Staying Power

I have heard a few reports that some Shadowdark players lose interest after a few sessions. Now, this is not the case for everyone, and many have experienced months- or even years-long struggles with this issue. However, for some player types, I can see why that may happen. Those used to the options and character builds of 5E may find that characters in Shadowdark a bit flat, and with random progression, a few boring rolls could make them lose that connection to their character.

I could run an extended campaign with Shadowdark, no problem. There are ways to keep characters compelling and make them feel like they are advancing. Non-advancement rewards, retainers, favors, magic items, special skills and abilities, unique items, magic weapons, and other things can be given to characters rather than rolls on the level-up chart. The game is also highly mod-friendly, allowing you to add a new advancement system in other areas to keep characters feeling like they are advancing and maintaining player choice.

Granted, there is more in a Shadowdark and OSR game, such as Old School Essentials, in terms of character power and progression. In OSE, you are not getting a random power roll every two levels, and your progression curve is a lot flatter. There are strict non-human level limits, along with a maximum level of 14 for all classes. OSE does not have the problem of people losing interest, or at least I have not heard of it happening much.

OSE has far more "stuff" in it regarding treasures, monsters, retainers, and other non-character powers. Retainers are character power, along with pets like war dogs and other animals. Old-school games let you trade gold for power, and forming an expedition is always better than going it alone. Shadowdark's "on the map" style of play, with every turn a combat turn, will discourage retainer use and a softer theater of the mind style of play in OSE.

Because Shadowdark is more 5E adjacent, the players come from a 5E background and have those experiences and expectations. OSR players have a longer-term perspective on campaigns and character advancement. Getting bored feels like 5E expectations creeping into the game.

I wonder if Daggerheart will retain its staying power, especially into higher levels. Like Shadowdark and a lot of the newer games, advancement stops at level ten. This is also true in Dungeon Crawl Classics, but a level ten DCC character is far more potent than OSE, Shadowdark, and even Daggerheart. Time will tell if Daggerheart will be compelling for more extended campaign play, but from what I saw, this game is retaining players and keeping them interested with the build variety, which is better than 5E.

Also, we have yet to see more official expansions and word of the next book for this game. It is early, but I hope they come out of the gates strong and build a great follow-up game.

Time will tell.

Daggerheart: Hope & Fear

Some say players accumulate hope much faster than the referee does fear, which could be a huge problem and destroy any challenge as players "pile on" with buckets of hope points. As a referee, going into a boss fight with a few fear points could mean the encounter would be a cakewalk for the players.

I feel part of this comes from not knowing the game, and referees feeling they need to "spend fear" to make a move, which the rules are clear on:

GMs also make moves. They should consider making a move when a player does one of the following things:

• Rolls with Fear on an action roll.
• Fails an action roll.
• Does something that would have consequences.
• Gives them a golden opportunity.
• Looks to them for what happens next.

After the GM's turn is done, the spotlight goes back to the PCs. 

- Daggerheart SRD, page 37 

Rolls with fear or ANY failure (RWF/F)? The GM gets the spotlight. The rules say, "consider making a move," which is bad advice. Make a move! Do not slack on taking enemy action when ANY player RWF or fails. If you are not forcing enemy attacks each and every time a player RWF/F, you are gimping your fights. If that purple die is ever higher than the yellow, someone in the party is getting whacked.

While RWF gets the referee a fear point, a failure does not, but both give the GM a chance to make a move. Take them. Don't be soft on this, since this will be the majority of the opposition's action budget.

How do you spend fear?

Spend a Fear to:

• Interrupt the players to steal the spotlight and make a move
• Make an additional GM move
• Use an adversary’s Fear Feature
• Use an environment’s Fear Feature
• Add an adversary’s Experience to a roll

- Daggerheart SRD, page 64

By spending fear, you can steal the spotlight, but you should be getting it on 50% of player rolls anyway, just due to chance. Also, remember, while resting, the referee accumulates fear. Spending fear to steal the spotlight should be a last resort, or saved for killing blows or other moments. The clever play is making a second move (or more) by spending a fear point, which means multiple enemies go on your spotlight turn.

Do not give the players any slack. Attack every chance you can get.

And don't burn your fear resource a few encounters ahead of the boss fight.

However, do not think that the only time the GM gets the spotlight is by spending fear. You are missing a massive part of the intended action economy. However, if people are correct and fear points are scarce, then using an adversary's special attacks and environmental features will not be feasible. The challenge will be negatively affected by a random factor.

I wonder if it was a great idea to narratively limit the referee's power using an artificial resource. The referee is busy enough running Daggerheart and keeping the puppet strings, making things work, and spending "referee points" to "make things happen," when in other games the referee can simply "just do it anyway," seems strange. It makes the game harder to run, and now the referee must balance encounters, run the narrative, communicate the environment, manage NPCs, reference rules, run combat, and manage a resource pool.

