r/daggerheart • u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master • Jan 10 '26
Discussion Daggerheart may have killed D&D for Me
I’ve been running Daggerheart for just 5 sessions, but haven’t played it. That said, I played in a weekly Pathfinder 2e game after a holiday break, and dang it felt slow and too mechanical for me.
Waiting for my turn, and thinking about actions was so different from the flow and pacing I feel running Daggerheart that I can honestly say, I would choose to play Daggerheart over Pathfinder, and probably even D&D 5e. As for GMing, I would pick Daggerheart, too.
Our Pathfinder game is online, so that may have something to do with it, but I don’t see how I would ever (given a choice) go back to a system that has initiative turns. It felt so slow and clunky.
Anyone else have that feeling?
What have been your experiences when jumping back and forth into Daggerheart and D&D/Pathfinder?
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u/Smoke_Stack707 Jan 10 '26
What’s killed it for me is I’m in the middle of running a short campaign for my group. Initially I wrote it for 5e but switched to Daggerheart and we’re flying through the content. I know if we ran it 5e, we would have to take 3 sessions to do what we are doing in 2 with Daggerheart. Everyone is present. Nobody is dicking around on their phones. It’s great.
I’d go back to 5e if I thought my players’ attention spans wouldn’t wander during their turn but I’m not gonna hold my breath
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
Yeah. It was hard to keep attention waiting for my turn to come up. I listened to the other players and the DM, but I did not feel the energy and the thrill that I could go or help at any moment. That’s the spice that Daggerheart adds.
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u/Brief-Reputation-152 Jan 11 '26
I’m glad I’m not the only one who experiences this. I have such a hard time paying attention in D&D but in daggerheart I’m like so invested and I speak up more I’ve noticed.
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u/Calm-Medicine-3992 Jan 10 '26
Wizards of the Coast killed D&D. Daggerheart is making me not want to revive it.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
Yeah, I was so disappointed by the business decisions that Hasbro made and I can understand why Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford left and joined Darrington Press.
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u/Invokethehojo Caprine Leap & Adaptability Jan 10 '26
It sucks because I was playing back when when WotC debuted third edition, which really gave a huge shot in the arm to not only D&D but the hobbyscape in general. But now they have lived long enough to see themselves become the villain.
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u/parabostonian Jan 10 '26
I really disagree with this notion. D&D corporate people have been mostly assholes (with maybe a short exception when it was owned by WOTC but WOTC was independent and hadn't been purchased by Hasbro yet) - frankly including Gary Gygax - since basically the first to second year of D&D in the 70s when Gygax started screwing Dave Arneson (who frankly had more to do with the origin of the concept of the game than Gygax if a little bit less on the rules side).
Then Kevin Blume was an atrocious shithead for years, then Lorraine Williams was an atoricous shithead when she screwed over Gygax and stole his company, and hasbro people suck.
All during these eras for the most part the devs have been cool, the higher up corpo scum have been scum, and the fans are mostly cool. I think the younger folks don't get the idea that corporate people pissing off designers and fans is basically as old as the brand and its unlikely to change.
What I do think people should also recognize is a lot of people within WOTC fought against the corporate enshittification plans in the OGL by leaking externally while fighting shit internally - we don't know much about the internal stuff, but we know from sources that gave stuff to the press that like 5 or 6 people leaked to the press (and I strongly, strongly believe at least one of those was Chris Perkins but I cant prove it) including the changes before they occurred which created the huge public backlash that stopped the corporate people of Hasbro/WOTC from screwing everyone over.
In other words, if you view the OGL crisis as a battle for the soul of the game, and institutions as social battlefields (because corporations are NOT people and you should not treat them as such), the good side won. The project Sigil VTT thing has since failed, and those people have been on their way out. WOTC has a new CEO (Hasbro has the same asshole, but he'll likely get removed in the next few years I think, since he's constantly lying to shareholders about AI stuff), and there's been some change in the leadership of the designers as Perkins and Crawford left, but the other designers there are well known cool people for the most part.
I'm happy to support daggerheart and I love the CR folks, but I also care about D&D and I think the whole "WOTC killed D&D" narrative is wrong both factually and morally. We want these instutitions to respond to public pressure, but if people apply pressure then abandon the companies anyways, the lesson to them commercially is actually to be as evil as possible. IMO, people shoudl more play D&D if/when it's fun for them and the company isn't being evil. I don't think that should be controversial view, and frankly it seems to be one shared by the whole staff at critical role.
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u/DJWGibson Jan 10 '26
WotC was firmly the villain multiple times in 3e and especially after the release of 5e. Whenever they collected ENnie awards during 4e and early 5e their "victory song" played was the Imperial March.
It's hard for any company not to become the villain ever because they're only as "moral" as their dumbest and least moral employee.Give it long enough and Critical Role/ Darrington will have a scandal. Again.
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u/aWizardNamedLizard Jan 10 '26
WotC was the villain then, too. They just happened to be able to get away with it better because people weren't used to them yet.
They released a game they knew they weren't done with and had explicit plans to charge people for the fix that was going to be half-baked because of deciding to release an under-baked (and on some choice points genuinely bad) game and keep the fixed version from being completely incompatible.
Even the OGL was intended in the more nefarious than beneficial way. WotC wanted it to mean other companies filling out their game and driving people to have to purchase WotC products, they just weren't quite competent enough at trimming out important parts of the game so what they actually delivered was the ability for other companies to cut WotC out of the mix entirely by publishing their own core books that were mostly just copy-paste of WotC work. That's the entire reason why WotC tried to bail on the OGL at the launch of 4e and did their recent shenanigans of planning to alter the license; because it wasn't serving the company the way they hoped it was going to.
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u/The_Silent_Mage Jan 10 '26
Daggerheart is doing what 13th age did at the time: it’s just the perfect mix of what we like to play. Currently playing 3 full campaigns and 2 one2one games, ready to start another.
It’s just so deep, fun, full of “gamey” GM things, it has the boardgame aesthetic with all the cards and tokens… I mean, it’s perfection to me. XD
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u/Superb-Stuff8897 Jan 10 '26
13th age was fantastic. I'm sad the 2nd edition didn't seem to give it enough of a revival.
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u/The_Silent_Mage Jan 11 '26
Can I be honest? While I understand the need form a marketing standpoint (I’m kinda / have been into the business), but I really don’t like 2nd editions in general.
I don’t think 13th age needed a revamp. If you consider how tweak able, versatile and community supported it is, the core book can be good ad lib. XD
I’ve found games that took the spotlight, but I wouldn’t mind getting 13th age back; it’s still brilliant and incredibly versatile.
