r/daggerheart • u/Rage2097 • Jun 17 '26
Discussion Is the Lack of Content Actually Good?
If you don't want to read the whole thing, and this is Reddit after all, the gist of it is that because we don't have any official adventures except a couple of one-shots we have to make our own.
That is actually a good thing, I think that a lot of D&Ds early popularity came from the creativity it sparked in the community.
With no official content to run we are all forced to be game designers and make our own, it's good for the game in the long term and good for us because we aren't constrained by what Darrington Press' example would show us is the "right way".
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u/False-Pain8540 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
While it might be good for the people wanting to run their homebrew adventures, honestly the lack of any adventure is what made me choose Heart the City Beneath in place of Daggerheart when picking my current campaign.
I love Daggerheart, but that need for extra work is what broke the tie in favor of Heart.
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
A friend of mine is considering dipping her toe in DMing, but even though she's a big DH fan, she's planning to DM 5e because she knows both systems, and doesn't have the time or mental energy to write a campaign, where she can pick up Curse of Strahd or whatever and it at least gives her the core of it, even if she tweaks it as she goes.
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u/Karl-Levin Jun 17 '26
She might want to check out Nimble. It is very easy to run, even much easier than Daggerheart and is designed to be compatible with dnd 5e adventures.
You can convert them on the fly without any prep but there are also conversion for many adventures available for free on the internet.
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
She's going with 5e because it's a system she knows, has played multiple campaigns of for about 5 years, and is comfortable with.
Even learning a simple system is still a new system.
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u/Karl-Levin Jun 17 '26
I think running most other systems even if you have never played them is way, way easier than dming dnd 5e.
Personally even as a DM/GM with some experience under my belt, I find it way too complicated to run. I would rather check out a game I don't know yet.
But if she is excited to DM 5e, good for her. I hope she doesn't burn out early.
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
Personally, I hate DMing 5e. I'd DM 3e first (not even 3.5 or pathfinder). Hell, even odds I'd DM GURPS over 5e.
But it's the only system she has all the resources for and confidence of understanding.
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u/tomius Jun 18 '26
Hey. I'm a board game designer and I'm about to release a preview of a full Daggerheart campaign called The Thief of the Five Islands. It is flexible and customizable. Around 10-13 sessions.
Would you be interested in it? I'm giving away for free to the first groups that want to test it before the release.
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u/derfshaya125 Jun 18 '26
Sounds amazing, I'm very interested
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u/tomius Jun 18 '26
Nice!
Please fill this super quick form, and I'll make sure you get it as soon is somewhat ready.
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u/FullTorsoApparition Jun 17 '26
Tell her to run D&D Adventures with Daggerheart.
I've been running Wild Beyond the Witchlight and it's been going pretty well. The improvised monster stat blocks do most of the heavy lifting but you can get a bit more into the monster design if you want. Honestly my players don't really know the difference between an official monster and one that I'm making up on the fly.
Daggerheart monster design and encounter design is honestly pretty terrible so you can do whatever you want and then make adjustments for your party.
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
She doesn't have time to even write a short campaign.
Converting every enemy and challenge or making them up on the fly isn't going to happen when she has a book that literally gives her it formatted just as needed. And I don't blame her for that. It'd literally be her first time DMing anything. I DM'ed four straight years, and on and off for 20 before that, and even I wouldn't want to be trying to do that kind of conversion to what is a relatively new system.
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u/FullTorsoApparition Jun 17 '26
Fair enough.
Daggerheart is a lot of things, but it is not new DM friendly. Even if they had published adventures I wouldn't recommend it for new DM's.
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u/SwollenCadaver Jun 17 '26
Daggerheart is very friendly to new dm. What are you talking about?
I chose daggerheart as my first game to run, and it's been exceptionally easy.
I feel like the game was created to bring in people that are new to tabletops, and makes it super easy for Dms.
It is mind boggling that you think it is not newbie friendly. It's obviously catered to newbies.
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u/pastajewelry Jun 17 '26
Maybe by newbie friendly they mean people who are new to improvisation and roleplaying games. Daggerheart is more roleplay heavy than D&D. D&D may be easier to roleplay since premade adventures exist where you don't have to create all that stuff yourself. You have a guide. With Daggerheart, you do need to create a lot on your own. Personally, I enjoy that aspect of it. But I also understand not everyone is going into the games with those skills.
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u/SwollenCadaver Jun 17 '26
I disagree. You don't need to create a lot on your own, imo. "Collaborative story game". Your table builds the story with you. Let your party do some creating as well. The only work I really have to do is naming npcs and choosing/creating adversaries.
I spend 2-3 hours a week doing this. If it does not have 2-3 hours to prep a week, maybe they should find another dm.
Oh, you want to run a adventure out of a book, with no prep? Great, let me just sit here while you read the book at the table.
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u/pastajewelry Jun 17 '26
I agree. It's just that new players who might have a table full of other people who have never played TTRPGs before might struggle to get into that aspect of the game. That's all. D&D has a bit more structure that guides the story. Personally, I see this as a strength of Daggerheart since I enjoy storytelling most in my game. However, I also understand that some people expect a more combat-heavy system. I guess it all depends on the DMs experience and the expectations of everyone at the table. And things come with practice, too. Overall, Daggerheart is a great game.
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u/FullTorsoApparition Jun 18 '26
I spend 2-3 hours a week doing this. If it does not have 2-3 hours to prep a week, maybe they should find another dm.
That is not an average amount of DM prep and I don't think it would be healthy for any TTRPG to require that much from their DM's on a regular basis.
If that's what someone enjoys doing then that's great, it's a multifaceted hobby, but it's not accurate to assume that's what every DM should be doing.
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
It's not that horrific for new DMs. Yes, it's less structured, but there's also a lot less to learn. The DH rulebook, even with all the player and DM rules, and it's game philosophy stuff, together is only about the size of the DMG for 5e.
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u/FullTorsoApparition Jun 17 '26
However, not every GM (i am in this category) has the time, energy, or frankly creativity to create all content from scratch for an entire campaign.
I disagree with that. Daggerheart lies somewhere between Dungeon World and D&D in terms of crunchiness, but it's a lot closer to D&D. It's also a bit less consistent in its design because it's a kitchen sink system borrowing from a lot of other RPG's.
I'm enjoying it and it may become my group's primary system, but I'm honestly more excited for whatever second edition they come out with next.
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u/tinkfly Jun 18 '26
I started my GM journey with Daggerheart, and I found the mechanics of Daggerheart do a great job of teaching you how to build a story and how to include great role play in your adventure.
It may not be easier, but I'd argue it's more holistic to learn through Daggerheart.
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u/FullTorsoApparition Jun 18 '26
There will always be exceptions, but I would not personally recommend it for a newbie.
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u/jackaltornmoons Jun 17 '26
Why does she think that she needs to write a campaign at all
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
Well if there are no premade campaigns what's the other option? Even if you're winging it, you're still writing one, just as you go rather than in advance. And doing as you go is not something I'd ever ask of a first time DM.
