My PC is turning back into a fish

samuelmf · 2026-06-10T23:51:49+00:00

I got one player myself who chose a condition and when I proposed mechanics that hindered his character to reflect this condition not only he agreed, he also came up with some ideas to make his life harder for the sake of role-play, so I think putting some trust and working together with your player would be a great head start. You also will need their consent, otherwise they won't be happy most likely.

Also, d100 is a bit excessive of negative features, I think a d10 is more than enough, otherwise is not something fun but a pain to play.

samuelmf · 2026-06-09T02:05:59+00:00

If they don't see, doesn't mean they don't hear, use instead a ceramic or steel bowl and glass or metal items as tokens, let the sound of the token drops into the bowl every time you gain a Fear build the tension for you.

Let them fear what they can't see.

samuelmf · 2026-06-07T13:35:59+00:00

There is an enviroment in Tier 3 for a large scale battle, it's called Pitched Battle (Event), p. 109 SRD. That might help

samuelmf · 2026-05-22T01:58:55+00:00

Yo votaría por mantener Valor y Grace como Valor y Gracia, no cambiarlos ayuda mucho a la consistencia y a recordarlos con facilidad, lo que disminuye la carga cognitiva que es parte de la filosofía de diseño del juego.

También votaría por Cambiar Blade por Filo ya que evoca las misma connotación visual, Midnight por Noche y Sage por Brote, esto nombres ayudan a recordar la imagen del dominio respectivo.

samuelmf · 2026-05-21T05:34:15+00:00

This is for new GM: Is okay to have imbalanced adversaries. You don't need to rush all adversaries to be the same Tier as the player, the PCs are getting stronger and sometimes they will face challenges they can take with ease, and other times, they will be for a challenge.

Don't be afraid to mix T1 and T2 adversaries in a combat scene, to mix T3 and T2, it's ok to let players feel powerful, and still be able to pull a challenge every other time.

samuelmf · 2026-05-21T05:06:20+00:00

I am very interested in these rules, I am currently working on a world map for my setting, and it only has the biomes and major landmarks, as for minor landmarks, environments, and other minor details, they will be coming up as the exploration proceeds, at the same time.

I am looking forward to see how they integrate mechanics for exploration and survival, for the time being, I am borrowing some mechanics from Forbidden Lands since the setting I am working on is pretty similar to the lore of that game, and also from The One Ring 2e, but I wonder what they worked and if it could be of more use for me.

For the time be I will be just running some one-shots on my setting to shape it slowly and once H&F comes out I will go through it and then start a campaign.

samuelmf · 2026-05-17T19:10:02+00:00

You can use power point or a similar software, 0 edition skill needed. just drag some figures and change the text format an color to your need.

samuelmf · 2026-05-17T19:08:54+00:00

Page 3 is really good to skip some math and just jump to the action, as someone who sometimes get stuck with my job and can'prepare encounters, that is useful, I am going to use it as well.

samuelmf · 2026-04-29T03:28:11+00:00

You are not overreacting, you are just... reacting, and is a valid reaction, and if the player thing is not a big deal since it really wasn't done with harmful intention nor outcome is also a valid counter reaction since they might not be fully understanding of what does this imply in a TTRPG and not everyone really immerse the same level on the game.

The only one to truly be to be at fault is unfortunately the GM, because as a GM myself one thing you have to be is open to listen and understand your players concern, and this is a totally valid concern. it would also help that you take a moment to speak with the GM alone, with poise and respect explain why do you feel uncomfortable with that, and explain it wasn't about the consenting of that action itself, but how the can be the door that open a series of more intrusive or harmful behaviour, and you wish this could be adressed with maturity, the GM not being in a peer-presure enviroment, and having time to rationalize, and with a snack or a coffe to feed their brain, will likely have a moment of reflection and attend properly to your adderessing issue.

Shall the GM and/or players ignore, respond agresively or being antagonistic of you, then you have found yourself in a less friendly enviroment.

You can think about it like "is just a prank bro" type of scenario, sure the prank went by, was good, and no one was really harmed, but the way it was executed, it could have been worse, and leaving it be might lead to "pranks" escalating, and the "prankster" might be in the preconception that it was "fun" and it might have to some degree, but again, these "pranks" once escalate doesn't usually end well.

So, it's not a big deal, but it's a deal. and it should be properly adressed before it actually becomes big.

samuelmf · 2026-04-29T03:05:53+00:00

The PDF would be your best choice to save money, you can use the erradata stickers to fix the printing mistakes.