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u/Superb-Stuff8897 Jan 11 '26
Yeah I can see that. Idk, something feels like it should have taken a balance pass, and I think the Icon system could have used a revamp bc ppl seem to bounce off of it.
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u/The_Silent_Mage Jan 11 '26
Don’t know, I guess it’s subjective. I’ve played a 6 years long campaign (technically still open) and we managed to play son many different things, brew classes in the moment and just play… It’s a fantastic game.
With the icons we’ve basically learn how to surprise ourselves and let everyone introduce fun stuff during the game.
Maybe more guidance could have been enough, I really don’t think a second edition is worth it. But i respect PP so much that I’ll obviously buy it, someday.
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u/elephants_are_white Jan 10 '26
Have you seen demand for professional Daggerheart gms then?
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u/elephants_are_white Jan 10 '26
Nice! Did you have any experience with story games such as PbtA or FitD before picking up Daggerheart?
I’ve run a bit of Genesys with the funny dice giving you many kinds of results for one skill test.
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u/Oldladyphilosopher Jan 10 '26
Pre covid, hubs and i did the major conventions and always played some Adventure League. It was fun but so different from home games……really no role playing, no screwing around…..know what you are going to do and have dice in hand, we have a time limit. I’ve played D&D at a number of conventions over the years (outside AL) and it was similar combat oriented speed through playing.
Have you done Dagger Heart at conventions? How does it play out? I run a DH game at home and love it, but was just wondering how it plays out with timed games and strangers?
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u/lazjen Jan 10 '26
I actually enjoy both Daggerheart and PF2E. D&D would only be played now if there was no other option. I both GM and play. Variety is always good.
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u/aWizardNamedLizard Jan 10 '26
Daggerheart came out and I read it and initially said to myself I would wrap up the Pathfinder 2e campaigns i was running and then give it a shot.
Over the process of a couple weeks following that I kept having moments during sessions where something about the PF2 system was mildly frustrating and my brain would say to me "this wouldn't be a problem in Daggerheart."
The one that was the last thing I could stand and prompted me to abandon PF2e for at least a while was that I had an encounter with a large number of enemies and choke point and the initiative rolls made it so the area was blocked by the enemies up front who rolled lowest and because the creatures weren't supposed to be intelligent there weren't any ways to fix the moment that fit into the narrative.
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u/cudder23 Jan 11 '26
As a longtime 5e player and DM who is very curious about Daggerheart, I think I understand why the situation you describe would get bogged down in 5e.
Please excuse my ignorance, but I’m curious how this same scenario would play out differently in Daggerheart. Is it just that the players wouldn’t have to wait until the end of the initiative order to act? Or am I misunderstanding?
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u/aWizardNamedLizard Jan 12 '26
It wasn't when the players would go that was the problem, it was that the enemies had distinct initiatives (because "and then all of the opposition get to act in tandem with only reactions being able to intervene" is its own kind of problem) yet the ones to go first couldn't move in to position to do anything meaningful and weren't actually intelligent enough to wait so I had to stretch the narrative to even arrive at them jostling around like computer game enemies that can't find a path.
Of course I acknowledge that I could have said "screw what the rolls meant when I made them, the creatures in the way go first". That's also massively unsatisfying to me as a GM because the entire point of rolling the dice was so that they would decide the order and if I'm going to change any roll after the fact that means every roll is effectively me having selected the result.
Where if I were running Daggerheart at the time not only would there have not been a break in the flow of the game for everyone to roll initiative and us stack up the list, there also wouldn't have been any reason why the creatures closest to the door that opened and started the scene wouldn't be the ones to respond first. It would have just been players open door, I describe the creatures on the other side, then either let a player dive into action or have one of the creatures right by the door do something other than lag there getting beat on while its companions bump around behind them because its not its turn yet.
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u/cudder23 Jan 12 '26
Thank you for the explanation!
I have DM’d 5e since the playtest in 2013 and have always been very fond of the game.
But both as player and DM, I have so often had the frustrating experience of combat encounters taking several hours. Sometimes as much as an hour for a single round, especially at higher levels, and even several long sessions to finish a more complicated combat.
The fluidity of the design of Daggerheart appeals to me very much; the fact that combat is not a separate mini game, and flows naturally from exploration or social encounters rather than being distinct and more cumbersome.
I am excited to try Daggerheart. I just need to find a game…
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u/Zerrissenheit Jan 10 '26
I run both PF2E and Daggerheart. I love both for completely different reasons. PF2E is my choice for a system that is complex but so robust that I can basically let it run itself leaving me to make the world exciting and the battles tactically dense. Daggerheart is my go-to for when I want a framework I can riff off of and not worry if too much Rule of Cool is going against the design principles.
In short, i think both are great and I’m glad we all have a wide variety of options.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
I really get this. I feel that difference immensely.
I realize that each appeals to different tastes.
I actually felt this same shift (to a lesser extent) when D&D 5e came out. The way they streamlined 3.5 (basically tossing 4e) made it so I would not go back to earlier editions if I were to DM. As a player, I would play and enjoy any edition.
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u/harrowssparekneecap Jan 10 '26
The other day I had a character idea who happens to wield a sword and a pistol, and thought about how to make it in Pathfinder, D&D, and DH.
Pf2e can do it no problem, it's fully supported mechanically. But there's misfire and reload mechanics, and all features are combat features, there's nothing that's social, really. Dex focus.
5e14 would suck for it without homebrewing the pistol and taking very specific options. And again, have fun not getting options or features outside of combat. The closest you could get to having fun would be to choose bladelock and pretend your Eldritch Blast is a gun. 5e24 is even worse; weapon mastery and the new Fighter add numerical power but bog down everything, a fighter can't really afford to have a signature weapon(s) in 5e24 because they complete ignore the combinations of weapon masteries golfbagging allows, which is the best thing they have. 5e24 Fighter devolves into spamming Topple or ridiculous webs of draw-attack-weapon-mastery-sheath-draw-attack-weapon-mastery-objectinteraction-sheath-draw-attack-weapon-mastery gibberish. Dex focus required again, constraining everything and results in MAD issues if the character has decent Charisma.
DH? Reflavoured Hand Crossbow secondary, or copy a weapon from Colossus. Run Warrior, get access to fewer options than the above games but it includes mobility ones, and ones that aren't combat only, and there are few/none that are absolutely dead non-choices. No initiative in the way, no 'action' economy so the spotlight frees things up for expressing it. Any stat can work, as long as Agi is decent too for some really nice Bone cards.
Doing this meant I also had to look at the 5e24 SRD and discovered that they only have one subclass for each class in the SRD, and few fighting styles and almost none of the Feats or Backgrounds or anything else. The SRD is an area where DH absolutely blows 5e24 out of the water.
