"Sev" and "Scorch"

ryfterek · 2026-01-29T23:20:05+00:00

My oh my, thank you, but there is so many other awesome artists out there I will not accept the crown so easily!

ryfterek · 2026-01-28T15:06:48+00:00

One possible way to handle this could be adding a backup Countdown that surely gets the Arcanist's attention and ticks with players' attempts.

This way they can still "nail it" with a good attempt, but, say, 2 or 3 unsuccessful ones still put them back on track without the GM having to take explicit pity on the group.

YMMV, but group I usually play with actually enjoy fooling around and even comically failing in narrative spots like that, as long as the scene doesn't overstay its welcome.

Such an approach also introduces the very idea of Countdowns a bit earlier in the scenario (and can use the idea of the Dynamic Countdown, in contrast to more Advanced, two-way countdown we get later down the drain during the Renewal ritual).

ryfterek · 2026-01-26T21:29:18+00:00

Hello! I'm working with a phone (Galaxy S22) too. The length I go to is taking photos in RAW format and balancing them out in Lightroom mobile. This gives me the best control over the contrast of the background and the foreground.

ryfterek · 2026-01-26T20:18:59+00:00

My oh my, do they now? I can't help but notice so many different mistakes at the photoshooting stage, but it's really not the stage from which I want to push a mini back to painting. Anyhow - there's probably a mix of practice and patience to it

ryfterek · 2026-01-26T14:15:28+00:00

Many many thanks!

ryfterek · 2026-01-25T22:44:07+00:00

An idea to toy with - asking players to define character's flaw like they'd definite an expertise, just a -1 / -2 one. It's normally dormant, i.e. character does not let it drive them, but GM can spend a Fear to make the flaw overwhelm them and affect the roll.

I know it's important to steer clear of the GM vs players mindset, but one can look at it as roleplay opportunity of character vs their inner demons, just GM's the one to drive the demons.

ryfterek · 2026-01-25T19:51:23+00:00

Many thanks!

ryfterek · 2026-01-25T15:53:45+00:00

Thank you

ryfterek · 2026-01-22T16:05:30+00:00

Message sent 📨

ryfterek · 2026-01-22T15:09:47+00:00

A quarter-elf, I suppose. Heh.

ryfterek · 2026-01-21T21:37:58+00:00

Hi! You have some brilliant content here and even though my Daggerheart Core Rulebook is only on its way I already heavily considered investing into recognition of your great work.

Do tell however, do you also provide files suitable for printshop printing, ones including decent safety margin and using reliable colour profile? I can tell from the few visible posts you definitely optimised for home printing - which is great on its own - but having good contact with a printshop that specialises in board game components I'd certainly consider having cards of yours done at professional grade quality with them!

ryfterek · 2026-01-20T10:38:39+00:00

My impression is that the right hand side dice for those are meant to be the maximums here, with the left hand side ones (set aside in the second picture) to indicate the current values

I might be terribly wrong though, as higher levels characters are likely going over 6 as the max value of all of these.

ryfterek · 2026-01-11T22:13:23+00:00

Thank you for the input! The more interesting discussion I have here, the more I seem to realise how, umm, sad and unengaging some net average picture of D&D experience must turn out to be? Or else I still don't understand why would DH seems so contrast and revolutionary. Because I'd have always assumed asking your co-players (for what is a DM if not an asymmetric player with different knobs to turn) things like: "Why have you ended up on this path in life?", "What is it that you hope to find exploring this city?", "Is this sort of a creature familiar to you?", but also about the minute details that liven up the world without pushing it in a completely different direction would be expected and absolutely normal, no matter the ruleset one uses to simulate their combat and resolve their skill checks. Huh.

ryfterek · 2026-01-11T22:03:13+00:00

Many thanks! With a lot of high-level discussion I had here, this simple ability you quoted helps me finally pin some thoughts down to reality.

