then it makes it seems really niche. So they would rather say "its got narrative elements, rules lite elements, crunchy elements, and wargamey elements, all in one!" which makes it sound like its a game for everyone. - TLDR I don't think daggerheart has an identity crisis. I think daggerheart knows exactly what it is, but is worried as coming across as niche so its deliberately vague in how it describes itself.

@TinyEle

20 күн бұрын

Really well said. This has been my experience as well both playing and dming.

I just want them to cut or reduce one attack resolution subsystem. Attack roll, compare to evasion, damage roll, damage threshold and armor check. I kinda would like the thresholds to just be defined by armor. I don’t want to focus on these thresholds so much. It’s not that fun or narratively meaningful choice. Furthermore, I think they could steal from Burn Bryte. In that game, players don’t have an action limit, but they have a minor disadvantage for each extra action in the same turn, and they can’t act consecutively. This would naturally curb how many actions one player might pull off while giving high press your luck feel. Compared to dnd, there’s less tracking for resources and occurrences for using features, but again that’s where I think cutting out the armor point system can help the game shine. Health is set it and forget it, stress catches a lot of character resource, and hope is simple narrative power. It works with just three.

@justinswartz2162

21 күн бұрын

I actually really like your armor idea. That is the "slowest" point of the game, but it also kinda builds tension and gives players a bit of agency when taking damage, instead of it being a thing they just have to swallow. But I do think it slows things down a beat at least while in combat, I've gone to moving on if my player is still deciding about using armor and coming back once they made the choice. Usually only takes an extra 15-30 seconds, but I also like the idea of armor increasing thresholds too, that's an elegant solution

@BestgirlJordanfish

20 күн бұрын

@@justinswartz2162 Yeah I’ll have to experiment with it, but it could be simple like: • Unarmored - 4 points per threshold • Light - 6 points • Heavy - 8 points All to a maximum of 3 wounds in a single hit. If you take damage half or less than half of your first threshold, you take 0 (maybe to help against grazing effects) Or something along that tuning, with unarmored granting bonus evasion, and heavy reducing your evasion for those beefy thresholds or something. If they wanna show off how streamlined they are, they could really condense it all to just “Unarmored”, “Light”, “Heavy” but add Decorations that add expressive aspects to them instead (such as “Scale” reducing incoming ranged physical damage by double your Proficiency, “Hide” to increase stealth, “Chain” to lower your stealth but reducing incoming melee physical damage, etc). They have ways to make their options simpler, but way more rad, meaningful, and expressive with those choices.

@Graedahl

19 күн бұрын

It is important for them to have different resource buckets, like armor, stress, and hp, so different classes can have a niche in management of the respective resources. If we gut the secondary systems, the lack of complexity will leave us with flat character builds.

@auradmg

13 күн бұрын

I hope you submitted the armour thing as feedback to Darrington Press because it would remove a significant chunk of stopping to do calculations during what should be a very fluid narrative sequence. I think the solution that's going to work best for the armour and threshold mechanics is to make it automatic. Platemail needs to be hit harder than leather for any of that damage to get through to the character's body, so it should come with higher thresholds, and it's more durable than leather so it should have more armour slots too. And characters shouldn't be able to decide whether the armour they're wearing blocks incoming damage, it should just be a feature of wearing armour. The downside of this feature is making each armour type make narrative sense without adding more crunchy damage-type rules. If we say that armour is automatic and it just responds naturally to incoming damage, then being hit by a knife or an unarmed punch would logically do almost nothing to heavy armour, so why would it go through armour slots at the same rate and allow the same amount of relative HP damage through as a battle axe? There would have to be an element of suspension of disbelief, or heroic narrative style where *everything* potentially hits in a dramatic and meaningful way, but I think the simplicity of the GM narrating, "The troll swings his club, do you use any abilities to affect this? In that case, It connects for 17 damage, your armour takes a heavy dent but absorbs the majority of it and you mark 1HP" instead of pausing to consider the balance of how many armour slots you have left for the combat and if it's worth spending 2 slots at this point or should you take 2HP and back off or, etc. I don't think the current way is 'bad' but reduced time calculating and more spent narrating and responding to narration is always a good thing for a narrative-forward game.

@auradmg

13 күн бұрын

@@Graedahl I don't think you'd lose much of that by having armour and thresholds shifted to a part of the GM-side damage calculation/narration, characters would still have features and abilities that interact incoming damage. Narratively, it makes sense to me that when a troll swings its club, the target doesn't get time to think about whether the plate armour they're wearing can withstand many more hits before they somehow decide whether to allow the armour to absorb some damage or quickly take it off, get hit, then put it back on. They just get hit, and the plate does its job for as long as it can until it's broken.

I love the damage thresholds and armor system. Separating how hard you are to hit and how much damage is done thanks to armor feels like storytelling within the combat, and it's really not very complicated. In the four sessions I've run it doesn't slow things down very much. GM - "That's 15 damage." Player - "Okay, that's a major hit, I'll spend 2 armor to reduce it to minor." GM - "The skeleton makes contact with it's rusted sword, but your leather armor absorbs some of the damage. Mark 1 hitpoint." We move on. It helps with the storytelling of the combat for the group, which is the point. Overall, the combat feels much faster than my group's weekly D&D game. Small sample size I know over a small number of sessions, but so far so good IMO. The emotion of the moment hasn't passed, the player is given agency within it.

