Month: July 2025

Where I Read: Daggerheart (part two)

Character creation! You start out by first choosing a class and a subclass (of which each class seems to have two to choose from). Bards can be Troubadours or Wordsmiths, depending on whether they sing healing songs or engage in “clever wordplay.” Hmm. Weaponised punning, huh? I am cautiously intrigued… Druids can be Wardens of the Elements and throw elemental magic around, or Wardens of Renewal and heal people.

Guardians seem to be your basic big guys with swords, except they’re different from Warriors, who are further down. They can be either Stalwarts or Vengeances, I guess depending on whether they’re pure tanks or leaning towards damage-dealers. Rangers can be Beastbounds (you get a pet) or Wayfinders (you get to hunt and kill things). Rogues can be Nightwalkers (who can sneak) or Syndicates (who know a guy).

Seraphs are another class that’s not quite standard D&D, though the closest analogue seems to be paladins. They can be Winged Sentinels, in which case they fly, or Divine Wielders, in which case they get a legendary weapon. Also, the Winged Sentinel seems to be the flying knight chick from the cover.

Sorcerers can have an Elemental Origin and “channel the raw power” of an element, or a Primal Origin and focus on “versatility.” So brute force versus finesse, I guess? Also, the picture for the Elemental Origin Sorcerer is the frog dude from the cover. Aw yeah. Still calling dibs on playing a frog!

Warriors can have the Call of the Brave or the Call of the Slayer. The former “[uses] the might of [their] enemies to fuel [their] own power,” while the latter strike with “immense force.” So I guess maybe the Call of the Brave gives you some kind of bennies for being hit, maybe? Not sure. Finally, Wizards can have the School of Knowledge to be super-nerds, or the School of War if they basically just want to throw fireballs.

I don’t know about this, to be honest. I feel sort of like I’m drowning in options here, and some of them are really kind of samey-sounding. I mean, that’s a problem I have with D&D to start with, and they’ve made it even worse here. But we’ll see, perhaps the classes are more distinctive in their actual writeups.

Having chosen a class, you get a Class Feature, which is on your sheet. You may need to choose one of several available Features. Hmm, okay.

Next you choose your Heritage, which is made up of ancestry (what species you are) and community (what your folks did for a living, basically). Your ancestry gets you two features, and your community gets you one. There are eighteen different ancestries (including the regular spread of Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling, some more unorthodox ones like Giant, Orc and Faerie, and some that I have no idea what they are, like Clank, Fungril and Katari) and nine different communities, but they’re not described here. One of the ancestries is the Ribbet, which I assume are the frog guys. Ribbet, huh? I take it that for all the talk of epicness, this isn’t a game we’re supposed to take entirely seriously? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for that, but I’ m sensing some tonal mismatch.

Next is your Traits, which are Agility, Strength, Finesse, Instinct, Presence, and Knowledge. It’s basically the regular D&D ones, except they’ve broken Dexterity into two and mashed Strength and Constitution into one – both of which are, to be honest, excellent ideas. You assign an array of +2, +1, +1, +0, +0 and −1 among your Traits, in best Powered by the Apocalypse spirit.

You also get some fixed values. Your Evasion and Hit Points are both based on your class, and everyone starts with 6 Stress and 2 Hope. Stress is Hit Points for your brain, basically – you lose them when you start cracking under the pressure. You gain 1 Hope every time your Hope Die shows a higher number than your Fear Die, while the GM gains 1 Fear every time the opposite happens. In both cases they can be used to power some not-yet-described effects. Evasion is what it sounds like – it’s your defense stat. It’s noted that it’s up to you how you describe your defenses, so for instance a wizard might describe as a magical force field that attacks shatter against. That’s a nice touch.

You get to choose either one two-handed weapon or two one-handed weapons to start the game with, from the Tier 1 list. The weapon you’re wielding determines the type of dice you roll for damage, while the number of dice is determined by your Proficiency (which starts at 1).

