DAGGERHEART LEVERS

The buttons and dials every GM needs to kick butt.

Daggerheart shreds, sure. We're all psyched.

As a GM, though, one must look deeper, into the very DNA of the system, from the deployment/mechanical side, if it is to be truly mastered at the table. A general understanding of the game is useful for this article, dear reader, so get your read-through and early notes done, then return to this madness.

Giant head, tiny laptop, Daggerheart book, notes. Bliss.

What madness, you ask? Below I'd like to list the widely known and easily overlooked levers and adjustments a GM can deploy to create monsters, escalate scenes, homebrew dangers, make improvisational calls, invent domain cards and equipment, and internalize the moving parts that make Daggerheart the brilliant game it is and will surely continue to be for years to come.

• Spend Fear

  • The most central and widely known method to take action as a GM is to use your fear resource to activate an ability, callback a player-made word hook, or change the scene in a dangerous or dynamic way. Master this first. The game will feed you fear... spend it in bursts of terrible power and peril. Pull no punches. Play foes right from the book. Use tokens to track fear... it's satisfying and visible to all.

• Change the GRADE of the Hope Die

  • It's easy to miss, but the DESECATED GROUND feature on p. 246 is a real stinger. This change, inuduced by any means you need, be it curse, miasma, ability or equipment, degrades the HOPE DIE of one or more players from a D12 to a lower grade such as D10 or -gasp- even D8. A brutal infliction affecting all duality rolls until the source of the degradation is eliminated.

• Induce/Aleve Stress

  • Heroes can be exhausted mentally by all kinds of threats. Build foes and effects that eat their stress reserves, or grant potions and consumables that alleviate it. This is a second axis of harm/heal that lets you mix up the flavor of afflictions and balms.

• Induce/Clear HP

  • This one is all too easy. Hit 'em for damage, or heal. Foundational to all rpgs.

• Progress a Countdown Up/Down

  • Timers march your heroes towards new events or unwanted consequences. Let their efforts, and the efforts of your deployed foes and effects, accelerate or slow these timers! Sometimes "fighting the timer" is the only/best option for players, while bad guys work to make the bad happen asap.

• Change Hope into Fear/Fear into Hope

  • The most terrible of transmutations is come! Be careful with this one, but extreme magic forces, powerful enemies, or cosmic moments can and should convert these resources one into the other. A vampire might drink hope rather than HP. An ally who becomes a zombie may invert their hope into GM fear. Who knows, but be open to this grim inversion.

• Spend Foe Stress

  • Foes use stress as a secondary 'battery' to deploy some of their abilities. Do this as written, by all means, but also open your mind to spending stress for improvised effects that go beyond the page. A thrasher beast leaps across a chasm. A bloodbat goes for the jugular (double damage?), and so on!

• Raise/Lower Difficulty

  • Heroes are rolling against the difficulty value over and over. Like in so many games, raise and lower this number to dramatic effect when events, effects, gear or foes make things more challenging. You'll get a groan.

• Use an Experience as an all-purpose Foe Skill

  • Your enemies will often need some unwritten or uninvented 'thing' to roll as part of their flavor. Call it an experience, roll with +2, and spend a fear if it's spicy. This gives you a generic slot for those little things like grappling chains, acid spits, secret hatches, and the like.

• Consume Hope

  • As a brutal ability employed by powerful foes or effects, just eat hope from a random hero or a hero who steps into a certain effect. This is a brutal form of 'sap' that cuts deeper than mere HP. "Don't stand in the green goo!"

• Generate Fear

  • Sure, you're rolling a fear pool when heroes rest, or at session start. This lever should be pulled when some momentous event or effect empowers all that is evil in your scene. "With that, the ritual is complete, the obelisk glows green, and D6 fear is added to the pool!"As this example shows, adding a burst of fear budget pairs very well with a countdown that could not be stopped.

• Induce a Reaction

  • This is a classic all GMs are used to. Unleash foes and effects that call for hero reactions to reduce or avoid. Basic stuff. Just brush up on p. 99 for solid deployment.

• Attack

  • Lol, amirite? The most basic of things that a foe, environment, or effect can do. These puny players are stuck with 2D12 but not you, my noble GM... you shall roll the ever-supreme D20. Revel in your time.

• Change Foe Attack Modifier

  • "The roper, having eaten your beloved pet tiger, growls with new intensity and vigor. It hasn't eaten for decades! His attack mod jumps by 1D4. Oops, I rolled a 4. That makes his attacks at a +6... the beast is furious with sated gluttony!" This effect can come from magic, equipment, or the environment. Heroes should be considering retreat in some cases here.

• Reactive Damage

  • Passive damage, usually dealt by spiked armor or poison auras, is a useful pest to harrow heroes. Deploy this sparingly, as it bypasses rolls most times.

• Alter Thresholds on Foes

  • Thresholds are one of Daggerheart's real gems. When your foes power up, raise their thresholds! If their morale or gear is broken, degrade these numbers. This makes for a VERY effective sunder/bolster mechanic that doesn't rob players of agency.

• Gain/Use Tokens

  • Tokens are just a way to count without writing. Tokens can track a myriad of effects and resources. Use gear, magic, and environmental events to replenish or deplete your supply. Seeing tokens coming and going keeps everyone on their toes.

• Force/Take the Spotlight

  • The game, as written, gives the GM plenty of tools to run 'spotlight initiative.' As a masterful GM, though, feel absolutely licensed to deploy this as a result of combat events or scene changes. "You may not like it, Spalding, but the rest of the group slides into the chasm. That puts the spotlight on you!"

• UnifyThresholds

  • Altering enemy or hero thresholds to represent armor quality or toughness is cool. Consider UNIFYING the values when a foe reaches full power, or activates some gnarly protection effect. This forces all hero attacks to press a high threshold to inflict only powerful attacks... no trickle kills! I have to offer full credit to Crono Trigger here, as it was a commonly deployed effect.

• Alter Damage Dice

  • Finally, invent effects, gear and consumables that alter damage dice for heroes. Degrade their weapons with acid, or increase the die with whetstones or enchantments. This change could even occur as a reward for tactics. "You're leaping from the ramparts for death-from-above? Upgrade your damage die by two grades for this attack. A crushing blow!"

We've all faced hordes of chattering skeletons. With a true mastery and INTERNALIZATION of Daggerheart's brilliant and diverse toolset, even these knuckleheads can be dynamic and badass.

I hope this helps your GM journey with Daggerheart!

-B