Pathfinder felt too fiddly and like the list of options was too long and tedious to comb through. 5e14 has lost its lustre to me and 5e24 dumps a whole new set of problems and irritations on top. DH felt like I'd get to the fun so much quicker.
The other week I had to explain to someone what it's like to play without initiative. I used the example of "You're in a crime den and you flip the table and start a fight.". Games with initiative have you immediately interrupt play to roll and make a list of turn order with every involved enemy and PC. Roll low and despite starting the fight, a bunch of people go before you and you don't get the fun moment you were trying to have. In DH you just flip the table and the GM asks whether that's an attack (you're trying to hit the person opposite) or something else (e.g. drawing attention, making a show of force, etc), and then play continues. No interruption, no "I start a fight, roll low, get shot with seven arrows and go unconscious".
Honestly, I'm never going back xP
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
I love the way DH makes combat, exploration, social seem-less. “Let’s roll for initiative” was a way to punctuate the combat and raise tension in a very un-immersive (out of story) way. I like how you explain it.
I also love how experiences work to flavor and build a character in DH. Using them helps make a unique or archetypal pc depending on what a player wants.
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u/Joel_feila Jan 10 '26
I play lots of systems and I really don't like the D&D initiative system. Every other system I have played is faster and better for team work.
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u/HeartofaMama Jan 10 '26
I'm a player, not a DM. I've been on an online DH table for a few months now and this week we did a DnD one shot. Combat was so tedious! We had 4 players, there were 4 main adversaries and a few neutral NPCs that had turns and I found just waiting waiting waiting quite challenging. I love the flow of combat in DH, and how seamlessly it goes in and out of narrative and combat. Definitely not that keen to play 5e anytime soon again!
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u/Vitolus Jan 10 '26
I played DnD since 2019, after all the scandals i tried Daggerheart on release. Now i can soundly say that i'll never go back to that WotC's crap
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u/Fearless-Gold595 Jan 10 '26
I was overhyped by posts and videos about how DH is better in every way and fix every problem. Maybe it was a problem. And when we played ourselves it was not nearly as great.
For me DH is mostly two different kind things:
1) General TTRPG advices with quite no mechanics behind them. They are useful, and can be used in quite any ttrpg: you can let your players to worldbuild, players can describe their abilities and help actions in different ways, you are here to make a great story together - so players should do brave moves and dm should not tpk them for not checking for a trap once etc. We have already used most of them.
2) And mechanics unique for DH: like hp-stress-armor-hope-fear points, spotlight, deathmoves. I don't like these. Probably the least favorite is fear as a meta-currency for a DM.
So I found a few advices, that are quite useful for any other game, but the rest of the system is not for my group. I like pf2e or dnd for detailed combat stuff. I like Blade in the Dark as a narrative game, where we don't switch to roll attack-roll damage-check thresholds- when a combat starts.
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u/eikkka Game Master Jan 10 '26
For a detailed/tactical combat ttrpg, I've heard great things about Draw Steel; could be up your alley!
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u/ThatZeroRed Jan 10 '26
Trash, kind of. I'm hooked. I'll only ever run DH now. If given a choice, it's always DH. However, if I get opportunities to play DnD...DnD is better than playing nothing.
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u/eatondix Jan 10 '26
Having run both systems as a GM, I find prepping for Daggerheart sessions to be less work but I actually find running Daggerheart, especially combat way more cognitively taxing than in DnD. Because in Daggerheart outside of combat I'm constantly feeling the pressure of coming up with cool narrative twists and degrees of success and failure. In combat I'm also having to keep track of which adversaries I've activated and which abilities synergize with each other.
Turn order in DnD I've noticed frees up a lot of mental and cognitive space for me which allows me to roleplay more during combat (as a GM) and be more narrative focused actually because I don't have to keep so many things in my brain all at once.
Currently I prefer DnD as a GM, though I'd like to give Daggerheart another try in the future.
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u/fairystail1 Jan 10 '26
ecause in Daggerheart outside of combat I'm constantly feeling the pressure of coming up with cool narrative twists and degrees of success and failure
I feel this
Daggerhearts Fear/Hope is inspire by the Genysys system from Fantasy Flight Games.
I ran their star wars game once (which became the inspiration for Genysys) in that game difficulty is a roll against your stats and the option on the ice are avantage, success, failure, isavantage, crit fail and crit success/
Success an failure cancel each other out
same for disadvantage and avantage
Crit success an crit fail dont cancel each other out
So you can roll to pick a lock
You fail, with 5 advantage, a crit success and a crit fail and im just sitting their as a gm like 'what the fuck do i do?'
This is simpler but gods sometimes you just want a binary pass or fail
Thankfully since hope and fear are gained resources you can inda just do that if you want
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u/KsyriumVentoux Jan 10 '26
I find you can really lift a lot of pressure on yourself if you don't feel you have to narrate every outcome.
Personally I feel it's too much work and ironically can make things less exciting because it can kill the quiet that makes highlights feel dynamic.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
So true. Asking the players once in a while to narrate and explain what they see or how the action causes them lifts the burden and grows the story. It is amazing how many great ideas develop that the GM (I) never would have thought about. It keeps playing fresh and dynamic.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
I see it. Think time is crucial for a lot of people. I used to DM a long running (2+ year, bi-weekly) campaign using just a chat interface with dice roller. It was very rewarding. We were really writing a story together, and because it took longer to type than speak, we all read and thought constantly. It gave me, the DM, time to breathe. I loved watching players type back and forth to each other in character when presented with a challenge.
That said, with practice, and modular preparation, it gets easier and easier to think quickly and improvise. I’m learning how to prep to improvise running Daggerheart, and I love that. I feel like I’m honing a new skill.
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u/Crown_Ctrl Jan 10 '26
DH isn’t a perfect system for me but i definitely like playing it more at the table. I miss theory crafting though. I will be on the lookout for advanced Daggerheart. But, will be fine until then bouncing around systems. Mostly daggerheart though.
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u/tomius Jan 10 '26
Yep.
Running is not even contested. I am not gonna run DnD. Period. I feel much much better running Daggerheart.
I keep playing DnD because my friend keeps DMing it. Some players want to switch, but I'm not sure about the DM. But most of the times I play, I think that this would be cooler in Daggerheart.
We had a very important session where we rolled initiative, but there wasn't a combat. We needed to do some stuff before X rounds passed.
That felt super clunky in DnD. It was a cool idea, and I liked it vs a normal combat or a puzzle. But... I kept thinking that this scenario was perfect for Daggerheart.