Likewise, you can choose one set of a Tier 1 armour. Armour is mentioned as having a “damage threshold” which determines how much damage you can take before you lose HP. That’s phrased a little ambiguously, and it’s kind of implied that it’s not as simple as “roll damage, subtract armour, lose that many HP,” so that’s another thing we’ll see how it turns out. Armour also has something called “Armor Score” which I think gives you a limited number of times when your armour can reduce how badly a hit hurts you – essentially, the armour takes some of the impact, but it breaks a little from it at the same time. Okay, cool, cool…

You also get a basic set of adventurin’ supplies, a bit of gold, a Health or Stamina Potion (restores HP and Stress respectively) and one special item from your class. That’s another detail I approve of, buying gear is my least favourite part of chargen in any game.

Next you get to choose two Experiences, which are kind of like FATE-style Aspects – they’re ideas that describe your character’s background, talents or approach, and if you can argue that one is relevant to a roll, you can spend a Hope point to get +2 on that roll. I’m not sure I see why it’s necessary to spend something to make use of a trait that’s always supposed to be true, but then, I have pretty much the same gripe about FATE… Either way, there are some guidelines about making Experiences both specific and flavourful, all decent stuff but nothing out of the ordinary.

Your class, it turns out, is composed of two different “domains” that it shares with some other classes – for instance, the Bard class has Grace (being quick on your feet) and Codex (magical study), while the Rogue class has Grace and Midnight (shadows and secrecy). You start out with two “domain cards” taken from your available domains, with each card giving you certain skills and abilities. Interesting approach, and it does somewhat justify why there are so many classes – they really are meant to overlap a little.

Finally, you are supposed to describe your connections to the other PCs, which you can do with questions provided by your class. Another bit of PbtA-ing there, I guess, though not a bad one.

Next follows an example character, the Elven Sorcerer Marlowe Fairwind. Her Experiences are “Royal Mage” and “Not On My Watch.” As a Sorcerer, her Class Features apparently include sensing magic, creating illusions, and doing something very crunchy called “Channel Raw Power” that apparently lets her surrender one card to gain Hope or empower a damage-dealing spell. Her backstory is that she’s in the King’s service and she’s apparently the only one who can save him from some mysterious danger, but he refuses to tell her what that danger is. Okay, that’s kind of cool.

There’s a list of the domains, some of which are more intuitively named than others. They are: Arcana (inherent magic), Grace (charisma), Blade (weapons), Midnight (shadows and secrecy), Bone (bodies and combat… yeah, I don’t know, I think this is going to turn out to be a “monk” thing, but I’m not sure), Sage (knowledge of nature), Codex (scholarly magic), Splendour (healing and necromancy) and Valour (protection).

There’s a flashy image that shows how the classes overlap in terms of domain, though it’d be easier to follow if the names of the domains were written out instead of represented by images… but okay, I see here that the Guardian is poised between Valour and Blade, while Warrior is between Blade and Bone. So I guess Guardians protect people with weapons, while Warriors are more about just kicking ass. Well, that’s a distinction… I guess… A Seraph lies between Valour and Splendour, so yeah, they’re paladins, basically. Wizards, perhaps a little more unusually, are between Splendour and Codex, so it looks like they’re healers in this game and there’s no such things as Clerics. Fair enough, I never did get the whole “arcane casters can’t heal” thing that D&D insists on. Also somewhat interestingly, Sorcerers share Midnight with Rogues, so apparently they’re supposed to be a bit sneaky in this game.

There’s also an example of a domain card and some explanations of how to read it. Every domain card has a level and a domain, and you can only choose cards you have the right domain for and are of an equal or higher level than. There are also some rules for “recalling” domain cards, since apparently after level five you will have more cards than you can hold at any one time, so you need to choose a loadout whenever you rest. There are three types of cards, abilities (which are non-magical), spells (which are magical) and grimoires (which are bundles of small spells). Other than that, it seems you just follow the rules written down on the individual card. Okay then. Next up is the list of classes.

Where I Read: Daggerheart (part one)

Hello and welcome to my readthrough of Daggerheart, one of those new-fangled roleplaying games who turned up while I wasn’t looking. I figure giving it a thorough look might be a good way to find out where things are at the moment, so here we go.

First off, the cover. It’s very shiny. It portrays a whole bunch of fabulous-looking characters – there’s a knight chick with wings, a dude who seems to be all mouth and no face, a mechanical Necron-looking skeleton with a staff, and what seems to be a humanoid frog with a glowing hand. Huh. Okay, if I can play a magic frog, I’m totally gonna, just for the record.