@auradmg

13 күн бұрын

With players who are experienced in the mechanics it will always become faster, but if you've played with people who are brand new to TTRPGs as well as to Daggerheart, there can be a lot of time spent considering the value balance of spending armour slots and getting the concept to become natural as with your example. "So I take the damage?" "You're wearing leather armour, so take the incoming damage number then look at your Armour score and the amount of Armour slots you have, which are in two different places on the character sheet. You can spend an armour slot to reduce the incoming damage by the Armour score, then compare the new number to your thresholds. Does it bring the damage under a new threshold? If not, you can spend more slots to keep reducing the incoming damage by the Armour score, if you want to. If you don't, you can just take the damage and save the armour slots for a more efficient use depending on how much damage the next incoming hit does." "uhhh let me find a clean page in my notebook"

@Rolling_with_Hope

13 күн бұрын

@@auradmg I definitely agree playing with new players in Daggerheart, like most TTRPGs will require patience and learning together on the front end. And I also agree that Daggerheart's HP, evasion and armor mechanics are more finnicky than just HP and AC. The questions are (1) is it hard to learn, (2) once learned it is hard to use, (3) does it slow down play, and (4) is it fun once you get the hang of it? In this case, I think the answers are: (1) It is harder to learn than HP and AC, but not hard. At our table (which I will concede does not have new players, and we've all been playing together weekly for years) it was easy to pick up quickly. The first time someone was hit, it was definitely a discussion going through the options. The tenth time though, everyone understood it and had a good feel for it. By the end of the first session, it was fine. (2) Once learned, is evasion + armor + HP hard to use? No. GM tells you the damage. You find where that number sits compared your damage thresholds and determine how many hit points that is. Then you decide if you want to use any armor slots. While there are three steps for the player, all of them are very easy. I personally think the math is often easier and quicker than saying "GM - You take 17 damage." "Player (thinking) - Okay 17 off of 51 is ... take the 1 ... 34." (3) Does the system slow down play? I don't think so. I know this is subjective, but our combats feel substantially faster than most other TTRPGs we've played ... and as I said above, once learned the conversation over damage is normally just a few seconds and then a narrative description of the result. (4) Is it fun? Yes. It gives the player agency over what resources get depleted by damage, changes the flavor of how an attack is received, and helps the GM provide more descriptive representations of the result of the attack.

That opening statement is definitely right on the money, even just looking at the rules makes it clear that while they say they want it to be a more rules-lite game, a lot of it is just a lot more complicated than other systems. Just look at HP and Damage Thresholds, as it seems many people who've played it have all said it's very clunky and slows the game down compared to the more basic HP and Damage of other systems, math-lite or not. And the Level-Up system definitely sucks, as the non-linear progression just doesn't work when the stuff is wildly unbalanced and full of trap choices. A more linear progression system would honestly be just fine given all the choices are just basic resources and attributes, and it would almost certainly have better scaling than the current setup grants.

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

Pretty much exactly this. The want one thing, describe another and enact rules that are different than both lol. It’s just all over the place. Many of the systems in place are interesting and functional but I just don’t know that they work in DH. A more streamlined level up system would absolutely be a great start for this type of game.

@halozoo2436

22 күн бұрын

@@InsightCheck Or at least just have Evasion and Experiences progress automatically would be better. The former would help make Tier Progression and scaling easier since they can make sure Adversaries aren't just hitting you more and more and balancing it and Armor Slots better in Progression. While the latter would allow the mechanic to not sit around neglected as it's not worth increasing right now and would be the perfect chance to make them simply have 1 shared Modifier so there's not Experiences you never actually care about in practice.

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

For sure. Some consistency to ensure a level up doesn’t feel like a power down lol. I mentioned in another comment that HP and Stress for example should always increase at a level up but they can leave them as options in case players want to dedicate more resources to it.

@marcos2492

10 күн бұрын

​@@halozoo2436I agree with you, the game is pretty good overall, but the armor system is the only part I'm straight up dissatisfied with

I have a buddy who was interested in this system and wanted to run a game with it since it was billed as a more freeform game. I think he was expecting a middle ground of dnd and whitewolf systems, but as it stands, hes kinda lost interest since "at this point i could just do a more narrative d&d session". I'm not sure if thats accurate, but at least thats his feeling. One thing ive seen a few times and heavily disagree with is that rules light games take less work. That is just... not true. They still take work, its just the burden has been shifted to the DM(or player) to adjudicate and narrate plausibility into your session instead of being born by a standard set of rules. So while a rules lite system might be more Flexible, it is not less work. That might be a tradeoff your dm is willing and happy to make, but its not nothing.

A minor thing that bugs me is the “once per session” abilities. That’s such an arbitrary limitation. Not every group’s sessions are going to go for the same amount of time, and given that DH wants to be a narrative-focused system, how do you narratively justify a character suddenly being able to use an ability again for no in-game reason?