This is where the Cypher System excels. As a GM, I am not spending pool points to trip a boss's special attack; those are written into the monster. Monsters have their "boss attacks" used as GM Intrusions. I am not spending a limited resource to make a boss attack, as I can just call for a GM Intrusion for that monster, hand out XP to the players, and make it happen. Yes, I am handing out "free XP," but that XP can be handed back to refuse GM Intrusions, including boss monster attacks.

How many GM Intrusions do you have? They are infinite, but you are handing out XP with each one. With Player Intrusions, the players need to spend an XP to trigger them, and the referee has the final say (which protects the narrative and balance of the game).

Cypher's GM Intrusions are not "referee points." This is what being a referee is all about: rewarding players who take on extra adversity, while giving them more than enough XP to deal with it and push back.

Cypher System's narrative economy is easier, cleaner, and does not rely on tracking resources and generation by the players. It does not depend on random chance, and players do not make rolls to generate referee currency. Referees have no currency in Cypher; heck, they don't even have dice.

You call for a GM Intrusion when it is narratively correct, see if a player spends XP to refuse, and if they agree, you hand out the XP and tell them what happens next.

You keep playing.

The players are the only ones tracking pools, XP, health levels, and resources.

All a referee focuses on is the story.

Dragonbane is also great when it comes to boss monsters. They roll on a random chart every time they act. This can be solo-played very easily. You don't need narrative pools, just your imagination. This is a more traditional game than Cypher System or Daggerheart, but it also shows that you can use a random system to trigger boss attacks and have the game work correctly in the narrative.

I don't need a fear point to activate a dragon's breath weapon; all I need is the fear of not rolling it again.

Daggerheart remains a solid game, boasting numerous innovative mechanics. Other games excel in areas like narrative play. Others are more mechanical. One is not generally better than the other; each must be considered in light of a group's preferences, play style, and whether the game assembles enough interesting elements to make it compelling.

For mechanics, it is Dragonbane for me.

For narrative, it is Cypher System.

Daggerheart, I need to feel out whether this can be played solo at all, or if it's more of a group experience, like Pathfinder 2. Daggerheart is more of a collection of good things. If all these blend well and appeal to you, then great! This is your game. If other games do things better and would be a better fit for groups that like different styles, I will say so.

Be cautious about relying solely on limited reports of play and forming your opinion of the game based on them. Some groups could be playing the game wrong, report something wildly incorrect, and you will get a group of people online adopting false information as their opinion.

Play the game, and make up your own mind.

I return to the Daggerheart SRD, a free resource, and since it lacks art, it can serve as a more effective "quick resource" for rules. The page numbers in the index are significantly off in the current version, and I hope they will be corrected soon.

Yes, I can see how "going into a boss fight with limited fear" can be a problem, and the game tells GMs to spend "fast, often, and big." Also, don't let players make rolls for every little stupid thing. If the die roll has no meaning or impact, just "say they do it." Move the narrative along, and don't roll for every silly thing! This will freeze pool generation, but it will still reach the parts of the game where it matters when it is being generated.

If there is no consequence of failure, don't roll.

Also, think twice before setting a target number of 10 or lower. Do you really need to make this roll? Just give it to them! Most of your critical die rolls should be a target number of 15 or higher.

The action, "walk quickly across a narrow beam," is rated as a difficulty 10 agility roll. Most of the time, if the players were not under threat, had no arrows flying at them, and were not in a hurry, I would never roll for that. Yes, there is a "consequence" of "falling into the river," but I will ask you, "Is that really a consequence if nothing is going on around them?" 

What does it matter? Someone gets wet?

So what?

No real consequence, no die roll is needed, no hope and fear generation; move on, I do not care.

Do not get "die roll happy" with this game. Be stingy when you ask for dice rolls. Keep them essential and impactful.

Also, there is this rule in the SRD:

If there’s a rule you’d rather ignore or modify, feel free to implement any change with your table’s consent.

- Daggerheart SRD, page 3

If your bosses are getting rolled over, simply consider adding a rule where the referee receives a d4 of fear when a boss encounter starts. If the players agree, then the problem is solved. They don't want cakewalks any more than you.

Off the Shelf: Cypher System

https://www.montecookgames.com/store/product/cypher-system-rules-primer/

This never got taken off the shelf, but it sat there for a while while I sorted through my games and started reducing the number I keep out. Monte Cook helped develop the modern version of the "d20 system," and this is his answer and ultimate version of the concept:

• Everything boils down to a d20 test.
• Players rely on pool resources.
• Difficulty can be bid down based on resources, skills, and pool expenditures.
• There is a meta-currency of XP exchanged between players and the referee to advance the narrative.
• Resting is tightly controlled to prevent exploitation.
• The referee (GM) is a narrative-focused participant only and does not roll the dice.

