Tag / daggerheart

by guyeatsfood

How to Run Daggerheart One-Shots

Daggerheart has been out for a while now, and I’ve had a chance to run a few one-shots of it, both online and face-to-face; it’s a great system for them, with its narrative focus bringing the epic experience you want from a high fantasy game. So, if you’re wanting to try it as a change for your group, or showcase it at a convention, here are my top tips for running Daggerheart!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Ghost Town – A Tier 2 Daggerheart adventure

I started writing this for Unconventional GMs, and thought I’d share on here, as my ‘ready-to-run’ (scare quotes intentional) scenarios and campaigns often provoke a bit of discussion. I’ve not got any maps, any game statistics (except for adversaries in the core book), and my descriptive notes are either concise or sparse depending on your tastes. Either way, I’d be interested in how this compares to your notes. It’ll be out on UGMs soon (we’re recording next week), so you can check it out in play there!

It was originally written for the Colossus of the Drylands campaign frame, and with 4 PCs in mind of Level 3, but I’ve shaved the non-SRD stuff off it to upload onto here. Just imagine a fantasy wild west full of monsters (although if you’re using this, I guess you’ve got the campaign frame to hand in the core book). Enjoy!

Introduction / Prologue

You have travelled many miles across the hills of the Caradondo Mountains – you’ve heard there’s a soul gem nearby, and your old ally Father Baltesar has gone forward to scout it, heading for the village of Andejoz, a small settlement high up in the hills.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Daggerheart : Into The Witherwild

I wanted to run Daggerheart as a one-shot, so I tried to adapt (most of) the entire Witherwild campaign frame into a 4-hour slot. It ran to 3 hours. My loose prep notes, along with some advice, are below. In terms of structure, I went with Robin Laws’ excellent Three Fights structure from Adventure Crucible – I’ve blogged about this before, and it works really well for any sort of pulpy, actiony game where combat is interesting and flavourful.

This is for Tier 1 starting characters, by the way – by all means use the ones in the Quickstart.

Curious about what Daggerheart looks like in play? Check it out on Unconventional GMs – where we’ve run the Quickstart and a Wild West-style Colossus of the Drylands one-shot!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Mayhem in Miquera – a One-Shot for Daggerheart

An Introductory One-Shot for Daggerheart in the Colossus of the Drylands campaign frame

Credit for the structure of this has to go to the wonderful Teos Abadia, who on his Alphastream blog (and linked youtube channel) talks about adapting the 5-Room Dungeon as a learn-to-play one-shot – using it to highlight different parts of gameplay. This is a great way to structure your one-shots to give a showcase of the system (check out my co-host Gaz doing it expertly for The One Ring on Unconventional GMs), and with a Daggerheart session to prep, it got me thinking until I came up with this, for Daggerheart’s Colossus of the Drylands campaign frame:

The Training 5-Room Dungeon for Daggerheart

  1. Arrive at isolated settlement. Assist in evacuation / repair / healing (SKILLS)
  2. Fight heralds (EASY FUN FIGHT)
  3. Resolve to fight the colossus (RP or NEGOTIATION)
  4. Showcase additional gameplay (PREPARATIONS and RESEARCH)
  5. Fight the colossus (THRILLING FINAL BATTLE)

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Four Things About Daggerheart

Update: You can watch us play through the Quickstart, using v1.3 rules (so some slight tweaks to the content from what’s discussed below, and more in line with the final product) here.

I’ve had a chance recently to run the Daggerheart RPG quickstart a couple of times – the playtest rules are available at the link above, and contain far more than just the quickstart – and I thought I’d pick out a few things from it. For a first impression, to be clear, I think it’s really good – it does some things in a genuinely interesting way, and it’s a really good quickstart in terms of introducing both setting and system in a concentric way.

When this first landed, there were plenty of internet commentators giving their opinion of it – but as I’ve repeatedly said, we should judge games after playing them, not before – and for me Daggerheart is something I’ll definitely be picking up, and probably running a lot of. So, here’s four things I like about Daggerheart – specifically, the quickstart.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →