(Author’s Note: this post was written based on the Daggerheart Open Beta v1.5)
I have come across many TTRPG systems. For every system I have played, I have purchased the rulebook for five more, and for every rulebook I have purchased, I have been interested in a dozen more.
And yet, something struck me about Daggerheart that within 24 hours, I was actively recruiting players for a one-shot.
This weekend, I ran The Sablewoods Messengers open beta quickstart adventure for four friends online. In short, I had a really good time, and despite the rails of a quickstart one-shot, I felt like the rules were supporting the sort of game I want to run.
Let me break down how it went.
Preparing to GM
I ran this adventure about two weeks after I discovered Daggerheart. In that time, I spent way too long configuring this website. Other than that, I spent most of my prep time reading the rulebook and watching the Critical Role actual play. After I nailed down a group and time, I had three or four days to read the adventure itself and get ready.
First, I printed out the adventure guide and the ancillary GM sheets. Despite intending to play online with my two screens in front of me, I felt more comfortable having the printout to quickly flip back and forth without taking screen real estate.
Second, I asked my players to create Demiplane accounts. Since we were online, it only made sense to me to use digital character sheets as well. I waited until we played to actually pick characters and setup the character sheets as well since I could screen share the exact process for doing it.
Third, I created battle maps. Despite being an early Roll20 user (and fan), I actually just used Google Drawings for this session to avoid another login and any expectation of more rule-based overhead. I considered doing theater of mind, but even with the abstracted distances, visual references are just really helpful. I found Lost Atlas extremely helpful for finding exactly the maps I wanted.
Finally, I optionally suggested that the players watch the How to Play Daggerheart video. As it turns out, the quickstart is really, really tuned for teaching the rules, so it was unnecessary.
Running the Quickstart
Of the four players, I had two experienced 5e players, one player with varied TTRPG experience, and one who had never played anything before (but otherwise enjoys board games and fantasy).
Ignoring pre-game smalltalk and post-game reflections, the adventure took us about 2.5 hours, which I was quite pleased about given how much ground we covered. I didn’t really push the players to explore much in the open-ended scenes, but I also didn’t think they missed much, either.
It was a little awkward starting with the character Question and Connections. Even for the best players, it can be tricky to, within moments, understand well-enough who your character is and how you might extend them. I felt like the players should have an opportunity to role-play first.
The gray read-aloud boxes were by-and-large very helpful. When it came to rules, I didn’t exactly follow the content since I wanted to offer more interactivity for my players. For example, when I told my players about action rolls and duality dice, I actually prompted each player with a pretend (well, TTRPGs are all pretend, but this is really really pretend) role and had them read out the result to me.
When the adventure starts, there’s a prompt to try out “Ask Questions and Incorporate the Answers.” I was ready for either crickets or some suggestions either too mundane or unusual to use. However, the players actually suggested perfectly usable details, and one of those ended up being referenced several times through the session.
Tag team is great. It isn’t mentioned in the quickstart, but after taking a break before the last fight, I mentioned both that and “Help an Ally” as additional options.
Reflections on the Session
Combat felt much more natural with the dynamic turn-taking rather than fixed initiative. I suspect I’ll have more to say in the future, but upon further thought, one thing bothered me. No one likes to swing-and-miss, but Daggerheart actually accentuates that even more. Not only can the player miss, doing so also gives the reins back to the GM to punish the players.
I like the duality dice as much as I expected. I appreciate both the binary success and failure but also just enough nuance for wiggle room on top of that. Due to the constraints of the one-shot, I ended up not doing much with the “succeed with Fear” and “fail with hope” cases, but maybe next time, I will.
If I were to run this adventure again, I would make a few tweaks. There were some loose ends and perhaps some details and situations I would plan for. However, I think it, overall, is a solid quickstart adventure.
What’s Next
I believe that you should never start a campaign by starting a campaign.
What I mean is that there’s so much to figure out for the long-term viability of a campaign to even start with Session Zero. I think the best place to start a campaign is with a One-Shot.
With a One-Shot, there’s no initial commitment to scare off players before they’re ready.
With a One-Shot, a GM can feel out the table dynamic to determine if this is a good group or not.
With a One-Shot, players can experiment with different characters. If they like them, they might keep them. Same goes with just about any other detail.
With a One-Shot, you can followup to ask for a bigger commitment. Maybe it’s a two-to-four session adventure arc. Maybe you can just drop in the campaign and do Session Zero.
And that’s where I am with Daggerheart. I got great feedback from all of the players, so we have tentatively agreed to do it again. The Sablewood Messengers was the right place for us to get started, and I’m looking forward to delving into more Daggerheart content.
Leave a Reply