The entire system is as if people who have been playing these d20 games their whole lives decided to throw most everything out and boil down the interactions to the most basic and engaging parts. Everything was on the table, and most of it got thrown out, while keeping the best and most interesting parts of character design.

What is my character archetype?

What makes a character different and special?

What does my character do?

A Cypher System character is described in one sentence, "He is a tough soldier who works for a living," and all of the character's statistics and scores are created from that description. It is the most elegant and intuitive character creation system in roleplaying today, and it even beats out the card system of Daggerheart. You don't even need cards, just a few words, and then everything flows from there.

With fantasy kin, you do need to add another descriptive tag in there. "He is a tough elven soldier who works for a living." Or, replace "tough" with "elven;" the system works either way as long as you are consistent. Elven, dwarven, and so on will add a few special abilities and modifications. This is really the only system hack you need to do, if you want.

Daggerheart uses the typical D&D "rules framework" scaffolding, and it still has many crunchy combat and interaction rules. Daggerheart is a rules-medium game, and if you care more about narrative than system crunch, you will be happier with Cypher System than Daggerheart.

And Cypher System's narrative tools are a generation beyond the "shared story structure" of Daggerheart. Where Daggerheart relies on players becoming "temporary referees" in describing the narrative, such as when a player opens a chest and the referee asks, "What do you find in it?" The player can pull a magic sword out if they want, with no cost or price to pay; they just say so, and it happens.

In Cypher System, the referee is in charge of "what is in the chest," but the player is always free to pay 1 XP and trigger a "Player Intrusion" and find that magic sword, and the GM has the final say. The GM is free to give the players 2 XP (1 to the player, and the player decides who the other goes to) and trigger a "GM Intrusion" that complicates the narrative, such as the chest being a mimic or a trap being triggered. Or perhaps the magic sword has a curse that the players must go on a quest to break.

With the Cypher System, there is a currency linked to the narrative, based on an experience point (XP) economy. You pay XP to push things in your favor, or get XP for taking a setback. A critical failure (a d20 roll of 1) triggers an automatic GM Intrusion, with no XP awarded.

Daggerheart is considerably softer than Cypher System on narrative control. There is no narrative currency other than fate and hope points. There are no prices to pay to give yourself "free stuff." The game relies too heavily on goodwill, trust, and people not exploiting narrative powers. Once the referee begins amassing "fear tokens," then tension ramps up as the player's resources are reduced, but resting is far softer in this game.

In Daggerheart, resting generates fear, which seems strange. They limit resting like Cypher System, and you can only do a few things each rest, and must decide what you do. In the Cypher System, you rest, recover pool points, and time passes. The GM does not receive "fear points" or gain resources when players rest; they do not need it. Time is always the enemy; that is a given in both games, but Cypher System handles resting far more elegantly with far more narrative consequences.

Come to think of it, the referee has no tracked resources in the Cypher System. You don't need dice or special trackers. Those are for the players to play with. You focus on the story and the world. Daggerheart caps referee fear at 12, which feels like a lot, and I can see a situation where a GM piles up so much fear it becomes hard to use without piling on the players and having the monsters hog the spotlight.

In the Cypher System, I don't need a bag of "fear tokens" to beat my players over the head with to raise tension. Their characters are constantly spending resources, draining their pools, and burning rests. If you don't allow the players a chance to rest in the Cypher System, or they burn all their narrative resting options, and the ones they have left will consume too much time, then you begin to squeeze your players and raise tension. 

I had a situation where I had a character trapped in the badlands with only a 10-hour rest left, and there was no place to stop and rest without forcing an encounter. They were low on everything, barely hanging on, and had to spend an XP to trigger a Player Intrusion to find a relatively safe spot to stop in. I allowed it, and they recovered some, but not all of their pools, and limped back home the next day, even getting into another combat encounter.

Long rests aren't a "solve every problem" panacea like it is in Daggerheart or D&D.

Cypher System is much better defined in terms of the "cost" of changing the narrative, and the tension is ramped up considerably as your pool resources start depleting. Resting replenishes them, but once you start using those up, you begin to ramp up tension.

Cypher System also solo-plays exceptionally well. Your character exists as your playing piece, and you interact with a story, which you never have to context switch to a pretend referee and roll the dice as. If a GM Intrusion makes sense, it happens, or use an oracle die to see if one happens. You can always pay an XP to opt out.

