The core systems seem strong but with lots of asterisks to keep them backseat to player agency.

I think it’s more that the mechanics take a backseat to the fiction, and largely the GM is more responsible for that than the players. It’s definitely not for everyone. I run a regular 5e game and I suspect half of my players would be into it and half would very clearly say “no thanks”.

lots of pressure valves to reduce the impact of unlucky dice

That’s an interesting interpretation, considering that success with fear is just as likely as failure with hope. I don’t see this as primarily existing to make things easier for the players. Rather it’s there to make each roll more interesting.

Fear seems like it only exists to give the GM permission to do normal GM things

The communication around Fear could be better in the book. GMs can do normal GM things whenever they want. Fear is used to up the stakes by using special adversary moves, taking more “turns” than they can naturally, or interrupting the players in ways that would likely seem unfair in 5e.

lacked mechanical teeth to make it more than a narrative prompting experience

Anyone looking for a game like that is going to be overwhelmed by Daggerheart. It has plenty of crunch. But it does have an overall philosophy that “Everything you do at the table should flow from the fiction”.

For what it’s worth, there are definitely people using traditional initiative in Daggerheart. For one thing, the book has optional rules for an “action tracker” that limits how much an individual player can hog the spotlight. And I saw somebody on Mastodon who was borrowing a cool initiative system from Dragonbane.

Hope and Fear are more central, if that mechanic turns you off, it’s probably not the game for you. Personally I love it, it gives us all improv cues when we need them, and it makes rolls more dynamic than just pass/fail.

I don’t know why it’s not working for you, it works fine for me even from a private browsing session where I’m not logged in. Are you using a Lemmy client that includes the trailing . in the link or something?

Anyway, I’ve copied it here as well: sandybox.neocities.org/dh

I pre-ordered the book, and ran the Quick Start adventure for my family last week. I really liked it, and wrote up my impressions here: gist.github.com/…/0503026016dbbb0aa6408ece020010f….

It’s not a full review or anything. I don’t bother explaining the core mechanics. There are other folks doing that already.

Support for all of those systems is listed explicitly in the Kickstarter and the preview PDF.

I assume you know he was a politician as well?

Wow, lovely shots!

I’ve got the whole family giving it a go this time around.

That’s awesome! My 13 year old wrote a few hundred words the first day, but I’m not sure if he’s continuing. He started Skyrim recently, so…

I’m finding it difficult to motivate myself to be creative after work… Any tips?

Is there a better time when you feel more creative? I like to write in 15-20 minute sprints 2-3 times a day (although of course some days I do more or less or don’t write at all). Maybe after work would be a good time to work on your outline or other meta-writing? Describing scenes or characters, etc. Then perhaps before work you set a 15 minute timer and just chug out what you can based on the outlining work you did the night before?

I always find it easier to be creative when I already have some prep to lean on. Putting on the right music can help, too!

FWIW, I’m not shooting for 50k this year. Just want to write every day, build a better writing habit overall. Last year I felt pretty satisfied doing 35k, and it was fun just to be trying something like this with a community.