We’re on to the introduction. Daggerheart is a game of fantasy adventure where you explore exotic locations and save the day. It “provides the tools to tell a story that is both heartfelt and epic.” All right, so we’re definitely aiming for the flash and sizzle more so than the grime and gore, then. Fair enough. It also “takes a fiction-first approach” and “focus on the story [it’s] telling rather than the complexity of the mechanics.” Oh dear, that gives me a sense of foreboding, but it might just be my emotional scars from spending my formative years with Storyteller games that tended to combine over-complicated mechanics with a snotty contempt for anyone who wanted to actually use them… We’ll see, maybe this one will be better with 30 years of extra wisdom to draw on.

More emphasis on “epic battles and emotional narratives.” Okay, I’ll grant you that I like both those things. Well, to be exact, I like kicking ass and looking really pretty doing it, and so far the game seems like it supports that.

There’s a long list of inspirations (or “touchstones,” as it calls them). The roleplaying games include a couple of Powered by the Apocalypse ones, along with Lady Blackbird and Shadowrun. Under literature, we have A Song of Ice and Fire, Sabriel, A Wizard of Earthsea, Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time. Okay, that does suggest fantasy worlds where magic is a little more mystical and semi-spiritual, rather than just being a matter of flinging energy around.

The video games session includes Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, and… Borderlands. Okay, the last one is an interesting choice. Let’s see if I can spot the connection as we go on.

The core mechanic is that you roll 2d12+modifier against a Difficulty. There is a special wrinkle, however, in that one of your d12s is your Hope Die and the other one is your Fear Die, and things can happen depending on which one rolled higher, irrespectively of whether the roll succeeded or not. Interesting. You also roll damage dice when you hit someone, to see how much you ruined his day.

There’s a note on the Golden Rule (that is, you can change any rule you don’t like), and Rulings Over Rules (which here means that rules only apply when it makes sense for them to apply). Sure, sure…

There is a rundown of what’s in the book. The first three chapters are called, respectively, “Preparing for Adventure,” “Playing an Adventure” and “Running an Adventure.” Heh. I do like the symmetry of that. The fourth chapter is the antagonist section, though it also seems to include environments (which can, to be sure, be plenty adversarial in their own right). The fifth is about “campaign frames.” Not sure I understand what that’s supposed to be, I guess we’ll see when we get there.

What do you need to play? Well, 2-5 players and a Game Master for a start, and also the usual pile of dice. It notes that you need a d100, which I sincerely hope is just a mistake and d100s will be simulated by two d10s as usual, because I dread to think what one of those would actually look like…

You also need tokens, which are “small objects that represent the look and feel of your character.” Hmm? Like some sort of miniatures? No, apparently not, because it’s mentioned that you’re going to need to place tokens on cards or character sheets to use certain abilities. Starting characters need about seven tokens, more powerful ones may need as many as 15.

Okay, hang on, here it explains that tokens can really just be any kind of small objects used to keep track of stuff – paper clips are fine, for instance. But you’re supposed to pick something that expresses your character’s unique aesthetic. Ooooookay, that’s a little too precious for my taste, but oh well.

You also need game cards, which represent your character’s “ancestry, community, subclass, and domain.” So… it’s basically just a cheat note for keeping track of your special abilities and so on? Finally, you need character sheets, and the game recommends getting the class-specific ones from the game’s website. Hrmpf. In myyyyyyy day we got a single one-size-fits-all character sheet, and we had to photocopy it ourselves so it was always smudged, and by Jove, that was how we liked it!

(okay, no, we hated it, but still…)

Maps and miniatures can be used but aren’t mandatory. Too bad, these days, what with Roll20 and the likes, I actually have an easier time playing with maps than I have playing with all those other kinds of handouts.

There are a set of principles for play, which seem to be strongly inspired by Powered by the Apocalypse. Well, I’m all for those. They are:

  • Be a fan of your character and their journey.
  • Spotlight your friends.
  • Address the characters and address the players.
  • Build the world together.
  • Play to find out what happens.
  • Hold on gently.

I do like “spotlight your friends,” which means to find ways that the other players can show off and get their moment to shine. It’s something I try to do when I play, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it put into words like this before, so that’s nice. I also like “hold on gently,” meaning to think in terms of what would be interesting and evocative if it happened, but not be so married to it that you try to brute-force it. Again, that’s more or less my own philosophy too.

