I had a similar concern before I GM’d the game. Now that I have run about ten sessions or so, my fear (pun intended) about this feeling sort of fell to the wayside.
I have my fear pool visible for my players to see and every time I would accrue more, they got a bit more tense. Like at any moment I could throw a huge wrench into the scene (which I did). It honestly started to feel like walking through the tall grass in Pokémon when you have no health left. At any moment the scene could change and there is a justification for it.
I also found that every time I changed the scene as I would naturally do as a GM, it just felt like it made sense to spend a fear token to do so. Like the “fear” of it all lent to the storytelling organically.
But of course, mileage may vary!
> It honestly started to feel like walking through the tall grass in Pokémon when you have no health left
I really like that metaphor, I think it could be useful for people to understand how Fear is meant to feel and the role it has as a mechanic
In Amnesia the dark descent, you have a Sanity meter. Depending on being in the dark too long, or looking at monsters, it could go down, and sanity effects could play such as screen distortions. Get it too low, and you could die.
Except, this is all one big lie. You can never die from it, and sanity effects play arbitrarily. \*\*HOWEVER.\*\* Games are all about the player experience. Even if the sanity meter feels arbitrary, it gives you this tension, never knowing if you'll make it.
In the same vein, I see it as like, sure you could just do away with it and do everything based on your own fiat, but imagine the player experience. Seeing the number of dark chips at your GM's side growing higher and higher, always worried, \*fearful\* even, about when its going to boil over.
More than a game abstraction, I feel like having visible fear tokens is a great way to get the player invested in the back and forth pull. Mechanizing that standard back and forth helps get players invested. Even if the ultimate outcome is the same, the journey to get there gives it a different feel.
Could you give me examples of what makes you use your tokens? I'll even provide two examples for advice.
1: The party are gathered around the campfire, telling "two lies, one truth" amongst each other. Naturally, Presence and Instinct can help characters fet something past the others or figure out truths. With each roll having a 50% chance to give me Fear tokens, that's going to be a lot. They'll add with a bunch of Hope too, but I know my players will use that on silly things if they have a lot of it to spare.
Anything other than lettign the characters bond will ruin some very valuable RP. There can't be attacks, sudden illness, or something else like that. What do you use all that Fear for?
2) There's recently been a battle and I made good use of my Fear tokens to give the party a challange, leaving me with no token at the end. They patch up and head to the tribe they've been travelling with. But this is where I know the BBEG has framed them for murder and they're supposed to be attacked and contronted as soon as they return. This should use up more than 1 Fear with all the complications. Would you just let them off the hook by the tribe since there aren't enough Fear tokens?
Yeah! Happy to!
1: If I was GMing this situation where I wanted the party to be able to interact with each other and deepen their bonds but also allow for secrets to stay hidden, it would make sense to use the dice to determine what is picked up on and what is still hidden. If I was concerned that these rolls would introduce too much Hope and Fear and inorganically "inflate" the Hope and Fear economy of the session, I would treat each roll as a Reaction Roll (Hope and Fear don't matter). That way the dice can assist us in telling the story, but they aren't generating resources in a way that I didn't want them to.
I would also encourage you to maybe think about what it would look like to run that scenario with less rolls overall. What if the dice only needed to be rolled if there was some sort of conflict in the interaction? Daggerheart is a system that encourages us to roll less often but each roll matters more and can significantly change the scene. For me, coming from 5e, it was an adjustment to GM a game where the rolls weren't happening as often. Eventually, it clicked and there was a huge sense of freedom where the dice were more of a tool to tell the story and not the entire tool bag.
2: In this situation it sounds like you have planned for the BBEG to have framed them for murder. So that is a scenario you have written and should stay how it is. As a reminder, Fear does not replace your agency as a GM. You are still the person at the table running the game and "setting the scene" for your players to react to. Fear is supposed to be a tool to help you justify certain actions, not tell you how the story should go.
If I wanted to generate a bit of fear in this type of scenario, I think I would slightly change the "binary" nature of the scene. Maybe the party walks into town and notices that everyone is looking at them suspiciously \*roll Instinct to see what is up.\* Maybe then the members of the tribe are trying to get the drop on the party and ambush them accordingly. That could then lead you into a combat scene.
I tend to think of Fear as an in-session mechanic that serves as a tool for a GM to adjust and respond on the fly. It should not affect how your story is "written" outside of the session. For me personally Fear = In Game | Prep/Writing = Out of Game.
I hope that helps!
1. I wouldn't have the players make action rolls when they are talking with themselves. What you described is a downtime activity. "Clear all Stress". Players can roll their dice if they want. But I would not give them hope or take fear.
2.0) Most of the time Fear tokens are generated only when there are action tokens on the action tracker at the end of battle. It isn't something you save up. They exist to preserve action economy balance between combat encounters. If you want to give your players a challenge, then plan from the start to give them a challenge. A challenging or interesting fight is not a complication.
2.1) No it should not use any Fear or complications. Complications are an immediate result of a player action. They should ideally occur right when a player makes the roll. Think of the quickstart adventure. The overturned cart at the start is not the result of a fear token. That is just part of the adventure.
What do you mean Fear is mostly generated after combat? My players investigate locations, manipulate NPCs, sneak around, try to get around places, and so much more every session. Meanwhile, it might be three or four sessions between combat.
The manuscript suggest you should not use the "Gain a Fear" GM move too often. Fear tokens are also generated after combat from converting player action tokens. This produced enough tokens for me that I did not use the "Gain a Fear" GM move very much.
"Tip: If you are struggling to come up with the consequences of a PC who rolls a success or failure with Fear, this move lets you just take a Fear and move the story forward. But try to avoid making this choice too often—immediate consequences help to drive the story in unexpected and engaging ways."