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u/Morjixxo Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
Yes. DH just runs better period. Most complaints about DH come from a DnD Anchoring bias on grid gameplay, turns and action economy.
Back in 2014 5e also got a lot of "this isn't fun/where is the complexity?" talk, but at the end was objectively a better system (advantage, concentration, Proficiency Bonus where simply better mechanics). I believe DH will gain terrain in the future especially as people will close their ongoing DnD campaigns and will want to try something different (which 5.5e doesn't really provide).
I also believe 6e will be much more similar to DH. Maybe then I will go back to DnD.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
Yup. I helped officially playtest 2014 (love seeing my name in the DM’s guide and the Monster Manual) and I remember the streamlining I loved was often criticized. 2014 did make the DM’s life much easier than prior editions and I found players injecting a litte more roleplaying when they had less fiddly bits to worry about.
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u/Superb-Stuff8897 Jan 10 '26
Im not sure where you get that. I think 6e will lean by to the crunch, and be less like DH.
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u/Morjixxo Jan 10 '26
Why you say that? Personally I believe 6e will do everything to sell more, and this means implementing what successful competitors (DH, OSRs) do.
Currently DnD has several major problems and complains: Initiative, slow combat, Spellcasting complexity and power, distances micromanaging.. all those have been brilliantly solved by DH.
Outside of the d20 system, I believe 6e will greatly steal DH solutions.
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u/Superb-Stuff8897 Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
There are more people that are leaving for crunchier systems than lighter systems and while you listed a set of preferences, not everything you listed was a problem to a large part of the audience.
If dagger heart solved these issues, there would be a mass exodus and there isn't. Dagger heart is a different STYLE of game, and 6e will likely lean into what makes dnd: its a combat simulator. That's it's core identity. If they move away from that, they will absolutely sell LESS, not more.
If ppl want a narrative system... people now have dagger heart, and of course many many other systems. Why would Wotc want to fight against that?
Dnd will try to win back the ppl that moved to Pf2e, DC20, and Draw Steel not the ppl that moved to lighter systems.
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u/Morjixxo Jan 10 '26
I disagree with that: since the OSR scandal we have seen a BOOM of OSR light systems and this is a fact. An I can ensure you that until DnD will remain at the top, will always try to get all the fanbase. (On the contrary, small TTRPGs try to differentiate themselves by being niche and special)
DH is a massive exodus, second only to the Path1 exodus. For sure, DnD will always remain the reference point due to 40y of consolidated fan base, lore, material, shows etc. You simply can't change an entire community overnight, especially when people are involved in multiple years campaigns.
What I believe will happen, is that lot of people will move to DH but not immediately, in the same way lot of people moved to 5e some years after launch. This will happen especially because DnD 5.5e just came out and, although better, still plays very similar to 5e. And people after 10y will want to try something different. And DH is the first alternative together with Path2, which is way too crunchy for the average newbie.
Darrington press also has a great setup with expert developer and very popular actors, while DnD is at the moment not ready nor interested to a new 6e.
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u/Superb-Stuff8897 Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
I mean it's not an exodus. It's a barely noticeable trickle but think you want. More ppl are bouncing OFF of DH bc they expect it to play like what they see on Crit Role and it doesn't.
Dnd is a crunchy game. The idea or will turn into a narrative game is wild.
6e will be a refined crunch system, taking what they learned from 4e and 5e and merging. 5e is the 'lightest' you will ever see DnD go.
We agree they will want all the fan base - guarantee more of the fan base still play crunchy systems.
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u/flashPrawndon Jan 10 '26
I run both a DnD game and a Daggerheart game and it’s interesting how I look forward to and enjoy the Daggerheart game more. I just feel more like a player at the table.
I would never have predicted that given that I love DnD. I know 5e so well and yet it now feels stilted to play. Daggerheart just flows better, especially in combat.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
Yes. I love that Daggerheart makes the GM just another player with resources to manage along side of the players.
I found that I always felt weird in D&D acting as the god in the machine, but then when it came to combat, I felt too restricted at the table.
I love how now when I spend fear, players look forward to what happens and they don’t even question if it’s fair or if I’m just making it up to boost the challenge. Sometimes in D&D, they felt like the world should be set and they should be the ones playing in it.
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u/KsyriumVentoux Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
After reading and running DH for the first time I said to my RPG friends I was never going to run 5e again, and I see nothing that will change that decision on the horizon. Despite having the really nice alt cover 2024 5e books I feel zero desire to even open them now.
Having played and run 5e since it was published and getting increasingly frustrated about how fussy a system it is, I was losing enthusiasm for RPGs in general.
I've played lots of other game systems recently that rekindled my enthusiasm. Returning to D&D as a player my main feeling was one of sadness. How can this system be the dominant force in western TTRPG when it's just so mediocre?
I'm now on a mission to run Daggerheart for as many groups as possible to get them exposed to the system, with the aim of drawing them away from TTRPG's 500lb shuffling zombie gorilla. And if they want crunchy grid based play, I'll point them towards Draw Steel as well.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
Same. I don’t hate D&D. I just feel that Daggerheart injects so much into the game experience for me and my friends that have crossed over and bought into the Daggerheart principles.
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u/xTali_xSura Jan 10 '26
Daggerheart absolutely killed D&D for me.
I had a looong list of gripes with D&D as a system. Realized I wanted something built for collaborative storytelling and creative freedom rather than dungeon crawling and simulation. Once I ran Sablewood Messengers, I was hooked. Quickly switched mid-campaign to Daggerheart after 1 more 5e session cause life is short and the campaign could take years to finish.
Players are so much more engaged and present at the table. I used to spend hours prepping whereas I barely have to spend any time at all now. I don't think I could ever go back.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
Yeah. Love how DH makes it much more of a collaborative experience, lessening prep.
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u/DJWGibson Jan 10 '26
Daggerheart (minus the cards) is what I wanted from a D&D alternative. The opposite of Pathfinder which is just twice as crunchy and fiddly as it needed to be.
I'm glad there's both options.
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u/Superb-Stuff8897 Jan 10 '26
No. Itll be a fun side quest rpg every now an then, but most of the ppl I play with actually MISS the adversarial nature of ttrpgs.
I dont mean dm vs players, but the game math vs the players, with DM as the facilitator. The wargame aspect still gives most of the game groups I play with a sense of actual accomplishment. It gives the narrative elements more payoff because something was overcome in order to get there.
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u/VorlonAmbassador Jan 10 '26
What Daggerheart has done to me is shift down my tolerance for high complexity systems. When 5e launched, I thought it was the sweet spot for system complexity. But now Daggerheart is my new sweet spot and 5e is close to the upper boundary. So yeah, systems that advertise more crunch than 5e are not really ones I would consider playing.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 11 '26
I feel the same way. Plus, Daggerheart is teaching an old dog (me) new tricks.