Rolls of 17 through 20 trigger extra special positive effects for players. Also, only the players roll the dice, and monsters don't "make attacks." A player rolls to make an attack, and the player makes a roll to defend. Enemies never roll the dice.

• 1: GM Intrusion
• 17: +1 Damage Bonus
• 18: +2 Damage Bonus
• 19: +3 Damage Bonus or a Minor Effect
• 20: +4 Damage Bonus or a Major Effect. If points were spent on the roll, they are not expended.

The dicing system and results of the Cypher System are an all-time genius system. Every roll is a surprise. Even a difficulty 1 task can be failed, and it is worth knocking that down to zero to avoid a roll at all. Avoiding rolling at all is a great strategy.

The GM never rolls the dice in the Cypher System and does not even need to do so. Only the players need dice. I played Cypher extensively, and I purposely never had dice on my side of the GM screen. If I needed a 1d100 roll, I asked a player to make one for me. I did not always tell them what it was for, just to give me one. The GM only focuses on storytelling and adjudicating the results of actions, NPCs, and the environment.

Also, the meta-currency of hope and fear in Daggerheart is constantly generated whenever the dice are rolled, and each player tracks a hope total, along with hit points, armor, and stress pools. The referee needs to track a "fear pool." In Cypher System, each character has three ability score pools, XP, recovery rolls, a damage track, and XP is the master meta currency. The meta-currencies are far easier to track in the Cypher System; there are fewer of them, and they are not always constantly changing with every roll.

Which game you prefer will depend on what you like and your expectations.

If you like the D&D rules crunch and trust each other well enough that sharing narrative control will not lead to exploiting the situation, then Daggerheart will be your game. For every D&D rule that Daggerheart throws out, it brings in a new one that is just as fiddly and crunchy to replace it. While it is more narrative-focused than D&D, it is still as filled with "d20 style rules" as the game it seeks to replace. Also, the narrative tools the game gives you are soft, with no "back and forth" between players and the referee.

Daggerheart is still a unique and fun game! Don't get me wrong, I love to see innovation in the hobby. The card-based characters are "Cypher System Lite" and do a good job of getting people playing quickly. The rules have enough crunch to please 5E players. It balances the "D&D style" with the "live play style" nicely. The game is crunchy, with plenty of character optimization, combinations, and fun.

We can't put this game on top of the narrative gaming mountain, though. We have the best narrative tabletop game of all time already, designed by one of the legendary designers in the industry.

If you want a multi-genre game where the crunch is thrown out the window, and every tool in the game serves the narrative, and there is a cost to creating an advantage, then Cypher System will be a better game for you. The game can play any genre, in any world, and has far better tools for building worlds and establishing the parameters of your creations. The Cypher System encompasses a wide range of genres, from science fiction to fantasy, including horror, comedy, romance, action, realism, and any flavor you can imagine.

The character building is far more expressive and in-depth than Daggerheart. Where Daggerheart relies on cards (and selling you more), Cypher System will just give you a new book filled with dozens of new archetype selections, and you will be shocked at what you can build out of them. Even the base book of Cypher System contains infinitely more combinations of character pieces than Daggerheart, with add-on books containing hundreds more that are tailored to each genre.

If narrative is king and you don't want crunch, Cypher System is the clear winner.

Daggerheart: Sold Out on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

As I predicted, Daggerheart is now sold out most everywhere, and the eBay market is the last place you can pick up a copy. Amazon and Barnes & Noble are both sold out. I am happy for them, the hobby needed a huge hit this year, on the level of a Shadowdark.

You can still obtain this via PDF on DriveThruRPG, but you won't receive the physical cards. Still, if you really need it, this is a way to go:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/508832/daggerheart-corebook

There aren't many alternatives to this game if you are looking for a more story-oriented game with cards, trinkets, and other tangible assets. One of the closest alternatives I can think of is Savage Worlds. This fantastic game offers an excellent experience for players seeking a pulp-action game with a more narrative-focused approach. This is a solid suggestion for the genre, and many would be happy with this game as an alternative.

Another, even more narrative-focused game, is Cypher System. This one takes more effort to wrap your head around. Still, it does a fantastic job of abstracting everything, making every ability score, the XP system, and the trade between the referee and players a pool of resources that drives the narrative forward. Like Savage Worlds, this is a generic game, and it can handle any genre.

If you want to get away from D&D but want to stay with 5E? Tales of the Valiant is your best bet, mainly due to the high level of support from the publisher, which enables this game to be in the store and on crowdfunding. This isn't a narrative game any more than D&D is. Still, it comes from a solid, ethical company that has the resources to support the game at a higher level than even Wizards, in terms of frequency of core book and adventure releases. Oh, and they let you own your PDFs, too.