@MoiMagnus1er

20 күн бұрын

I agree that "ressources per session" is a little awkward because some groups will play for 2h while others for 6h, the game should at the very least include some variant rules for how to handle it in shorter or longer sessions. However, I disagree on your second point, narrative-focused doesn't mean realistic. If your goal is an action-packed adventure, you will have a better time copying films and animes than reality, and things like "Plot armour" are narrative tools that you could introduce into a narrative-focused game even if it has no in-universe justifications. And those "ressources per session" are IMO clearly introduced for narrative reason: the intended pacing of the narration requires that every character get their moment to shine each session, but if they start to do it multiple time per session it becomes boring. It is "once per session" because it is not a question of game balance, it is a question of crafting an interesting story.

@auradmg

13 күн бұрын

I think the exact reasoning behind it is to *encourage* players to do that thing every time they play, and to look for that opportunity to do their cool thing. You could easily house-rules it to be once per short rest or something, but I think it helps cement the ability as part of the character (for both that player and the other players in the group) to have that happen every time the group gets together. Making it *once* per session encourages players to use it in a moment where it has impact as they know they won't get to do it again until next time.

The HP/Armor system isn't complex... It's convoluted. A lot of systems have armor being a damage reduction mechanic, but having it be a resource on top the extra step of damage conversion... It's just needless. They should just have armor be a flat reduction if that's what they want it to be. And HP should just be HP. I feel like they have the convolution of that extra step for HP in order to have "the big numbers" but have HP kept very low to make it quick and easy to manage. (Many d6 systems have low HP systems that are similar.... But straightforward.)

This was my first thought. I feel like the game is fighting itself.

Thinking about "meaningful improvements", I think the big problem there is that choices that only function as gradual improvements feel wrong in a game where you have levels. You're reaching a breakpoint that's supposed to cause a significant improvement in your character immediately. It feels more like something out of BRP.

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

In fairness you do also get to pick “Domain Cards” many of which function like class features. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that many of these choices just aren’t impactful. You should just get additional HP. You shouldn’t have to pick that. You should get an extra Stress as recognition of your skill and growth. Those should come as standard with every level. If players then choose to devote more to it, they can, but you should never feel weaker after a level up.

Great points about the system. I enjoy the damage threshold system, but it does end up pulling me out of the narrative a bit because I have to wait for the player to figure out how bad the hit actually was before describing it. Then I end up just not describing it at all. That mixed with figuring out what to do with my DM resources, it does end up taking some juggling to remember the narrative elements, which is unfortunate considering it's a narrative based game. I hope over time I'll get used to it, but I'd say it does have some conflict there.

An extremely firm-but-fair take! I found your experience with evasion, armour and damage totally fascinating, it's wild to see how easily the potential variables can just be completely optimised out of the game! Really enjoyed the video, really appreciate your positive and constructive attitude and I look forward to the next video!

Thank you for your fair and honest assessment. It goes to show how monumentally difficult it is to make a TTRPG system from scratch.

@InsightCheck

17 күн бұрын

I appreciate that, it really means a lot. Creating a system from scratch is unquestionably in incredibly challenging task. It’s been very interesting and fun to experience the development.

When it comes to the monster scaling, it's really hard to make monsters that are both challenging yet fair, especially if you want some measurement tool like CR to help GMs gauge when you should add it to an adventure (I did the same for gauging whether or not they should gain XP, and I find it's a nice method). I may have cheated by just... skipping the CR thing for a system I'm working on, and relying on the GM to judge how well the Party is going to handle a combat. And for the issue of obvious choices, it can be really hard to avoid those "I can't take anything but this feature" in any kind of situation where the enemies are guaranteed to get stronger. Even more so when most other bonuses are of minor consequence. All in all, I can see how difficult it is to design Daggerheart. I may not follow them, but I think the 2d12 method is definitely useful in certain cases, and that they should lean on that more than anything, since that is what really sets them apart. Actually, if you asked me what to strip Daggerheart down to, I'd say: 2d12, Hope tokens and Fear tokens. In fact, I might even go so far as to have Damage reduce the Hope each Creature can have, with them dying once their maximum Hope reaches 0.

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

I thing monster design is currently one of the best elements of the game. They can be both challenging and fair at the same time and a lot of it is the product of whether the party rolls a lot with Hope or Fear. Many activated abilities require Fear. It can become potentially problematic if the group is constantly rolling with Fear but that’s not all thaaaat common.

16:32 This is an issue that I have with a LOT of systems that attempt to be "narrative" more generally, they try really hard to be clever. In theory you'd think that you're letting mechanics fade into the background, but in reality that's more of a simulationist thing. Hope and Fear should be something that the players have no control over, literally the dice telling you the current vibe.

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

I think I’m in agreement with this. It s a cool idea to have forces beyond your control help or hurt. It’s an interesting concept baked into the system. But when players can influence it it makes for something that needs a lot of management which runs counter to the game philosophy.