The full-page picture before chapter one appears to be a anthropomorphic tiger with a monocle, which I admit does bring a smile to my face. So, Chapter one: Preparing for Adventure! We start with a brief description of the setting, or at least the underlying metaphysics (I am going to go out on a limb and guess that this is one of those games that has an implied setting in the form of classes and races and stuff, but the actual geography and history are up to you).

Apparently the world consists of the Mortal Realm, the Hallows Above, the Circles Below, and the Realms Beyond. The universe used to be ruled by the Forgotten Gods, but they were overthrown by the New Gods and cast into the Circles Below. The New Gods now rule from the Hallows Above, and they have made it so that it’s hard to cross between planes, mostly to keep the Forgotten Gods from coming back for a rematch. There are also the Faint Divinities, who are a sort of demigod servitors of the greater gods. Some hang out in the Mortal Realm, others were banished with their makers into the Circles Below to become demons.

The New Gods can see what’s happening in the Mortal Realm from the Hallows Above, but to actually go there they need to sacrifice something of great importance. Hmm, that’s interesting – usually it’s mortals who sacrifice something to get a god’s attention. It does say that it goes two ways, though, so mortals or demons can theoretically enter the Hallows Above through some great personal sacrifice. Also, arcane magic used in great acts of evil can open a portal to the Circles Below.

The Realms Beyond are a catch-all term for every other dimension that’s not one of the three main ones – examples are “the Elemental Lands,” “the Astral Realm,” and “the Valley of Death.”

There is a section on magic, and here’s where it gets complicated – apparently magic takes the form of cards, and every time you level up, if you’re a magic-user of whatever sort, you get more cards. Does this mean that I’m going to have to read through the cards too? Honestly, you’d think with 400 pages in this thing it would cover it all, but I guess not. Oh well. Guess I’ll just have to consider when to go over them.

Anyway, there is another section that explicitly allows you to “re-flavour” your spells and abilities, as long as it makes no mechanical difference. Well, that’s nice, I know there was at least once when I was playing a 4E Druid in Dark Sun, and I felt that it was kind of off that my spells included damage-dealing “cold winds.” “Tearing sandstorms” felt more setting-appropriate… Anyway, there is also a reference to armour having “Armor Slots you can spend to reduce damage,” which sounds interesting, so let’s see what that’s all about when we get there.

Magey moves

This week, I managed to move on with my Mage: the Ascension port and write up a list of GM moves. This is something like my fourth or fifth version of this list – as usual, Mage resist easy summary. But I think this set works with my conception of Mage as a game about mystery, conflicting viewpoints, and the contrast between the magical and the mundane.