Another strong alternative is Dragonbane. If you are into trying new fantasy games, this is a great one. It uses a card system for initiative and treasure, and it has some of the best fantasy art in the hobby. This one is the high-fantasy style of action-combat you are used to, but with a roll-under d20 system, and plenty of iconic character types. This is an easier game than 5E, and is also a great choice for solo players.

Still, there is no replacing Daggerheart for the true fans of Critical Role. For others, we have some great alternatives if you want to take a break from D&D and play a more story-oriented game.

The 5E Market

All the 5E Kickstarter projects are hurting, and we haven't seen many that have broken a million dollars in a long time. Tales of the Valiant is in the same boat, and I am still playing this regardless of how well the last one did. Consumer interest in D&D is dropping like a rock, and there are even reports of DM's Guild sellers seeing revenue one-tenth of what they are used to.

People are moving on from 5E and D&D to other games.

Very few new investments in the game are being made by its players.

There is still a huge 5E audience, and the size of this player base will take time to shift, but collectively, the 5E audience has stopped buying new 5E products. Yes, there may be a lot of players, but no, they aren't buying.

I guess the closest parallel is in the videogame console market, when people feel "a new system is coming," then they slow down or stop buying games for the old one. The very lukewarm response to D&D 2024 has put a stop on people buying stuff for either 2014 or 2024, compatibility fears, I have enough D&D stuff, I don't want to make the wrong choice, this is a good time to do something new, I am happy with what I have, I want to see what the competitors do, or any other number of reasons could be why this is happening, or a combination of them all.

This is not about the players who have moved on to Shadowdark or Pathfinder; we are just talking about those left in the 5E market. Some of them may have stopped buying 5E stuff and are focusing on those two games, but still play 5E, so they may fall into the "I have enough" and "do something new" crowd and are playing out what they have. So there is a "still playing 5E, but only buying for my new game" category in here somewhere, too.

I have five shelves of 5E books. I have enough for a lifetime of gaming. The game I will play them with is ToV, since it is the best-compatible, most similar to 5E, and best-supported version of the game going forward. I am done with Wizards, primarily due to the OGL fiasco. Remember the terms of that deal? Another nice reason is being able to ignore all the drama from the Wizards on YouTube, and all that clickbait garbage.

But ownership of my PDFs is a huge second reason; I am not "renting books" from anyone who can take them away from me. This is different than Shard and paying to access content that is maintained there; if that service disappears, I still have my ToV PDFs. If D&D Beyond disappears, I have nothing, not even my PDF books.

Daggerheart came strong out of the gate, primarily due to its built-in fanbase. This one feels bigger than Shadowdark, and this is more of a Pathfinder-sized shift of players to the narrative banner holder game. I hope this becomes a strong second player to D&D, and it will take a few Pathfinder players away as well. 

Pathfinder 2 is too wargame for me, and there are far too many conditions and map-based actions to slog through. I liked it, but I struggled with the sheer amount of complexity the system introduced. It was not the game I wanted, even though it is more like the tactical D&D 4E game we loved. They also ruined Golarion by sanitizing and censoring it, and the first-edition world is far superior. What was once a Conan-like world of adventure has been transformed into a modern, safe, overly happy, and fashion-centric mishmash, featuring elements of cosplay and steampunk.

I love flipping through these modern fantasy games and counting how many characters have fancy hairstyles but no helmets to protect their heads.

If I were playing any of these characters in a more simulation-based game, such as GURPS, they would get all of it shaved off and a steel pot helmet slapped on there ASAP. Head trauma is a real thing. Even in 5E, where there are sometimes "called shot" rules, I would rule that a character who wears a helm would get the benefit of the doubt far easier than the fighter who just came out of Super Cuts. Even something as simple as rocks falling from the dungeon ceiling could be lethal to a character without a helmet, causing damage to one character, a save-or-die effect to the other.

These are role-playing games, and the ruling is within what a referee can rule. And I know this is supposed to be fantasy. 5E and many games can put your brain in "la-la land," where if it is not in the rules, it can't happen. People expect it to be a video game, and if they want that, there are plenty of those out there. Common sense says otherwise, and this is why we play these games.

The 5E market is in the doldrums. Few are buying into 2024 D&D, a version of the game many feel they don't need, and this is the same issue Tales of the Valiant has, if you are happy with the 2014 books. Many have taken a wait-and-see attitude. Many are jumping ship and moving on to other games or leaving the hobby entirely. We are currently in a transition phase between D&D editions, and 2024 is the patch that people don't really want or need.

And I don't want to say "we need a D&D 6th Edition" because we don't. Wall Street may like the idea, but we don't need it.