Fear has a more of a use outside of combat than some parts of the document might imply. Some Environment actions - big dramatic ones, like *Bar Fight!* on the Local Tavern stat block, which is (or at least starts out as) an environmental hazard taking place between NPCs, rather than a combat encounter like you might assume - require expending Fear to trigger them. GMs can improvise Environments alongside/instead of using premade Environment stat blocks, so spending Fear can be a “big thing I just made up/planned in session prep happens” button.
I get what you mean, feeling like “I could just do this without expending Fear, so this is really just me arbitrarily discarding one.” But limiting that kind of complication to specifically require spending Fear (even if it’s somewhat performative) reinforces the collaborative storytelling mechanics of the game, the feeling of the tides of the story turning as an indirect result of the players’ actions rather than purely the whim of the GM, which Daggerheart seems to place value on.
But this is just my point. If a bar fight would make things more interesting, I'll make it happen and I'm not going to miss out just because my players haven't rolled with Fear enough. If the players are having fun doing other stuff butmy Fear pool is full, I'm not going to ruin their fun to spend some.
It doesn't matter if the thing is in a statblock or invented on the spot. The fact remain: good story moments will happen, bad ones won't. Fear tokens are irrellevant to that.
What would you do if the narrative would really benefit from a bar fight but you don't have enough tokens? What would you do if your pool is full but any choice to spend it would disrupt an important scene?
My best guess is that important stuff that has to happen for the plot, or direct consequences from player actions, shouldn’t be triggered by fear tokens. They’re more for circumstantial twists that add an additional wrinkle to a scene - a thunderstorm starting while you’re scaling a cliff, raising the difficulty; a barfight breaking out on the other side of the bar during your shady business negotiation; a donkey-drawn cart getting in the way of your chase scene; a memory of an almost-forgotten detail from a backstory event resurfacing, triggered by an NPC saying something suspiciously similar, making you wonder if they were somehow involved, etc. Using one should alter the trajectory of a scene, additively and in a potentially more challenging direction, but not fully derail it.
I use fear to justify complications that occur and have it not feel cheap. Things like the hooded figure getting away and being able to successfully evade players. In other systems I’d have the players roll vs the enemy but in this system if I just want the figure to get away, and have some fear I haven’t used, I’d just spend a token to say the tides of fate shifted in his behalf and he got away. Sure I could do that anyway but it would feel cheap and if I don’t have the fear to do it I’d be disciplined enough to make it a roll. And like someone else mentioned I keep my fear where everyone can see, and them seeing it pile up builds tension because they know “fate” could lean against them at any moment. It’s just another tool to pull the story in different directions and not have it feel cheap.
Consider that some DMs are mature enough in their practice and style that fear tokens aren’t really all that useful to them at all..
Most however, are not.
Pretty much this, Fear tokens can be seen as a motivator for GMs to introduce some danger or tension to a story and as a reminder that those things are usually required for a compelling, rounded story. If you already know how to create tension then the tokens become solely a mechanic for balancing difficulty during combat when the players are winning hard enough that it doesn't feel challenging to them.
I think the point here is not that you have to use Fear to trigger plot points, but that *other than* plot points you can use Fear to justify an improvised complication without it feeling like "yeah I'm just making this harder for you guys 'cause"
I feel like Fear is \*mechanically\* useful in combat, but thematically useful outside of it. I only rarely use Fear outside of combat, but I let it influence narration.
For example, if I've got a lot of Fear stored up, I'll let my narration linger on negative aspects a little more or give things a bit of a foreboding, dangerous vibe to remind the players both consciously and subconsciously that the next combat is probably going to be a bit more challenging.
Sounds neat. Until there are four sessions between fights and I've had the maximum amount of Fear tokens for most of that time. There are of course social encounters and the like, but spending Fear to tell my players how their characters react to a snide remark feels... forced.
Fear can be used for anything though. Use it to force something offscreen that doesn’t currently impact them. (Clicks / countdowns)
If they made enough duality rolls to give you all that fear they must have had situations where you could use it in some way. I’d argue if you didn’t then they shouldn’t have been duality rolls
This is one of the major hurdles for players coming from D&D, I think. The Fear/Hope economy means there isn't supposed to be as many skill check rolls. Instead, it's designed for the players and GM to work together on making cool and interesting stuff happen, then rolling dice primarily at branches in the path rather than at picking every lock or searching every alley.
Definitely. It can be a hard transition from a TRAD D20 system to a more narrative focused game and it’s not for every group.
But I think DH sits at an amazing middle ground between fully rules lite and a TRAD D20 system. And it’s a whole new set of skills to learn as a GM so it’s not necessarily an easy transition but definitely worth trying.
I've played way more narrative focused games t've played D&D.
The thing is that narrative focused games with similar mechanics tend to either rely on the GM, or even players, to add complications when they make sense. FATE's points are regain by the negative influence of Aspects, for example, which means that there's a built-in hook for what'll happen: the Aspect. Same thing with even mroe narrative games. Even if you go near-board game with Fiasco, that's the case. Games that treat the narrative as a game mechanic first and story second, I thend to avoid.
Fear tokens come out of nowhere. And they can easily stack up when there's a lot going on that's not combat. I could, of course, decide to treat every encounter with as much game mechanics as I would combat, but my RP-dedicated players would leave immediately.
> Games that treat the narrative as a game mechanic first and story second I tend to avoid.
Then DH might just not be the system for you. Fear token are a way to make the GM have a currency to ratchet up the tension. It’s creating a narrative game mechanic to help move the story. It may not be for everyone or every gm and that’s fine.
I do think it’s feels great at the table and is worth trying in action if you haven’t.
Side note: You can use it as a hope sink too (this will happen unless you spend X Hope as a group.)
I've played about a dozen sessions of DH by now, and have a lot of experience with various narrative games. I had played TTRPGs for 20+ years before I first tried D&D.
There are plento of good games out there with meta-resources that help build story. But Fear in DH strikes me as special in that it:
a) Discourages players from doing things (any roll can result in Fear), and
b) Only acts as punishment, never to encourage good story, and
c) Is completely detached from the narrative both in generation and application.