Yooo, wasn't expecting another Daggerheart video so soon. More thoughts later, but going in I'm also shocked at how many changes they are enacting. They went back and forth on advantage in the last three versions. The terms Alpha and Beta don't necessarily mean anything... But idk sweeping changes to the system like how advantage works etc feel like changes that should be locked in already, i.e. before the open beta, since those kinds of changes have huge knock on effects. Changes at beta should perhaps be smaller scale imo?

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

I pretty much agree with this assessment. Core functional mechanics and vision should have been established before public beta. Now I love doing this kind of beta/alpha testing so I’m here for it but I feel like this is much more of an alpha state than anything else.

Honestly, from what I have seen so far, I believe that if they keep the weird card-based system upon release, someone is just gonna make a homebrew version of the character sheet that just includes places to put the info the cards would have had.

@OsamaZahid308

21 күн бұрын

That's already officially provided. You don't actually need cards all the time.

@blockyuniverseproductions6587

21 күн бұрын

@@OsamaZahid308 Well that's good to hear

If I'm playing a "fiction first" game I *damn* sure don't want to have everything grind to a halt when I am hit so I can do math and basically play a mini-game to compute how much damage I took.

When I saw the words "identity crisis" in the title, I was expecting it to address MY complaint with DH, namely that it doesn't feel like its own "world". I'm not enthusiastic about DH because its theme seems to be "everything is like it is in D&D, except the math". The future of RPGs, in my opinion, is in creating distinct, lush, original settings.

@XanderHarris1023

21 күн бұрын

You want a TTRPG with a distinct, original setting check out Cloudbreaker Alliance. The amount of setting and lore they were able to put in the Core book is astounding.

@user-dc2qf6zx3s

21 күн бұрын

@@XanderHarris1023 The upcoming game I'm looking forward to is Dolmenwood (due out this winter, I believe). It uses the Old School Essentials engine (which I'm not a fan of), but the setting is amazing.

@TinyEle

20 күн бұрын

That's not at all what daggerheart is trying to do though. It sounds like you want something very different from a core game system.

@BraveShowBoys

19 күн бұрын

They arent making a setting for you. They are making a core game system to play with. It is either your or your dms job to make the world.

@auradmg

13 күн бұрын

In fairness, they have stated that they're focusing on testing and tuning the rules since this is literally the playtest phase of development, and they will be introducing a formal setting and modular campaign materials with the full release following testing.

I feel like it was 100% the right move for them to bring this beta public. Like you mention, each mechanic looks real good in isolation so it would have been super easy for them to just keep spinning some of these systems further and further out of control when really what they need rn is to prune and scale back.

I think the hope/fear mechanic should be the main mechanic for the hole game. Build everything else around that and have a unique system.

A few questions I have is: Why does the Seraph have a 7 evasion? It can't be because of armor unless the warrior with it's 10 evasion runs around butt naked. Why would they expect anyone to take the Bare Bones card on a Seraph when it gives a 4 Armor and the suggested armor gives 6. Add that to the poor evasion and you would be kind of mental to chose it. Especially if chain being the 'suggested' armor does not prevent you taking plate armor.

When I read the title I thought you were gonna complain about CR changing mechanics so rapidly between 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4. So I came here to say that you are wrong. But your video was actually on point. I wouldn't even mind if the game was rule-heavy. But it's just confusing. Here the rules say that there are no rules, you should focus on the narrative and you should do whatever feels right. But next is the 4-step calculation of received damage that involves 3 spendable resources.

I'd love to see y'all review MCDM's untitled RPG like this. Very useful overview and thought, I thought 🤔

Honestly I think a the hp system from Fantasy age 2nd ed alternative rules, the luck system, would work. Player have luck and not hp. Hit reduce luck and when you run out you take an injury. Each injury applies a rather harsh penalty to all rolls, and and third injury knock out out/kills. You can and this is the part that I think would help DH, use luck point as a bonus to your rolls. did you miss an enemy by two then spend two point and now you hit.

The thing about Daggerheart having an identity crisis is that if I could sum up my issues with D&D 5e, it's that it's already the product of an identity crisis. It's already a game that tried halfheartedly to carry on what 3.5 was doing, mash an incomplete idea of B/X dungeon crawling into it, and pull a few ideas for more narrative games that were emerging at the time. Then, instead of at least being confident about it's decisions, WotC tried to simultaneously treat it as a "toolkit" game and shield itself from criticism towards poorly designed rules (some feel like they were barely designed) by going "well, just toss it, then." It led to a community that ALSO can't decide what the game "really is". What's ESPECIALLY worrying is that it seems like 5e turned out like that largely because of early D&D Next playtests where WotC tried it's best to please everyone in the room.

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

I get where you’re coming from and the comparison is reasonable. The goal for me though at least was to focus more on the product that DH currently is but I agree that the parallels are present and potentially concerning.