I am choosing a sustainable, long-term, open-licensed version of 2014, which is the best-supported one: ToV from Kobold Press. This will continue to have "new stuff" published for it, and it completely supports the older books and adventures. ToV is "D&D in long-term support mode" for me, and it keeps my shelves of books in use and playable for the next 10-20 years.

YouTube: Daggerheart Combat Rules I Wish I Knew Earlier

I found an excellent video today on Daggerheart's combat rules. Please pay attention to numbers 6-10, which outline how the action economy of the game works between the players and the referee.

Oh, and please watch the video all the way through, like, and subscribe! The only way to keep these informative, positive, and helpful videos going is to show the creator appreciation, and this elevates the good and helps demote the clickbait and low-quality junk content in the hobby.

What I find fascinating is that the referee usually does not have a turn during combat. What? The referee only gets "the spotlight" when one of the three following happens:

• A player rolls with fear.
• A character misses.
• The GM spends a fear point to take the spotlight.

Now, a monster does not need to go when the GM has the spotlight; the GM can just make something happen, trigger a new environmental condition, or somehow make a ruling that increases tension. Or, a monster can take an action, such as attacking, and so on.

If the players roll well enough, and the referee spends no fear, the monsters may never have a chance to go. This happens! It is fine in the system, and it is one of those "blow-out" encounters that also occur in 5E. Or, a referee can interject with a fear point and force a monster action. Given the 2d12 dice the players roll, there will be enough fear rolls and points created to keep the monsters doing their actions.

There are dozens more tips and reminders in the video, but understanding this point will go a long way in helping people learn the system faster. This is really helpful, and it got my mind thinking in the Daggerheart GM style.

Daggerheart: First Printing Selling Out

Barnes & Noble and Amazon still have preorder pages with the option to buy, but the first printing of Daggerheart will be selling out very soon.

If you are on the fence, don't hesitate on this, since if this is anything like Shadowdark, it could be months before they are back in stock. I suspect scalpers and the eBay crowd will start jumping in very soon to make a profit, and that will hit the remaining supplies very hard.

I am happy for them. I don't watch the show, but it has dedicated and loyal fans who have been keeping D&D alive for the last few years. It is hard to say where D&D would be if Critical Role had not been here, or even if the Fifth Edition had taken off as it did. Without the pandemic and people being bored at home, watching YouTube for entertainment, 5E would not be where it is today.

Additionally, the industry and streamers require a more effective system that enhances narrative flow better than D&D, with a more straightforward and easier-to-follow gameplay. I hope this becomes popular for streaming shows, and they can tell YouTube to stop downvoting them as "D&D channels."

If you want this, or suspect your group may be interested, grab this now.

Daggerheart Subclasses

So Daggerheart is shipping with two subclasses per class? This is a good thing since there are many selections of card-based powers in each subclass. A game like this does not want to overwhelm players with choices, especially not in a new system with a new way of doing things.

Now I never want to hear about that complaint about Tales of the Valiant again, shipping with 2 subclasses per class. Not to mention, we are getting 48 more in the expansion, and it is trivially easy to port in any 3rd party subclass into the game. Quality, not quantity.

YouTube: Daggerheart Review after 24 games

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.

Daggerheart Selling Out?

It is nice to hear that Daggerheart is selling out in some stores. D&D 2024 landed with a wet thud, YouTube went to war with D&D content creators, and the hobby needs a hit. The last excitement we had was Shadowdark, and that game is still doing well. But we need a new game that sells out and creates a buzz outside the hobby, and I hope Daggerheart is it.

This is no longer about D&D; it's about the larger hobby.

The Critical Role (CR) audience needs this, and keeping D&D as the flagship of the streaming show has a limited life. This was inevitable, and I am happy to see the game selling out and people outside the hobby, or those in the CR sphere, taking notice, and the game becoming a hot commodity.

I would love to see Daggerheart on the shelves of Target and Walmart, and selling there as well. We need a massive hit that they cannot keep in stock.

Daggerheart innovates and plays to the strengths of the streaming show model. It simplifies the boring and bookkeeping parts of the game and creates narrative pool systems that drive tension. People understand "hope and fear points," and those can be clearly displayed on a streaming show's screen.

Spell slots? Dozens of hit points? Tracking individual reuses of powers equal to an ability score bonus? Lists of abilities on a character sheet six pages long?

Those suck, take up the streaming show's time again and again, and the average "viewer at home" does not grasp those concepts as easily unless they understand the game.

D&D 2024 was designed to please a subset of existing D&D players. It made no efforts to streamline or simplify, and in many cases, it went into far too much depth that was ever needed or asked for (weapon masteries).

Daggerheart was designed to expand the audience to people who may watch the show but find the games too challenging to grasp and master.