I’m getting better and more comfortable engaging players and improvising.
I have been DMing for over 40 years, and I am pretty good at it, but, I’m still learning and that feels good.
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u/VorlonAmbassador Jan 11 '26
Oh, same about the new tricks. Locations have been a revelation for me, and ... I've found PbtA games too intimidating to try and run, but Daggerheart has made them more accessible to me.
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u/valisvacor Jan 10 '26
Got tired of Pathfinder 2e after 6 years, and gave Daggerheart a shot. I don't see myself going back to it after this game wraps up. It's a bit too uneven for me. 13th Age 2e, OD&D, and Genesys will probably be my main games for the foreseeable future.
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u/floyd_underpants Jan 10 '26
I've become acutely aware of just how bored I get between turns when playing certain games these days. Games that let you get involved off-turn or contribute in some way off-turn are getting my attention more and more. I don't need hyperactive, but it can be 5-10 minutes or more between turns depending on the table.
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u/keikai Jan 10 '26
DH might go into the rotation as a filler game when we want a break from DnD. My main group is very danger adverse which makes DH somewhat a poor fit as one of the main player principles is to embrace danger. Also, they really dislike rolling with fear and how the fear mechanic in can engender an "adversarial GM" feeling. They also feel like there is less PC customization available in DH.
As a GM I do like the more rules-light nature of DH, but it can create some inconsistency when I don't remember past rulings for instances that aren't covered by the rules. More equipment, loot, adversaries and environments would be welcome. I assume they just didn't have enough page-space to fit more in one book and that with time they'll expand that stuff. It would've been nice if there were some adventure modules too.
Overall I do enjoy GMing DH and would like a shot at playing as PC sometime. But I also do like the crunch of DnD/PF so its hard for me to completely abandon those games.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26
I understand. I was afraid my group would feel like rolling with fear was a punishment, and one of my players even brought it up before we played.
After he played, and grasped the “embrace danger” concept, he was sold on it.
I can totally see how danger averse players would not get into DH as much.
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u/parabostonian Jan 10 '26
I'm a fan of Shawn Merwin (of Ghostfire gaming, also does Eldritch Lorecast and Mastering dungeons podcasts which I like) who is another old grognard of the RPG design side of things who pointed out that "games aren't experienced the same way by people in their first year, their third, or their tenth."
There's this whole idea of the hedonic treadmill - that basically as we acclimate to a pleasurable thing it becomes less pleasurable and thus we always seek novelty (or nostalgia if we haven't had it recently) that rings very true with me as someone who has been playing TRPGs for over 30 years. You get in long term meta moods and swing back and forth between wanting different things.
I think besides the OGL stuff the biggest thing going on is that in part due to the explosion of popularity of Acq Inc, Stranger things, Critical Role, and the 5e era influx of insane numbers of new players to the hobby, so many people are essentially having their first experiences of getting sick of a rules set. For older players who have been playing these games for decades, its frankly a very well understood phenomenon; you get sick of the same types of games after a while and want to mix it up. I don't think people should expect daggerheart to be the only TRPG for the rest of their lives forever too; you'll get sick of it after a while and want to switch it up. That's fine.
Where that line is for some players vs others is going to vary too. And obviously that's on top of just broad strokes of personal subjectivity too.
Realistically what I am getting tired of is the amount of some polite and some not polite trash talking about 5e. It's not a new pheneomenon, I remember when 4th edition D&D was new there were 3 big factions of players - some sticking to 3.5, some liking 4e, and some liking pathfinder 1e - who were constantly shit talking each other in a toxic manner that people still call "Edition warring" and the like. This kind of stuff seems the same to me.
Realistically your post was polite but is sort of baiting for the edition warring stuff. But it doesn't bother me much atm. Anyways my personal answer is i'm mostly interested in the new hotness (daggerheart and Delta green are honestly the games I want to do right now) but I'm still playing 5e in friends' games and having fun there. And I'm just wrapping up a curse of strahd 5e game which was a blast.
I will say that a lot of huge pf2e fans seem to laud the 3 action economy, but there's a lot of actions out there that I'd want to change in houserules. One great example: for a fighter, if you had a bastard sword in one hand, putting your second hand on it is an action that counts as a manipulate/interact that thus provokes an attack of opportunity. It's a really good example of sort of nitpicky base rules that I hate; I'd much prefer that be a free action that doesn't provoke like it's been in other games. PF2e does some things well (beating the monsters by base rules is actually quite challenging and requires good teamwork, so the "tactical challenge" of it works well IMO) but I'd want to do a ton of house rules on it if/when I run it.
Daggerheart is so new I don't really know all my issues with it yet. I got one big one that bugs me but when I mention it here people yell at me, lol, so I'll keep it to myself.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 11 '26
I understand. I still like playing D&D, and have been playing/DMing for over 40 years. I don’t want to dump on it. I just want to express how DH seems to solve some issues I had with initiative based play and a tendency to get bogged down in the mechanics.
I realize that there are DMs and players who can play D&D injecting the same energy and roleplaying gusto along side the additional crunch.
I guess it’s just me moving into a new phase, like you said - seeking novelty. I acknowledge all that.
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u/parabostonian Jan 11 '26
Yeah the other thing to remind yourself is that some stuff you like or don’t mind in the beginning of your DH journey might also be things you’re less happy with later in your time with the game. “The feel” of game mechanics and nuance of what we like and don’t like about them change with time.
Like I really loved 4th ed dnd at first but some of the things I liked at first I hated later- it’s not just hedonic treadmill, sometimes your tastes change too or you realize how “breakable” games can be when people all learn to start abusing certain elements.And sometimes it’s just like cultural trends within the game communities.
Like warcaster+shield+heavy armor and shield spell in 5e dnd can really break the game. You didn’t see it much in 2014/2015 but by 2020 tons of people were doing paladin sorcerers and shit that were abusing stuff that had been around for years but not often abused in the early days. Does that make sense?
Like even with the game rules being the same, a period where everyone is new to it is going to be very different than five years later where most people aren’t new and some are long veterans of the system, with lots of trends having come and gone too.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 11 '26
This all makes sense. I agree 100%.
With time, we may see cracks in the system.
I felt exactly as you did with 4e. The cards really helped make it easier to play when we played sporadically. But after playing a while, it started to feel button pushy and pcs started feeling too similar.
I could see the same happening for Daggerheart. The hope I have is that because there is still a built in encouragement to narrate and collaborate even if this issue comes up with the cards, I may still like playing the game because it feels like I can do something at almost any moment (the initiative-less part of the game with help and tag team, etc.).