@SerifSansSerif

22 күн бұрын

I think people like to bash 5e now because it's been 10 years, and it's a simplified game. 5e was more of a "reset" to B/X than it was a continuation of 3.5, and people forget WHY 3.5 was so over the top complicated or WHY future editions got made: people asked for more rules rather than making rulings, and they wanted more game mechanics to add complexity. Each edition after the 0th edition added more rules and more abilities, and yeah, sorry, but 3.5 was the most rules heavy, most overpowered, most munchkin version. 4 was it's own thing about trying to really reign everything in and give a super refined game mechanic experience, and it didn't work. So back to basics 5e. One D&D is just adding back in optional rules from previous editions, ones that were forgotten for a very long time, with bastions and weapons masteries. They're old rules reflavored, but adding "complexity" and adding more rules and more to the DM workload.... It's also getting more "video-gamey" because they plan to move more into the digital realm, but it's just more of the same old game. If you like 3.5, play pathfinder. If you like basic, play OSR, if you like 5e, play 5e. But don't act like this "identity crisis" is something newly discovered in the edition: it's just age of the system and the usual edition rot.

@colbyboucher6391

22 күн бұрын

@@SerifSansSerif I agree with everything you just said. I only commented on 5e because it's the current one, but official editions of D&D have always had problems like this, arguably unless you go all the way back to the original game and some versions of Basic. I've always felt that there's plenty of "unofficial D&D edition" games which emulate whatever edition they're riffing off of better than the original (for 5e it's Shadow of the Demon Lord). (Also I'd actually say that one of the results of 5e's particular identity crisis is that it's rules feel pretty fragmented in a way that makes it way harder to keep in my head than it would be otherwise)

@colbyboucher6391

22 күн бұрын

@@SerifSansSerif ...Actually wait, you're arguing that 5e only got like this later on? It's cool to see someone else remember that Next started out as a "return to B/X" thing in a lot of ways, but I'd say that the core rulebook is already quanitfiably not that. Heck, most of the rules that people consistently ignore are the ones that try to riff on B/X specifically.

@SerifSansSerif

22 күн бұрын

I would also want to add, in an ideal world, the whole of D&D post 5th would be in the creative commons, and treated like Monopoly or Scrabble are, or more to the point. novels like Dracula and Frankenstein. The game itself, both in mechanics and monsters, is so influential and widespread both in its influence and usage that when you say you play tabletop RPG's it's basically assumed to be D&D. (and similarly, "playing D&D" is conventionally an explanation for D&D and other TTRPG's to those who might not know specifics. It seems weird, but to the point, D&D is the "google" "kleenex" and "xerox" and "scotch tape" of the RPG world). It's also so pervasive that most games have to bend over backwards to avoid the "D&D clone" designation and still be familiar enough that it can attract players. Calling the mindflayer or the beholder "D&D intellectual property" is also just so..... wrong. It's like the Orcs of Tolkien. Mindflayers and Beholders exist in other media (the marlboro in the FInal Fantasy franchise is a huge riff on the beholder, and FF Tactics used mindflayer like beasts as well). It's more of a problem of Mickey Mouse laws preserving IP for such a long period than it is an actual legit reason to keep the game within individual corporate rights. I think if they were CC'ed they're so influential it would never go out of print, but it would also allow for other games to be more creative.

I think in their own heads the developers at Darlington press keeps comparing it to dnd and more likely pathfinder and this is why they keep calling it rules light.

Was bored, about to go to bed, then I remembered there was an Insight Check video in my feed that I missed earlier this week, I know what I’m doing now…

I havent played at the medium and higher levels to get a grasp on how the HP and thresholds feel later on, but i definitely have heard the comments online that there should be more baseline progression. I like that they have given improved proficiency at certain levels, but i dont think it will take much more than that to meet the sweet spot. Overall im really enjoying Daggerheart, ive played a one shot online and ill be running my own campaign in 2 weeks. In combat it feels like the world is lashing out at me, and its my job to actively survive it. It feels like you should be using creatures a little above the recommended difficutly rating so It can look cute, but it 'should' be quite deadly if you're not paying attention. My campaign is going to have vibes of Made in Abyss and Delicious in dungeon. Two series where its cute and wholesome one minute and then very dangerous the next. Im glad they added more structure to the maps and minis side as my group, me included, definitely enjoy the tactics side of these games.

I REALLY didn't understand your comment on the Optional Initiative feeling different. In my eyes, the "Optional" rule was actually training wheels for the actual rule. I don't see how they work any differently in practice. The big difference is you have 3 Tokens to spend rather than just placing tokens as you go; but this is just the same rule from a different perspective. If anyone has taken 3 actions in a row, or if you've only seen a player put 1 down while everyone else has put 2 or 3 down, the GM and players should be aware that the spotlight is not being shared evenly. This variant of the initiative rules just makes it so the loudest person at the table can't play more than others, it's not actually a different rule. I've never used the Optional rule, so I'm only going off of what it looks like on paper, so feel free to clarify and correct me.

@InsightCheck

21 күн бұрын

In our experience it ended up resulting in what most people’s fear of the standard initiative rule was going to bring. Everyone was worried about the standard rule making it awkward to know who goes and when but we actually had an incredibly seamless experience with that one. With this we all kinda felt obliged to use a token, then wait or ask and look around it just ended up feeling more clunky for us. I can see how some people who struggle with the standard rule may prefer this but for us it made it a lot more awkward. Your mileage may vary though :)

@CDMudd

20 күн бұрын

@@InsightCheck I hadn't considered that perspective! I suppose I'm biased since I have ran a lot of narrative games and Daggerheart has *more* of an initiative system than any other narrative game I've played.