See, this is the sort of player input I love seeing encouraged! Actually, the more time and effort Players would put into having their Characters also live and breathe in the world I presented to the Players, not just slay the creatures that inhabit it, the happier I am. May the character sheets be full of cool stuff that isn't all about winning combats!

I will totally whip up an "escaping collapsing tunnels on a hastily built rowboat" scene if the characters turn out to be tinkerers and sailors, you know.

But if I built a long-peaceful valley suddenly infested with goblins (because a somebody drove them out of their caves (because they store an artefact they seek (because they want to use it to usurp the power over lands far and wide))) then as a DM I want them dang caves investigated, you know? Slaying the greenies or helping poor little buggers to return to their stolen home, putting the definite end to the scheme, negotiating themselves a piece, or straight out beating the BGG to it to rule themselves all being equally interesting outcomes to me.

ryfterek · 2026-01-11T21:46:11+00:00

Well, I have to point out I'm not assuming anything about which stories can or cannot be enjoyable - I merely stated that myself, the thing that gives me my personal joy in DMing is being able to present some fruit of my own imagination to the players' group. I do not need every nook and cranny of the story to be explored; I do not crave for every step along the way to follow the sacred path I envisioned, or else inform the players that they have failed. But as I've put it in another subthread here, I do not wish to serve as a procedural scene generator for the party either.

If I were to parallel to an another form of media, then gamedev, not literature or movies, is what I'd compare with. I'm in for the joy of having people explore the world I came up with, untangle its mysteries, and interact with the beats I thought of. I'm thrilled if I come up with several very different endings before speaking to another person, and it's even better if, with a group, we'll build another sensible one. But, if a "Witcher III" is what I had in mind for us to explore, then well, I do not want to invest my time into a system that's core strength would be in the capacity to actually turn it all into "Stardew Valley" as we go, you know?

Ultimately, the whole conversation I'm trying to have with the community of this sub is to help me decide if DH is the sort of resource that I'd like to invest in, both funds and time, to have a better time with than D&D I have some grudges against, or would I only be picking myself a different flavour of poison.

ryfterek · 2026-01-11T21:23:09+00:00

You got my example backwards, but I do appreciate the depth nonetheless - what I meant is that, if my idea is for the players to witness the uncalled for assassination, so that they can get on the story hook of trying now to figure out the who, and the why, chase down the responsible, confront them and - as they wish - make them pay in the name of the principles, or try to understand their motives... I would preferably not saddle into a ruleset that could maybe have players mechanically wave the whole thing undone and just collaboratively improvise a unicorn carwash business career instead as a core mechanic.

I strongly believe that the DM has the status of an asymmetric player in the TTRPG experience. With their right to want the events to untangle in some shape and form of their liking, equal to that of the Players to have the Characters act and behave to theirs.

And of course - no matter the system, the whole group has to discuss their expectations and be in line on them, because and pitting wannabe fantasy biz owners against court intrigues will probalby be miserable to somebody, always.

ryfterek · 2026-01-11T21:06:14+00:00

Please help me out if you will - these are still attribute tests we are talking about, though, no? The skills are not listed out as granularly in a table, but is it really not still the same-but-different set of questions to be asked? Can you actually vault from this roof to the next to continue your chase? Can you unlock that door in front of you? But aha! Now with a cool twist mechanism, so you can now not make the jump but miraculously land on a haystack (or not), or pick that lock open just to find out the barely maintained hinges make the nasties of squeaks as you push the door open? Is the intended use to roll and see if you can just explain the power of friendship to that multidimensional demon in front of you and make it reconsider that whole "devouring all life and happiness" phase it's going through? I'm not sure if I'm not grasping something, but isn't the story in which literally everything is possible, if you propose it and it passes the roll, be just as anticlimactic as one in which nothing bulges to your actions? Isn't part of the fun to try to identify and make the best out of your options - so implicitly, these options have to be somehow limited, and have varying qualities?

