Two Official Daggerheart One-Shots Give Me Hope (and some Fear). Part 1 of 2

Daggerheart adventure "The Wish Thief" delighted and challenged me as a GM, and brought cheers and even some sentimental tears from the players.

While "The Dying Spire's" success or failure comes down to a single roll of the Duality Dice, and shouldn't have been Darrington's Free RPG Day release.

Darrington Press' answer to D&D, Daggerheart, was an instant hit, surprising even its most ardent boosters. The game won multiple ENNIE awards at this year's Gen-Con, and the release of its expansion, Hope & Fear, is imminent.

The game itself is excellent, and adds gameplay improvements to the standard "roll-to-hit-the-monster" fantasy trpg, most inspired by other games. The reason I don't run it more often is that I mostly run one-shots, and Daggerheart has been slow to publish actual adventures, instead relying on "Campaign Frames" which are settings and mechanics for crafting your own adventures.
I just want to run single sessions.

To my delight, Darrington recently released two (2!) free one-shots, "The Wish Thief" and "The Dying Spire".

"The Wish Thief", released to celebrate the 1-year birthday of Daggerheart, is a 6-scene lighthearted romp whodunit about the theft of a baby goblin princess' magic crown.

"The Dying Spire" was released (in physical form only) for Free RPG Day, and it's a level 2 adventure that continues the story from Daggerheart's tutorial, "The Sablewood Messengers". It's considerable darker in tone, and disappointingly missing the whimsy and humor of the first chapter.

For open tables, I post the game time on Discord and anyone can sign up. I ran each of these twice at my local game store, as open-table adventures. Here are my thoughts and experiences.

The Dying Spire

I ran this at my local game store for two back-to-back sessions on Free RPG Day. Free RPG Day is an annual event hosted by game stores around the world. It's a big promotional day and lines snake out the front door. Publishers print special short adventures to be given free to entice new players to their games. This was Darrington's giveaway offering. Luckily I had gotten a copy a few days before, so I had a week to read and prep it.

I got to work making props for the big river-rapids scene. I put a lot of care in how I present an adventure. I made these boats!

The store posted signups for the Daggerheart Free RPG Day adventure, and I had 6 players for each, which was a problem because the adventure only supplied 5 pre-gens. Ooof!

I know Daggerheart as a ruleset tries to keep it at max 5, but c'mon, 6 is pretty standard for event tables.

I was excited to run "The Dying Spire", as the previous chapter, "The Sablewood Messengers," was what got me to purchase and run Daggerheart. The Sablewood setting is whimsical, mysterious and full of magic and wonder. A healthy antidote to the grimdark machismo too many TRPGs wallow in.

As the Dying Spire begins, we're right into the followup adventure: Somewhere in the wood, one of the massive, mysterious lighthouse-like spires is beginning to flicker, and if its light goes out, the magic that protects the forest may perish.

Thieves have stolen the magical Brambleheart that lights the Spire. Players pursue the thieves through the forest, down a river rapids and into a cave. In the cave, the thieves resurrect a legendary monster called the Soot King. If the players defeat the Soot King, they traverse the forest once again to bring the Brambleheart back and restore the Spire.

The story is very linear, which can be good for a one-shot, but as written instead of helping the GM, it puts the GM in the uncomfortable position of needing to override logical player choices. Strangely, the adventure begins as the players meet the thieves who are secretly already in possession of the Brambleheart, and the plot REQUIRES they get away with it.

So now I have to explain to the players, despite their rolls, that the suspicious strangers just escape. A more skillfully-written adventure would avoid this, by having the encounter with the thieves be told to the players by an NPC, or by starting a new act on a dynamic "cut scene".

The whimsy and wonder from the previous chapter in the Sablewood is lost here and replaced by a progression of dire and dreadful downbeats.

For stealing the toxic Bramble, the thieves are dying. Without the Bramble, the Elder Tree will die. Without the Elder Tree the Spire will die. Without the Spire the forest may die. And to keep the tree alive, the Spirekeeper is siphoning off his life force while he's dying. It's grim stuff, without any story up-beats to counter the darkness.

There are three combat scenes in the story, An early one with corrupted boar-like animals, then a set piece river rapids and alligator fight, then a battle with a wicked boss that, while overly complicated to run, nevertheless was entertaining and frightening.

On the GM side, the mechanics were too complicated. The river rapids fight requires tracking 2 different boat countdowns, environmental abilities for the rapids AND the actions and attacks of the monsters. And in both runs, the balance meant the boats were not taking any significant damage, so it was additional GM overhead without bringing actual peril.

The final battle with the "Soot King" has up to 13 monsters of 3 different types. The Soot King himself has different stats during two phases of the battle, multiple different actions, a special condition he can impose on each player only once, and his own countdown. And he's quite deadly to level 2 characters. Again, too complicated.

I don't expect a game that's more "actor friendly" "narrative focused" etc to be more complicated to run than D&D, but this was.

One Roll Loses or Wins the Adventure

Strangely, within the adventure there are two identical scenes of traveling through the forest. In Act Two, a Group Action Roll (15) as each player describes how they're using their abilities to help the group navigate the forest in pursuit of the thieves.

And then...in Act Five, after fighting the end boss ANOTHER Group Action Roll (16) where they describe how they rush back through the forest intent on returning the Brambleheart, saving the Elder Tree, the Spirekeeper – and perhaps the Sablewood itself.

And if they fail that second roll, the entire adventure is lost. One roll.

Not because the players made decisions and took actions. Not because that's the direction the story went. But because they missed a single roll.

FUN ADVENTURE, RIGHT KIDS?!?!

Not a Good Fit for Free RPG Day

Daggerheart as a system is barely one year old, and every time I've run it at open tables, all or all but one player is completely new to the game, and it becomes an instructional session.

This was no different, 11 of my 12 players were new, and would have benefited from a level 1 adventure that was easier to run, more beginner-friendly, less deadly, less crunchy, less dire. If they wanted Free RPG Day to introduce new players to Daggerheart, Darrington could have done better than The Dying Spire.

The Wish Thief

On the other hand, Daggerheart's official One Year Birthday adventure is an absolute delight, despite being a tricky challenge to run on first glance.

I'll examine that in part 2.

Have fun!!!

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