What’s the monster at 11:13 ?

I will always be a dnd fan boy but Idd certainly like to give this a try along with other ttrpgs just a time thing really

It's inevitable, isn't it? They want Daggerheart to be a reflection of the typical Critical Role play experience. Therefore, they want it to focus on narrative in-character roleplay, but have some crunchy tactical combat too. And its just hard to get the balance right. 5e struggles with its purpose and balance too, but it doesnt make 5e a bad game. Its hugely successful

I really think that making each damage threshold scale independently of one another was a mistake

@XanderHarris1023

21 күн бұрын

That is such an easy fix too. Have them all scale naturally and then if you choose to invest more points into it, they should all scale at the same time again.

@ethanseng4880

16 күн бұрын

@@XanderHarris1023 Yeah, I like that. I'd have it so improving the damage thresholds always improves the Major and Severe each by 1, or maybe the Major by 1 and the Severe by 2.

YES EXACTLY. The game is light on rules YET crunchy. Meaning it can claim to be rules heavy yet claiming so would feel wrong and the exact opposite feels true as well. It is currently a complex rules-lite system. Kind of funny labeling it as such but it is.

Daggerheart should be the game that brings out Critical Role's strengths on the screen. But I don't feel like it quite does that... Based on what I have seen with Candela, I don't know if Spencer was really the right person for the job.

Wow I feel that you've struck the core of the matter

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

Thanks! I’m glad you feel that way and hope I didn’t come across as unnecessarily negative. I genuinely want the game to succeed!

Opinions may very, but this feels like it greatly overstates the complexity of the armor mechanic and understates its narrative/fun value. Your armor score and damage threshholds are generally the same over multiple sessions. With a little experience playing, the armor use calculation should take maybe a few seconds. It's clunkier because people aren't familiar with it, but the math is extremely simple and doesn't vary a lot unless you are a class that specifically opted in to armor as being a major feature. It also serves a narrative purpose. In D&D when you get hit or take damage, outside of a few very specific spells and abilities, there's nothing you can do about it. It just happens. With DH, you can react to it, and you can narrate what it looks like as you spend the armor slots ("my wizard conjures an arcane shield, but it isn't strong enough to stop the ogre's club"). It also means that the guardian class feels epic as they are blocking lots of damage for themselves and their allies, while having to expend limited resources to do so. It could be simpler and I look forward to seeing what the designers ultimately do with it. But the HP and armor system serves a pretty significant game design point (that is kind of a problem in D&D), and it has a lot more narrative benefit than this gives it credit for. The DM qnnouncing the do 50 damage and the guardian saying "i block it all with my armor/ shield" is a lot more epic than than the d&d barbarian just taking half damage and having lots of HP.

I'm confused about what you think doesn't work well in respect to what the game is trying to be. Like what issue do you have with armor/hit point thresholds? I get they are something to track, but in the end players have to keep track of 4 things, hp, stress, armor, hope. And that is more than 0 forsure, but would it be "better" or more rules light if it just had hp? I don't necessarily disagree with the point that it's not a rules light game, but I don't think it wants to be, it seems like they want rules for combat to make it more exciting and tactical, allowing the stakes to feel higher because a player with knowledge of the system can understand the advantage or disadvantage they have in the fight. And if you wanted to more rules light game you could just play something else. But there aren't make games that are in that middle ground of the two styles of ttrpg.

@InsightCheck

21 күн бұрын

So I mean, it’s not really about what “I want to play” and that I should just go play something else. It’s not even going that far. I’m not even saying “if you don’t like this type of game, you shouldn’t play DH” because I’m not even confident I know what type of game DH wants to be and that’s the crux of the issue. This is fundamentally a design question, not a rules question. I have an entire other video about armour and damage so I won’t go into the nitty gritty here but the system is opaque and slow. It doesn’t seem to jive with the type of game that I “think” DH is trying to be. They say they don’t want to slow the game down with rounds but then they slow it down even further with the thresholds and armour. It’s not that it’s “hard” it’s that it doesn’t feel suited to the design intent.

@justinswartz2162

20 күн бұрын

@InsightCheck oh forsure I didn't necessarily mean "just play something else" but what I meant is there are games designed for a less crunchy experience entirely, but in those games they traditionally don't have the tension that a more tactical combat can build. I would agree with you about armor and thresholds, but I also think they give players some agency over the damage they take, which does slow the pace, but it also adds tension where someone has to choose what to do. In addition having multiple "health" systems gives more knobs for players and designers to turn to make interesting builds. Because daggerheart has a more open combat it is largely faster, but you need some moments of slower tension, seeing if someone is gonna go down or not. In the end I kinda agree that it slows it down and that the abstraction kinda takes you out of it. But I think combat would feel less interesting without these kinda slower and crunchy elements, in the end it gives players with game mastery ways to express that in combat.

Its like four games in one, the more the merrier?

