Last weekend I got to run #Daggerheart for the first time. This is an in-person game that's meant to be monthly. We had an absolutely stellar Session Zero back in November, then illness and holiday responsibilities delayed our start.
The good news, that left me lots of time to prep.
On the other hand, I had to learn entirely new ways of GM-prepping. All the encounter-building knowhow from previous fantasy #TTRPG lives doesn't apply here.
(1/?)
During Session Zero, we built a fraught situation. In short:
A mountaintop city, Haven, was a pillar of safety in the middle of a curse-corrupted jungle. While the curse was broken (at the end of my last D&D campaign) it wasn't in time to stop something awful from happening to Haven's rulers, the wizards of the Council of Stars.
We begin the campaign with Lower Haven in ruins, with all of the Archmages dead except for Archmages Sun and Moon, who rule in a detente.
(2/?)
The PCs all met in a tavern.
In perhaps my best twist on this in 40 years, it was a ruined, abandoned tavern in the lowest part of town, near the cliffs: The Last Drop, it's called.
They gathered because one of them stole the wand of office of the last uncorrupted Archmage, Archmage Typhoon. She was just slain - that day - defending the people of Haven from the monsters who roam the city now that the wardstones have stopped working (thanks to the wizard civil war).
(3/?)
With the wand of office, they could track down Typhoon's apprentice, High Mage Breeze, and convince them to take up the mantle and save the city. (An Archmage's power is necessary to manipulate the ley line nexus and get the wards back on - though the party doesn't fully understand that yet.)
Anyhow, the PCs:
1. Deposed leader of a smuggling gang, who was magically controlled and made to land the killing blow, betraying Archmage Typhoon... then thrown off a bridge and left for dead.
(4/?)
2. A mercenary from a faraway land, who found a new home in Haven and had been Archmage Typhoon's seneschal and henchman for ten years.
3. A halfling bard, last survivor of a coastal town destroyed by dark magic, a recent refugee on the streets of Haven
4. A fairy mothperson rogue with a propensity for stabbing things, who is only a few weeks old - the halfling discovered their cocoon and brought it along to Haven.
(5/?)
5. A faun beastbonded ranger from another nearby settlement, Emerald, which is being occupied by Eclipse Guard troops sent by Sun and Moon. (Who are stripping the place for food, since the hothouses of Haven are destroyed and the people starve.)
They roleplay a bit, form a party, and decide they will try to escape Haven (since I'm running a visible countdown during the entire RP -- when it hits zero, the mage hit squad finds them) and get the wand to High Mage Breeze.
(6/?)
I let them decide whether to go barreling straight down the main road and fight/sneak/charm their way past the military checkpoint and warmages, or leverage the crime boss's knowledge of smuggling routes to make their way down the cliffs.
They opted for the sneaky path - but bumped into remnants of the crime boss's old gang in the warehouse where the route downward started.
Our first fight of the campaign ensued.
(7/?)
The combat took a little longer than I expected, but I chalk that up to everyone learning to use their abilities at once.
The good news is the fully initiativeless system is working well for us, allowing for big narrative moments, chain combos... and the occasional flex by the bad guys.
This was shown at its best when the halfling failed a spell roll badly, the big bruiser picked him up by the throat and held him to be shanked by gang members...
(8/?)
But the players responded with wombo-combos of their own, especially from the ranger who had leapt to the catwalks above. She rained down hell on the gang, sniped the leader and had her tiger companion finish him off.
Afterward we had a montage of the video-game-style leaps and bounds down the cliff smuggling route. Since they were guided by the crime boss who built it, I didn't call for rolls or treat it as an obstacle, instead I asked that player to tell us about it. (8/?)
Since they couldn't follow the only safe road in the jungles below, I ran the journey to the next settlement using an Environment and requiring a countdown to be filled to get their safely.
The dice got ugly and a couple characters got snagged by stranglevine before the moth rogue pulled a cheeky crit and lured away some nearby creatures, clearing the path to safety.
Except all was not as it should be at Akadi Station, home of High Mage Breeze...
(9/?)
Another detachment of Eclipse Guard, led by a war wizard, had trapped Breeze's people in an old air temple. There was an active siege with dead on both side, trenches and battle lines.
More concerning: the Eclipse Guard had pulled down the nearby houses to re-purpose the material for a ritual. They were building a hasty WAR GOLEM to destroy the temple.
I started a countdown while the group frantically did recon and tried to form a plan.
(10/?)
They identified that stopping the war wizard would stop the ritual - but if the golem was activated, it probably meant destruction for everyone.
The flying feymoth rogue found open vents in the rotunda of the temple, but also learned they would probably be shot by panicked apprentices if they popped in - the RP from them so far had been Unseelie/Mothman coded; "they look like a scary jungle creature"
Meanwhile the group managed to snag an Eclipse Guard uniform off one of the dead. (11/?)
Their plan is to have the human mercenary get as far into the battle lines as possible and try to engage the war wizard directly, while the rest of the group bolts forward from the sides.
The ranger was making noise about trying to run the wand into the temple while the fighting is going on. The defenders there might know her by sight due to her background as a road-protector. She's the only one who might make it through.
(12/?)
In D&D this would be a TERRIBLE plan, leaving the rest of the group without a big damage dealer for a tightly-balanced, dangerous encounter.
I think in Daggerheart this will play out differently and dramatically. I hope the ranger will be able to call in the cavalry while the rest of the group takes on the war wizard and his personal army, and tries to hold out.
But, before that all swung into action, we ran out of time and had to stop.
(13/?)
This world they helped me build in Session Zero is dramatic and fun, and they left me lots of room for surprises and tension.
Weakest part of the session was that I didn't get any non-adversary NPCs into camera view at all. Next session should be better for that.
Best part was that everyone left with smiles on their faces, excited for next time. We're doing something right, here!
And at the pace we're going, my existing prep should carry us through next session too.
(/thread)
Starhawk