Dang. That's a cool dice mechanic. I must be spoiled with ORE, but it feels like a lot of work to get one dice roll out of the way. It doesn't bog things down, do you find?

[Youtube interview of Mercer about the Hope-Fear mechanic](https://youtu.be/aa7NlnS-bKI?t=554). I had no chance to try it myself.

I get it now. I like the idea of having a visual build-up of threat stemming from dice rolls.

I see Daggerheart as a possible introduction to PBtA style games most strictly DnD tables may be willing to try. License-related news turned me off the game, I was indifferent before. But I'm happy that it inspires enough interest in tables who refuse to try any other game than DnD. There's nothing wrong with only wanting to play DnD, it's just a pity to miss the opportunity to experience other styles that may be more enjoyable to the groups who force DnD to fill a roll it's not equipped to.

> I…would probably play Pathfinder with a great roleplaying party. Pathfinder 2e does have some more tools for roleplaying, but the game's real strength is tactical combat. Pathfinder 2e wants to be D&D 4e done right.

Not the person you asked but I'm taking this opportunity to talk about why I wouldn't play pbta as my main game. One, I rarely feel like my character is competent. I'm usually rolling mixed success, and that feels bad. A good GM can take the edge off there. they can make it so the problem was circumstances or the strength of your enemy, instead of your fuck up. But most GMs aren't good, they're average. Related, and I think this might have been a result of not liking the GM, when I do get a mixed success it often feels like the GM is just fucking with me. It felt very unilateral. They decide what happens with no buy-in from the table needed. When I run Fate, mixed successes are a proposal the player can accept, decline, or suggest another idea. Third, playbooks feel like mad libs instead of writing. So much is already defined, typically, it's constraining and anchoring. I don't feel like I'm really making something of my own. I can see how that's really helpful for some people but I don't enjoy it. I much prefer the utterly freeform mode of Fate. I want to be a chaos magick using librarian? I can just write that down. I had fun doing a one shot of rapscallions a couple weeks ago, but I wouldn't make it my main game.

Yeah!!! I love a SRD. Looks like I know what I am doing while goofing off at work today

Look also to one heir of PbtA: Blades in the Dark.I'm biaised, I like mist of this game (including Deep Cut).

I've heard good stuff about blades in the dark, I've got time for that. Hell, more than half the time I'm a player I just play someone crazy about dying anyway

> Play your character like a stolen car. It's even in the rules.

So rare to feel truly understood these days.

Short version: I've just never managed to feel *enjoyment* while playing any of the ones I've tried. I dont think theyre bad, I just think they dont really click for the way I like to run games. And it has almost nothing to do with combat, which takes up very little table time in my preferred games (combat tends to go no longer than 3 rounds, usually less than 3 minutes each for a table of 6 -- by then, PCs are either victorious, making an expeditious retreat, or dead). Long version: I just can't find a good rhythm with Monster of the Week, Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Apocalypse World (the three games in this style I've tried). Most of it comes down to how much more mental work it is for me to watch out for move triggers (and memorize the set of moves for each playbook, plus the GM moves. While I already *do* most of the things the GM moves are meant to encourage in my games of choice, I'm not really thinking of them as I do them -- they feel very fluid, like natural reactions to my players. Hinting at future danger, presenting a hard choice, etc. PbtA games have made it feel much less natural, far more mechanical, and it pulls me out of the natural conversation of a game. I also dont really like the way it wants me to use dice. Normally, I take the approach that if a PC has the tools, the time and the skills, their desired action automatically succeeds unless it's truly impossible. To put that in PbtA terms, sometimes I want to make a move so soft it's not even there. But PbtA games tend to not accept this, so you have players rolling more often and coming up with mixed success more often than not, which can burn me out and lead the PCs into a death spiral of mixed success, especially when I've gotten worn down and can't come up with anything reasonable to tack on. It's frustrating and anti-fun for me. And then I think the core malfunction that underscores all of this for me is that PbtA is not really there to emulate a living world, but instead focuses on genre emulation. There's nothing wrong with that, except I've yet to find one that tries to be a genre I like in the way I understand that genre. It seems like my choices are "angsty, sexy, teen drama," "angsty, sexy, adult drama," or "cozy," with not much for me to hang my creative hat on. I didn't watch Buffy, Angel or X-Files growing up, so MotW hit a little soft. I dont care for Apocalypse World's picture of post apocalypse storytelling, so that also didnt really fit for me. And tbh, I can't figure out what TSL is trying to be -- it doesn't really mirror my own queer experience (maybe because I'm not a lesbian?), and doesn't seem to point to any other stereotyped fiction. So it all just feels empty. Hopefully that explains it, but I love talking about RPGs (even ones I didn't enjoy), so if its confusing I can try to clarify.

I think Daggerheart is interesting in some ways but I think it's very much tailored to what CR wants to _perform_ rather than what makes a fun _game_ at a table. The mechanics make for predictable narrative peaks and valleys, which give guardrails to DMs with weaker narrative skills. The tradeoff being a more narrow range of outcomes, which is most of the fun in rolling dice. CR productions have a lot of issues, but I don't think Daggerheart inherently has those deficiencies baked in. Their main problems stem from trying to scale voice-actors-at-a-table into a multimedia empire with sprawling IP. They can all make and perform a good character, but a bag of strong character concepts doesn't turn M. Mercer into R. R. Martin. Publishing a system without that IP baggage was a good/necessary step, Daggerheart will hopefully flourish or flop on its own merits. Hopefully it at least breaks DnD dominance a little more and gives room for more independent publishers (can't resist a bump for [Quinns Quest](https://youtube.com/@quinns_quest) here)

Daggerheart is not at all a PbtA game, though it borrows elements. It borrows pretty heftily from a lot of predecessors besides 5e, like pbta, fitd, cypher/numenera, and SWRPG/Genesys. With imo the last one sharing the most DNA.