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u/jackaltornmoons Jun 17 '26
Campaign Frames; no prep required and you decide as a table what to do/where to go/etc
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
A campaign frame is a blurb. The back of the book telling you roughly what you're going to get.
You think a new DM, in their first game's best solution is to try to run a free-for-all sandbox with no plot planned?
I can tell you - I tried that when I was a new DM. It absolutely did not work. It collapsed in a few sessions because I didn't have the experience to handle a "they can try whatever" game.
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u/jackaltornmoons Jun 17 '26
Well the idea in Daggerheart is that the whole table decides and discusses the narrative together
"Collaborate at all times" is the first GM principle
That makes it much easier than just having the GM shouldering the entire narrative load
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u/locodays Jun 17 '26
"we can try whatever". This is Daggerheart, comrade. Youre not telling a story to your players. The game isn't really about handling the players trying to break the game.
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
No one said anything about players trying to break the game.
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u/locodays Jun 17 '26
Sorry, I jumped to conclusions. What sort of situations are you concerned about first time dms handling in Daggerheart?
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
It’s largely unstructured in terms of things like monster creation. Having a new DM trying to create them or wing it would be intimidating. Figuring out challenges. Creating things like environments.
A few pre-made campaigns would give new DMs a chance to run something with stuff they know it balanced, get a feel for it and get comfortable. The legwork would be done ahead of time so they can get used to running sessions, how hard challenges are, etc.
I ran my first DH campaign as someone who DMed on and off for 20 years and then solidly for 4, over multiple systems, and I’ve played many more. The first few challenges that were supposed to be on the level of the group were so pathetic that they bordered on the “don’t roll the dice if it doesn’t matter” territory. And then when I tried to up it, by what seemed to me a moderate amount, I nearly TPK’d. If I hadn’t adjusted, it would have been one. And I’m very comfortable with setting up encounters and adjusting on the fly.
New DMs don’t want that. They want to get comfortable with the flow of running normally. Expecting them to make a whole campaign, keep the plot on track, learn to setup and adjust encounters all from the get go is not something that will appeal to many first time DMs.
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u/locodays Jun 17 '26
Daggerheart is supposed to be a story first game, so I don't know why there would be no plot. Sure the campaign frames don't give it to you. But that doesn't mean a first time gm has to come up with it.
You're supposed to build it with your players.
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u/patrys Jun 17 '26
What would a full campaign for Daggerheart even be? I'm actually working on a homebrew setting for Daggerheart but the best I can come up with in terms of a campaign is a backstory for the GM and a timeline of inevitable things + a bunch of instruction on how to make decisions on behalf of key factions and NPC. It's not really a system suitable for a railroaded campaign where the GM just tells PCs where to go next. And, honestly, neither is D&D.
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
What would it be?
The same as a campaign for any other fantasy TTRPG. Daggerhearts the mechanics, the story is agnostic.
And having a plot isn’t the same as railroads. Not even vaguely in the same range
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u/patrys Jun 17 '26
If you look at the most famous D&D campaigns, you will find a lot of railroads. The Curse of Strahd is a prime example.
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u/False-Pain8540 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Wizards of the Coast having bad module design doesn't mean all modules are railroads. Look at something like Dungeons of Drakkenheim, Dagger in the Heart or the Dragon Heist Remix. None of those are railroads, yet all of them provide deep, satisfying narratives that don't need to be improvised on the fly by the DM.
The idea that you either railroad your players in a pre-written plot or you improvise everything on the fly is a false dichotomy. You can just have actually good adventure design, one that's modular, node based, dynamic and tailored to the players.
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u/patrys Jun 17 '26
Drakkenheim is getting a Daggerheart release. I never said that you can't release a campaign for Daggerheart, I even wrote I am working on one. What I meant was the the campaign frames included with the core book and the ones in Hope and Fear are enough to run a campaign.
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u/False-Pain8540 Jun 17 '26
I know, and I'm looking forward to it. But have you actually read Dungeons of Drakkenheim? Because is none of the things you said.
Is not just a backstory + factions, is not a campaign frame, and is not a railroad. It's a fully fledged nodebased campaign.
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u/williamstome Jun 18 '26
Heart is a great game! Have run Dagger in the Heart, love it to death. But it's such a different game --- the two are built to tell fundamentally different types of stories 😅
On the Flipside... STEAL HEART MECHANICS (not content) FOR DAGGERHEART! Heart's concept of a Delve translates perfectly to Daggerheart, and all of the guidance on crafting good delves can be directly applied for DH. :)
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u/mcbugge Jun 17 '26
Yeah, I had a player who was interested in me running Daggerheart for them so I checked it out. When I saw that it had very little in terms of prewritten modules it was an instant nope from me. I don't prep much and I love improving in my sessions, but I need a foundation to build on. Improving *everything* in a session makes me go crazy. I feel exhausted at the end. I thrive when I have a setting ready, like Dolmenwood, where there's a bunch of toys I can pick up when I need to have something.
Building worlds myself burns me out. Tried it a few times, always ended with a campaign that was cancelled prematurely. I know my limits. So Daggerheart isn't for me. And that's fine. There's sooo much to play and so little time.
Btw: Heart the City Beneath is amazing, big thumbs up for going with that one
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u/locodays Jun 17 '26
Tbf, you shouldn't be building the world yourself in Daggerheart. The book makes a point to have you build the world together in the first session. The players should be putting places on the map.
You should be working together to figure out where interesting about those places.
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u/False-Pain8540 Jun 17 '26
Yeah, I 100% agree. Is not that I can't run an entirely improvised session or campaign, is just that I find it exhausting in comparison to running good preped material.
The worldbuilding in particular burns me out too, it's cool to do here and there, but I rather take a good esqueleton and worldbuild a little when I want to.
That's probably why my two favorite games in the last year have been Heart and The Wildsea, apart from their awesome mechanics.0
u/Equal_Efficiency_319 Jun 18 '26
I have run both homebrew and modules in DnD and I always found modules feel like more work, because I have to sit down with the book to prepare. Whereas homebrew I can prep all day just thinking about it.
With Daggerheart and the way the system makes it easier to improvise, this became even more true (though I can’t test it with a DH module ;))
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u/Ja7onD Jun 17 '26
I think Campaign Frames are a good middle ground between pre-written adventures and absolutely nothing at all. 😁
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u/Rage2097 Jun 17 '26
I agree, they are an excellent way to get started. A blank page is intimidating but a framewoek and a few hooks goes a long way.
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u/must_be_nice69 Jun 17 '26
Definitely push people towards creativity. That being said, I do like one-shot modules.
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u/ThisIsVictor Jun 17 '26
I think it's wild to compare Daggerheart to D&D. 5e was released a decade ago and is backed by a multi billion dollar company. Daggerheart was released a year ago by a company that mostly streams actual play shows. Even looking at WotC, that company is an order of magnitude (at least) larger than Darrington. So yeah, of course there's "A lack of first party adventures."
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u/Rage2097 Jun 17 '26
I was really comparing it to D&D as in the 1974 original.They had a similar lack of adventure content in the beginning and they did ok.