  • Introduce a tantalising mystery or an opportunity to learn. Every mage desires, in one form or another, to learn – to better understand a world that is strange, complicated and often contradictory. The fundamental GM move, then, is to offer the players something to learn about. Perhaps they stumble on the outer Ripples of a Mystery (see the section of Mysteries for details), or maybe they catch wind of a rare book of lore, a wise spirit, or a master who might share his knowledge with the worthy. It can even be something entirely mundane, such as the location of an elusive enemy. Whatever it is, it should not come cheap; the players will have to do the legwork if they want to unravel the enigma.
  • Add another ingredient to the witch’s brew. The world is a battlefield between billions of competing wills, and even a straightforward conflict between two parties can grow complicated in a hurry. With this move, introduce another factor to the scene that comes from a different Paradigm or with another agenda than any of the extant ones. The factor can be an NPC or an inanimate force, seemingly mundane or overtly supernatural – what matters is that it’s different, making the scene feel more disjointed and chaotic. For example, the players might spot a Dreamspeaker rival of theirs while infiltrating a Syndicate-owned night club, or have their Verbena grove invaded by a little grey-skinned alien. Less dramatically, if the players are arguing with their chantry leadership about some course of action, an impasse might be taken as an invitation by a previously neutral cabal to suggest their own preferred plan.
  • Remind them that they walk a world of dust. The world is a harsh place, full of petty injustice and bleak misery. With this move, introduce some purely mundane problem – a mugger, a flat tire, a failing business, a bad cold. The problem can even be the simple fact that things take time, and that the world won’t sit still while the players spend a week digging through the library for information on their enemy. Magic can solve a great many of these issues, but of course that tends to lead to problems of its own; force the players to choose between dealing with things like a Sleeper, reminding them of their fundamental humanity, or invoking greater debt in the form of Paradox or unwanted attention from using their supernatural powers to escape everyday concerns.
  • Have a carefully laid plan go awry. Mages know better than anyone how easily clever plans can go spectacularly wrong. With this move, what someone tried to do – whether the player, one of their allies, or the enemy they were opposing – has a drastic unintended effect, causing a huge mess that doesn’t do anyone any favours.
  • Offer their heart’s desire, at a cost. A mage knows that the world is his for the taking, but everything has a price. With this move, present the players with an opportunity, whether to get the upper hand in a fight, to discover a clue to a mystery, to win a convert to their cause, or otherwise get something they want. However, either make the opportunity fleeting and necessary to act on immediately, without any chance for the players to hedge their bets, or hint that there will be considerable downsides to seizing it.
  • Let them be touched by the flames. Mages try to avoid physical danger, and most of the dangers they face are of a subtler kind. All the same, it’s a dangerous world out there, especially if you take an aggressive approach. With this move, deal Damage to a player, with a level determined by precisely what the source is.
  • Inflict a slow poison or a lingering curse. Any mage knows that the subtlest cut is the one that will barely be noticed at first. Wounds can fester, poisons can take time to kick in, and curses can ruin your life over a period of days or months. With this move, have a player be poisoned, infected, or otherwise compromised, but only hint at it for now; keep the full effects in store for later.
  • Punish them for breaking the laws of the world. Mages attract the wrath of the Consensus by their very nature, and especially so when they use magic carelessly. This move either causes a player to mark Paradox, or creates a Paradox Effect with a level proportionate to how much Paradox the player currently has marked, or – as is usually the case when a player fails an Arete roll – both. It is also appropriate when a player draws attention to some ongoing Effect, when interacting with something supernatural and volatile, or when in the presence of a Maurader.
  • Challenge or threaten their values. Every Tradition value something, if only because it’s something they rely on for power. Hermetics revere the written word, Verbena places of unspoiled nature, Choristers hallowed ground. With this move, place something a player’s Tradition considers special and powerful in the cross hairs, perhaps as part of a plot by a rival Paradigm, perhaps just as a natural consequence of events. This can be a player’s own foci, a location where their Paradigm is strong, or just an abstract value or ideal that’s being contradicted or suppressed. Either way, this gives them a chance to practice what they preach, and stand up for something greater than themselves.
  • Confront them with folly. The ignorant and deluded can be more dangerous than the outrightly malicious, if only because they are so much more numerous. With this move, have an NPC’s failure to see the world for what it really is either cause trouble for the players or provide them with an opportunity. People who are obviously wrong are people who need tutelage, which can strengthen a player’s Paradigm, but they can also dig in their heels and insist on a disastrous course of action unless the players can stop them.
  • Let them define their own reality. A mage practices his craft as much in his way of life as in his spells. With this move, simply ask the player to describe something, whether a character, a location, or a piece of history. Then take that description and add something to it, preferably something that makes the players’ lives more difficult.
  • Teach them that nothing ever truly ends. The consequences of a mage’s actions echo down the ages, and lessons learned frequently have to be rediscovered. With this move, bring an element – a character, an event, a location, an arcane principle – that had seemed over and done with back into play.
  • Make a Paradigm Move. When the players are dealing with some particular Paradigm, you can make a move unique to it that expresses its flavour and feel. This move can be overtly supernatural or merely philosophical, depending on the situation, but either way it represents a particular idea of how the world is meant to work.

Principles of magehood

This week, I’ve been hacking away at my Mage: the Ascension port. I think, at this point, that I have run enough of the game to actually get a feel for it, so now it’s just a matter of getting it out on paper in a way that’ll make me remember it (and possibly explain my way of doing it to others who want to try, but let’s be honest, it’s mostly for my own benefit).