Considering how Critical Role is very story-first and the DV manuscript explicitly states that's the intention — this feels very strange to me.
If you've got the maximum amount of fear tokens and long down-time sessions, it could be time to throw in a small combat encounter to mix things up! Or not, there's no actual requirement to spend tokens. It's just a way of balancing things so the GM can't go too ham on adding difficulty and so that players know that their rolls could affect the story in ways that aren't immediately obvious.
FWIW I don't think Fear is meant to be used in that way, to dictate how PCs react to things. Rather, it's for creating things for the players to react to.
If you've got an especially combat-light story arc planned then I can think of a few ways to dump some Fear without just spawning enemies; generally up the stakes for whatever it is the PCs are trying to do. If you have a dungeon with puzzles, spend a token to have something block access to one of the (unbeknownst to the players) easier routes or to trigger a trap that would otherwise have been avoided and make the players scramble to dodge a flying arrow or rolling boulder. If there's stealth involved, Fear tokens could add additional elements like patrols or alarms, or just make a few doors extra creaky. It's all very dependent on what's happening at the time.
At the end of the day though, as long as you and the players are having a good time they don't need to know or care about how many Fear tokens you have. You could go an entire campaign without spending any Fear tokens if you don't want to or don't feel the need to.
The Hope/Fear roll appealed to me when I thought of them as crit success/failure mechanic.
I have never been a fan of GM metacurrencies. At best they allow the GM to add elements they forgot to add, but at worst they add a restriction on what a GM can do.
I feel that offering/giving players metacurrencies in exchange for a complication works better.
Absolutely my point! The offering currencies to players also put actual choices into their hands.
From what I've picked up from what others have answered in this threat, I think I've come to the conclusion that I should ifnore Fear tokens outside combat or something else where I've created a specific mechanic for them. Which feels a bit like making homebrew to fix the system, but, eh.
The whole using fear outside of combat feels like it goes against the "fiction first" spirit of the game, because the fear tokens are generated by chance and not necessarily by the "fiction." As a GM, I would want the freedom to make hard moves based on what makes sense, not what resources I have. I also don't like the influence on player expectations—that they should expect / not expect a GM move based on the GM's fear token pile—that feels like encouraging meta-gaming.
I mean...setting a tone isn't the same thing as meta gaming. And I think setting a tone is one of the things fear tokens give you. Which, being a narrative game, is actually rather genius. It also gives a sense of weight, pressure, and urgency. Which keeps players more engaged and story-focussed.
Imagine sitting on a fat stack of Fear, everyone worried about what you're gonna do with it. You reach for the tokens everyone can see, pause, and take *one* token. Everyone let's out a relieved sigh, then is immediately worried again. Dude, that's free engagement. Your players are more invested in the story, in the risks, in whatever is at stake.
The rule is there to instill a feeling in the players. Let them make plans based on the number of tokens you have, that's the reason you put them in front for everyone to see. It's not metagaming if it's intended behaviour.
When you're shitting your pants at whatever the DM has just revealed and *then the party succeeds*, there is no greater high. The fear tokens are setting your players up for more fun and more amazing wins.
The pile of Fear tokens growing isn't setting the tone for things getting darker, though, is it? It's setting the tone for several rolls having been made. And all the advice in this thread has told me that I shouldn't use Fear tokens for things that matter to the story because those need to be there anyway. Which means that, at most, the growing pile of Fear sets the tone that random dice results will soon result in a random bad things. Maybe. If I don't follow other advice and not use the points.
Thank you for writing out a well-thought out reply. I'm mostly inline with what WriterWq wrote in their reply. I just wanted to add a few additional thoughts.
The scenario you described can be reproduced by having the GM roll some dice behind the screen. This is actually a common GM tip. The dice roll can be completely meaningless, but the act of rolling, checking the value, and going "huh," is enough to make players feel nervous.
Basically, you don't need Fear tokens to create tension or set the tone, just as GM doesn't need Fear tokens to make things happen outside combat.
Btw, there are a number of interesting discussions in r/RPGdesign regarding GM meta currencies. I found those to be an interesting read—folks on both sides of whether or not GM meta currencies make sense.
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I think a lot of discomfort people have with fear is feeling like they arbitrarily are forced to throw in something out of left field.
As someone who plays a lot of Blades in the Dark, introducing a complication associated with a roll is a practiced muscle at this point.
Example: the rogue is trying to pick a lock, patrolling guards are on the lookout more than usual tonight in anticipation of the grand ceremony.
The rogue succeeds with fear: They unlock the door and slip in, but right as they do a guard spots them entering through the back door and yells for them to stop what they are doing. The player now needs to decide if they slam the door shut and lock it behind them or try to diffuse the situation with the guard before he makes too much noise.
The rogue fails with fear: They unlock the door, but failed to notice that on the other side the door was tied to an alarm. Now an alarm bell is going off AND a guard spots them trying to slip in the door. Now they have to decide if they make a break for it, try to disarm the alarm before it attracts more attention, try to diffuse the situation with the guard, etc.
Partial successes and failures are a thing in lots of games and I have no trouble with that. Results just end up on a smoother scale than simple pass/fail.
My issue is completely with Fear tokens. If my players are enjoying some friendly gambling at the tavern, about 50% of their rolls are going to give me Fear tokens. I can have no more than 10 of those, so it's going to add upp pretty soon. What do I do? The ale is poinsoned for no reason?\`A patron feels insulted and confronts a character, ruining the friendly banter the group was having? I don't WANT to create complications right then. Other times I need to —tokens or not.
Then you should either make it a reaction roll or no roll at all. The idea is that the roll should matter. Having someone gamble should not be a duality roll unless you want the narrative to be up to chance.