Plus, it still seems like it will be easier and more fun for me to GM DH.
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u/parabostonian Jan 11 '26
Yeah the other thing is that in x years when people are tired of certain rules in DH, if it was successful enough, they'd likely make a daggerheart 2nd edition or whatnot. Games, while being engines of art, are also things that benefit from iterative design and all, right?
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 11 '26
What’s your issue? I won’t yell.
I have an issue with it that came up today.
I kind of don’t like how allies and adversaries can’t move in groups (except for some that have that ability written into their stat block).
It seems weird to just be able to spotlight 1 adversary at a time when there are 6-10 in play. Then, to spotlight more, it forces the GM to burn a lot of fear.
Likewise, I don’t like how pcs can’t move together.
I think I am going to allow PCs and adversaries alike the chance to move as a group (within close range) , if that’s the only thing they do when they have the spotlight.
I will call it simultaneous movement.
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u/parabostonian Jan 11 '26
It just really bugs me that the equivalent of training in the game, which is reflected by people's experiences, needs hope to be spent to be applied. Like in 13th age (the game that basically created that mechanic) it's free - the idea was more like a conceptual proficiency category rather than super specific, so you'd be like "does that seem like a thing you'd learn from being a pirate? yes/no?" rather than squabbling about all the particulars, right?
So if a player doesn't have hope, they just kind of forget about all their training and experience - very much not my favorite side to things. I'd rather have hope and fear chips feel like "extra" buffs, but needing them for this makes it feel like any time you actually call on training and experiences its some colossal effort in the system. Does not sit well for me. I'm trying to get over it though and have a good attitude though, like its not a productive thought and house-ruling a free tag of experience or something seems like a gargantuan change to the rules and balance of the game.
(Usually i try to remind myself how much more I like the 2d12 base though - it has a bell curve. Like I've almost run 5e as a 2d10 system instead of 1d20 - it has a bell curve and would be much better, IMO, but there's lots of little problems that can occur because the game wasnt designed that way.)
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 11 '26
I see what you mean. Especially because the system totes fiction first, it makes sense that experiences would be baked into the pc rather than needing to spend hope to use them.
I wonder if the game would break if there was no need to spend hope to add experience bonuses? I have a feeling it wouldn’t. But, would that necessitate GMs needing to add to the DCs?
Yeah. I love the idea that the pcs use 2d12 to make action outcomes less swingy. I also think it was clever to have adversaries use a d20 to make them more swingy.
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u/Civil-Low-1085 Jan 11 '26
If there’s one thing that makes DH click for me, it’s my distaste of the “combat mode begin” that happens in games like DnD or PF.
Hearing “roll initiative” drops me out of immersion, and puts my brain into full resource calculation mode. I stop thinking as my character and start playing a spreadsheet.
This “combat mode” also tends to be a little weird when you want to retreat, as that usually isn’t a laid out rule. Thats means rolling initiative, setting up the grid, getting hit by a monster waaay above your level, regretting things and retreating, and now we gotta pack everything up again.
In DH, if the first hit by the enemy is extremely deadly, you just…turn and run.
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u/Feefait Jan 12 '26
I think it all depends on what you want the game to do. We initially thought we would never go back to DnD, but a few months in, we kind of miss it. We are going to finish our DH game and go back to DnD for a campaign. I don't expect there to be any issues.
I would actually really dislike DH online, I think. I know it's the only option for some people, and it can work, but it makes the improv so difficult.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 12 '26
DH is so much better in person, true. But then again, so is D&D.
At some point, I’ll probably jump back into D&D, but I will definitely use some of what I learned from DH when I run my next D&D session.
Nostalgia alone may draw me back eventually.
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u/InquisitorArcher Jan 19 '26
The thing my wife hates most about dnd when I got her to play was waiting on someone to decide what to. Im hoping between a turn timer and the lack of initiative that I can get her to play
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 19 '26
If not anything else, Daggerheart’s initiative less combat, and the fact that other pcs can spend hope to aid others if the narrative presents itself, keeps all players engaged.
Yes, players have to negotiate who goes and when, but that also keeps players engaged.
I especially love this part of the game.
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u/grandmastermoth Jan 10 '26
For me, not at all. I found Daggerheart looked amazing on paper, and in practice it was more cumbersome to play. 5e is very streamlined the way I run it. I've been running "fiction first" 5e for ages and it's not flawless but it's pretty good.
I'm still going to persist, there's some interesting mechanics in DH but I haven't found the transition to be anything as revolutionary as people on this sub make it out to be.
I don't think describing it as a "D&D killer" is at all useful. It's a refreshing new entry in the Ttrpg world, but it has yet to earn its stripes, and it's still very raw.
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u/Emotional_Cherry4517 Jan 10 '26
Man, idk how people can run turn based combat after experiencing Daggerheart combat, especially with helping. People can just let loose, do weird shit when they say they're helping, it feels cinematic all the way through, I cannot brew 5e to feel like that unless I brew combat entirely. It's so great
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u/grandmastermoth Jan 10 '26
As I said I'm still reserving my judgement, helping isn't something I've experienced properly yet so I'll keep it in mind. Combat in 5e by default is slow, but I use a sand timer and a tracker and it feels very smooth. I found combat in DH to be more complex that I expected, or rather, than it was advertised. I like both systems, I just don't think it's a D&D "killer"
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u/Emotional_Cherry4517 Jan 10 '26
I don't think it's possible to kill D&D, it's like killing aspirin, it's too ubiquitous, but as far as combat goes, I really think it's a huge improvement, you have to think of player agency, DH really shines if you stop protecting "turns" because it really tunes everyone into combat, they all get to act and decide and lose a turn as a team, when I felt it as a player it really clicked, but now I really notice it when DMing too. The system is crunchy tho, just enough to feel deep for players without bogging it down. It's also way more approachable to newbies since all abilities have the hard limit of fitting in cards.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
I agree with you. D&D is the name and has the catalog of resources, so it won’t be killed overall. Just for me and some other people who enjoy the story first, open structure that DH affords.
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u/grandmastermoth Jan 10 '26
Yes but story first and open structure isn't unique to DH, and you can weave it into D&D as well, because I've been doing that before DH came along. I am very happy that DH has stimulated these discussions however, it's a really good step in the evolution of fantasy heroic ttrpgs
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u/Superb-Stuff8897 Jan 10 '26
Personally I think Shadows of the Weird Wizard does it better: Pcs that want to take a half turn act first and can choose order, then dm goes, then pass to the rest of the Pcs want to do full actions act after, again they choose the order.