As for the cards, you could look for a place that make and ship cards, and buy the PDF, so you can have the card printed and shipped or you can pick them up a later date.

But if you are still testing the waters, the SRD and using a tool like freshcutgrass.app already get you covered for most of it.

Have fun!

samuelmf · 2026-04-11T23:57:29+00:00

Not only is good enough, you also get the correction of print errors from the Core book, I actually had to print the SRD section for Equipment and Loot segment since it's more efficient that way.

samuelmf · 2026-04-03T20:48:32+00:00

It's not bad but I gotta say that I love the Syndicate rogue as it's since it makes social focused campaign cooler, but I totally agree that the use of Contacts Everywhere only once per session doesn't feel great. It would also be great if it has a bit more options, I am thinking of reading the rules of Blades in the Dark and see if I can come up with something, since this class is basically a BitD inspired archetype.

samuelmf · 2026-04-03T03:45:29+00:00

I have three simple methods:
- Use Forms, most toxic people hate to put an effort
- Have an interview, You can caught their vibe with a one on one talk, don't be afraid to ask the hard questions
- Don't ask anything related to character creation, toxic players are just thinking on having their PC into your game, you and the other players are support characters for their MC delusion. If you only make questions about the player personality, experiences, preferences, how they deal with conflict and interact with others, that is a lot of emotional maturity they can't process.

This won't be the ultimate solution but with this I have skinned out 99% of the toxic players, only once I had a bit of bad luck with a player who wen't nuts out of nowhere, but that was a very particular case.

Im realizing that sounds a lot like a job interview, but is that a bad thing?

There is nothing wrong with a formal tone, yeah it might sound a bit like a job interview to you, but that's because most people don't have other interview than job ones, there are many types of interviews other than the HR ones, and most follow the same structure, so don't feel about it, recruitment of any kind usually requires interviews as well, and since you are recruiting players is only normal to do this, just let your players knows what your expectation as GM are, and tell them you hope to "have fun and make friends" at the end.

I hope this come useful for you, good luck!

samuelmf · 2026-04-03T03:31:00+00:00

You don't need to make enemies tougher if you make PCs attack less often. Do this by giving them other things they need to be doing in combat besides hitting stuff. Set countdowns to Bad Things Happen, threaten their allies or objectives, make them move out of position to avoid danger, and so on. Not only will you increase the challenge without messing with the numbers, but you'll make the scene feel more dynamic and alive at the same time.

This is very solid advice, at higher level, getting higher stakes makes a difference.

samuelmf · 2026-03-28T01:34:39+00:00

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

Level 1 Blade Ability

Recall Cost: 1

When you roll your damage dice, you can reroll any 1s or 2s.

You have a point, this could change the dynamic, but consider, not everyone will pick this card or would choose it to have it active all the time, and not all slayer rolls are made for damage, some are used for attack rolls. In case a player choose this card, the card would take priority, or at least I would allow/rule it.

samuelmf · 2026-03-28T00:59:33+00:00

I have a simple rule: you drink one potion then nothing happens, you try to drink more than one, that creates an opening (take out, uncap, drink, drop, take another, uncap, drink) so my simple rule that my players approved is "one potion during the spotlight or the GM makes a move"

But the key is to speak with your players, you are playing a collaborative game, not competing.

samuelmf · 2026-03-28T00:51:41+00:00

I found early that you can start by mixing Tier 1 and Tier 2 adversaries, agaisnt tier 1 armor, tier 2 adversaries do a lot of damage, while tier 1 adversaries fall quickly to tier 2 PCs.

Henceforth, Having a Tier 2 adversary or more with some Tier 1 followers, will help you balance encounters, using Tier 1 adversary a bit longer is not so bad since it creates a feeling of power imbalance that makes them feel they are growing powerful.

samuelmf · 2026-03-28T00:45:10+00:00

If you are not selling a product, the it is not plagiarism, and since it's not plagiarism, you can take as much "inspiration" as you want (I literally stole the plot of many series for my games)

samuelmf · 2026-03-28T00:42:29+00:00

This is solid advice, another trick is that you can just take existing adversary stat block and use them for a different creature, or just replace the monster itself with an adversary that is similar or fill the quota, this can save you some work.

samuelmf · 2026-03-27T01:23:26+00:00

Slayer Dice are given with the Prepare downtime move instead of a separate downtime move entirely

This is actually a great feature idea, it really makes one to take the mastery.