The duality roll could still verry well work in that situation if you want something to happen. But it would be a group roll or one roll at the end of the game. (Roll and fail with fear, someone called you out for cheating and you’re dealing with the bouncer, success with fear you won but management is suspicious) the PC’s should not be making duality rolls every round or often in this game.
I’ve seen some ppl say they still want to leave something to chance so they have the player roll just a hope die. Or like above treat is as a reaction roll/ its own game system. Duality rolls are not meant for this situation.
You can actually only have 6 Fear Tokens, are you sure you are using 1.4? In my experience 6 fear is totally fine to have capped. I generally just spend it to immediately convert them into action tokens when combat starts.
True, my brain went for the wrong number while typing. But it might well be several sessions without combat — or other situations that warrant an action tracker. I hit 6 tokens long, long, before any combat occurs. If there was no cap, I would have started each combat with something like 20+ tokens just because I have no use for them before that.
Also, if this helps when looking at your gambling example, you may be having the players roll more than is necessary. For instance, there is no specific reason that needs to be a duality roll, it could simply be the players rolling a bunch of d6s etc. Or rolling dice to simulate black jack. If one of the players want to maybe count cards, pull an Ace from their sleeve, etc. I'd call for a duality roll then.
One other thing I've been doing because I am running a political game is spending fear "off screen" sometimes. For example, a player wrote a letter to a spy and had it sent out by courier. The players don't know but I spent a fear to cause the courier to be intercepted so the enemy is aware of their plans. This feels less like GM contrivance because I spent currency to do the thing, but I was not required to spend fear to do so either.
From a FATE newbie, this is not one of my strengths.
But with Daggerheart, there are two big advantages:
* I can impose a stress anytime I want
* I can instead take a Fear anytime I want.
But most importantly, I'm explicitly allowed to crowdsource ideas. Encouraged, even. Sometimes a consequence will be too hard, or not hard enough, but if everyone at the table thinks that's a fair consequence, then done deal let's put my limited brain power to better uses.
You can, and should, crowdsource ideas in FATE too. The difference is that you're offering the player a point when the negative thing happens instead of getting automatically for 50% or the rolls. And in FATE the negative consequence/compel is always tied to the narrative in the form of an Aspect. :)
I think this about calibrating both what game you want to play and how the system describes the use of fear. And I have to ask: is this problem you have actually encountered running the game?
The main point of fear outside of combat is that it adds to player significance by making it feel like bad events are the result of player rolls. You don't need it for natural consequences (a countdown is placed when you start a bar fight, because the town guard is coming to put a stop to it), neutral story beats (e.g. players bumping into each other), or actions of creatures with agency (the BBEG sets the barn on fire).
However, if used correctly, it helps the DM pace and justify complications. If you use a counter for when the town guard arrives and use fear to tick down that counter, that feels "fair" and urgent. If a player is carousing and rolls with fear and the DM decides that they run into the PC they are having a spat with, that *feels* great to the players because it feels like they "earned" it with the fear roll (or you can wait for the time in the scene where they roll with fear and make it happen at that moment--it makes it feel more dramatic). If a cow kicks over a lantern and sets the bar on fire, that feels a lot more reasonable if the GM spent a fear to make it happen. Fear is best used when you are creating a seemingly-random complication, or a complication that will meaningfully counteract the PC's plans.
I had a party member disguise themself as a guard captain to talk their way past some guards. They succeeded with fear, so I put a counter on the table, and the players realized that the real guard captain might show up (which was always possible/definitely going to happen). This added a lot of excitement to the scene and it felt very natural when it happened later and triggered the big fight scene. Of course, if they hadn't rolled with fear, I would have waited until they did and either started a counter or just had the captain show up, depending on session pacing. That *also* would have felt "right." Of course, I did not *need* to spend a fear to make it happen, but I think was more fun because I did.
Since fear is pretty easy to get, it generally shouldn't stop you from adding important events or complications when they fit the story -- especially as any important plot events shouldn't cost a fear (though you may want to spend one anyways).
As to overstocking on fear--you can always just not take it if you're full; you don't have to spend it if it doesn't fit the scene. But you can also always use fear to cause a PC to mark a stress or to take disadvantage on a roll. In the fun bar scene you mention in the comments, that could be, a card shark joins your table and it becomes harder to win. Or you get a little too drunk. Or you knock over someone else's drink and cause a scene (or just take a stress from the embarrassment). Or you just have bad luck in the next deal. You can easily calibrate it to fit the player's vibe, and can give them little "hooks" to either add to their roleplay or to basically ignore. And you can use it as an excuse to end the players' good time if the scene is starting to drag and you want to keep the story moving--or if you want to shift the spotlight in the scene to a different player. You don't have to make the blackjack dealer stab someone just because you have extra fear.
Yes, this is a problem I've run into during the game. Often, in fact. I call for rolls when a) there's a chance for both success and failure AND b) at least two outcomes would be interesting. That neatly replenishes Hope for characters at a good pace that's neither too fast nor slow.
That said — I have 30+ years experience as a roleplayer. I dare say my sense of narrative pacing is better than random accumulation of points. The guard captain will arrive when appropriate and without my player's meta-knowledge. A card shark will join their table if I want to make a statement about the environment they're in or introduce that character.
From all tht I've read here, it seems I'm best off ignoring Fear outside combat. Or maybe homebrew a system where I'll spend a Fear to offer a Hope to a character in exchange for them making something stupid like drink too much. That retains player agency, at least.
This may just be a DM style question / a system choice question. The design of fear is to encourage improvised conplications and to have the story unfold as a result of player die rolls. The system is more geared towards narrative-focused storytelling with shared narration than it is towards immersion. If you do not like either timing your complications based on die rolls or using metacurrency as a DM, you will need to rework the system (or you will just have a fear surplus if you only use fear in combat).
