To be honest, it looks captivating. The rules do away with a good chunk of the grinding “calculatory” bits commonly found in other TTRPGs. They do this by focusing the rules on driving narrative - and not letting calculations get in the way of player engagement. In a way, it’s more a game story-telling system than a game strategy-analysis system… and I think that could be a really good thing for what I’d call “casual+” players like myself.
Casual+ TTRPG players like me want engaging stories and fun adventures without getting bogged down in too many rules and conditions that interrupt game play flow. I can’t count how many times I’ve led players through a game narrative only to have it slam into a wall because some nuanced rule someone asks about leads us down an hours-long rabbit hole through rulebooks and online forums.
I, like many other GMs, hate to see the dreary-eyed player reaching for their phones, falling asleep, while others, including myself are essentially forced to go nose deep in books looking for answers. It’s just not engaging.
Will Daggerheart change this? I hope so.
However, there is a risk. In many ways, you might not be incorrect to thing Daggerheart is rules-light, maybe like DungeonWorld. Such TTRPG systems carry a risk to gameplay that I call “too-nice” fatigue- where everything is so easy, so overpowered, for players, that there’s no challenge or mystery. There’s no risk of death because you know a heal is right around the corner. This can be somewhat controlled by GMs, but in some cases, the game mechanics itself make it challenging to do so.
I hope to be running a game on Roll20 soon for Daggerheart.
We’ll see where it leads. But for now, this game seems worthy of attention, and I hope it can deliver.