I’ve written up a new set of Principles that are meant to inform everything the Storyteller does. It was tricky to formulate them in ways that weren’t specific to any particular paradigm, but which still felt flavourful and non-generic. Not sure if I succeeded. Have a look:

  • Be a fan of the player characters. The characters are the larger-than-life, troubled antiheroes of this story of magic and horror. Give them every chance to make choices, and to suffer for them; to stand tall, or fall short; to find wisdom, or be brought low by hubris. Let them show who they are, not as a favour to them, but because you want to see it too.
  • Start and end with the fiction. A move is only ever triggered by the fiction, and its outcome must always ripple through the fiction. Never say something happens because the rules say so. Instead, show what event or condition in the world led to it. Likewise, don’t just state mechanical outcomes (e.g., “mark a wound box” or “take +1 forward”)—explain what they mean (e.g., “your arm’s sliced fending off the dagger,” or “a blessing guides your aim”).
  • Offer no escape from magic. To be Awakened is to live an interesting life, whether you want to or not. Mystery and intrigue will find you. Wherever the players go, let their magical destinies ensnare them ever deeper. Never let them rest for long without introducing a new problem or worsening an old one. The path to Ascension waits for no one — if you don’t seek it out, it will come knocking.
  • Showcase eccentric oddballs, alternative subcultures, and fringe beliefs. Mages aren’t normal people — and neither are the Sleepers they deal with. Neo-pagans and techbros, political extremists and cultists, fringe scientists and secret societies: every NPC should believe in something, and that something should be out of step with the mainstream. Some chase utopia. Others just want to feel something. But none of them believe in half-measures.
  • Contrast the sordid with the sublime. Mages deal in higher truths — glorious destinies, lofty ideals, and sacred dreams. But each is also a creature of fragile, hungry flesh. They reach for the stars while standing ankle-deep in mud. A path to godhood may lead through alleys so filthy and grimy that the very idea of magic seems like a cruel joke.
  • Fill the world with mismatched fragments of possible realities. Behind the curtain, countless paradigms clash — each one shaping reality, each wildly incompatible with the others. Mages make belief into truth, at least part of the time, leaving contradictions and broken stories in their wake. And the world is littered with the detritus of past workings — wonders abandoned, horrors forgotten. Mix mythologies and genres freely: let the world itself seem unsure whether it’s a wuxia epic, a spy thriller, a Norse saga, or a psychedelic fever dream.
  • Give everything arcane significance. Everything is magic, sooner or later. Every office drone on their 35-minute lunch break is unknowingly enacting a grand occult working of efficiency and monetary worship. Every addict shooting up in a condemned building is fumbling toward ecstatic revelation. No action is without philosophical weight — whether the actors know it or not. When imagining a scene, always ask: what higher vision — successful or failed — shaped this place?
  • Place a mystery behind every corner but keep it half-hidden. For a mage, the world is one vast riddle. Nothing is ever straightforward — there’s always a hidden force at work, a scheme unfolding, an impossibility pushing against Consensus. But mysteries rarely announce themselves. What players see first is a minor oddity: a strange coincidence, a subtle wrongness. Whether they pursue it is up to them.
  • Wrap the fantastic in the prosaic. This complements contrast the sordid with the sublime. Every act of magic brings consequences — and depends on logistics. A face-melting curse ends with a trip to the ER and a surgeon muttering “acid attack.” The God of Storms must be summoned with ingredients that arrive in shipping boxes. Spells punch holes in reality — but the rest of the time, mages live in the same world we do, and must navigate its systems.
  • Portray social and environmental ruin. The World of Darkness is a monument to failed utopias. Cities meant to be marvels now rot with smog, slums, and broken infrastructure. Streets reek of exhaust. Everyone’s at once overmedicated and sicker than ever. The system is crumbling — but for now, it clings to life with a rictus grip, too stubborn or afraid to admit it’s already dying.
  • Show spots of beauty and meaning, always in danger of being erased. The world isn’t dead — just almost. In the middle of polluted hellscapes, some still fight for dignity. Amid mass-produced junk, real art and brilliance survive. These things are always at risk — of being destroyed by bitterness, or forgotten in apathy — but they are hope. Let them shine.
  • Make everything someone’s creation, but only sometimes under anyone’s control. Nothing just happens. Every event, horror, or miracle began with someone’s will — or their failure to act. Every demon was summoned. Every curse began as fear. But control is an illusion. Most magical acts spiral far beyond what anyone intended. Chaos is more common than success.