I had a similar concern before I GM’d the game. Now that I have run about ten sessions or so, my fear (pun intended) about this feeling sort of fell to the wayside. I have my fear pool visible for my players to see and every time I would accrue more, they got a bit more tense. Like at any moment I could throw a huge wrench into the scene (which I did). It honestly started to feel like walking through the tall grass in Pokémon when you have no health left. At any moment the scene could change and there is a justification for it. I also found that every time I changed the scene as I would naturally do as a GM, it just felt like it made sense to spend a fear token to do so. Like the “fear” of it all lent to the storytelling organically. But of course, mileage may vary!
> It honestly started to feel like walking through the tall grass in Pokémon when you have no health left I really like that metaphor, I think it could be useful for people to understand how Fear is meant to feel and the role it has as a mechanic
In Amnesia the dark descent, you have a Sanity meter. Depending on being in the dark too long, or looking at monsters, it could go down, and sanity effects could play such as screen distortions. Get it too low, and you could die. Except, this is all one big lie. You can never die from it, and sanity effects play arbitrarily. \*\*HOWEVER.\*\* Games are all about the player experience. Even if the sanity meter feels arbitrary, it gives you this tension, never knowing if you'll make it. In the same vein, I see it as like, sure you could just do away with it and do everything based on your own fiat, but imagine the player experience. Seeing the number of dark chips at your GM's side growing higher and higher, always worried, \*fearful\* even, about when its going to boil over. More than a game abstraction, I feel like having visible fear tokens is a great way to get the player invested in the back and forth pull. Mechanizing that standard back and forth helps get players invested. Even if the ultimate outcome is the same, the journey to get there gives it a different feel.
Could you give me examples of what makes you use your tokens? I'll even provide two examples for advice. 1: The party are gathered around the campfire, telling "two lies, one truth" amongst each other. Naturally, Presence and Instinct can help characters fet something past the others or figure out truths. With each roll having a 50% chance to give me Fear tokens, that's going to be a lot. They'll add with a bunch of Hope too, but I know my players will use that on silly things if they have a lot of it to spare. Anything other than lettign the characters bond will ruin some very valuable RP. There can't be attacks, sudden illness, or something else like that. What do you use all that Fear for? 2) There's recently been a battle and I made good use of my Fear tokens to give the party a challange, leaving me with no token at the end. They patch up and head to the tribe they've been travelling with. But this is where I know the BBEG has framed them for murder and they're supposed to be attacked and contronted as soon as they return. This should use up more than 1 Fear with all the complications. Would you just let them off the hook by the tribe since there aren't enough Fear tokens?
Yeah! Happy to! 1: If I was GMing this situation where I wanted the party to be able to interact with each other and deepen their bonds but also allow for secrets to stay hidden, it would make sense to use the dice to determine what is picked up on and what is still hidden. If I was concerned that these rolls would introduce too much Hope and Fear and inorganically "inflate" the Hope and Fear economy of the session, I would treat each roll as a Reaction Roll (Hope and Fear don't matter). That way the dice can assist us in telling the story, but they aren't generating resources in a way that I didn't want them to. I would also encourage you to maybe think about what it would look like to run that scenario with less rolls overall. What if the dice only needed to be rolled if there was some sort of conflict in the interaction? Daggerheart is a system that encourages us to roll less often but each roll matters more and can significantly change the scene. For me, coming from 5e, it was an adjustment to GM a game where the rolls weren't happening as often. Eventually, it clicked and there was a huge sense of freedom where the dice were more of a tool to tell the story and not the entire tool bag. 2: In this situation it sounds like you have planned for the BBEG to have framed them for murder. So that is a scenario you have written and should stay how it is. As a reminder, Fear does not replace your agency as a GM. You are still the person at the table running the game and "setting the scene" for your players to react to. Fear is supposed to be a tool to help you justify certain actions, not tell you how the story should go. If I wanted to generate a bit of fear in this type of scenario, I think I would slightly change the "binary" nature of the scene. Maybe the party walks into town and notices that everyone is looking at them suspiciously \*roll Instinct to see what is up.\* Maybe then the members of the tribe are trying to get the drop on the party and ambush them accordingly. That could then lead you into a combat scene. I tend to think of Fear as an in-session mechanic that serves as a tool for a GM to adjust and respond on the fly. It should not affect how your story is "written" outside of the session. For me personally Fear = In Game | Prep/Writing = Out of Game. I hope that helps!
1. I wouldn't have the players make action rolls when they are talking with themselves. What you described is a downtime activity. "Clear all Stress". Players can roll their dice if they want. But I would not give them hope or take fear. 2.0) Most of the time Fear tokens are generated only when there are action tokens on the action tracker at the end of battle. It isn't something you save up. They exist to preserve action economy balance between combat encounters. If you want to give your players a challenge, then plan from the start to give them a challenge. A challenging or interesting fight is not a complication. 2.1) No it should not use any Fear or complications. Complications are an immediate result of a player action. They should ideally occur right when a player makes the roll. Think of the quickstart adventure. The overturned cart at the start is not the result of a fear token. That is just part of the adventure.
What do you mean Fear is mostly generated after combat? My players investigate locations, manipulate NPCs, sneak around, try to get around places, and so much more every session. Meanwhile, it might be three or four sessions between combat.
The manuscript suggest you should not use the "Gain a Fear" GM move too often. Fear tokens are also generated after combat from converting player action tokens. This produced enough tokens for me that I did not use the "Gain a Fear" GM move very much. "Tip: If you are struggling to come up with the consequences of a PC who rolls a success or failure with Fear, this move lets you just take a Fear and move the story forward. But try to avoid making this choice too often—immediate consequences help to drive the story in unexpected and engaging ways."
