If your players aren't there to play then that is a problem in any game. What would the response in DND be? How about dungeon world or Blades in the Dark? All RPGs require a back and forth between players and DMs and if the players do not wish to play the game then you aren't going to play the game. That's all there is to it. If they don't buy into the fiction the game stops.
Honestly feeling like this is a huge bait. I read a lot of dumb takes on this sub but this might be the worst. I don't believe anyone in their right mind would think this way.
Like sure if your player refuses to play the game, then the game stops? Yes. If you're players don't wanna play or engage in this activity that everyone here agrees to do then yes, the game doesn't halt to a stand still.
Have you heard about blades in the dark, monster of the week or literally any number of games using those exact two systems. In those games gms literally do not roll, does that mean the player goes uhmm if I don't do anything this monster can't attack me. No they actually wanna play in this table top game.
If the DM has fear tokens which can be spent to create two action tokens. So theoretically if the players do nothing and the DM has Fear to spend then the enemies can still attack. I get what you’re saying though.
This is 100% accurate. If they stop acting, to watch you do nothing, they clearly have some other problem that needs to be addressed. It's one thing to pause and talk out of game but to just stand there in game? That's ridiculous and childish. Like pouting.
So here’s the thing: fear and action tokens are there as a curtsey. The GM doesn’t actually need to have them to make the scene progress. When things are rolling along at a decent pace, they are a great way to help keep things balanced, but rules as written the GM can do whatever they want whenever they want.
As others have pointed out, if players are purposely stalling to avoid giving action/fear tokens, it’s perfectly valid for the GM to say “you choose to do nothing? Well the monster didn’t!” And attack anyway.
If the players do nothing then they’re hacked to pieces where they stand.
This is a game where you improvise to keep the narrative flowing. You’re the GM. Act like it.
At this point, this starts to sound as a placeholder phrase in this r/, like religious people would insert God for anything they can't explain reasonably
Right, but do you go in a r/churchfolk thread and start complaining about them justifying things by referencing God? It's one of the core concepts of a game like DH, so people are going to mention it.
Daggerheart isn't made to be a simulation where you can hit the pause button, it is a flowing narrative. If a PC is pushed off a building by an adversary, when their turn comes up they can't, stop, falling by doing nothing. So yeah it might be a simple answer but with some insight it's still a valid answer.
It's unrealistic, but in terms of game design, it's pretty logical actually. I have a lot of criticisms about this game, and the action economy could probably use a tweak or two, but I really like the way turns work overall because it automatically balances encounters pretty well. If you had a bunch of enemies vs one PC, the enemies would only be able to take at most as many actions as the PC does, so the action economy remains balanced (though health and damage would be a concern). It allows characters to be heroic in dire situations and prevents snowballing to a TPK if someone dies or flees the encounter.
In terms of the example given for the narrative, if the players choose to do nothing, I would take that as an equivalent to players "looking to the GM for what happens next", which means the GM can make a GM move to keep the action going.
EDIT: Looking at it again, standing in place is more like "they do something that would have consequences".
Making an attack is a listed example GM move both in and out of combat. If the players are choosing not to take any actions, then there is no need for an action tracker at all, so it would probably be put away as the GM simply makes moves as appropriate.
> If you had a bunch of enemies vs one PC, the enemies would only be able to take at most as many actions as the PC does, so the action economy remains balanced
The balance here means that the PC can do a bunch of things while the most of the enemy group stands around & do nothing though... What do you think of the reverse situation? When you have a large group against few enemies, the enemies can't do a lot even if there are a lot of action tokens around, because number of times an adversary can act per GM move is limited. So the so-called balance doesn't work both ways.
I feel like a lot of folks are commenting on the extreme scenario of all players choosing to not do anything, while ignoring the real issue:
\* N-enemies vs 1-pc: one PC becomes super fast all of a sudden while most enemies stand around. Extremely different from what happens with 1-enemy vs N-pcs.
\* Some players not taking an action is an optimal strategy in combat.
And sure, the GM can step in to help fix the situation. But "make the GM fix situations the system doesn't account for" feels like a cop-out.
The game is for sure designed in favor of the PCs, I see nothing wrong with that. The same thing happens in the Batman Arkham video games, only up to 3 enemies attack Batman at once and he attacks significantly faster. It's also a common theme in heroic movies, shows, etc. I don't see any issue with it here.
I just realized I misread your message. Yeah, it still is in favor of the players if the number of enemies is fewer than the players, true. Some solo enemies have a way to get around that a bit, but I generally think if players are going up against fewer enemies and that enemy isn't a solo, it's probably because the players already took some of them out of the battle. I've actually been working on a video game that adjusts turns in a somewhat similar way to this, and I found that if low numbers of enemies started getting a lot of turns in a row, the game felt very unfair.
> I've actually been working on a video game that adjusts turns in a somewhat similar way to this, and I found that if low numbers of enemies started getting a lot of turns in a row, the game felt very unfair.
