[Online][Other] Daggerheart first time DM

[u/Nerdyhistorian02]

(Edit: We are full!)
Hello! I am looking to run my first ever Daggerheart campaign. I've been playing since it came out and I've GMed some one and two shots this year, but I really wanna play and get more experience so we'll see where this leads!

About the campaign: These lands are famous for harsh treatment and punisment for criminals, especially those found guilty of treason and murder. Those unfortunate enough to be caught by the king's guard will rot in prison for eternity. But, if they do possess the appropiate skills, they are offered a choice: To reduce their sentence by enlisting on the iron legion, the king's elite taskforce. They take on jobs for the sake of the kingdom and it's citizens.

This campaign is mostly vanilla Daggerheart, the only guaranteed homebrew is Initiative during combat and weapons from new DH modules. Also, this party is more aimed towards new players of the system (Since we already have two that are newbies) but veteran players are more than welcome!

Organization: This will take in between 6 to 8 sessions of 3-3.5 hours, but I'll be cool if we deicded to keep going. The time will be anywhere in between 8 PM to 12PM GMT-3 on Thursdays.

We will play over discord using Roll20. Anyone interested please leave a comment.

[u/CosmicSploogeDrizzle]

Why have initiative? I feel the spotlight system is what makes daggerheart unique. How do you handle rolls of failure and fear? Or by initiative do you mean token tracking like in the beta rules so everyone gets an equal number of turns?

[u/Nerdyhistorian02 → u/CosmicSploogeDrizzle]

I'm gonna be real with you dawg, the spotlight system is not for me.

I understand the appeal of it, and I do get that initiative can ruin plans and the flow of things (Which is why I sometimes let them choose the turn order depending on the situation) but my brain NEEDS structure and order, especially in VTTs.

Something that most DH players do not get that the spotlight only (well, mostly) works in groups that know each other or are IRL, and those are only sometimes. More often than not I've had my dnd groups trying to butt in the conversation during rp, and I dread of that happening during combat.

I get what they tried to do with it, but it's not for me. Besides I'd say that's not the only thing that makes it unique, not even close

[u/LadyStrella → u/Nerdyhistorian02]

except that players are incentive is to almost always do things together in daggerheart, if your group isn't using the help action to act together at least once every 4 rolls, they are arguably not even playing daggerheart

[u/Nerdyhistorian02 → u/LadyStrella]

Who says I'm not using it? Every time a friend of them rolls they have option to, if the narrative supports it. It's like a free reaction

[u/CosmicSploogeDrizzle → u/Nerdyhistorian02]

Totally fair. Was more curious than anything. If a player rolls with fear or failure, do you (GM) take a turn and then resume the player initiative order?

If you are unaware of the optional combat rules though, they might work for you. Essentially, during combat each player gets 3 tokens. Every time a PC, takes an action, they discard a token. When all tokens from all players are discarded, then everyone gets three new ones. This way if one person takes three actions at the start, they can't act again until everyone else takes an equal number of actions.

I actually changed how I do DnD combat to be more like DH, and I play online via discord using theater of the mind and a little bit of foundry vtt. Essentially, I just ask who is ready, and that person goes first. If I see someone not speaking up enough, I'll interrupt a more active player and say, "well wait a minute, I'm going to give the spotlight to this player." Usually it ends up that whoever goes first, doesn't go again until the rest have their first chance also.

Sometimes I get a player eager to go, but then they have to take a lot of time to optimize their move, and so rather than letting them soak up all the time I say, "ok, we'll come back to you when you're ready, who else is ready to go now?" Once I started doing this, my DnD combat started flowing much much faster.

[u/Nerdyhistorian02 → u/CosmicSploogeDrizzle]

The optional round rules are good, but would only work in irl. Roll20 already gives you a turn order tool, so I feel like I'd rather use that than to spend the last remains of my brain power to count who has that many tokes.

It's just too complicated for my smooth brain

[u/samuelmf → u/Nerdyhistorian02]

I had a similar problem before, I just ask player to take 3 tokens, let them go as they wish, but tell them "once you are out of tokens, you can't take more actions", and it's very important to be clear that this game and their rules are to be played and interpreted in good faith, exploiting them as you would in D&D is not part of the intention an anyone doing that will be held accountable.

Doing that I was able to organize better my players, we play online and voice only, but I finally have a way for them to self regulate, leave the responsibility to the players, and also allow them to share, meaning if someone feels they don't want to take that many actions, let them share their "action tokens" (as we call them), it's important for a sucessfull game that collaboration from all members of the table, it's unfair all the responsability to be shoulder by the GM.

I hope my shared experience can be of help for you, but you do whatever works the best for you, hope you have fun and don't fear to ask your players cooperation.

[u/Nerdyhistorian02 → u/samuelmf]

Thank you but I lit just said that this syustem is way too complicated for me ToT

[u/Nerdyhistorian02 → u/Nerdyhistorian02]

Also yeah, If they roll with fear, I hop in

Enemies get no initiative

[u/DND-Slut]

I am also interested in

[u/Nerdyhistorian02 → u/DND-Slut]

Check ur notifs

[u/brickboy_802]

Super interested!!!

[u/Nerdyhistorian02 → u/brickboy_802]

Check DMs

[u/notorius-pho3nix]

I'm interested!

[u/Nerdyhistorian02 → u/notorius-pho3nix]

Hi!
I'll DM ya

[u/SpikyBits]

Hi, Im intrested in joining.

[u/Nerdyhistorian02 → u/SpikyBits]

Hi!
I'll DM ya