Is it for everyone? Not really. My other "blue game" is Tales of the Valiant, a game I never apologize for, and one that does generic 5E fantasy far better than D&D 2024, which is tied to decades of settings and nostalgia that it has the same problems as any IP tied to that much canon and legacy content. I don't want the D&D planes, villains, product identity, worlds, or other cruft that gets in the way of imagining my own worlds and settings.

Daggerheart goes a step beyond this, and forces you to define a world every time you create a campaign, which is another smart move - putting your players' imaginations first, and your "legacy nostalgia IP" second. But as my "fall back" version of 5E, which I will now know as it is and as I like it, ToV will exist past D&D 2024's expiration date and far past the next incompatible version of D&D.

The new "blue games" of 2025 are taking over my shelves, and there is always a place for Shadowdark.

Daggerheart is a brilliant game that aligns with their brand, strengths, and message.

Daggerheart

I like the new "blue games" that are taking the torch passed by D&D. Tales of the Valiant is my other blue game, and now, Daggerheart seems to be filling the "narrative game" niche needed in the streaming adventure world, away from the wargame-like D&D 2024, and more into a FATE and Cypher-like narrative play system.

We need new narrative games. I liked FATE, but the game has run its course of interest with me. It remains a solid system, but it is abstract and not ideal for fantasy streaming games, as the concepts are not easily grasped by the audience. Daggerheart feels like a similar narrative system on the storyteller side, with the fear point system driving opposition power.

I watched the GM video, and like FATE, Daggerheart does a fair amount of aggregation, even measuring gold into "handfuls," "bags," and "chests." This isn't a game for those of you who like to count every coin. Also, what happens above the chest? Do we get "carts?" On a narrative level, this sort of simplification is effective. On a simulation level, this aggregation is terrible.

I can see why they did it, though. D&D walks a strange line between narrative and simulation, and Daggerheart goes all-in on the narrative. That squishy middle at times is maddening, and if all my narrative play is in Daggerheart, and that saves my simulation play for games that do it the best, such as GURPS, then I will be happier if that middle ground is taken out of the equation.

On the character side. Daggerheart feels like Cypher System, another narrative system with a strong A+B+C character creation system where you assemble characters out of parts, and that is what you play. Daggerheart and Cypher are somehow sister games, with Cypher being the more setting-neutral one, and Daggerheart being the fantasy style relative. Both have pool resource management to drive narrative play, as well as shifting narrative control of the action between players and the referee.

Tales of the Valiant is my "post-D&D" blue game. Since I have 10 years' worth of 5E books from 2014 that I still want to play with and protect, I also want to support new 5E creators going forward without worrying about what Wizards does or their drama. I play this. It is a good "let's play 5E" game, and I can now ignore all the clickbait YouTube "Wizards drama" videos because I do not care anymore.

How much time do I save by not being forced to watch those drama videos about Hasbro/Wizards? A lot. I get sucked into those because I'm worried they're changing something about the game I care about, the books I bought, retroactive changes are coming in, and then it gets into a vicious cycle where I can't stop "hate click" watching these utter wastes of my time and life.

I still want to use these nice 5E third-party books I spent good money on.

I do not want drama, constant clickbait, or to be forced to subscribe to a service to read a book.

Having a version of 5E that is stable, future-proof, compatible, well-supported, not in a niche market, and drama-free? Oh, and I own my PDFs?

Priceless.

Tales of the Valiant is the best version of 5E going forward, and you will not be wasting money on 2024 books that will inevitably be worthless when 6E is rolled out. And due to the softer reception of 2024, 6E is likely closer than we think. In three to five years, you will thank me. Transition now and save yourself the heartache.

I hope Daggerheart goes well and is a hit; the streaming D&D channels need a boost after YouTube declared war on D&D content creators. I also hope the Daggerheart creators open up their card system to anyone, so more card-based expansions can be made, such as for gear, new classes, new backgrounds, monster cards, and treasures.

As a system better suited for the narrative-style play that Critical Role does, this is a great system. They can track "hope" and "fear" on the screen for viewers to see, and all the other pools the game uses to track resources. Even Stress and Hit Points are more point-based pool resources, so every character can have an easy-to-understand "scorecard" on those stats that viewers can understand at a glance. What the players "do" each turn on-screen is simplified, so it will be a better experience for viewers who can see rolls and interpret them themselves.

You can't think of this game in terms of D&D; you must think about it as a system that enhances the streaming experience for viewers. The game aligns well with live streaming, which complements their brand's strengths.

Is it my cup of tea? I don't know ...yet.

Daggerheart vs. 5E

The Darggerheart game is the elephant in the room with 5E players. Few want to criticize it because there are so many fans, yet secretly, many of the 5E stalwarts want to savage it because it threatens the player base.