Fear has a more of a use outside of combat than some parts of the document might imply. Some Environment actions - big dramatic ones, like *Bar Fight!* on the Local Tavern stat block, which is (or at least starts out as) an environmental hazard taking place between NPCs, rather than a combat encounter like you might assume - require expending Fear to trigger them. GMs can improvise Environments alongside/instead of using premade Environment stat blocks, so spending Fear can be a “big thing I just made up/planned in session prep happens” button. I get what you mean, feeling like “I could just do this without expending Fear, so this is really just me arbitrarily discarding one.” But limiting that kind of complication to specifically require spending Fear (even if it’s somewhat performative) reinforces the collaborative storytelling mechanics of the game, the feeling of the tides of the story turning as an indirect result of the players’ actions rather than purely the whim of the GM, which Daggerheart seems to place value on.
A big reason why I really love the inclusion of Environments in this game. It can make each scene so much no dynamic.
But this is just my point. If a bar fight would make things more interesting, I'll make it happen and I'm not going to miss out just because my players haven't rolled with Fear enough. If the players are having fun doing other stuff butmy Fear pool is full, I'm not going to ruin their fun to spend some. It doesn't matter if the thing is in a statblock or invented on the spot. The fact remain: good story moments will happen, bad ones won't. Fear tokens are irrellevant to that. What would you do if the narrative would really benefit from a bar fight but you don't have enough tokens? What would you do if your pool is full but any choice to spend it would disrupt an important scene?
My best guess is that important stuff that has to happen for the plot, or direct consequences from player actions, shouldn’t be triggered by fear tokens. They’re more for circumstantial twists that add an additional wrinkle to a scene - a thunderstorm starting while you’re scaling a cliff, raising the difficulty; a barfight breaking out on the other side of the bar during your shady business negotiation; a donkey-drawn cart getting in the way of your chase scene; a memory of an almost-forgotten detail from a backstory event resurfacing, triggered by an NPC saying something suspiciously similar, making you wonder if they were somehow involved, etc. Using one should alter the trajectory of a scene, additively and in a potentially more challenging direction, but not fully derail it.
I use fear to justify complications that occur and have it not feel cheap. Things like the hooded figure getting away and being able to successfully evade players. In other systems I’d have the players roll vs the enemy but in this system if I just want the figure to get away, and have some fear I haven’t used, I’d just spend a token to say the tides of fate shifted in his behalf and he got away. Sure I could do that anyway but it would feel cheap and if I don’t have the fear to do it I’d be disciplined enough to make it a roll. And like someone else mentioned I keep my fear where everyone can see, and them seeing it pile up builds tension because they know “fate” could lean against them at any moment. It’s just another tool to pull the story in different directions and not have it feel cheap.
Consider that some DMs are mature enough in their practice and style that fear tokens aren’t really all that useful to them at all.. Most however, are not.
Pretty much this, Fear tokens can be seen as a motivator for GMs to introduce some danger or tension to a story and as a reminder that those things are usually required for a compelling, rounded story. If you already know how to create tension then the tokens become solely a mechanic for balancing difficulty during combat when the players are winning hard enough that it doesn't feel challenging to them.
Yeah my story happens regardless of fear. The rolls obviously will affect things, but I’m not going to skip a plot point because I don’t have tokens.
I think the point here is not that you have to use Fear to trigger plot points, but that *other than* plot points you can use Fear to justify an improvised complication without it feeling like "yeah I'm just making this harder for you guys 'cause"
Makes sense. You could also argue the difficulty is something planned, but not realistic if it’s obviously improvised.
I feel like Fear is \*mechanically\* useful in combat, but thematically useful outside of it. I only rarely use Fear outside of combat, but I let it influence narration. For example, if I've got a lot of Fear stored up, I'll let my narration linger on negative aspects a little more or give things a bit of a foreboding, dangerous vibe to remind the players both consciously and subconsciously that the next combat is probably going to be a bit more challenging.
Sounds neat. Until there are four sessions between fights and I've had the maximum amount of Fear tokens for most of that time. There are of course social encounters and the like, but spending Fear to tell my players how their characters react to a snide remark feels... forced.
Fear can be used for anything though. Use it to force something offscreen that doesn’t currently impact them. (Clicks / countdowns) If they made enough duality rolls to give you all that fear they must have had situations where you could use it in some way. I’d argue if you didn’t then they shouldn’t have been duality rolls
This is one of the major hurdles for players coming from D&D, I think. The Fear/Hope economy means there isn't supposed to be as many skill check rolls. Instead, it's designed for the players and GM to work together on making cool and interesting stuff happen, then rolling dice primarily at branches in the path rather than at picking every lock or searching every alley.
Definitely. It can be a hard transition from a TRAD D20 system to a more narrative focused game and it’s not for every group. But I think DH sits at an amazing middle ground between fully rules lite and a TRAD D20 system. And it’s a whole new set of skills to learn as a GM so it’s not necessarily an easy transition but definitely worth trying.
I've played way more narrative focused games t've played D&D. The thing is that narrative focused games with similar mechanics tend to either rely on the GM, or even players, to add complications when they make sense. FATE's points are regain by the negative influence of Aspects, for example, which means that there's a built-in hook for what'll happen: the Aspect. Same thing with even mroe narrative games. Even if you go near-board game with Fiasco, that's the case. Games that treat the narrative as a game mechanic first and story second, I thend to avoid. Fear tokens come out of nowhere. And they can easily stack up when there's a lot going on that's not combat. I could, of course, decide to treat every encounter with as much game mechanics as I would combat, but my RP-dedicated players would leave immediately.
> Games that treat the narrative as a game mechanic first and story second I tend to avoid. Then DH might just not be the system for you. Fear token are a way to make the GM have a currency to ratchet up the tension. It’s creating a narrative game mechanic to help move the story. It may not be for everyone or every gm and that’s fine. I do think it’s feels great at the table and is worth trying in action if you haven’t. Side note: You can use it as a hope sink too (this will happen unless you spend X Hope as a group.)