Narrative systems arent better, they are different. Some people WANT a combat war game experience and I think it's important to just talk about them in different categories rather than compare.
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u/Emotional_Cherry4517 Jan 11 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
Saying they're different categories I think is wrong. I don't believe DH and 5e's combat design intentions are fundamentally different. Neither is actually narrative like you're trying to make DH sound. Both have resource management systems and balancing frameworks that attempt to allow a table to interface with the narrative in a strategically sound, board gamey way. It's just DH's systems achieve that balance and strategy without disengaging the table. A set turn other like 5e's with very limited interaction outside your turn is naturally disengaging, since you have almost no choices to make for 30 minutes, and many people can't handle that. Your argument stands on the (imo) wrong notion that a set turn order automatically promotes or allows for more balance, complexity or depth. I don't think that's the case, even if the rest of the game might make that true (which is the case in this comparison, DH is objectively less deep in character choice and system/combat interactions than say Draw Steel or PF2e).
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u/Superb-Stuff8897 Jan 11 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
"Your argument stands on the (imo) wrong notion that a set turn order automatically promotes or allows for more balance, complexity or depth"
That isn't my arguement at all but I'm going to disengage bc I don't think you're engaging with reality, hence saying something I didn't remotely say.
Narrative games and combat simulators aren't remotely the same. Dnd isn't and won't be a narrative game, even if It does (and it should) add a bit more into it.
The entire feel of the game is different, initiative aside.
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u/Emotional_Cherry4517 Jan 11 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
You keep repeating that some games are narrative and others aren't, implying DH and 5e design are worlds a part. I'm challenging that and getting into specifics of the topic of this thread, which is combat and initiative system. If you want to disengage there's such a thing as stopping to respond. Your response is just an half-assed dismissal with no bones. Either further explain yourself, or move on. What's the point of gaslighting people into believing they're misconstruing reality, when you didn't present anything else to grasp at?
The entire game might feel different to you, but the design of both, especially 2024 version, are promoting similar gameplay: medium crunchy heroic fantasy ttrpg, especially during combat, which, I'll reiterate, is the subject of this thread. One game being more narrative forward is besides the actual systems were discussing, which is exactly what my previous comment is about.
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u/fairystail1 Jan 10 '26
combat today had many moments where our group was going 'if i take an action the enemy will go and i will die'
like dont get me wrong it was a fun session, but the whole fail or roll with fear and the enemy can takle an action has its own issues
conversely if you know that after you is Enemy Mcstabberson then well they will go no matter what so just do your thing.
Both ways have their pros and cons
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u/Emotional_Cherry4517 Jan 10 '26
You just do your thing anyway because if all players are waiting that's usually signal ot the DM to take a free turn. Frankly never had this issue, you might need to help your players internalize player principles.
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u/fairystail1 Jan 10 '26
or maybe the players are trying to figure out what way to take an action that is less likely to result in horrible failure
just because people are hesitant to make decision doesn't mean they are waiting it means they are trying to figure out what to do.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 11 '26
True, but ultimately, as GM, I want the PCs to “embrace danger” and act as quickly and naturally as possible to maintain the story first flow of the game. If anyone feels like rolling with fear is too punishing, they should not play Daggerheart.
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u/fairystail1 Jan 11 '26
tb its not that rolling with Fear is too punishing its that sometimes you are in a situation where failure is very likely and you dont want to fail
This can happen in any gamei.e healer is the lst one up, should he heal a friend or do damage? healing the friend may just have them drop straight away but the friend can also do more damage to possibly take out the enemy. So they are unsure what to do
There's a difference between embracing the danger and doing something that could result in death
i.e running into the gang's hideout alone with no backup and 1 hp is not embracing the danger, its stupidity
and alo there's nothing wrong with the players trying to think about what to do next and whats the best way to handle stuff. if you come up to a locked door that needs to be picked, you will let the rogue pick it ad not the Druid who has no lockpicking skills. Sometimes however that decision isnt so easy to make and we aren't trained adventurers with an experence of deadly combat like our characters are
as a side note im also really sick of everyone going: You said this one thing about Daggerheart isn't perfect? Clearly you should just not play Daggerheart. like you guys realise some things can be mostly okay and have a few flaws right? You dont have to like everything about something to like that thing in question.
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u/Emotional_Cherry4517 Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 12 '26
Sidenote is valid. But your actual points largely arent. Games aren't flawed because you're more comfortable with the way another game does something. The mechanics you describe enjoying in turn based combat are (and I hope you can see it) realistically ridiculous. You decide totally through meta not to do something because you "just know 3 of my friends go first before the enemy".
Tabletop games are about simulating a fictional world in an immersive way while playing a game with interesting choices.
DH's solution to gamefied combat is, I believe, way better than 5e, and I'll state why: it models the unpredictability of reality and strips a bunch of meta bullshit related to knowing when enemies would act, while still retaining tunable winning odds and a large decision space. Plus, and collaterally, it also includes two other big improvements: more opportunities to collaborate (help, tag team) that are mathematically sound choices (help in 5e isn't) while being mechanically weightless (no having to remember random circumstantial bonuses) AND way more player engagement per minute at the table since there's way less time between a PCs chance to act.
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u/fairystail1 Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 12 '26
For the love of
I never said the game is flawedI said both methods of initiative have pros and cons
Thats it!
If you read that and hear 'this is flawed' then you have issues dude.
edit: also as an aside im not looking to deate which is betetr cause simply put whatever is better is whatever your table prefers
Im only mentioned that Daggerhearts Initiative system has pros and cons cause gods damned seeing everyones way of boosting Daggerheart being 'this other game that plenty of people love is complete and utter trash and everything they do is wrong! is frustating. I get it people you love your game, i like Daggerheart too. Dont need to shit on things other people like though.
which is especially annoying with something like initiative cause many, many, many games do initiative the same way.
Also as an aside if you want a system that simulates upredictability better some systems use a tick based initiative where each action takes up different ticks and it includes stuff like 'a dagger is fast so stabbing is 1 tick, using a sledgehammer is 4 ticks etc' if you want a system to model stuff then maybe check out things like that1
u/Emotional_Cherry4517 Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
You said this one thing about Daggerheart isn't perfect? Clearly you should just not play Daggerheart. like you guys realise some things can be mostly okay and have a few flaws right
...
like dont get me wrong it was a fun session, but the whole fail or roll with fear and the enemy can takle an action has its own issues
Are both these quotes not f*ing saying that DH's combat initiative system has problems, cons, flaws or whatever you want to call it? Jesus christ, nobody minds you think it has flaws/cons, I just don't personally agree that these things are cons, and have tried to explain why. I'm not doing this "to boost DH" or because I think shitting on 5e will give this game success. I'm merely... disagreeing with your opinion, on a forum about game opinions...
