Teaching the Game

Guiding Players

Mechanical Overview

This section will cover the very basic mechanical elements of Daggerheart. Read the boxed sections aloud. As you do, ask the players to follow along.

We’re going to quickly cover the basics of what you need to know to start playing. First off, Daggerheart is a collaborative, narrative-focused roleplaying game. That means we'll all be working together to tell a story using the mechanics of the game as our foundation. You will each make choices for your characters during the adventure, and I will describe the rest of the world reacting around them. Sometimes I might ask you a question—what your character knows about a place or has heard about a person. I'll do my best to integrate your answers into the story we're telling, so that we're building this world together!

Okay, let's turn to your Character Sheet. You’ll find an additional page underneath that we’ll call the “Sidecar.” Slide it out to the left until you reach the dotted line.

Character Sheets

You have a character sheet and an explainer sheet on pages 25 and 26 to use as well. Use them to walk your players through their own character sheet, starting on the left side of the sidecar. Moving around the table, have each player read a section aloud. Then, slide the sidecar out to the right side and do this again. Once you’re finished, come back here.

NOTE

The pregenerated characters are available from the Library under the Modules window. Click on Pregenerated Characters to add them to your campaign.

Rolling Dice

Before reading the next section, ask players to grab their dice and roll them with you.

Action Rolls

Now that we’ve looked at our character sheets, let’s talk about how we roll the dice in Daggerheart. I’ll give you the basics and we’ll learn more as we go! First, grab your 2d12 dice, called your Duality Dice. Decide which represents Hope and which represents Fear.

When you have your character do something in the story that is dangerous or could result in consequences, I'll probably ask you to make an action roll. You’ll roll both of those d12 dice, and add the applicable character trait to the result. I’ll usually tell you which one it is, but sometimes I might ask you. If you want to, you may use some of the tokens you have to represent the modifier for a roll.

Let’s say you are making an Agility roll and you have a +2 in that trait—you’ll take 2 tokens into your hand and roll them along with your dice. Then, you’ll count everything up and tell me the result, along with which die rolled higher. For example, if you rolled a 6 on the Hope die and a 10 on the Fear die, that would be 16, plus the 2 tokens you rolled, bringing it to a total of 18. Because the Fear die rolled higher, you would tell me that you got an "18 with Fear."

If you roll with Hope, you mark a Hope on your sheet. If you roll with Fear, I gain a Fear and can make a GM move. This means I get to impact the flow of the narrative, usually to add some kind of complication to the scene. I start the game with a number of Fear equal to the number of players.

Take that number of Fear tokens to illustrate this.

Sometimes, you might have an Experience that applies to a roll. Maybe you have “Expert Climber” and are attempting to scale a wall, or “Eagle Eye” and you’re trying to spot tracks in the dirt. You can spend a Hope before the roll to describe how that Experience helps you and add its value to your roll.

Lastly, let’s talk about Spellcast rolls. Those are action rolls using your Spellcast trait, which will be on your Subclass's Foundation card if you are a spellcaster. For example, Marlowe’s Spellcast Trait is Instinct.

How Dice Rolls Affect The Story

Alright, we’ve talked about how we roll dice, let’s talk about what they do in the story! Usually, I’ll set a difficulty for the roll based on the situation, like 6 or 14 or 25, and your goal is to meet or beat that number. If an ability or spell has a number on it, like Spellcast Roll (13), that’s the difficulty of the roll. If you succeed, you get what you wanted! If you don’t, you fail and something new happens in the story because of it. Hope and Fear also play a part in this:

If you get a success with Hope, that means you accomplish your goal and all is well. You can continue to pass the scene around the table to the other players as you’d like.

A success with Fear means you do it, but there is a consequence or a complication, so I gain a Fear and can make what we call a “GM move.” This just means I’ll change the story in some way. You might have to mark a Stress, adversaries might attack, the environment might change, or you might only get part of what you wanted. The move I make will always aim to push the story we’re telling forward in an exciting way.

If you roll a failure with Hope, you don’t get what you wanted, but things don’t go as badly as they could. I’ll make a move that matches the narrative, and then I’ll turn things back to the rest of the table.

If you roll a failure with Fear, the situation goes very badly. I’ll gain a Fear and make a move that raises the stakes to highlight the consequences.

Saving the best for last, if you ever roll two of the same number, no matter what that number is, that is a critical success in Daggerheart. You get what you wanted and a little extra. You get to mark a Hope and you can also clear a Stress, if you have one. If it is an attack roll, you add the maximum your damage dice could roll as a modifier to your damage roll. For example, if you deal 1d8+4 damage, you’d add an additional 8 to the roll.

Action Rolls

Take that number of Fear tokens to illustrate this.

How Dice Rolls Affect The Story

Combat

Next, put some character and terrain standees on the table to simulate a battle map, and continue reading aloud.

