Daggerheart

[pagan8thParticipant 11218xp 1]

For anyone interested… the Daggerheart open beta launched yesterday and it’s free to download from Drivethrurpg.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/473383/Daggerheart-Open-Beta-Playtest

Hefty rules at 377 pages and heavily dependant on the cards used to create and play characters.

Bit too much like card game for my liking, but each to their own.

Given the size of the core rules… and at present there’s not a great deal of art… it’s probably going to be expensive purchase, especially with the required card decks…

So if you want it for free… grab the open beta.

There are also some videos on youtube with overviews of character creation and rules, plus session zero for the crit role group and four hour actual play by them if you’re interested.

https://www.youtube.com/@criticalrole/featured

[sundancer 43074xp 0]

377 pages? Uff…. That’s not a rule book that’s a tome!

[limburger 21775xp 0]

“COMBAT WHEELCHAIR DESIGN: …”

I just had to laugh when I saw that part listed…

It would be interesting if they build a world with wheelchair accessible dungeons 😉

It can’t fit within the existing D&D locations, because they tend to have access to resurrection … so combat wheelchairs have to be really really cheap or else  *splat* resurrect and walk 🙂

The thing really needs an editor and layout pass to be readable, but I did notice two important things :
(1) resurrection is really really limited (which is good as it makes disabilities believable)
(2) there are sections about roleplaying characters with disabilities (or at least they are planned)
(3) magic section already includes suggestions how to alter spell casting so a magic user can have spells adjusted to match his (dis)abilities.

The thing definitely needs a lot of work to reach ‘retail’ status, but free is free so can’t complain much (won’t stop me though).

 

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 1]

Just print out the Quickstart. In fact, they should have also had the Quickstart itself as a download for anyone who didn’t want to download the beta ruleset and cards. Cards don’t seem to be shuffled, and they’re only state machines (ie. places to put your token to do something) so you don’t have to print all of them out before play.

That said, I’m seeing evolution, not revolution, so I’m not sold on learning a new game system *and* selling it to a group of gamers, when a $15 D&D starter set works “good enough”. The free rules-light “One Shot World”, based on Dungeonworld, was the only frpg that’s different enough from D&D that I liked. It’s for world-builders and story-builders, not crunchy rollers.

OSW : https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/242339/One-Shot-World

[tankkommanderParticipant 6429xp 0]

Combat Wheelchair has been in 5E for a while. It is part of the ‘everyone has to be represented’ idea that seeks to include whilst making sure there are actually no in game disadvantages. So essentially you might as well not include it but included it must be.

[limburger 21775xp 0]

true … but this time it may just about make sense.

Why someone in a wheelchair may want to risk life and limb (ha!) in an adventure or at war is a question this game doesn’t dare to ask … but at least they’ve made it a little more ‘realistic’ that such items would exist given the state of magic in the setting.

 

@ced1106 I’d say even ‘evolution’ is a bit of a stretch. The concepts of positive and negative modifiers that can be gained from skill rolls isn’t new. They only appear to have added a maximum so players won’t be stuck with an endless supply if they hoard them until the end. And yet at the same time every action has the potential to generate more … so it’s not really capped at all if the players want to exploit the gimmick.

Not sure if the GM has a similar maximum to his ‘fear’ stack, but there would have to be one as otherwise it is real easy to end the boss fight with a big ol’ “rocks fall  / everyone dies” event the players can’t do anything agains.

The 2D20 rules as used in Conan RPG by Modiphius suffer from a similar issue if players and GM don’t use the system equivalents to keep the momentum (ha!) of the game going.

I think these mechanics should be more up to the discretion of the GM instead of purely mechanical, but there is a gem of an idea hidden that could help newbie GM’s as well as motivate players. (although if players really need motivation to stay in character and fit the theme then you’re already in deep doo doo … )

[Author]

Posts