this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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I run a table. One of the people at the table insisted that I checked out Daggerheart. So I did. And I was very pleasantly surprised.

Why? Well, I admit I had some prejudices against it. First, I sort of made up my mind when I saw the whole licensing issue, Daggerheart basically doing what Wizards of the Coast did with Dungeons and Dragons. But not only that, I also saw red flags in Daggerheart itself: minis.

I saw a video for Daggerheart where the thumbnail showed minis. I was out. I find minis so frustrating. They are in my list of things that I cannot care about. I care about dramatic stories, not combat simulation. I care about intrigue and character growth, not arithmetic. I saw that and assumed that Daggerheart was a combat simulator just like Dungeons and Dragons is. I didn't even pay attention.

But then my friend insisted that I read about Daggerheart. And so I did.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that minis are optional. Even more importantly, I was shocked to find a game that effectively is Powered by the Apocalypse. I was especially relieved to not find rules for movement that require trigonometry or strange approximations (unlike Dungeons and Dragons, where there are grids and numbers everywhere).

I found a game that prioritized drama. Yes, it still simulates combat, but it does so in such a simple way that makes me happy to run it.

I’m excited! This would be the first game that I ever play when the game is just released. This would be the first game in which I don't even have to pitch to the table; the table already wants to play it.

Of course, these are my first impressions. Maybe they'll change. For now, I'm happy.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Not the person you asked but I'm taking this opportunity to talk about why I wouldn't play pbta as my main game.

One, I rarely feel like my character is competent. I'm usually rolling mixed success, and that feels bad. A good GM can take the edge off there. they can make it so the problem was circumstances or the strength of your enemy, instead of your fuck up. But most GMs aren't good, they're average.

Related, and I think this might have been a result of not liking the GM, when I do get a mixed success it often feels like the GM is just fucking with me. It felt very unilateral. They decide what happens with no buy-in from the table needed. When I run Fate, mixed successes are a proposal the player can accept, decline, or suggest another idea.

Third, playbooks feel like mad libs instead of writing. So much is already defined, typically, it's constraining and anchoring. I don't feel like I'm really making something of my own. I can see how that's really helpful for some people but I don't enjoy it. I much prefer the utterly freeform mode of Fate. I want to be a chaos magick using librarian? I can just write that down.

I had fun doing a one shot of rapscallions a couple weeks ago, but I wouldn't make it my main game.