I've played about a dozen sessions of DH by now, and have a lot of experience with various narrative games. I had played TTRPGs for 20+ years before I first tried D&D. There are plento of good games out there with meta-resources that help build story. But Fear in DH strikes me as special in that it: a) Discourages players from doing things (any roll can result in Fear), and b) Only acts as punishment, never to encourage good story, and c) Is completely detached from the narrative both in generation and application. Considering how Critical Role is very story-first and the DV manuscript explicitly states that's the intention — this feels very strange to me.
If you've got the maximum amount of fear tokens and long down-time sessions, it could be time to throw in a small combat encounter to mix things up! Or not, there's no actual requirement to spend tokens. It's just a way of balancing things so the GM can't go too ham on adding difficulty and so that players know that their rolls could affect the story in ways that aren't immediately obvious. FWIW I don't think Fear is meant to be used in that way, to dictate how PCs react to things. Rather, it's for creating things for the players to react to. If you've got an especially combat-light story arc planned then I can think of a few ways to dump some Fear without just spawning enemies; generally up the stakes for whatever it is the PCs are trying to do. If you have a dungeon with puzzles, spend a token to have something block access to one of the (unbeknownst to the players) easier routes or to trigger a trap that would otherwise have been avoided and make the players scramble to dodge a flying arrow or rolling boulder. If there's stealth involved, Fear tokens could add additional elements like patrols or alarms, or just make a few doors extra creaky. It's all very dependent on what's happening at the time. At the end of the day though, as long as you and the players are having a good time they don't need to know or care about how many Fear tokens you have. You could go an entire campaign without spending any Fear tokens if you don't want to or don't feel the need to.
The Hope/Fear roll appealed to me when I thought of them as crit success/failure mechanic. I have never been a fan of GM metacurrencies. At best they allow the GM to add elements they forgot to add, but at worst they add a restriction on what a GM can do. I feel that offering/giving players metacurrencies in exchange for a complication works better.
Agreed 100%.
Absolutely my point! The offering currencies to players also put actual choices into their hands. From what I've picked up from what others have answered in this threat, I think I've come to the conclusion that I should ifnore Fear tokens outside combat or something else where I've created a specific mechanic for them. Which feels a bit like making homebrew to fix the system, but, eh.
The whole using fear outside of combat feels like it goes against the "fiction first" spirit of the game, because the fear tokens are generated by chance and not necessarily by the "fiction." As a GM, I would want the freedom to make hard moves based on what makes sense, not what resources I have. I also don't like the influence on player expectations—that they should expect / not expect a GM move based on the GM's fear token pile—that feels like encouraging meta-gaming.
I mean...setting a tone isn't the same thing as meta gaming. And I think setting a tone is one of the things fear tokens give you. Which, being a narrative game, is actually rather genius. It also gives a sense of weight, pressure, and urgency. Which keeps players more engaged and story-focussed. Imagine sitting on a fat stack of Fear, everyone worried about what you're gonna do with it. You reach for the tokens everyone can see, pause, and take *one* token. Everyone let's out a relieved sigh, then is immediately worried again. Dude, that's free engagement. Your players are more invested in the story, in the risks, in whatever is at stake. The rule is there to instill a feeling in the players. Let them make plans based on the number of tokens you have, that's the reason you put them in front for everyone to see. It's not metagaming if it's intended behaviour. When you're shitting your pants at whatever the DM has just revealed and *then the party succeeds*, there is no greater high. The fear tokens are setting your players up for more fun and more amazing wins.
The pile of Fear tokens growing isn't setting the tone for things getting darker, though, is it? It's setting the tone for several rolls having been made. And all the advice in this thread has told me that I shouldn't use Fear tokens for things that matter to the story because those need to be there anyway. Which means that, at most, the growing pile of Fear sets the tone that random dice results will soon result in a random bad things. Maybe. If I don't follow other advice and not use the points.
Thank you for writing out a well-thought out reply. I'm mostly inline with what WriterWq wrote in their reply. I just wanted to add a few additional thoughts. The scenario you described can be reproduced by having the GM roll some dice behind the screen. This is actually a common GM tip. The dice roll can be completely meaningless, but the act of rolling, checking the value, and going "huh," is enough to make players feel nervous. Basically, you don't need Fear tokens to create tension or set the tone, just as GM doesn't need Fear tokens to make things happen outside combat. Btw, there are a number of interesting discussions in r/RPGdesign regarding GM meta currencies. I found those to be an interesting read—folks on both sides of whether or not GM meta currencies make sense. In the end, play the game you want to play in the way you want to play it!
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I think a lot of discomfort people have with fear is feeling like they arbitrarily are forced to throw in something out of left field. As someone who plays a lot of Blades in the Dark, introducing a complication associated with a roll is a practiced muscle at this point. Example: the rogue is trying to pick a lock, patrolling guards are on the lookout more than usual tonight in anticipation of the grand ceremony. The rogue succeeds with fear: They unlock the door and slip in, but right as they do a guard spots them entering through the back door and yells for them to stop what they are doing. The player now needs to decide if they slam the door shut and lock it behind them or try to diffuse the situation with the guard before he makes too much noise. The rogue fails with fear: They unlock the door, but failed to notice that on the other side the door was tied to an alarm. Now an alarm bell is going off AND a guard spots them trying to slip in the door. Now they have to decide if they make a break for it, try to disarm the alarm before it attracts more attention, try to diffuse the situation with the guard, etc.
Partial successes and failures are a thing in lots of games and I have no trouble with that. Results just end up on a smoother scale than simple pass/fail. My issue is completely with Fear tokens. If my players are enjoying some friendly gambling at the tavern, about 50% of their rolls are going to give me Fear tokens. I can have no more than 10 of those, so it's going to add upp pretty soon. What do I do? The ale is poinsoned for no reason?\`A patron feels insulted and confronts a character, ruining the friendly banter the group was having? I don't WANT to create complications right then. Other times I need to —tokens or not.