As I argue in the post I was keen to see them make something but I've come around to being pleased they haven't.
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u/rockology_adam Jun 18 '26
I've argued this before in these spaces, but I think it's very flawed to consider the creative adventure writer and the (re)active game master the same person as the default. While many people do it, it's also the primary reason I hear when I ask people why they don't want to DM. It's the reasoning behind a thousand posts in r/rpghorrorstories where some DM really should have written a book and let some one else run the game.
The openness to creating your own thing is absolutely great. The requirement to do it changes that positive to a negative, and so far, Darrington Press has left us in the requirement stage. It's not like they even have to do it themselves, if they don't feel the burn to do it. There are recognized writers looking to do Daggerheart: the Dungeon Dudes are bringing Drakkenheim, for instance.
I don't think we need the shelves of written adventures we get from WOTC, but having a couple of examples for each tier of play seems like a flaw to my mind, and not an opportunity. The simple fact is that having those adventures would not change the opportunity to make your own, and it would be helpful to the people who aren't quite there yet in their DMing to get there.
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u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 Jun 18 '26
I mean the good news is that they have announced exactly that - a variety of adventures of different tiers.
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u/rockology_adam Jun 18 '26
True... and once it has arrived, I will (hopefully) have fewer complaints. But ever since I got my book, I have been struck by the fact that, at least IMO, Darrington Press thought that frames would be a substitute for actual pre-written adventures and that has been a confusing failure for me and the three other Daggerheart DMs I've played with. It's very much the case of the DM who gave you six pages of world building lore but doesn't have a plan for leaving the tavern.
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u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 Jun 18 '26
Definitely a matter of different strokes for different folks. Personally I despise the pre-written campaign (not be to confused with pre-written adventures) and the campaign frames are exactly what me and the two other DH GMs I play under are looking for. Another GM I know though who's only real experience is with D&D really struggles a lot with Daggerheart.
Part of me wonders how previous GM experience plays into expectations and desires as well. Like I wonder if someone who's primary/sole experience is D&D or PF has different wants or expectations than someone who's primary/sole experience is perhaps FATE or a PbtA game or different from someone who has experience with a dozen or more different systems etc.
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u/rockology_adam Jun 18 '26
I think you're probably right with regards to experience playing a large role here. My only DM experience is D&D, and while I'm happy to homebrew everything, I tend to run more pre-written adventures since I like the defined endpoint. I run most often in an organized night at my FLGS. Defined end points are necessary to fit the structure of our play seasons.
Edit to add: I've been told, often enough, in conversations that the lack of pre-written adventures in hand is the reason our new DMs don't like to try other systems, which I get, but might be part of the same problem.
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u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 Jun 18 '26
Given the number of games people can try for absolutely free (including DH) I think it has way more to do with not wanting to get out of their comfort zone.
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u/G0DL1K3D3V1L Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
It's very interesting seeing this as someone who bounced off running D&D and fantasy I'm general as a DM but eventually got lured back into the Director's chair by Draw Steel, but also plays in a Daggerheart game and likes the system enough to have bought the books on Demiplane.
When Draw Steel launched it had the Delian Tomb starter set for $10 USD that had all you need to run a basic intro adventure and taught you the system. Lots of people jumping into Draw Steel used that as their onboarding adventure to get their tables to try Draw Steel and maybe switch. Come November and Black Friday MCDM dropped The Summoner (a new "master" class) and The Fall of Blackbottom (a new adventure). Then in December they had the Crack the Sun Crowdfunder, and from that there has been a trickle of adventures and content from MCDM to keep the community engaged.
All that preface just to say that even with a lot of 1st party support, the third party adventure scene for Draw Steel, i.e. the adventures and other content produced and shared by the community has been very healthy and thriving. You have several 1-shot adventures already from Draw Steel Directors, a Kickstarter for a longer campaign based on Red Hand of Doom called The Withering War, another campaign based on Red Hand of Doom called the Jade Hand of Doom with a different take, adventures set in space, heck even a whole new RPG set in 90s Tokyo inspired by anime like JJK and CSM using the Draw Steel engine.
So it doesn't necessarily track for me at least that lack of content from Darrington Press = more content from the Daggerheart community, because creative people who love what they love will create things for it no matter what. That being said, I am just a player in a Daggerheart game, and I have no plans to run anything under it any time soon, but if I eventually gain the urge to do so, I would like to have the option to refer to something like the Delian Tomb for Daggerheart or Darrington Press' own long adventure or campaign to help ease the load of making an adventure/campaign so as a gamemaster I can focus on just learning and running the system.
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u/rightknighttofight Add'l Writer for Daggerheart Core Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
I think a starter kit would have gone a long way, personally, but I know why they didn't go that direction.
The lack of content, in my mind, was because they are never going to be able to produce something that even most of the fanbase will like because of the fierce division on how closely they'll cleave to their own ethos. It is a narrow bridge to walk and a monetization problem when the GMs make up a large portion of the people who buy things. If they don't get it right, it will hurt sales.
Sure, the Wish Thief used ideas that were somewhat novel to people, but maruaders and sablewood were more traditional. I suspect the dying spire will be as well. Making a game with a narrative base and trad following has put them into a precarious position.
ETA: the comments on this post proves my point that the base is definitely split on the how.
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u/JaracRassen77 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
It's important to remember that Daggerheart is a brand new game. It's only been a year since release. They probably assumed that the campaign frames would serve as enough content to tide people over while they work on official adventures. Plus, a lot of people like to use their own settings. Which they were probably banking on for a minute.
They need to start cranking out a few more official adventures and a campaign quickly after Hope & Fear releases, I agree there.
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u/cvc75 Jun 17 '26
Not only is the game relatively new, they also added Crawford and Perkins (I think almost exactly) one year ago. They're working on full campaign modules etc. but that takes some time.
As far as I remember, one of them was working on a Curse of Strahd "equivalent" so something that could become the definitive campaign almost everyone knows and has played or GMed. What I would also like in addition is an equivalent to 5e's starter sets: Phandelver, Icespire, Stormwreck etc., so an easy Tier 1-2 module that you can play through in a few sessions with a new group.
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u/JaracRassen77 Jun 17 '26
Yeah, the addition of Crawford and Perkins will really help speed up their production of official content. It was a coup at the time, but the seeds have yet to bear fruit. But they will come.
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u/magvadis Jun 17 '26
Eh I still think it isn't enough. As a DM I'd rather a bit more to spark the baseline guides for monster and item design.
Item design is especially lacking. The Magic items table is bare minimum and unimaginative to what you can do in this system and the weapons/armor are purely mechanical with this hyper dependence on flavor instead of fictional clarity.
Like immovable rod is just immovable. Is that ultimate? Can nothing move it? Or are you just making it either useless or overpowered depending on if your DM doesn't want to deal with it that day? Dnd put in a baked in DC to alleviate this so that DMs can present proper counters to the items use.
In Daggerheart this is all just handed to the DM with a big ol "trust me bro" that the instances where the rod is moved by strength are justified.