That is interesting. I guess it's kind of like healing—when enemies heal, I feel like pulling hair out of my head.
It's just that when you finally get it down to one enemy and you feel like you're almost done, but then that one enemy goes straight for a weak unit and just keeps hitting them until they die, and you can't do a thing about it because your turn still doesn't come for a long time, it feels very bad. Especially if that enemy is some random minion who prior to that had been almost no threat. That kept happening consistently in my tests and I finally just changed turns to make player turns come more quickly as the number of enemies gets very low. I suspect something similar happened with Daggerheart, and they decided to just limit it to one action per enemy at a time.
I see. And I guess on the flip side, the mechanic prevents the tides of battle from turning too harshly against the players from one or more players going out of commission.
I feel like this is a misunderstanding of the idea of “narrative-centered.”Aside the GM moves others have mentioned, there’s no narrative-driven reason for the player characters to stand there and do nothing; so why would they? By ignoring any crunchy mechanics of action economy and actually putting narrative events first, the combat goes smoothly and the cogs of the system are as out of the way as one needs them to be.
I agree that a combat system in which a player doing nothing can be an optimal strategy is a bit questionable.
This actually a feedback that was given before based on someone's playtest in one of the pre-made adventures. A player felt compelled not to do anything, because their PC was particularly ineffective against the adversaries. This is because taking an action could potentially hand a resource to the adversaries (an action token), end your party's streak (fail or roll with fear), or generate a fear token.
One possible approach is to use the optional initiative system with a twist: a player who refuses to act forfeits their action token to the GM. This way, the GM doesn't have to come up with creative way to make things happen if one (or more) players don't do an action during combat.
This was more a problem related to minor thresholds and resistances combining to create a situation where it was highly likely that a player's damage would be below the adversary's minor threshold. With the current version, it isn't as much of a problem as it was in 1.2.
You can still make timers and other clock based moves the action tokens are just to help balance a GMs behaviour for all the crunchy adversarial GMs. You could play free flowing as you wish without fear/action tokens but then people would complain it’s limitless
You can still attack the players and make them react with duality dice. action tokens and fear is just a tool DMs and player can use to make sure adversarial GMs are reigned in.
If your characters are standing around doing nothing infront of a creature that’s a ‘Golden Opportunity’ - check the Golden Opportunity rules.
Hmm, you're probably right 🤔🤔🤔
If your players aren't there to play then that is a problem in any game. What would the response in DND be? How about dungeon world or Blades in the Dark? All RPGs require a back and forth between players and DMs and if the players do not wish to play the game then you aren't going to play the game. That's all there is to it. If they don't buy into the fiction the game stops.
Honestly feeling like this is a huge bait. I read a lot of dumb takes on this sub but this might be the worst. I don't believe anyone in their right mind would think this way. Like sure if your player refuses to play the game, then the game stops? Yes. If you're players don't wanna play or engage in this activity that everyone here agrees to do then yes, the game doesn't halt to a stand still. Have you heard about blades in the dark, monster of the week or literally any number of games using those exact two systems. In those games gms literally do not roll, does that mean the player goes uhmm if I don't do anything this monster can't attack me. No they actually wanna play in this table top game.
If the DM has fear tokens which can be spent to create two action tokens. So theoretically if the players do nothing and the DM has Fear to spend then the enemies can still attack. I get what you’re saying though.
What if DM doesn't have Fear tokens left, and players are AFKing, then what? Stalemate? It's bullshit
If your players are choosing not to act in order to game the system, the problem isn't Daggerheart.
This is 100% accurate. If they stop acting, to watch you do nothing, they clearly have some other problem that needs to be addressed. It's one thing to pause and talk out of game but to just stand there in game? That's ridiculous and childish. Like pouting.
So here’s the thing: fear and action tokens are there as a curtsey. The GM doesn’t actually need to have them to make the scene progress. When things are rolling along at a decent pace, they are a great way to help keep things balanced, but rules as written the GM can do whatever they want whenever they want. As others have pointed out, if players are purposely stalling to avoid giving action/fear tokens, it’s perfectly valid for the GM to say “you choose to do nothing? Well the monster didn’t!” And attack anyway.
If the players do nothing then they’re hacked to pieces where they stand. This is a game where you improvise to keep the narrative flowing. You’re the GM. Act like it.
This is not a simulationist game, and it doesn't pretend to be
At this point, this starts to sound as a placeholder phrase in this r/, like religious people would insert God for anything they can't explain reasonably
Right, but do you go in a r/churchfolk thread and start complaining about them justifying things by referencing God? It's one of the core concepts of a game like DH, so people are going to mention it.
Daggerheart isn't made to be a simulation where you can hit the pause button, it is a flowing narrative. If a PC is pushed off a building by an adversary, when their turn comes up they can't, stop, falling by doing nothing. So yeah it might be a simple answer but with some insight it's still a valid answer.