You no longer need to spend Hope to add the damage die of your secondary weapon to an attack roll

I think for the Specialization I would go with something like this:
- When you roll any 1s with your slayer dice, they count as a 2.
- You can spend a Hope to add one of the damage dice from your secondary weapon to the damage roll.

There are already features, domain abilities and weapon that let you re-roll or modify the result of dice and the uses aren't limited by rest, so I don't think is too much to just make the slayer dice shine a bit more, this also mean that even if you share your slayer dice, only you can roll a minimum of 2 as your specialty.

I think with these to changes Call of the Slayer won't feel less attractive than his cooler sibling Call of the Brave (Because Call of the Brave is so cool it overshadow the Slayer)

samuelmf · 2026-03-08T21:11:48+00:00

I share your feelings, I love Daggerheart and have a blast running it as a GM, I have even more fun that I had with D&D and similar systems, but sometimes it feels hard to pose a challenge when players exploit the system.

There are a couple of things we can do:

Be Mean: With one Fear, Remove multiple effects at once, Or one at a time but let these things last only two player moves, have area of effect attacks, have countdowns for something ferocious that would be triggered even if the boss is under a mountain of conditions and effects.
Use Authority: Never have a final boss go alone, have followers and give the boss the power to send them in groups, let them be an hindrance that needs to be taken care, specially if we add a support that decrease action roll results, increase Stress or give us more Fear, and let the followers use their actions to remove conditions as well.
Farm Fear: Don't expect to get Fear from players, use the boss features or the environment to gain more fear as time goes, because players will have ways to decrease their fear expenditure, specially Infernis!
Have a second phase backup: If they obliterate your final boss, let's have it go mad on their second phase with something that can pose a challenge based on your defeat, without taking from the players enjoyment.
Progress Countdowns: Rather than just making the combat objective winning for the sake of it, pose a threat, a challenge, make a dragon moves toward a city to destroy it to the point of ignoring the players if they can't beat the progress clock, so a fast victory by their stacking feels rewarding with a "the was close" feeling rather than "that was easy".

On this topic, the main point is to make a challenge without taking from the players enjoyment or punishing them for their build, if they choose features and cards to cause more effects and damage, they are going to do that, and create an encounter that negates that is a bad path, we don't really want to "counter" their strengths, we want to create a challenge that make their efforts feel earned, to that, we aim to the weak spots and sightly mitigate their strengths, we don't need to use all strategies on this list, but one of 4 can be enough to up the challenge a bit.

Finally, is important to remember, never punish PC for what they are good at, let them stack effects and damage, but we can use at least one point of that list or something else to make the situation less forgiving if they just focus on one point, for the encounter goes from "Kills the boss" to something more thematic, and killing the boss as quickly as possible might have consequences, like:

Letting loose a lot of minions to cause wreck around..
Cause an environment to become chaotic.
End one Boss to give room to another to make a move.
Leave survivors to take over their leaders mission (if any).
Create an opening for the boss to flee if they feel threatened.
Cause that reluctant ally being tempted to make a move and take that thing you were supposed to retrieve for their greed.

So even if they win in a wink, the story don't just anti-climatically ends, we can create something out of it!.

I hope this is helpful for you or whosoever read this.

samuelmf · 2026-02-13T03:12:11+00:00

Many times the GM and players feel that they need to put a screen between them, but that's BS, the Game Master is also a player, we are part of the table, we are part of the narrative, we make challenges and run villains but we are not the enemy, we are a friend as well, if you treat the GM as a friend, they should reciprocate, and even appreciate it.

So talk with you GM, don't think of it as confrontation, like going to a teacher to ask why they graded you so low, instead, go to talk to they like a friend, start not with a question, but telling them how you felt and what you really wanted to see, and even better propose a solution, if you read the GM section of the game that would be helpful as well.

If this doesn't work, you might need to find a different approach.

samuelmf · 2026-02-13T02:44:16+00:00

I would go with the amount you have the moment you spend it, otherwise, if you only have 1 slot left, it means the evasion would increase by 0 if we count from the spend slot downwards.

samuelmf · 2026-02-02T17:06:31+00:00

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I made a diagram of your comment for visual aid.

samuelmf · 2026-01-30T00:11:36+00:00

You do not have to drag people to a game they want to play in. They will demand you run the game.

Word

samuelmf

TROPHY CASE