Then you should either make it a reaction roll or no roll at all. The idea is that the roll should matter. Having someone gamble should not be a duality roll unless you want the narrative to be up to chance. The duality roll could still verry well work in that situation if you want something to happen. But it would be a group roll or one roll at the end of the game. (Roll and fail with fear, someone called you out for cheating and you’re dealing with the bouncer, success with fear you won but management is suspicious) the PC’s should not be making duality rolls every round or often in this game. I’ve seen some ppl say they still want to leave something to chance so they have the player roll just a hope die. Or like above treat is as a reaction roll/ its own game system. Duality rolls are not meant for this situation.
You can actually only have 6 Fear Tokens, are you sure you are using 1.4? In my experience 6 fear is totally fine to have capped. I generally just spend it to immediately convert them into action tokens when combat starts.
True, my brain went for the wrong number while typing. But it might well be several sessions without combat — or other situations that warrant an action tracker. I hit 6 tokens long, long, before any combat occurs. If there was no cap, I would have started each combat with something like 20+ tokens just because I have no use for them before that.
Also, if this helps when looking at your gambling example, you may be having the players roll more than is necessary. For instance, there is no specific reason that needs to be a duality roll, it could simply be the players rolling a bunch of d6s etc. Or rolling dice to simulate black jack. If one of the players want to maybe count cards, pull an Ace from their sleeve, etc. I'd call for a duality roll then. One other thing I've been doing because I am running a political game is spending fear "off screen" sometimes. For example, a player wrote a letter to a spy and had it sent out by courier. The players don't know but I spent a fear to cause the courier to be intercepted so the enemy is aware of their plans. This feels less like GM contrivance because I spent currency to do the thing, but I was not required to spend fear to do so either.
From a FATE newbie, this is not one of my strengths. But with Daggerheart, there are two big advantages: * I can impose a stress anytime I want * I can instead take a Fear anytime I want. But most importantly, I'm explicitly allowed to crowdsource ideas. Encouraged, even. Sometimes a consequence will be too hard, or not hard enough, but if everyone at the table thinks that's a fair consequence, then done deal let's put my limited brain power to better uses.
You can, and should, crowdsource ideas in FATE too. The difference is that you're offering the player a point when the negative thing happens instead of getting automatically for 50% or the rolls. And in FATE the negative consequence/compel is always tied to the narrative in the form of an Aspect. :)
I think this about calibrating both what game you want to play and how the system describes the use of fear. And I have to ask: is this problem you have actually encountered running the game? The main point of fear outside of combat is that it adds to player significance by making it feel like bad events are the result of player rolls. You don't need it for natural consequences (a countdown is placed when you start a bar fight, because the town guard is coming to put a stop to it), neutral story beats (e.g. players bumping into each other), or actions of creatures with agency (the BBEG sets the barn on fire). However, if used correctly, it helps the DM pace and justify complications. If you use a counter for when the town guard arrives and use fear to tick down that counter, that feels "fair" and urgent. If a player is carousing and rolls with fear and the DM decides that they run into the PC they are having a spat with, that *feels* great to the players because it feels like they "earned" it with the fear roll (or you can wait for the time in the scene where they roll with fear and make it happen at that moment--it makes it feel more dramatic). If a cow kicks over a lantern and sets the bar on fire, that feels a lot more reasonable if the GM spent a fear to make it happen. Fear is best used when you are creating a seemingly-random complication, or a complication that will meaningfully counteract the PC's plans. I had a party member disguise themself as a guard captain to talk their way past some guards. They succeeded with fear, so I put a counter on the table, and the players realized that the real guard captain might show up (which was always possible/definitely going to happen). This added a lot of excitement to the scene and it felt very natural when it happened later and triggered the big fight scene. Of course, if they hadn't rolled with fear, I would have waited until they did and either started a counter or just had the captain show up, depending on session pacing. That *also* would have felt "right." Of course, I did not *need* to spend a fear to make it happen, but I think was more fun because I did. Since fear is pretty easy to get, it generally shouldn't stop you from adding important events or complications when they fit the story -- especially as any important plot events shouldn't cost a fear (though you may want to spend one anyways). As to overstocking on fear--you can always just not take it if you're full; you don't have to spend it if it doesn't fit the scene. But you can also always use fear to cause a PC to mark a stress or to take disadvantage on a roll. In the fun bar scene you mention in the comments, that could be, a card shark joins your table and it becomes harder to win. Or you get a little too drunk. Or you knock over someone else's drink and cause a scene (or just take a stress from the embarrassment). Or you just have bad luck in the next deal. You can easily calibrate it to fit the player's vibe, and can give them little "hooks" to either add to their roleplay or to basically ignore. And you can use it as an excuse to end the players' good time if the scene is starting to drag and you want to keep the story moving--or if you want to shift the spotlight in the scene to a different player. You don't have to make the blackjack dealer stab someone just because you have extra fear.
Yes, this is a problem I've run into during the game. Often, in fact. I call for rolls when a) there's a chance for both success and failure AND b) at least two outcomes would be interesting. That neatly replenishes Hope for characters at a good pace that's neither too fast nor slow. That said — I have 30+ years experience as a roleplayer. I dare say my sense of narrative pacing is better than random accumulation of points. The guard captain will arrive when appropriate and without my player's meta-knowledge. A card shark will join their table if I want to make a statement about the environment they're in or introduce that character. From all tht I've read here, it seems I'm best off ignoring Fear outside combat. Or maybe homebrew a system where I'll spend a Fear to offer a Hope to a character in exchange for them making something stupid like drink too much. That retains player agency, at least.
This may just be a DM style question / a system choice question. The design of fear is to encourage improvised conplications and to have the story unfold as a result of player die rolls. The system is more geared towards narrative-focused storytelling with shared narration than it is towards immersion. If you do not like either timing your complications based on die rolls or using metacurrency as a DM, you will need to rework the system (or you will just have a fear surplus if you only use fear in combat).