Could you make some DC20 content? I love your videos about daggerheart and other RPGs and i think you would have a lot of interesting things to say about it. I alsi think that the Dungeon Coach is an awesome dude and that DC20 is an awesome, so it would be great if more creators talked about its design!

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

It’s already in the works! :) Might take a couple more weeks but I promise it’s coming! It’s important to me that when I make something I want to make sure I’m adding to the conversation! I’m really looking forward to putting out some DC20 content though!

@Stopdressur

21 күн бұрын

I will be looking forward to that, but take the time you need to make the video as great as possible :)

Not enough mechanics rich systems to let me build something i want from it, but too many walls and hurdles to let be free build what i want in it. I feel like the game is constantly telling me no to every idea i have. It has rules in place dictating things i want to be free form, but not the options that let me use the rules to construct what i want to be. It is like in every avenue, this game is not for me, and it sounds like it should be.

DH, the mechanics aside, is too cutesy, too bunny-foo-foo.

I haven't playtested the game myself (trying to wrangle a group for just D&D is hard enough, much less learning an unfinished game) but just reading the rules has given me the same impression as you. It's trying to be an approachable narrative game and keep things simple, yet has the most overly complicated damage resolution system I've ever seen. Honestly, as an armchair designer freely dispensing grains of salt with my advice, I'd completely rework the system. - One Damage Threshold, equal to the current Severe Threshold. - Evasion is Armor Score + Agility - Armor Points = Armor Score - Sacrifice armor points to negate all damage. Armor Points only return when you repair it over a long rest. When you take damage, compare it to your threshold. If lower, you take 1 Stress. If higher, you take 1 Wound. Wounds cause bigger issues than Stress. Armor can negate everything but runs out quickly so it must be used only when a Wound would be disastrous. Also it automatically makes you harder to hit so it's doing something even if you're not spending it. I feel like this system is still tactical, can be augmented with spells and armor modifications, but most importantly **gets out of the way and makes the stakes of any incoming damage immediately clear**.

am I the only one that thinks damage thresholds are just a bad idea? you're adding an extra step to damage calculation and an extra layer to the health point tracking while also completely neutering burst damage. why would you want to do any of those things?

@XanderHarris1023

21 күн бұрын

Other systems use Armor has an HP increase. Do you think converting armor to more HP slots could help streamline DH? They would have to reword some of the abilities that work with armor. I now realize you were talking about thresholds and not armor but I am going to ask my question anyway.

So glad you summed up the problem I have with Daggerheart's Armor/Damage Thresholds and Hit Points. In addition to what you have said, for example, if a Guardian makes a hit for 40 damage, and that's severe, and a Monk hits for 25, and that's also severe, what's the point? Where's the glory for the Barbarian equivalent, if the Bard equivalent also does 'severe' damage? It's dumbed down and less emotional, and you will never see this happen in Daggerheart: kzread.infogHv1FC9qjL4 And, I think, that's what we all aim for in DnD 5e, yeah? :)

My ideas for daggerheart: Make evasion scale with agility, that would make sense and it would make tanking easier Have an otional rule that at every turn the plyers start with a free action that does not spend an action token, if they want to do anything else they have to spend their tokens with the action tracker. That way it solves the problem that you mentioned in a previous video, of people feeling it would be more effective to not do anything Remove armor slots and make it so the damage reduction is always effective, that way you don't have to calculate weather you are going to take damage or not. We could limit this by adding some armor durability that you could repair during long rest As a VTT player I NEED an initiative tracker. So maybe add an optional rule that players roll agility for initiative? Idk, we could mix that up with one of my previous points I do not remember much abouthow the DM's actions worked in the battle. If I recall correctly you can only act when a player fails or rolls with fear or by spending some fear (Please correct me if I'm wrong) which feels a bit reactionary and I don't like at all. There are situations like ambushes where the NPCs act first. So maybe add a secion for them to act without the DM having to spend resources? Does the heavy armor in daggerheart have dissadvantages? Bc if not, then it needs to have. I recall ppl telling me that wizards were OP with that I do love the domains as a concept but it kinda feels like the classes themselves lost their power. Your class only gives you your damage tresholds and your subclass card right? I honestly do not like that, that way a bard could be exactly the same as a wizard or a rouge could have the same stuff than a sorcerer

I dont agree. It exactly how development looks like. But usually you dont see that because its behind closed doors

@InsightCheck

21 күн бұрын

I said exactly this during the video :)

@woj_kal

21 күн бұрын

True but I wouldn't agree with your title. Can't call it a crisis if the identity in such an early stage. I do understand why KZread vid need to have catchy titles

@InsightCheck

21 күн бұрын

@woj_kal I mean yeah that’s a part of it but also I think it’s still a fair assessment. It’s best so solve design conflicts early on than let them go longer. The quicker they align things, or even if they change nothing but provide clear guidance on what they are trying to do that makes sense, that’s fine with me :)

@woj_kal

21 күн бұрын

@@InsightCheck yes. I may not agree with calling everything"crisis" (reference not only to you're vid). But I do agree that videos like this have positive effect on overall discussion.