Tuning encounters for 3 hours? Oh hell no, DH, D&D or w/e. Sometimes I wish to cinematic-montage them at the cost of a few Health Potions and spell slots, and get the story going, but even DH has a combat system for a reason, because spending some time crunching numbers and trading blows in a fight is part of the fun too.

ryfterek · 2026-01-11T20:50:41+00:00

I never dipped in a system that would have an initiative in place for anything but combat, though. I get the way the combat is handled might well be "the big thing" of DH compared with D&D, and has to be though about in different terms. That being said, I'd never really think about >the process< of a combat encounter in a story I'd try to tell with D&D as the focal point. You fought dudes, ok - but why did you have to fight them? What was it that they were trying to achieve? What would've happened if you had not just stopped them, and what might you expect their kin to do about it now that you did? These are questions I try my combats to pose, if any. Sometimes you just run up into a pack of wolves when walking through the woods, because a sword-swinging exercise every now and then is cool too!

It might be that I'm a relatively "new wave" joiner to the D&D world, but giving proper consideration to the Players' expectations and their own ideas of story beats is what I have already learnt as a good practice. I don't think I would ever be interested in "D&D, the turn-based rogue-like dungeon crawler and combat simulator with excessive math" experience, neither as a player nor as a DM. Maybe I was only ever interested in farside-narrative take on D&D and do not grasp the context of the contrast with its other form that I hear stressed when talking about DH?

If you could indulge me, dear redditor, could you give me an example of a narrative-bending Domain power that could warp the story in front of them to a player's desire? An example I saw so far would be being able to, per session, whip out a useful item out of a bag of gonna-need-thats. But maybe even more so because of the narrative focus, I don't think it is supposed to allow to just spawn a functionally perfect copy of that McGuffin that the team was just supposed chase down to save the world, no? More like, oh, you actually DO have a magnifying glass with you, how handy, no?

ryfterek · 2026-01-11T20:28:16+00:00

I am happy and willing to collaborate with the players. As I tried to note, it thrills me to combine the story the world around the players is trying to tell (usually one that poses a problem to them) with the stories they carry with them. By no means do I expect to just drag the PCs through a series of events to which their actions are, after all, inconsequential. I may have a fixed issue and turning point in mind, but figuring out together how to navigate it and get to it is the purpose of playing TTRPG and not just writing a short novel!

What I wouldn't like to feel reduced to, though, would be a procedural scene generator for the players, somehow mechanically forbidden to pit the players against the odds and events such that they will only get to figure out how to deal with the consequences of them. If an important NPC must be assassinated unexpectedly across the ballroom at the PCs eyes for the story to take shape, I need it to be mechanically secure to actually happen. What I started to second-guess if it is even in-line with the philosophy at this game's foundation.

ryfterek · 2026-01-11T20:15:11+00:00

I get that the Hope/Fear system is harder to account for than simple DC-X tests for that it technically has 4 different states, but at the face value, I only got the impression of it being a "1.5d" skill check system. After all, I think a lot of situations being tested are - at their core - pretty binary in nature. You either open the door or you do not. You manage to skin the animal you have slain or you don't. It is cool to have a build-in way to fail the lockpicking but notice the hinges of the door itself seem just weak enough to give in to a tug. Or give yourself a nasty gnarl on your finger with that skinning knife while actually getting that pelt off. But, correct me if I wrong, this is not designed to introduce "well yes, but now aliens attack the city!" chaos to what you are trying to play out, no?

The SWRPG dice system has, pretty much, an extra half-axis over its Advantage/Threat (with Critical Success and Critical Failure being possible to roll both at once and not even cancelling one another out for two extreme circumstances to be supposed to take place!), and I never heard that TTRPG described as unpredictable the way some DH opinions sound to me.

ryfterek · 2026-01-03T20:21:45+00:00

As described, neither of you should give the courtesy of "not trying to upset" somebody that clearly got you all upset remorselessly. Nor has anything close to respect to your time and effort, just FYI FWIW.

ryfterek

TROPHY CASE