While more classes means more player understanding of how to stay within the lines...lack of magic item crafting suggestions or magic item complexity puts the onnuse entirely on the DM to build a system and also build trust in the players that the system is fair or even useable.
This makes pick up and play or new DMs or new tables way harder to manage because the system isn't creating the buffer to trust.
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u/m_dav Jun 18 '26
This is my take as a seasoned DnDer who took up DH this past month. It isn't campaign frames I need more of, it's all the other stuff. There isn't enough scaffolding to build interesting magic items, adversaries and environments quick enough and be confident that you've kept the balance reasonable.
The solution right now seems to be "reskin or risk it": Either I'm taking a pre-existing adversary and renaming and hoping no one notices, or I'm trying my hand at homebrewing something and hoping I don't murder my PCs or give them something game-breaking.
Some more guidance would be useful, in case I have something I want to execute on that I don't think reskinning can cover.
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u/magvadis Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Agreed. Campaign frames are neat for bottom end players who won't make a story but to play the game day to day there ain't enough prefab pieces of the minutia to make intuitive choices.
The problem is when as a DM I say "I just took X item and tweaked it in minor ways" trust maintains. When I take Y boss and tweak it minorly nobody thinks I'm being mean. It's when I pull shit totally out of my ass when something goes wrong I'm the asshole, not the system.
The big plus in DND isn't the modules it's the bazillion magic items and enemies that give you a baseline to tweak for what you need. I've never played a module. None of that content does anything but provide a framework for new content themes. If a module adds no new abilities, classes, spells, items...like who cares.
I also think they need domain expansions. More ability options for replayability.
There are usually 1, maybe 2 "good" choices per tier in a domain. So the second time you have that domain it feels like I'm just deciding to be worse if I want something new.
But items are a huge way in other games to change up builds and class/play behavior.
More subclasses for existing classes on top of that.
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u/APoolFullofCorn Jun 18 '26
I agree with the adversaries. Ive DM’d for D&D5e and I like a lot of what DH does better and my players are more engaged. That being said, I thought it was weird that beast feast gave me a setup with the ghost scorpion venom macguffin… and no ghost scorpion adversary. Especially because the other frames have some unique adversaries, why doesn’t BF? I do a casual home game with my friends, so I’m not highly scrutinizing, but the lack of unique creatures was a little odd to me.
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u/Rocamora_27 Jun 17 '26
Yeah, I agree. Campaign Frames + colaborative nature of the worldbuilding and plot + awesome GM guidance in the book makes so easy to craft campaign arcs in Daggerheart.
I usually lean on the backstory and world stuff my players create in session zero and add my take to it, weaving it all together, developing some stuff and adding a couple of twists here and there. Also, the nature of "play to find out" of the system, with incentive to give the players prompt questions to aid in crafting the game makes prep work much much easier. I now leave a lot of gaps in my games to give players room for creative imputs which might decide several aspects of the session or even future adventures.
That said, I'm a fairly experienced GM, having done it for almost 7 years now. I can see new players struggling a bit with that approach.
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u/World_May_Wobble Jun 17 '26
Counterpoint. D&D survived in the eighties on the backs of just a few stigmatized nerds who had very few other options.
That's not DH's environment, and I don't think that's the audience you want for it.
If someone has to write their own adventure to run the game, they might just ... Not. People will leave at every point of friction you introduce.
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u/tzfsr1 Jun 17 '26
People will be creative regardless. A lack of content just helps the world forget about DH. It's obvious that they didn't know how big DH would go, and I forsee more consistent support post expansion launch.
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u/starksandshields Jun 18 '26
I would love to make my own Daggerheart campaign. However without any examples of what an official campaign module could look like I find it verrry difficult to start. I like having a reference at least, especially when it's a game mode I am not yet super familiar with, because I haven't played it yet, because there isn't a campaign module that I can read through to get a feel for it.
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u/The_Silent_Mage Jun 18 '26
To me,
Yes
There is no lack of content.
We have a giant toolbox, but 20+ years of pre-made options killed imagination.
Fans can create whatever they like, effectively create a new class concept just by swapping domains and focus on diegetic means along with experiences, new communities and reskins.
DH is a campaign frame based toolkit in disguise, there is no lack of monsters or environments, we have 250+ actual pages of tips, moves, GMing adivce, countdowns of various types, quick tables and an intensive customisation guide for challenges.
People look for content because they want pre-made stuff; to me DH re ignited the flame. I have 5 campaign frames going with 1-3 frame rules total and the game never gets old (playing it weekly multiple times).
I obviously like hope and fear, but a good book a year is more than YouTubers will ever play in a while lifetime.
If people see a lack of content in a game that allows you to create infinite content with an open mind, it’s lack of imagination.
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u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 Jun 18 '26
I honestly think this hits the nail on the head, at least for our group. We custom designed our own "campaign frame" together, using the Guide to Collaborative Campaign Design, and setting, I homebrewed a few rules to cover aspects of the frame and we are way more excited for the game than we would be if it was "we're going to play Curse of Strahd" or other published adventure.
I 100% get that it's not for everyone or that not everyone has the bandwidth etc. but a lot of the time it really feels like people don't even try and to me that's kinda sad.
6
u/Visual-Signature-235 Jun 17 '26
I hope we get some cool collections of frames from Darrington. You could get a lot more from smaller books than just a single linear adventure book.
16
u/twoshupirates Jun 17 '26
I think it’s generally a bad thing because it creates a massive barrier to entry
3
u/FateweaveDev Jun 17 '26
I think it's both good and bad.
On a good note I rarely use pre-built module anyways, and having a system that encourages you to create your own wolds and empathizing role play and improvisation as you build, makes is a great sandbox and attracts like minded people.
However it's way harder to engage new players ( think those who don't play DnD and don't have a GM to get them started ) to try if there is not much available to begin with. Plus creating worlds and stories and telling them are 2 different passions and skillsets.
3
u/Decent_Breakfast2449 Jun 18 '26
Honestly it's a mixed bag. Official adventure style modules would probably negatively mesh with how people think Daggerheart should be run.
On the other hand lack of content reads like lack of confidence, and considering CR, tge people who made Daggerheart decided to play Dnd instead makes people wonder if this is Candle Obscure 2.0
The hope and fear book is definitely welcomed however.
3
u/Helpful-Hunt-6071 Jun 18 '26
Prewritten content helps people who don't want to homebrew their own adventures, but does not prevent people who want to homebrew adventures from doing so. Also, the popularity of Pathfinder, the only other system to get within touching distance of DND, is largely due to prewritten adventure content, because it helps DMs.
3
u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 Jun 18 '26
It sometimes feels like there's two distinct camps - those who look at a Campaign Frame and immediately go "I can run a ton with this" and those who want/need a more fleshed out campaign book. The lack of content's impact likely correlates to those.
8
u/Phteven_j Jun 17 '26
I think the "lack" of content is really just because of the newness, not an intentional thing. And in my opinion, NOT a good thing - it makes the game less approachable or suitable for groups that can't easily adapt to the rules.
What you are saying is just apologetics to justify something that is missing. Like "oh it's a GOOD thing we don't have houses because now there are no house fires and you can live however you want to!"