Finally, we’re going to talk about combat. Sometimes when a fight breaks out, I'll put a map of some kind on the table to show where everybody is. When you want to attack a target, you’ll ask me if it is in range of your weapon. If it is, you can make an action roll with that weapon, using the trait it calls for. This is called an attack roll. If you succeed against the target, you’ll then make a damage roll. Look at the damage dice section of your weapon and roll the specified dice, then tell me the total and whether the damage is physical or magic.

If any of your action rolls during combat are with Fear or are a failure, I will often use my GM move to put the spotlight on an adversary who is attacking you or doing something else important in the scene as the consequence. Additionally, I have the opportunity to spend Fear after that happens to shift the spotlight to an additional adversary or make another GM move. In most cases, I can't have the same enemy take the spotlight more than once in a GM turn, so after I'm out of adversaries to spotlight or I've spent as much Fear as I want to, I'll pass play back to you all to figure out what happens next.

Combat functions just the same as the rest of the game, meaning there is no turn order you must go in. You all get to do what you'd like in the order you want to do it, and I get to make GM moves in response. Because of this, you shouldn't feel locked into only making an attack on the enemy once the fight breaks out. Remember to think about the scene and situation as a whole narrative moment, and consider what you could do to make the best story.

Continued

Review the mechanics and narrative on this page and the one following it. The quickstart adventure will lead you through what you need to know, but it will help to have a primer before you jump in.

Mechanical Overview

You always set a difficulty before an action roll. Sometimes the difficulty will be noted by an adversary, other times you’ll have to make it up. Use the information below as guidance:

10 - Easy | 15 - Medium | 20 - Hard

Remember that when PCs roll with Hope, they gain a Hope, and when PCs roll with Fear, you gain a Fear.

You can always give advantage or disadvantage to a PC on a roll, if it makes sense in the situation. If a player has advantage, have them roll a d6 and add the value to their roll. If they have disadvantage, they instead subtract that value. When you have advantage as a GM, you roll an additional d20 and take the higher result. When you have disadvantage, roll an additional d20 and take the lower one.

You can always make a GM move when the players roll a failure or with Fear, the narrative provides a golden opportunity, or the table looks to you for what happens next. Additionally, you can always spend a Fear to make a GM move when you normally wouldn't.

When you make a GM move, you should create a complication, signal that a new threat is on its way, reveal a new danger, spotlight an adversary, have the PC mark a Stress, or anything else that seems narratively relevant in the scene.

During combat, you'll often use your GM move to spotlight an adversary. This means it is their turn to act, usually to move and/or attack a target in range of their weapon, or do something else important in the scene. Remember that you can always spend a Fear after spotlighting an adversary to shift the spotlight to another adversary, or make an additional GM move of your choice. You can typically only spotlight each adversary once per GM turn.

When an adversary attacks a PC, you’ll make an attack roll. Roll a d20 and add the adversary’s attack modifier, then ask if the total meets or beats the Evasion value on the PC’s character sheet. If it does, you’ll roll the damage dice and tell the PC what the value and type is. “That’s a 5 and a 3, so that’s 8 points of physical damage.”

While in battle, keep an eye on quieter players or those who are more hesitant to jump in on their own, and if needed, shift the spotlight their direction by asking them what they are doing in the scene.

Ranges in the game are abstracted to common language and at your discretion, but if you’re playing with maps and minis, the list below is a good place to start:

Melee is when two creatures are next to one another.
Very Close is 5-10 feet, or anywhere on the map within the length of the short side of a playing card (about 3 inches).
Close is 10-30 feet, or anywhere on the map within the length of a standard pencil (about 6 inches).
Far is 30-100 feet, or anywhere within a letter-sized piece of paper’s longest length (about 12 inches).
Very Far is anywhere beyond that, while still in the scene.

Movement during a player’s turn is only restricted if there is danger present in the scene. During combat, PCs can move anywhere within close range when they are making an action roll. If they want to move as their only action, or get somewhere beyond close range while danger is present, they should make an Agility roll to see if they get there safely.

Adversaries can move within close range and act (make an attack, etc.), or spend their spotlight moving anywhere else.

Below is a stat block for an adversary in this adventure.

Thistlefolk Thief

Tier 1 Leader

Serrated Blade: Melee - 2d4+3 (phy)

ATK: +3 Difficulty: 14

Thresholds: 7/14

HP: 4 Stress: 2

FEATURES

Back Off - Action: Spend a Fear to make an attack roll against all targets within melee range. Any they succeed against are blasted backwards, dealing 2d6+3 magic damage and pushing them into far range.

On the left side are their standard weapon attack, attack modifier, and the difficulty to hit the thief. On the right are their damage thresholds, hit points, and stress. On the bottom are their features, special moves they can make. Actions are moves the adversary can make that while in the spotlight, and Reactions tell you when to use them but often happen when an adversary is not already in the spotlight. Some features also require spending Fear.

Fear Guide

Spend a Fear to interrupt the scene with a GM move.
Spend a Fear to make an additional move during a GM turn.
Spend a Fear to use an adversary's or environment's Fear move.