I feel as though its expected, given their goals, that hope, stress, armor, and damage thresholds feel like they arent adding enough value for the time is costs to manage and use them. I think those were added because they were looking to reduce how much the system looks like a dnd clone. Daggerheart already duplicates heavilyyyy from dnd. Those rules feel very much like they were added with the primary purpose of making daggerheart look different. Not to actually be valuable additions to the systems when played. So because that wasnt a primary focus when they were added, it ends up being not so good.

I totally agree about armor and damage thresholds... It's is a big let down for me as I expected/imagined Daggerheart to be more rules light

Daggerheart seems to have the same problem DC20 has (and possibly MCDM, I haven't looked at it). They don't know what they want to be, other than "not D&D but better than D&D". So they implement rules to "fix" the flaws or imagined flaws of D&D but there is no harmonious design to the system. Instead of starting with a blank design document and laying out the goals of the system then building the rules to achieve the objectives -- they start with D&D and then, effectively, add house rules (or rules form other systems) to "fix it". So you end up with parts of it being rules-light and other part being rules-heavy, some parts being free-form and others having heavy lock-in. There is a lack of consistency because there is no well defined final goal.

YOur feelings about levelup and combat mirror mine 100%. I really feel the recent changes are just massage these parts on the margins. I'm thinking if they either ditched the damage roll (a la DC 20 RPG) or ditched the to hit roll (a la MCDM or Nimble). This would help a lot. Also since Hope and fear generation is roughly 50/50 with each roll, it does seem a little arbitrary how and when GM and players gain it. Opposed to the use of it is much more intentional. In other words, it might be simpler to just give PCs and GMs a set amount of hope or fear at regular intervals than having to worry about bookkeeping every roll.

If they want something to do less hit points of damage, they should just have it do less hit points of damage. If they don't want it to be an even split, they could even have a 6-sided die with three 1's, two 2's, and one 3. Or pick an 8, 10, or 12-sided die with uneven splits to add even more variety, if that's what they're going for. It's much simpler when the number you see is the number you're using.

This may seem like a non-issue but I'm sad that daggerheart doesn't have a "monk" equivalent. Playing a martial artist is a big fantasy for me and I have a harder time getting invested in games that don't have that archetype. Hoping this changes in the future

@InsightCheck

22 күн бұрын

I don’t think it’s a non issues. It’s a core archetype that a lot of players would love! I feel like they did mention it in one of the streams but they are just focusing on game mechanics first.

@user-pi8pi3wj7h

22 күн бұрын

@@InsightCheck I hope it does get implemented at some point!

@BestgirlJordanfish

22 күн бұрын

All characters get cool unarmed / gauntlet flourish options as weapon of choice and can get spice in unarmored or light cloth armor. It’s just less explicitly oriental. Like a martial arts ranger or warrior or even rogue (one of favorites, like hitting nerves or weak points quickly) is totally viable. Honestly think “monk” could be axed from dnd and pathfinder with how much they can gain from just spicing up other classes instead of using tropes and oriental themes for a single class

@Gamerdudegames

21 күн бұрын

any character class can take on that martial arts flavour, though. In my game one of my players is a sorcerer who is absolutely playing it like a monk, reflavouring all their spells and using unarmed weapons to get that feeling. I think one of the big strengths of Daggerheart is that the classes aren't just these core archetypes, and are flexible enough you can apply the archetype you want to the mechanics of the class you want to play.

@kicksjp

8 күн бұрын

yet

I think Daggerheart should be way more focused on its card system. The cards are an interesting tactile element that makes the game different for other ttrpgs in a meaningful way.

Tbh I don't want to be too negative but from what I have seen of the rules and also watching others play it just does not look that good to me. Like it's clunky but not complex enough where it matters. Big question you have to ask yourself as a game designer (I am one) is "Why would someone play this game?". You have to make it stand out or have an X factor which sets it apart from all the other D&D lites or clones. Daggerheart does not have much of an X factor to me, it's just gimmicks and poorly thought out systems that interrupt the flow of play or make things worse than regular D&D. But it is the early build of the game so I guess we will have to wait and see. I do wish the creators the best and hopefully they can improve the game with the feedback they have gotten.

The hope and fear mechanic is the biggest turn off for me. It's what I don't like about one dnds weapon masteries which slow the game down with constant saving throws. Hope and fear feels more like a constant neusance than a fun feature. It's cool but should be much more limited to how often it comes up. It also makes me feel like i would never want to DM, because the pressure of constantly having to come up with consequences that feel meaningful yet balanced and also not repetative seems very stressful to me.

If a "rules medium" game with a "free flowing approach to combat" has clunkier combat than D&D 5E and LANCER, you have royally messed up somewhere. Listening to your explanation of taking damage and the Hope system, it sounds like Daggerheart is supposed to be an indie co-op video game ala For the King, not a pen-and-paper TTRPG.

I hate "narrative focused games" cause it's just impossible to play with a group of animals. Sorry to my table, but that's just the truth. "You succed but then this thing happen and you actually failed a bit" "So succeed or failed?" "You failed, basically"

@XanderHarris1023

21 күн бұрын

It is hard to get animals to roll dice and communicate their intentions.

@anyoneatall3488

21 күн бұрын

Wait, what happens with your table?