A cool video review of Daggerheart, today, and at the 1:20 mark, he says something fascinating:
I feel like the system was literally designed for me.
Please watch the entire video, like it, and subscribe. We need to promote positive messages like this on YouTube and celebrate creators who produce these kinds of uplifting and inspirational videos. The only way the tabletop community gets better is if we all do a small part and make better choices each and every day.
That's a fun statement, and it brought back memories of our initial impressions of D&D 4E. Now, later on, we realized what a mess the game was, but that "magical feeling" that captures your imagination is irreplaceable and will drive your enjoyment and investment in the system.
I never felt that way for 5E, and neither did my brother. 5E was just sort of the "we're sorry" game after D&D 4E, which we invested in heavily. We gave 5E a shrug and moved on. Wizards let us down too many times, and the end of 4E was a disaster of them patching the game with various books and never fixing a thing.
The Monster Manual tried it first by cutting the hit points down and the attack damage up, but the first Monster Manual was still a mess. It felt like they never play-tested any of 4E, or if they did, it was in an extreme Seattle echo chamber. Then, the 4E Essentials were released, attempting to rebalance classes, but by that point, we had given up on the system entirely.
4E, initially, from levels 1-10, was enjoyable. Use more minions and fewer full-hit-point creatures, and you have some great miniature battles. We played 100% with figures and on the tabletop, with dungeon tiles, and as a tactical game. The picture above is from one of our games, and that is an original Ral Partha female thief there in red on the left.
But that statement, where someone gets the feeling "the game was designed just for them," is such a heart-warming and wonderful thing to say, and it brings back the best in our hobby. This should be the mountain game designers try to climb, and the zenith they should be fighting to reach and plant a flag upon.
We get so distracted by VTT support, platform lock-in, small changes, art style, old or new school, finding a game, dissing other systems, hacking the game, complaining, character sheets, min-maxing, and so many other worthless battles that just hide our true unhappiness with the games we play.
For me, my legacy 5E will always be Tales of the Valiant. I will be off playing Daggerheart and giving it a try, but when I come back, it will be with a system that I know will be around for the next 10-20 years, support all my 2014-2024 books, and be a solid, playable, fixed version of the rules where I own my PDFs. ToV is my 5E game going forward, and I have zero interest in Wizards and what they do from here. If my IRL group wants to play an older Wizards adventure, we will do it with ToV.
ToV also insulates me from the vile and exploitative D&D YouTube clickbait channels. I simply do not care, nor does any of the "this week's Wizards drama" affect me or grab my interest. Sorry, I am playing something drama-free. Please produce actual content that contributes to the community instead of earning money off of hate and anger. I know "it sells," but please show some ethical backbone and not appeal to the lowest common denominator.
ToV falls into that "positive game" space that I am beginning to see Daggerheart in. Both games have no drama in them. They "just are." They are more about my games and ideas. What I am fighting towards is only having upbeat and feel-good games on my most-played shelves. Games with that same feeling expressed in the video. I am not playing something I feel slightly angry at.
For someone to say "the game feels like it was designed for me" cuts through all that noise and anger.
What is important is having fun again.
You can't wait to sit down and play. It feels just like it did when I was a kid. None of this feels like a chore. Those special feelings are back.
That is what I want from a game.
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