Running a Daggerheart game is a really rewarding experience with the right group. Here are a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up while running and preparing games for Daggerheart RPG.
I must admit that I really like Daggerheart! It is easy to learn, offers strong player agency, and yet the mechanics are complex enough to keep veteran gamers interested. Ever since I picked up the game, it has been one of my favorite games to play, and, since I’ve been having a strong 5E fatigue of late, I can easily see myself turning completely to Daggerheart in the near future.
I have been running a Daggerheart game since this summer. It’s not long, I know, but I’ve picked up a few things along the way that I find helpful and that make it easier for me to prepare for sessions. If you haven’t read Chapter 3 of the core rulebook, I suggest you start there and read it thoroughly again. It is one of the best texts for prospective GMs in a rulebook I’ve seen for many years, and if you do nothing else than follow the advice found there, your games will be awesome! Even better, much of what can be found therein applies to most, if not all, role-playing games.
Back to the matter at hand, running a Daggerheart game. Here are a few ideas, tips, and tricks I find helpful and that have made it easier for me.
Choose what to prepare
The first thing I learned was to choose carefully what to prepare. In the first session, I prepared as if I were running a normal game of D&D, you know, the party meets at a bar, gets a quest, kind of thing. The group spent more than half of the session inside the tavern, role-playing, interacting with each other and the non-player characters in the bar. As the session wore on, the same thing happened in the next scene.
Since that first session, I’ve realised, at least for my group, it matters what I prepare. I am using a homebrew setting, and the more I fleshed out the environments and locales, the better. In fact, it feels more like I am prepping to run some of the first- and second-edition D&D modules than a modern game. I know it sounds strange, since Daggerheart is one of the most modern games out there right now, but this feeling is strong.
Many old modules devote far more text to describing locales and environments than to scenes and events. I prepare in much the same way for a Daggerheart game. I flesh out the places, create NPCs, and decide how to use the player characters’ backstories. I spend way less time on events or encounters. The storyline is in the hands of the player characters; they have the spotlight most of the time, and I trust my players to move it forward in the direction they find most interesting.
Narrative soft goals and hard goals
When creating a locale or an NPC, I lay down some goals. For example, when the characters enter Fort Fear, they need to learn about the goblin tribe attacking the merchant caravans. It doesn’t really matter to me where they learn this or who tells them this. This might be crucial to the story and, as such, a hard goal. I must use some way to get this information to the players. They might learn this from Myrtle, the innkeeper, or Davos, the guard at the gate. Both could point the heroes to the Merchant Guild, which is seeking brave adventurers to help with this threat.
A soft goal might be some more detailed information about the goblins. Someone in Fort Fear might be in league with the goblins, whilst another person might have been attacked, and yet another person might know where most of the attacks occur. All of these might be soft goals that add to the information the player characters have. Some player characters may need to make a successful skill check to acquire this information.
I never hide hard goals behind skill checks, but sometimes I hide soft goals behind them. I don’t care how the player characters reach their goals, as long as they have enough information to move the narrative forward.
Don’t be afraid to go deep in setting the scene
Daggerheart is a narrative game first and foremost. Go big on setting the scenes. When you describe a scene, let the player know everything they need to know, go into detail, and engage all their senses. I am a big fan of show-don’t-tell storytelling, and this is a game where it really matters. The better the players visualize the scene, the better.
If you go deep into setting the scene, you give the players much more to act upon. They have more things to be curious about, to investigate, and play with. You will see a huge difference in how the players react if you describe a square room with a single bed and a desk at the far end, or if you describe a room with a strange metallic smell, an unmade bed with a straw mattress, and a wooden desk with three locked drawers.
The more the players know, the more they can do. It is as simple as that. The trick is to get the players curious and leave out just enough for them to act upon. What is that smell? Why is the bed unmade? What is inside the locked drawers? This is what helps the players drive the narrative onwards.
Drama and Tension
This is the part that I feared the most before running a Daggerheart game. I wondered whether creating tension and dwelling on drama between player characters or some PCs and NPCs might create real-life tension. After all, some players are deeply invested in their characters and often feel them as extensions of themselves.
However, I was wrong in that assumption. The moment I first introduced a character from a player character’s backstory, the table took the ball and ran with it for hundreds of yards. They role-played where their characters confided in each other, connected on a deeper level than I have ever seen this group do, and seemed to love the chance to get emotional in-game. I sat and watched the scene unfold without saying a word for more than 40 minutes. It was awesome!
Create drama and tension, and trust your players to do the same. It makes the game all the more fun.
Using the mechanics
I really like the Hope/Fear mechanics. They remind me of the dice mechanics in Star Wars FFG. You don’t have your binary D&D success/not-success. Instead, you have so much more and ways to move the narrative forward. Even a failed roll with Fear can move the narrative forward, making it more interesting or dangerous.
In the first sessions, I was a bit unsure how to react when players rolled with Fear, but I’ve learned it is important to seize the opportunities those rolls offer. You can always tell the players to mark a Stress, but after a while, I felt it was a bit lazy, and I could do better. When I get a chance to enter the narrative, I follow the guidelines found on p. 150. It’s a great way to add to the narrative and move it forward.
I would also like to mention Countdowns. This is a great mechanic to create tension. Make sure you get the hang of it (see pages 162-163) because it can really enhance the player’s experience, whether they know what makes the Countdown tick or not.
A side-effect
I have noticed one side-effect of the Hope/Fear mechanics. I often turn to my players and ask how they would like to tackle a task; they might propose an action and a skill roll. There have been times when they are not keen on making a roll, since it might be rolled with Fear. This has even happened to groups trying the game for the first time.
I’ve seen a similar thing happen in Star Wars FFG, where players are afraid to use Force Points because it awards the GM a Dark Side Point. Both of these games are highly cinematic and depend on the deep collaboration between the GM and players. Still, my theory is that this Fear of rewarding the GM stems from the competitive nature of D&D (where the players are constantly overcoming the obstacles the DM throws at them).
Final words
I am still learning to become a better Daggerhart Game Master, and I still have a long way to go. I constantly have to remind myself that I am not running your average fantasy game with a planned storyline and narrative paths the players can follow. Instead, they are marking the paths and deciding the storyline, whilst my role is to plant seeds and react to their decisions.
If you haven’t read chapter 3 in the Daggerhear rulebook, I wholeheartedly suggest that you do. Even if you are not planning on running a Daggerheart game, it is still a very good read.
