We’re into a new chapter, and this one is about how you actually play the game. It starts out by explaining that the basic flow of the game is that the GM describe what’s up, then the players and GM talk about it so that everyone really understands what’s up, then the players do stuff and the GM resolves the stuff they do. Fair enough, that is more or less how it usually works, but I still feel like it’s a pretty clunky way to explain it.
I mean, the Powered by the Apocalypse influence is pretty noticeable in how they try to distil the flow of play into something you can describe accurately instead of just going with the grand old roleplaying tradition of, “eh, it works at our table, you’ll figure it out.” And I’m technically all for that, but, well, some things really are pretty self-explanatory and every bit of wordcount you spend on explicitly describing them just takes time and attention away from the actually complicated parts.
… if you’re reading this from a point in the future where I’ve finally gotten around to publishing my magnum opus Monstrous Mishaps and you want to point out that I’m pretty frequently guilty of said over-explaining myself, then I can only say… yes, okay, okay, but don’t do as I do, do as I say!
There’s a piece of example play about a thief running away after stealing from a noble, nothing very exceptional there.
Next we’re introduced to the concept of “spotlight,” and this actually gets my attention, because it sounds halfway clever: whichever character is acting has the spotlight. Usually the GM just lets it wander around the characters present, but there are also mechanics that can decree things like, “an enemy gets the spotlight.” A sort of narrative approach to initiative, huh? Interesting, interesting… Let’s see how it works in practice.
Anyway, there is explicitly no such thing as a turn order or a limit to how many actions you can take at once, it’s up to the GM to decide what is reasonable. Being used to PbtA, I can testify that this works a lot better than it sounds like it should. There’s also the mention that not being “locked into combat” makes it easier to contemplate non-violent actions like running away, which I have also found to be true.
A player acts by making “player moves” that describe what their character is doing, and a GM acts by making “GM moves” which describe, well, just about anything the GM wants to happen, really. GM moves are usually made when a player either fails a roll or rolls with Fear. Ah, so there is some universal effects to the Fear mechanic. Okay, that might work. The GM can also spend Fear to make additional GM moves if he’s starting to feel bored. NPCs or environments might also have unique “Fear moves” that can be activated by spending Fear.
We are reminded once again that players roll with a d12 “Hope Die” and a d12 “Fear Die,” and when the Hope Die is higher you “rolled with Hope” and when the Fear Die is higher you “rolled with Fear.” If you rolled with Hope you gain Hope even if you failed, and if you rolled with Fear the GM gains Fear and makes a GM move even if you succeeded. Yep, that’s clear enough. If you roll the same number on both dice, you get a critical success, which means that you succeed with Hope regardless of what the result was. You also clear a point of Stress and, if it was an attack roll, do extra damage.
Hope can be spent to assist allies with their rolls, to get the bonus from an Experience, or activate a Hope Feature. There are apparently two different ways to assist allies, “Help an Ally” and “Initiate a Tag Team Roll.” We’ll get both described in more detail later. You can only have 6 Hope at any given time, so you’re expected to spend it freely.
Evasion gets another mention, and apparently it’s not just physical defence, it’s what an enemy rolls against for any sort of hostile effect against you. Hmm, okay.
Hit Points and Damage Thresholds! Okay, here it gets complicated… But basically, you have a certain number of Hit Points, and you also have two Damage Thresholds, one Major and one Severe. If you take some damage, but it’s less than your Major Threshold, you lose 1 HP. If you take damage between your Major and Severe Thresholds, you lose 2 HP. And if you take damage at or above your Severe Threshold, you lose 3 HP. That… seems like a complicated way of doing it, but okay then. Lose all your Hit Points, and you have to make a “death move.”
Stress is basically mental Hit Points. You can mark Stress as part of a special ability, as we have seen in several places already, or the GM can inflict it on you when things go badly, or require that you mark Stress to succeed at something you otherwise might have failed at. When you’ve marked all your Stress, you become “vulnerable,” which we’ll find out more of later, and also any further Stress you would have marked gets transformed into Hit Points instead. Fair enough.
There’s a fairly long and unnecessary description of how to make a roll that just goes over everything we’ve already covered, but it does specify that rolling with Hope and Fear does change the outcome of success and failures. Essentially, success with Hope is “yes, and,” success with Fear is “yes, but,” failure with Hope is “no, but” and failure with Fear is “no, and.” And I guess a critical success is something like, “yes, and even more stuff,” but you get what I mean. Somewhat charming, and I can see the appeal, but my experience with trying to come up with layers of success and failure for Storyteller games have made me a bit weary of that much granularity. Oh well.
There is a sidebar clarifying that there is no such thing as a roll with no consequences – the story always changes in some way, for the better or the worse or a little of both. That much I can get behind, yes.
Okay, here is the “Tag Team” roll. Basically, once per session you can spend 3 Hope and explain how you and another player perform some kind of combo move. You both roll, and then you choose which roll you want to keep and have apply to both of you. If the action was an attack and you succeeded, you both roll damage and add it up. There is also a more standard “Group Action roll” where someone takes the lead and everyone else can make separate rolls that provide bonuses for the leader’s roll if they succeed.