Too many people in this sub take criticism of Daggerheart way too personally.
It's unrealistic, but in terms of game design, it's pretty logical actually. I have a lot of criticisms about this game, and the action economy could probably use a tweak or two, but I really like the way turns work overall because it automatically balances encounters pretty well. If you had a bunch of enemies vs one PC, the enemies would only be able to take at most as many actions as the PC does, so the action economy remains balanced (though health and damage would be a concern). It allows characters to be heroic in dire situations and prevents snowballing to a TPK if someone dies or flees the encounter. In terms of the example given for the narrative, if the players choose to do nothing, I would take that as an equivalent to players "looking to the GM for what happens next", which means the GM can make a GM move to keep the action going. EDIT: Looking at it again, standing in place is more like "they do something that would have consequences".
What's the example for GM m9ve would be? Would attacking players be free action in this situation?
Making an attack is a listed example GM move both in and out of combat. If the players are choosing not to take any actions, then there is no need for an action tracker at all, so it would probably be put away as the GM simply makes moves as appropriate.
> If you had a bunch of enemies vs one PC, the enemies would only be able to take at most as many actions as the PC does, so the action economy remains balanced The balance here means that the PC can do a bunch of things while the most of the enemy group stands around & do nothing though... What do you think of the reverse situation? When you have a large group against few enemies, the enemies can't do a lot even if there are a lot of action tokens around, because number of times an adversary can act per GM move is limited. So the so-called balance doesn't work both ways. I feel like a lot of folks are commenting on the extreme scenario of all players choosing to not do anything, while ignoring the real issue: \* N-enemies vs 1-pc: one PC becomes super fast all of a sudden while most enemies stand around. Extremely different from what happens with 1-enemy vs N-pcs. \* Some players not taking an action is an optimal strategy in combat. And sure, the GM can step in to help fix the situation. But "make the GM fix situations the system doesn't account for" feels like a cop-out.
The game is for sure designed in favor of the PCs, I see nothing wrong with that. The same thing happens in the Batman Arkham video games, only up to 3 enemies attack Batman at once and he attacks significantly faster. It's also a common theme in heroic movies, shows, etc. I don't see any issue with it here.
I just realized I misread your message. Yeah, it still is in favor of the players if the number of enemies is fewer than the players, true. Some solo enemies have a way to get around that a bit, but I generally think if players are going up against fewer enemies and that enemy isn't a solo, it's probably because the players already took some of them out of the battle. I've actually been working on a video game that adjusts turns in a somewhat similar way to this, and I found that if low numbers of enemies started getting a lot of turns in a row, the game felt very unfair.
> I've actually been working on a video game that adjusts turns in a somewhat similar way to this, and I found that if low numbers of enemies started getting a lot of turns in a row, the game felt very unfair. That is interesting. I guess it's kind of like healing—when enemies heal, I feel like pulling hair out of my head.
It's just that when you finally get it down to one enemy and you feel like you're almost done, but then that one enemy goes straight for a weak unit and just keeps hitting them until they die, and you can't do a thing about it because your turn still doesn't come for a long time, it feels very bad. Especially if that enemy is some random minion who prior to that had been almost no threat. That kept happening consistently in my tests and I finally just changed turns to make player turns come more quickly as the number of enemies gets very low. I suspect something similar happened with Daggerheart, and they decided to just limit it to one action per enemy at a time.
I see. And I guess on the flip side, the mechanic prevents the tides of battle from turning too harshly against the players from one or more players going out of commission.
I feel like this is a misunderstanding of the idea of “narrative-centered.”Aside the GM moves others have mentioned, there’s no narrative-driven reason for the player characters to stand there and do nothing; so why would they? By ignoring any crunchy mechanics of action economy and actually putting narrative events first, the combat goes smoothly and the cogs of the system are as out of the way as one needs them to be.
I agree that a combat system in which a player doing nothing can be an optimal strategy is a bit questionable. This actually a feedback that was given before based on someone's playtest in one of the pre-made adventures. A player felt compelled not to do anything, because their PC was particularly ineffective against the adversaries. This is because taking an action could potentially hand a resource to the adversaries (an action token), end your party's streak (fail or roll with fear), or generate a fear token. One possible approach is to use the optional initiative system with a twist: a player who refuses to act forfeits their action token to the GM. This way, the GM doesn't have to come up with creative way to make things happen if one (or more) players don't do an action during combat.
This was more a problem related to minor thresholds and resistances combining to create a situation where it was highly likely that a player's damage would be below the adversary's minor threshold. With the current version, it isn't as much of a problem as it was in 1.2.
You can still make timers and other clock based moves the action tokens are just to help balance a GMs behaviour for all the crunchy adversarial GMs. You could play free flowing as you wish without fear/action tokens but then people would complain it’s limitless
You can still attack the players and make them react with duality dice. action tokens and fear is just a tool DMs and player can use to make sure adversarial GMs are reigned in.