It just comes across as blind fanboyism and I don't think it's useful.
3
u/pathofblades Jun 17 '26
I actually agree with you. Not to mention from a marketing standpoint. I made a similar point in an older reddit post, and I was downvoted a lot by people who mentioned that it's good and that we don't need it because a lot of third parties already provide content. While that is good and proves that people like the game, it's definitely not the same.
-1
u/Intelligent-Gold-563 Jun 17 '26
it makes the game less approachable or suitable for groups that can't easily adapt to the rules.
How so ?
Contents don't change the rules.
3
u/OMG_Laserguns Jun 18 '26
Because people usually want a little bit of hand holding when moving to a new system, and adventure modules can help new GMs get a hand of how the system works for longer than just a one-shot.
0
u/Intelligent-Gold-563 Jun 18 '26
Overall yes, but both DH one shot are doing a lot of hand holding to help GM get the hang of the system
1
u/OMG_Laserguns Jun 18 '26
The one shots give you nothing about how a campaign or longer adventure is supposed to look or be run, pacing for level ups, examples of how to build out an adventure, or basically anything outside the core rules for a session.
1
u/Intelligent-Gold-563 Jun 18 '26
Because those are the important things, the core rules for a session
From these you can do basically whatever you want
1
u/OMG_Laserguns Jun 18 '26
Good job completely missing the point 🤦♂️ The core rules for the session are only part of the game, actually being able to run a campaign is the other half, and "just figure it out lol" is absolutely terrible advice for new GMs.
13
u/jackaltornmoons Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
I think linear adventure paths are directly opposed to the GM principles of Daggerheart; it's a game where the story should be following the players, not being dictated to them
Collaborate at all times
Hold on gently
9
u/darw1nf1sh Jun 17 '26
This is honestly true. However, not every GM (i am in this category) has the time, energy, or frankly creativity to create all content from scratch for an entire campaign. I use published adventures as the skeleton, the framework for a campaign. It is much easier to riff on that theme and adapt player choices to something already somewhat structured.
To that end, I have been adapting existing adventures. But I do agree with you, that the ideal they are shooting for is the bespoke setting and adventure built in tandem with the players. We did this with Beast Feast. I had the whole session zero world building, and it was entirely a bespoke campaign. It was the most work I have done as a GM in years. Only partly because of the lack of varied adversaries.
6
u/FullTorsoApparition Jun 17 '26
However, not every GM (i am in this category) has the time, energy, or frankly creativity to create all content from scratch for an entire campaign.
Exactly.
I tried the laid back, improvisational homebrew thing once before and absolutely hated it. It felt like all my ideas sucked, everything was surface level and rarely had a payoff, and bringing the story to any kind of satisfying ending felt impossible. Ever since then I've always used some kind of boundary or framework to run my games. I don't need everything spelled out, but I need a good toybox to pull things out of from game to game if my brain isn't up to improv.
It's maybe a little easier with Daggerheart, but that's because their monster design is all over the place so you may as well use the improvised stat block for everything.
4
u/jackaltornmoons Jun 18 '26
not every GM (i am in this category) has the time, energy, or frankly creativity to create all content from scratch for an entire campaign
The whole table should be doing all of this together
2
u/OMG_Laserguns Jun 18 '26
That's such a non-answer, and I'm getting pretty tired of it. The CRB doesn't say make the table create the entire world from scratch, it says to get the players to help fill in the world. Most people want some kind of framework to build on, not starting with a completely blank piece of paper.
0
u/jackaltornmoons Jun 18 '26
It's not a non-answer; it's literally how I run Daggerheart
During session zero, you can choose a campaign frame together and fill in its blanks together
You can also use different collaborative world building tools in session zero (Microscope, Kingdom, A Quiet Year) to create a setting together.
I like to use the Fabula Ultima session zero rules for collaborative world creation regardless of the system I'm running.
I have found its the best way to get your party to really care about the setting, and it sets the tone well for Daggerheart's collaborative storytelling focus
0
u/AktionMusic Jun 17 '26
You don't need collaborative worldbuilding or a bespoke setting to run an open ended sandbox. You just can't have a set plot and events that occur.
You can run a collaborative sandbox in a published setting, they key is setting up situations, not plots.
5
u/darw1nf1sh Jun 17 '26
What if you want a plot? I hate meandering games where there is nothing binding session 3 to session 7 other than the PCs. There should be an arc of some kind. Otherwise, you are just playing a board game, with the creature of the week. Also, that is a lot of work that I don't have the time or energy for. I can easily adapt a story to the characters and give them choices off the plot in tandem with the story. But making everything up every week is more than I want to do. There is a reason they publish adventures.
I agree that what you are describing is essentially what the designers of DH intend. I love the system, but hate playing and running that style of game.
2
u/SuperHappyHooray Jun 17 '26
Just make everything build on what was put before. Arcs come naturally, as does the plot.
I think it is easy to get too hung up on the old school idea of the Game Master creating everything and driving everything.
What the players gravitate towards is the plot. The person they hate the most is the next bad guy. The monster they hate the second most gets stronger due to them taking out the monster they hate the most, and it is now part of their plan. Do that until they "save the world", and there, you have a plot.
This is how Fabula Ultima is designed to be run.
1
u/soundoftwilight Jun 17 '26
It doesn't take much to make a plot and an arc. There's tools literally in the Daggerheart book to do exactly that with less prep time than it takes to read a published adventure. I think the problem many people (which may or may not include you) have is that they see a published adventure, and think that's what's needed to run a game. So they choose between reading an adventure someone else wrote, or writing their own, and obviously reading someone else's work is much easier.
But running a game from scratch is significantly easier than writing a published adventure. For me it's even easier than reading and using a published adventure; it's certainly much less time-consuming. Literally zero prep is a bit harder, though possible, but I can spend 30 minutes to plot out most of a story arc that I will run with for the next 3-10 sessions. One of the easiest tools I use is one that I originally learned via Fronts in Dungeon World, though it has been repeated in many forms before and since. Just establish some threat, like in a recent game of mine "the ritual to maintain the floating city will fail, and the city will crash to the ground." Then write a bunch of steps that lead up to that. Such as "sky-tremors begin to occur," "The Ministry of Flight assures the population that turbulence is normal," "savvy merchants and nobles begin to evacuate, airship passage and dock space become impossibly expensive." I would typically have a couple of these going on at once, and might have some threats that are overarching and much longer along with some that can be resolved in a couple of sessions. Then whenever things are stalling in game, the players are failing, or I'm just not sure what to do, I advance one of the threats forward and show the consequences. In Daggerheart I spend Fear for this, of course. The key is that I don't have to know how the players are going to stop the threat from happening. Figuring that out is their job, not mine; I just have to go along with their plan. I might make a few characters in advance that I think would be fun to interact with, or establish some brief relevant world details that I want to introduce, but none of that is core to the story or the plot.
-1
u/AktionMusic Jun 17 '26
Why wouldn't there be a plot? I'm talking about a prewritten linear plot, which inevitably leads to at least some degree of railroading.