There’s a whole lot of text about how to make a attack roll, but it’s all stuff we’ve seen before. The attack gives you which die to roll, your proficiency tells you how many dice of that type to roll, and you add any bonuses to the result. It’s noted again that damage isn’t subtracted straight from Hit Points in Daggerheart, it’s compared with Thresholds to calculate the number of Hit Points lost, and armour and resistances also factor into it in some way that is yet to be revealed.
Reaction rolls are a special sort of roll that are done when someone else is in the spotlight – mainly, to resist some action of theirs. They don’t generate Hope or Fear, but otherwise work as normal.
Advantages and disadvantages on rolls… just mean that you add 1d6 or subtract 1d6. Okay.
The style of play during battle is described, and here I get a bit confused, because now it seems like the spotlight always shifts to the GM whenever a player fails or rolls with Fear (or when the GM spends Fear to take the spotlight). Is that specific to combat, because I feel like this was described differently earlier? But okay, I guess that works.
Domain cards! You can hold five cards in your “hand” at any given time, while the rest are going to be in your “vault.” The ones in your hand you can use normally, the ones in your vault are inaccessible for now but can be moved back into your hand when you rest or if you’re willing to spend Stress to get them. You might also permanently lose cards, in which case they are removed from play. When you level up, you also get to switch out one card, presumably so you can start using your cool new tricks immediately.
Conditions! There are three universal conditions that can affect play: Hidden, Restrained, and Vulnerable. Hidden means that you’re out of all foes’ immediate sight, so they have a disadvantage on any rolls against you. Restrained means that you can’t move, but you can still take actions that don’t require you to move from the spot. Vulnerable (that’s the one that happens when you’re all Stressed out, you might recall) means that you’re somehow off balance or on the spot, so all rolls against you have an advantage.
The GM decides how a player can get out of a condition, and it may or may not require a roll. An NPC can always free themselves from a condition when they have the spotlight without needing to roll or spend for it, but then they have to pass the spotlight back to a player.
Countdowns are mentioned as being a way to keep track of when something bad is going to happen, and they can tick down based on whatever criteria the GM sets – any time an action gets made, for example, any time there’s downtime, or any time a player rolls with Fear. We’ll learn more about countdowns later, apparently.
There is a section on ranges. Apparently this game mixes the lackadaisical modern approach, where ranges come in a few loose categories like “within arm’s reach” and “within a stone’s throw,” and the grognardy old-school approach where ranges are carefully measured up and woe betide anyone who gets an inch wrong. Specifically, each category is given a precise number of inches on the tabletop. This… seems like the absolute worst of both worlds, frankly. And again, what happened to being all about Teh Story?! I should not have to break out the measuring tape for a game where it’s all about the fluffy feelz!
Muttermuttermutter… anyway, you can move anywhere that’s Close to you as part of another action, but if you want to move further than that you need to succeed at a roll and the GM decides how hard it will be. Enemies can likewise move within their Close range freely, or can move within their Very Far range by using up their spotlight but without needing to roll for it.
There are rules for cover (disadvantage to rolls against you) and for targeting groups (all members of the group has to be within Very Close range of whatever you aim for) and line of sight and I swear that there is something about all of this that makes me see red. There shouldn’t be all these fiddly rules! Not in a game where everything in the setting itself (what there is of one) is so fluid and undefined! The rules and setting are meant to match, guys! They’re meant to reinforce each other! If you want to go loosey-goosey that’s fine, and if you want to nail down every stray variable that’s also fine, but pick one!
Aaaarrrrgghh. Isn’t this chapter done yet?
Gold! Gold is counted in handfuls, bags, and chests, with 10 handfuls to a bag and 10 bags to a chest. But, it also notes, there aren’t actually any prices set for anything in this book, so it’s up to each GM how much gold to hand out and how much to charge for anything.
But.
But.
Buuuuuuut.
BUT THEN WHY EVEN BOTHER WITH AAAARRGGGGGH AAAARRGGGGGH AAAARRGGGGGH AAAARRGGGGGH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGGGH!!!!!!
Sorry, sorry, I think I just marked my 6th Stress box and became Vulnerable… But I can do this. There’s just downtime and death left in this part of the chapter.
Downtime! You can take a short rest or a long rest, but once you’ve taken three short rests the next one has to be a long’un. Each option gives you access to different downtime moves, of which you can perform two during each downtime. They involve things like regaining Hit Points, clearing Stress, repairing armour, and gaining Hope. The downtime moves for long rests are, naturally, a little stronger than the ones for short rests – more Hit Points regained, more Stress reduced, etc. However, whenever you stop moving, the GM also gains Fear, 1d4 at a short rest and 1d4+the number of players for a long rest. Works for me. You can also work at some project, like crafting a weapon or something.
Death! When you mark your last Hit Point, you have three choices. You can go out in a “blaze of glory”: choose to perform one action of your choice that automatically gets a critical success, then you die. You can “risk it all,” in which case you make a roll and if you roll with Hope you regain some Hit Points and can continue, but if you roll with Fear you die. Or you can “avoid death,” in which case you get knocked unconscious and maybe permanently get your maximum amount of Hope reduced by 1.
Okay, I have nothing to complain about in the last two sections. But man, this isn’t getting any easier.