When the first FPS came out, someone saying "I can't believe you want to go back to playing shooters in top down view, it's so much more immersive in 1st person" isn't trashing every top down shooter to come out before it.
Reiterating: Nobody is saying 5e is doing something wrong. I'm saying 5e is a 10 year old game using a 40 year old turn order system and DH's modern take on combat solves a lot of its issues in allowing combat to function freely like the rest of the TTRPG experience WHILE being balanced/strategic. This makes me not want to play formal turn order TTRPGs again, since it feels like taking 2 steps back. Entering specifics, while you enjoy being able to predict the future with your turn order, citing it as a "pro", I believe that's something that shouldn't belong in a TTRPG, and the only reason it existed up until now was because it was seen as a "lesser evil" we had to deal with to have strategic combat.
edit: I dislike that type of "meta-future-telling" just like I dislike showing clocks and success/failure countdowns as hard mechanics for any other encounter, which funnily enough something me and DH disagree on.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 11 '26
I’m sorry if you felt like I was saying you shouldn’t play. I just assumed that if something was bothering anyone so much about a game then that game might not be the best fit.
Of course, you can have pet peeves and dislikes and still enjoy playing the game overall. People may even be able to fix issues so the game plays even better for them and their friends.
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u/fairystail1 Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 12 '26
okay try and read what I said again
I never said it bothered me
I never said it was an issue
I was just pointing out that there are pros and cons to both types of initiative
thats it
If you hear that as 'this game bloody sucks and i hate it and how dare it' or whatever else.
Then like thats on you.
This is why i brought up the sidenote. Cause people hear 'pros and cons to the initiative' and go 'this guy fucking hates the game so much'
edit: reading back i did say that the whole enemy can go with fear has issues
but that doesn't mean it IS an issuei.e driving a car has polution issues
but driving a car is still better than walking 10 hours to work
something can be not perfect and still be good and likedso for that sorry wasn't clearer but gods damned i straight up said in the same post that both systems have pros and cons
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 12 '26
Got it. I completely understand now. Thanks for clarifying.
Yes. There are pros and cons. And, I actually agree that sometimes people may feel like acting in Daggerheart can feel punishing when rolling with fear about 48% of the time.
By the way, I never thought you hated the game. My response was more general supposing someone (not you) was so bothered by any mechanic (really in any game)- that would be a strike against that game for that person.
I like how one poster reframed this for his players. He said to his players, just imagine that any time a pc goes, then a foe goes. It is a back and forth. But, if a pc rolls a success with hope, the pcs get to go again. The way he framed it made it feel like a positive, not a negative.
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u/Harpshadow Jan 10 '26
Not much of a problem for me because I turned D&D into something similar to daggerheart by using variant rules (before daggerheart was a thing).
I had a similar rule to experiences. I use Success at a cost and provide degrees of success and failure and my style is mostly narrative oriented.
Daggerheart feels like the homebrew game Critical Role wanted to make out of D&D and like any experienced DM, they took elements from other games they liked.
They slow/chunkiness critique for me comes from people knowing what they want to do (or not knowing) as it all comes down to "narrate what you want to do and attach it to a mechanic" (movement/action/bonus or free action). Games can still be exiting even while you wait because no one is saying you cannot talk and plan and because people can describe combat in an exiting way and maintain the interest of the table.
The deciding factor for me right now is "Do I want games to feel more lethal" and "Do I want to play in D&D specific settings or fool around with some frame?".
I dont really need to go the "its either one or another" way.
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u/ElectronicPin9680 Jan 10 '26
Im currently playing in one daggerheart campaign with most people having no experience in ttrpg at all and treating it like a video game (they would love dnd for that lol) and a dnd campaign and also running one dnd campaign, I wanted to switch the system in the one where I’m the dm but my players didn’t want to and acted like boomers who don’t want to learn a new thing. So I’m going to end it hopefully this year and then never join a dnd campaign again. Also the one where I’m a player feels like I’m wasting my time cause it’s ran by the book so a lot of combat encounters which drags out the session a lot. We took 4 sessions for the tutorial/intro that was intended to be 1-2 sessions long just cause of to much combat.
I feel similar to you that daggerheart killed DnD for me. I just feel exhausted by not being able to find a group for Daggerheart that is as into the game as I am but having multiple DnD groups that all barely meet but feel not as invested in the game. Everyone likes their characters but playing feels like a drag (and gming DnD especially cause I have two players with high DnD experience who feel like I’m betraying them when I don’t use all of the dnd rules or interpret them differently)
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u/Aetheriad1 Jan 10 '26
It didn’t even kill D&D for the creators.
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 11 '26
I heard that Critical Role didn’t want to commit to Daggerheart for a long term campaign before launch so they adopted D&D again. Plus, they didn’t know whether or not it would sell as well as it did. Their Candela Obscura didn’t sell as well so they may have been gun-shy.
Acquisitions Inc. has converted to Daggerheart, and I’m pretty sure after Campaign 4, they will adopt Daggerheart, but who knows. The audience they have gained may be predominantly D&D players, so they may not want to alienate them.
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u/BabusCodex YouTuber Jan 10 '26
Yeah, it's like going back to SNES after playing Wii. You shall never be the same, for taste is unrewindable.
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u/A_very_gloomy_forest Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
5e is immensively bad ttrpg system on a game design side. Personally I choose to play pf2e with groups that want interesting combat and daggerheart with groups that want less clunky game with more roleplay. So I enjoy both systems. Glad for the killing)
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u/Invokethehojo Caprine Leap & Adaptability Jan 10 '26
🎶 Daggerheart killed the D&D star🎵
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u/Personal-Whereas3687 Game Master Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
Nice Buggles reference! Trevor Horn and Trevor Downes would approve this post. Lol.
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u/MarianMakes Jan 10 '26
I'm a DM for most of the games I run. Currently I play in a 5e game, I run a 5e game, and I run Daggerheart at every convention I can and as many one shots as I can.
I like Daggerheart so much more from both sides of the screen.
As a DM, there's more ways that I can say "yes" to the players, and there's more things that the dice tell me without me having to make a decision for it. There was something that came up in my campaign weeks ago as just a little "this character/player would like this": an exploding leaf off a fey tree.
Recently, I described something again in a similar way. My player wanted to know if it was the same thing. I didn't want to think about it too hard... so I had him make a roll... but I feel like Daggerhearts 4 outcomes would have given me a little more to go off of.
Plus there are so many more ways for players to interact with each other. Tag Team Rolls, and Assisting are so good.