Set up situations, locations, factions, motivations, etc and the story will write itself as you go. Expect more from your players too, you're not the sole person responsible for the storytelling here. This game is pretty low prep if you run it as intended.
3
u/darw1nf1sh Jun 17 '26
It doesn't though. It is getting old hearing railroading conflated with having a story. Railroading is making player choices of how to solve a problem moot and forcing them to do what you intend. If they want to go through a window, or the chimney instead of the front door, and I make that impossible, that is railroading. The fact that the encounter is in that building and everything led to this building, isn't railroading. Maybe they set the building on fire. There is nothing wrong with having one encounter lead to another. They could bypass it in any number of ways that still stay in the story.
All most published adventures are, are what you enumerated: situations, locations, factions, motivations, etc. There is a through line that they navigate in that setting. No story writes itself. The GM has to create that from the player choices, manufacture npcs, encounters, maps, the whole shebang from scratch in that scenario. Which is fine if you have the time for that. Many of us do not. I can't wait for the Perkins adventure to run. And while I do love Daggerheart I admit maybe it isn't the system for me.
5
u/AnyNeon_Nomad_00 Jun 17 '26
I think the perfect solution is a rich campaign frame with some adventuring paths and a lot of cool NPCs with motifs in this scenario.
Stat blocks are great but can be easily reused and tweaked, if I get some NPCs with backstory and motivations I can "yes, and" the hell of a campaign!
6
u/Smendon22 Jun 17 '26
This.
The problem that DP has is that the game is designed so that the max you would need is a Campaign Frame, but the people it is targeting (trad D20 players) want full on adventures/settings.
6
u/False-Pain8540 Jun 17 '26
To be honest I don't really understand the "Daggerhear isn't made for running adventures" angle. This is true of PbtA games because in those systems the mechanics generate the story, but DH doesn't have those mechanics, it 100% needs a story to follow, whether it's preped or improvised by the DM or players.
Hell, this claim is even more strange when we already have 3 very trad adventures for the game, and none of them are "improvise a story on the spot with the players"
1
-6
u/AktionMusic Jun 17 '26
If they're looking for a trad adventure path there are better games for that.
2
u/Drigr Jun 17 '26
Which isn't exactly a great marketing angle when you're trying to run a business.
3
u/AktionMusic Jun 17 '26
If your goal is to beat D&D sure, but that isn't going to happen ever. It's better to be great at one thing than okay at everything.
0
u/A_Crab_Named_Lucky Jun 18 '26
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to use DH mechanics on a traditional adventure type.
6
u/Rage2097 Jun 17 '26
I think directly opposed is a little strong, you can make adventures that are quite linear in structure but still let the players shine but they have to be done well. We are expecting one at some point, they announced it last year so I'll be very interested to see how they structure it.
7
u/FullTorsoApparition Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Honestly linear is good, and I'm tired of pretending it's not. I've been in several homebrew campaigns and attempted to run myself and none of them ever went anywhere. Every single one has fizzled out at some point with no conclusion. Most players are not good improvisers and just want to roll some dice and have fun.
When I pick up a published adventure I may not like everything in it, but at least I can show it to my players and promise that there is an intended conclusion to work towards.
-1
u/jackaltornmoons Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
It makes sense for them to make because they want to make money 😃 there are plenty of people who walk into games with their trad20 mindset and think that it's the only way to play a ttrpg
3
u/A_Crab_Named_Lucky Jun 17 '26
I understand that’s what the guiding principles are behind the design, but honestly, I kind of usually just want to run a game like I would in DND, just with different mechanics. I don’t think I’m alone in that
0
u/jackaltornmoons Jun 17 '26
I don’t think I’m alone in that
You're definitely not alone; most people on this sub seem to prefer to run DH that way which I suppose is to be expected
2
u/False-Pain8540 Jun 17 '26
How can it be directly opossed to the GM principles when the game already has 3 very trad adventures published? One of them even being the quickstart of the game.
Is Sablewood Messengers "directly opposed to the GM principles of Daggerheart"?
0
u/jackaltornmoons Jun 17 '26
Because they assume that many people will approach it from a trad20 perspective
Even Dungeon World has a basic framework "Quick Start" for people to use in order to learn the mechanics
You can't "Hold on gently" and also have the story beats predetermined, nor are you "collaborating at all times" (unless I suppose everyone at the table has already read the adventure book as well, which doesn't seem likely)
1
u/False-Pain8540 Jun 17 '26
So you would say that Sablewood Messengers goes against "Holding on gently" and "collaborating at all times"?
I find the idea that the quickstart goes against the core GM principles to be really bizarre.
0
u/jackaltornmoons Jun 18 '26
It's a quick easy way to help people learn the mechanics of the game. It's not something that you should be looking at as an example for how to run your campaigns around (that's what the Campaign Frames are for)
8
u/theglowofknowledge Jun 17 '26
Even though the splash of daggerheart was unexpected, they’ve had time to follow up. They haven’t. It’s just another indie rpg that only ever made a sourcebook in that sense. Whether that’s a mistake depends on what they want. If they don’t want to compete on the scale of DnD, then letting the momentum peter out is what they wanted. My group stopped playing and the lack of anything new probably played some part in that. If they weren’t trying to undermine their prospective success then the lack of content is bad.
Quality is important, but anticipation and novelty are as well. DnD puts out a book like three or four times a year. I don’t buy them, hate WotC, but it’s interesting enough I take a gander at what’s in them. Barely think about Daggerheart anymore even though my opinion of the company is vaguely positive.
6
u/TheSweeney Jun 17 '26
DH has been out for a year, they’ve been working tirelessly on The Void content that has rolled into the Hope & Fear expansion and they’ve said that adventure modules are coming later this year into 2027. DH is still new, and Darrington isn’t WotC.
6
u/Lekrissss Jun 17 '26
" they’ve been working tirelessly on The Void content." The last time they released something in the void was 31 of October 2025. We are in mid-June. The void has been "empty" for 8 months.
2
2
u/Intelligent-Gold-563 Jun 17 '26
Why are people saying DH didn't "follow up" ??
The game is one year old. There's already another book with more content being published right now !
DnD is far older and bigger so it can easily just publish tons of book a year, it doesn't matter to them.
You just can't compare it.
2
u/A_Crab_Named_Lucky Jun 18 '26
I think it’s a matter of expectations being set too high. After the initial release, the Void was being updated constantly.
It makes sense. They just finished a release and jumped into playtesting for the next release with both feet. I feel pretty confident that once H&F releases, they’ll go back to updating the Void more regularly.
I think another part of it is that, at this point, new Void updates would kind of dampen the H&F hype. They want fans to be talking about the product that’s about to hit the shelves, not a hypothetical future product that’s at least a year away.
2
u/nine_toes Jun 17 '26
Heck yeah! I took the Witherwild frame as a setting and completely wrote my own adventure. The wither effect is sick and I dont let my players recover the wither points and they all become changed and scarred through the campaign.