Daggerheart is the logical evolution of the Critical Role fanbase. They must get their fans on their own game and control their destiny. This is a good thing, in fact.

But what happened to D&D when Critical Role gained popularity is very telling. Notice how the 2024 celebrations of D&D omit or reduce Critical Role and, honestly, most mentions of the game as a spectator activity. This is all about the spectator sport of D&D, and this is the impact of Twitch and YouTube on the game.

Critical Role drove D&D for a few years and steered the entire game into "story gaming" mode like a FATE. I am hesitant to call 5E—as it exists today—a dungeon game. The DMG doesn't help anyone play that way, and every expansion leans hard into that "narrative bucket list" sort of "watch this or that group of YouTubers" play through a "shared experience."

The focus on character and identity in 5E has been so overwhelming that those who love pure dungeon crawls had to go off and make their own game, Shadowdark. The original designers of 5E, who still defend the numerical and mechanical aspects of the system, don't see the metric ton of my character as an ABCD... combo of all these particular terms and choices meaning different things like background, homeland, ancestry, etc. - along with class, multiclass combo, subclass choice, etc.

There are too many choices in 5E.

Every one of those choices is a custom set of rules.

It is killing the game.

And some Open 5E designs make it worse.

In GURPS, the skill system is the same and works the same for everyone. The same goes for powers, advantages, disadvantages, spells, and subsystems. I play Dungeon Fantasy, and does the same advantage work the same for any character type or monster? Does one skill work the same for everyone? Yes, to all of that, it all works the same. All combat options work the same way for everyone, and designers can't write custom combat moves into subclasses.

In 5E, you get a subclass, giving you custom-designed abilities for which other games would have skills. It is frankly a horrible design, inconsistent to hell, forces you to buy new books for new skills, nothing works the same way twice, and overloaded cruft and bloat that game designers solved in the 1980s.

In games that do it right, 'faith healing' is a skill on a skill list. Clerics, druids, paladins, and anyone with that skill can buy it. It works one way for everyone and is written down in one place. In 5E, it can mean a dozen things in a few hundred subclass choices and works differently for all of them.

These combo choices of heritage, ancestry, culture, background, class, and so on are further subdivided into deeper and deeper levels of madness—with unique abilities, powers, and skills written into each one! What's next? We need a choice for education, society, early development, family, and outlook! And every one of these choices needs a spaghetti-coded list of designer-imagines custom powers. If you went to college, please write down your ability to use a 'deduction' power! And reduce study time by 20%! That sounds great! Was your family life 'one of many'? Please write down a 'lost in the crowd' ability that gives you an advantage in not being noticed in crowds! Public school or private? Oh no, you need a new power for those!

And I am writing down huge lists of custom abilities and powers with no end. Everybody wants something for every unique part of their background and life. This is a terrible design trend of snowflake-ism, where we feel obliged to give everyone extraordinary power for every mundane and everyday aspect of their life. Subclasses are the same way. Are you a crusader paladin or champion? Oh no! More powers are needed because you are a particular word!

5E gets sickening after a while with this pandering custom options and power tossed at you like candy you don't want or need. The designers blew it by replacing universal systems with letting designers write custom-written tripe powers and abilities. This killed the game as if a diet high in cholesterol clogs the heart. The core books are fine, but get over three shelves of 5E books, and your game dies.

Will Critical Role force its viewers to sign up for D&D Beyond, potentially exposing them to other streaming shows being pushed via that platform? Or will they release their own rules-light story game with easier character creation so viewers can "play along on their own?"

The answer is easy.

Control your platform.

And rules-light story games come out every day. Good ones are tough to create, harder than a game with defined systems, but they must ultimately serve your market's needs and goals. Daggerheart is a game "that looks and plays like the show."

And that is all it needs to do to be successful.

You can't judge Daggerheart on the merits of 5E, and in doing so, you miss the bigger picture.

5E's mess of designer-driven, custom-hacked works differently every time. Duct-taped-together characters are a game design that locks you into a single platform because character complexity is so high you need a computer to figure it all out. You don't see it in a single character at level one. Give them a few levels, and once you pile on paragraphs of special powers, rules introduced in subclasses, and other custom designer flourishes, you realize every character is a trap.

With a monthly fee.

You are paying Wizards to control the complexity of the game they create. They need an incentive to simplify this design, and even Open 5E falls into this trap. At this point, D&D and 5E are D&D Beyond. Many say they can only figure the game out with it.

That is the plan.

The game was designed that way.

Daggerheart is an off-ramp for Critical Role's casual fans; no matter the quality or design, it is good for them. It will get better with iterations.

All they need to do is keep their audience.