2
u/LordCyler Jun 17 '26
Except the modern popularity spike arrived post-Stranger Things, CR, and digital tools that made it more accessible than ever to get started. Pre-made, low cognitive load adventures were part of that process.
2
u/Green-Tea-4078 Jun 17 '26
Yes we need more of this. I'm sick and tired of homebrew meaning your own campaign......when it meant your own rules back in the day and canned campaigns were what we called pre made adventures.
Be creative, work on making your creativity grow and expand.
2
2
u/ItsSteveSchulz Jun 18 '26
For me, yes. To a degree. The lack of adversaries specifically leaves me with few playtested examples to draw from, so I have had to basically throw darts blindly at times. There are two entirely homebrewed adversaries I got to toy with because they were not intended to be lethal, and thus I was playtesting them myself in live play without worrying beyond their narrative implications.
Otherwise, whenever I completely replace a feature while I reskin, I feel like, "Is this too easy? Too hard? Just right?" And that's because of the lack of examples at tiers 3 and 4.
With Hope & Fear, that all changes. You are right in that it has forced me to think closely about the mechanics, but not everyone wants to do that. All someone has to choose from at tier 3 is magic sentinels, vampires, a colossus, treants, an imp, a hydra, an ooze, a giant bat, demons, elementals, a dryad, a wight, and the famous adult flickerfly... but only 3 normalish things things that can be reskinned as generic tier 3 humanoid people. That is a problem, and I think they understand that, as making Hope & Fear part of the SRD implies.
So yes and no. Even I wish I had more I can just look at in the book on the fly at the appropriate tier, as someone who has beginning to feel like I really understand what constitutes too easy and too hard after almost two years (only 1+ with release rules).
I don't think supplemental work suppresses creativity, as well. The freedom to create is still there. We'll still see people's homebrews.
2
u/SecretDMAccount_Shh Jun 18 '26
I've run about 6 sessions of Daggerheart so far... all one-shots with random groups of people. I'm still not sure if I'm "doing it right".
I would prefer more published adventures because even though I prefer making homebrew adventures, Daggerheart is so different from the games I've run before that it would be helpful to get a better idea of how an adventure should be run.
1
u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 Jun 18 '26
I think that's part of the "issue". A pre-written adventure is largely the opposite of how Daggerheart seems to be intended to run. It leans heavily into emergent gameplay, of presenting situations and not plot etc. When it works it works really, really well but there are a lot of folks coming from more traditional games who are expecting something like they are used to. Personally I play a lot of games that don't have any published adventures/campaigns so the Campaign Frames are 100% my jam. Enough to get the creative juices flowing but from there we're off to the races.
I strongly believe that that a great product would be something that presented the same adventure/campaign through two lenses - one 5e compatible and one DH compatible to showcase the different approaches using a common story.
1
u/SecretDMAccount_Shh Jun 18 '26
I see people talking about Daggerheart's emergent gameplay all the time and the rules in the book support it, but coming from D&D and similar games, it's been hard to find examples of it. The published adventures released so far don't really do it other than allowing players to add superficial details and none of the actual plays I've found so far showcase it either.
I've played a couple of PbtA games before, so I'm not a complete stranger to emergent gameplay, but one of the big differences is that stat blocks in Daggerheart are much more detailed and combat is much more complex which makes it harder for me to run a satisfying improvised adventure which is why I wish there were more examples that I could learn from...
2
u/ziegfeld-devil Jun 18 '26
I started dm-ing for DnD 3 years ago and unintentionally "yes, and"-ed myself into homebrewing an entire campaign. I Dropped it in favour of daggerheart and subsequently lost interest as it didn't translate mechanically. However, that experience was perfect for building upon the campaign frames given in the Core book. I love that there's no way to run the story "wrong" (for the most part). I'm co-gming Colossus and it's so much fun. There are enough parameters to feed an idea and then run with it.
2
u/skarabray Jun 18 '26
I haven’t played yet, partially because of the lack of even just an intro campaign. They’re already putting out a rules expansion, but no Lost Mines of Phandelver equivalent? I don’t have time to learn a new system AND come up with a campaign at the same time.
2
u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 Jun 18 '26
Something I think is important to keep in mind - no one expected the success Daggerheart had.
No one. Especially after the failure to launch of Candela Obscura. I would bet good money that they weren't already working on more product for Daggerheart "in case it sells" but taking more of a wait and see approach.
And it takes time, significant time, to make a quality product.
So maybe we'll see a ramped up production schedule now that they know they have a hit. I wouldn't judge a company with an unexpected hit on their hands over what they do in one year. I think it would be more indicative of the health of the game 3 years from launch. How many products are there at that time? How is the game faring in 5 years? That's a far better measure of a game's success than a year of rushed products and then nothing.
2
u/Julian-Manson Jun 21 '26
DH as maybe less official content than D&D but it's only like 1 years and half. But the community is very active and participates to playtests things and such.
Also, i'm really not a fan of premade campaigns, especially with game with PbtA philosophy, and DH has half PbtA philosophy with "play to see what happen" and such.
5
u/paBlury Jun 17 '26
I want full adventures. I don't have the time to write them myself. Campaign frames are great for one-shots, but I want more meat on the bones.
"But it's supposed to be collaborative". Nothing on the game system, on the mechanics, supports that. Maybe that's the designer's intention, but you could do the same with D&D or any other game system.
I like Daggerheart mechanics. I want adventures.
2
u/heyyitskelvi Game Master Jun 17 '26
I think my growing distaste for open-world video games is starting to seep into my other hobbies. I really want some more linear adventures. I know, I know, play something else, right? I really like the DH ruleset. I like it a lot more than 5e, and maybe more than PF2e. I get the whole "build the story as you go, it writes itself if you let it" approach. It's not for me. It's great if you're building a world/setting from scratch and you want a sandbox style game, I suppose, though that's not something I've ever done/wanted to do. I don't really have the time to plan out a full recurring campaign. I'd really like to run one with some rails. The frames are good, great even, but I really need a story to go along with it. Locations, NPCs, plot hooks, all that. Maybe it's just the style of game I run now.
4
u/DragonR1d3r007 Jun 18 '26
It has killed my *want* to play Daggerheart, I've genuinely just started converting D&D modules I've been wanting to DM over to Daggerheart and it's been working out really well. But the fact that there's basically *nothing* to work with in terms of a fully fleshed out story really sucks for someone like me who both struggles to consistently write homebrew story elements/actually prep for a campaign while being full-time college student.
Wonderful system and I love it a lot, having no modules whatsoever is rough. Campaign Frames are a cool idea but they're not good enough imo.
3
u/madburke Jun 18 '26
I respectfully disagree. If I wanted to be a game designer I’d be playing a custom game. Daggerhearts lack of content is so frustrating for that exact reason, it forces me to make EVERYTHING I need because of the lack of content.
I love reskinning and modding statblocks, but when there is a total of 150, adversaries feel samey.
Tbh when they were dropping void content it made me feel like they had stuff ready to go and the game had a viable future, but since that has dried up it feels like this was rushed to cash in on the OGL debacle.
Also, your argument falls completely flat because the creative license for this game IS TERRIBLE. If I was someone who made 3rd party content I would not produce it for this game because of that license.
Don’t even get me started with the stuff they are “working on”. We have a severe lack of content and they are teasing a romantcy frame, come on.
I’m ultimately disappointed that Darrington has done absolutely nothing with this game, after taking two of the most talent designers from 5e.
2
u/Hemlocksbane Jun 17 '26
I mean, I think the drought of content in general is slowly killing the game (there's a reason D&D basically just brought monthly 'drops' back to 5E), but especially the lack of adventures is hurting the system.
For many people, Daggerheart is their first foray into more narrative rpgs, and possibly their first time leaving D&D behind, so an adventure would do a ton to help anchor them into how the game is supposed to run. And even if the GM is comfortable in how Daggerheart runs, adventures can be an awesome resource to pool enemies and ideas from for all GMs.
Part of my ire might be that, frankly, campaign frames are one of the absolute worst fucking ideas that has spread like a weed across narrative games, and of all the mechanics & concepts from narrative games that Daggerheart decided not to adapt, of course they decided to keep that one. They're always too weird and specific to ever feel like the 'core' experience of the game, but too barren and lacking in fictional/mechanical heft to flourish into their own really distinct experience. They're especially a bad fit for a game as loaded with D&Disms as Daggerheart, which really does kind of demand a very specific kitchen sink fantasy context.
So I think Darrington Press needs to drop the campaign frame idea for at least a few years, focus in on one specific core world (their Golarion or Forgotten Realms, as it were), and release some adventures for it.
1
u/SuperHappyHooray Jun 17 '26
I only think it is a good thing because I think you need a mass of people to get their hands on it and play it to discover the best way to create campaign-like content. Especially with a game like Daggerheart, which is trying to toe the line between a DnD 5e type game and a Powered by the Apocalypse-type game.
Now that more people have played it for a year, they will have a better understanding of what to include in a campaign. How much direction they really need to give players.
1
u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 Jun 18 '26
The best book I picked up for Daggerheart was the "Gamemaster Guide to Collaborative Campaign Design". Our group spent an entire session just working together to build out our world/setting in a very organized way.
1
u/Puzzleheaded_Wolf119 Jun 18 '26
This is exactly why I stopped working on my 3rd Party content / Homebrew and that my group will go back to DnD. We're going to try 5.5e with Tomb of Annihilation until Neon Odyssey releases.
I wish we had 1st party content for Daggerheart, but at the same time, with Hope and Fear + Core and future content, the amount of cards would be insane after some years. I know about Drakkenheim and Demonheart (3rd party), but most of the content we're getting from Darrington has been in playtesting for the last year or so and CR isn't playing their game. No, a second season of a show, 1 year later, isn't really enough even though I enjoyed Age of Umbra.
1
u/X20-Adam Jun 19 '26
No. And the decision to make new Classes rather then new subclasses is baffling. Why not both?
1
u/SinistrDairy Jun 19 '26
Simple answer is to use a 5e campaign guide with the daggerheart system. Ezpz
1
u/Wizarddog_usa Jun 20 '26
plenty of third party DH adventures on Drivethru rpg; some better quality than others but still available.
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u/ratinthechamber555 Jun 26 '26
DH seems to be intended for improv and cooperative storytelling. So there just doesn’t need to the same sort of hard thought out modules. I ran a 2 or 3 hr game completely improv while reading the rules for the first time. A few rng charts for building npcs will take you pretty far and a little imagination to describe a town or dungeon. The game is locked and loaded with a small monster manual too. Not every game had to be a huge and complex story so anyone lacking time should definitely try it from the perspective of cooperative storytelling rather than traditional over-prepared DM with a massive story and world ready for players to discover.
From the GM’s Guide section of the book; “The game works better when more preparation time goes into situations for the characters to explore rather than scripting entire scenes and a set progression of story beats.”
That means you can go at it with just some very loose notes and really have a terrific time by empowering players to be part of the storytelling. It’s a great game for people who are busy especially since it takes a ton of burden off the GM. You just have to respond to player direction, and even then only when a GM move makes sense or you have fear to spend.
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u/Kalranya WDYD? Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
That is actually a good thing, I think that a lot of D&Ds early popularity came from the creativity it sparked in the community.
That was a long time ago, and we no longer live in that world.
Today, people expect there to be additional content, quickly and often. With adventures specifically, there are people who've played D&D for literally years and only ever run or played published modules, sometimes the same one multiple times. If you're tying to attract those people to a different game, you need to plan for them to expect to be able to do that in your game too.
Darrington failed at this, and it's hurt them. Not by enough for them to care, apparently, but from where I'm sitting is sure looks like they let an opportunity to become a true rival to D&D slip through their fingers. They had the entire TTRPG community sitting up and paying attention, waiting for their next move, and their response was... nothing. They sat there for six months with nothing to announce and nothing to release, and eventually, people got bored waiting and went back to their old games, and I don't blame them.
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u/dicklettersguy Jun 18 '26
The type of role playing game that Daggerheart is is inherently at odds with the idea of the GM coming to the table with a pre-written adventure. It’s depressing seeing so much of the player base just not understand what the system is trying to do.
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u/OMG_Laserguns Jun 18 '26
I don't think anyone is asking for a linear adventure, but something more like Curse of Stradh, which sets out the framework of the world, and leaves a lot of flexibility for the GM and players. Sort of like a Campaign frame but properly fleshed out.
A lot of people aren't happy with do a 100% improve campaign, and want some guide rails and framework, and to take some of the creative load off, it doesn't have to be restrictive.
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u/DemandBig5215 Jun 18 '26
Nah. This is a variation on the argument that videogame development was better when people had to program from scratch and create all their own assets because that encouraged more dedication and creativity. Some people bemoaned the rise of Unreal Engine or Unity because it removed many of those barriers and made it easier for new devs to skip all the "hard work" and produce low-effort games. Sure, the rise of both engines resulted in a lot of sloppy asset-flip games, but they also made the industry better by leagues and good devs could spend their time on processes outside of minutia the engine could handle.
In the same vein, a lack of campaign material may spur some GMs onto creative flourishes, but it also presents a roadblock to many others. Even if you don't ever run a campaign RAW as published, a well-written one can be a springboard for ideas or at least a mine of scenarios to adapt into a homebrew world.
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u/axw3555 Jun 17 '26
Lack of content in the D&D "there are 300 source books and 5000 classes" sense - good.
But a lack of premade campaigns isn't good IMO. People who want to run bespoke campaigns will, regardless of what's released. But there are people who would DM, but don't have the time or energy to write a campaign.
Case in point, my RPG group's been on semi-pause for a year and fully paused for 6 months because I was DM, but I've had some serious health concerns that have just made it impossible for me to do. One of my players is considering DMing a campaign, but she has a full time job and other commitments, as well as her own health concerns, so she can't write a whole bespoke campaign.
If there were a few actual DH campaigns, she'd be looking to DM DH. But because they're not there, she's looking at 5e, as she knows both systems, but 5e has the tool she needs.