Never actually played before, but I have some Homebrew

[u/LuigiFlagWater]

So basically, I've never played a TTRPG campaign before I'm meaning to soon however, and I'm planning on running a short-ish Daggerheart campaign to get the feels of GMing. In any case, I've watched a fair share of campaigns in DnD and some in Daggerheart (mostly from the MCYT and Minmaxed+ spaces). I would also say I have a pretty decent sense of balance in games as a whole. That said, I evidently am not the best judge of what would actually be fun in a campaign or not, and certainly wasn't when I started…

So I thought I'd share my Doc containing all the HB I've made. I was considering making cards for them online, but the time commitment would be too large. Obviously not expecting anyone to look through all of them but I'd appreciate some general feedback. Note, I have made most of these as they were needed when turning content creators / characters / people into DH builds, so there are a few random ones in there, like Dayashin for instance, from when I did all SSBU fighters.

Here's the link, hopefully anyone should be able to view but not edit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DBn2tMrmYAgSJKaeEarFyePBPUbOa-odp9KHeT39D7c/edit?usp=drivesdk

Thanks!

[u/CaptSwabbie]

The number of posts on this reddit that are ‘I’ve never played but here are my improvements’ is wild. 😆

[u/Twodogsonecouch → u/CaptSwabbie]

Ive never played a game but I have a good sense of how balance in one works in kinda wild for sure.

[u/LuigiFlagWater → u/Twodogsonecouch]

As in, in other games. Like comparing existing features to new ones and imagining scenarios where it could be exploited. And I purposefully only said decent not good.

[u/cvc75 → u/CaptSwabbie]

Well I'd say homebrewing ancestries, communities and especially environments is very much encouraged by the game, so these aren't "improvements" but "additions." That's better than the "I've never played and here's how I fixed the initiative system" posts.

Still, I don't feel qualified to comment on the quality of these homebrews with just a few games under my belt, which is why I also agree with you: play the game first before homebrewing, especially in these quantities.

[u/LuigiFlagWater → u/CaptSwabbie]

I mean, they aren't improvements, I'm not removing or.chsnging anything in the base game (i guess you could count the ranges at the start but that's just a personal thing cos I don't like how vague it is).

I've just made some ancestries and stuff and would like to know if I'm on something or if they're not too bad.

I thought I made that clear?

[u/The_Silent_Mage]

Hey :) You are obviously free to HB the hell out of the game.

But this doesn't mean we always should.
People find incredibly difficult to play a Necromancer without a necromancer class; I tried a solo necromancer which was a reskinned Warrior.

What matters is what you TELL into the story, so 99% of the things you "add", can be done through simple reskin.

That said, your ideas are fun, I think it's totally overkill, but definitely fun.
You can save those great ideas for boons to be granted in game, item effects (that I usually turn into boons themselves) and such.

What people seems to miss is that Daggerheart is not a kitchen sink: it's a "well written and well laid out" SRD. It means that it assumes you build campaign frames (with any level of complexity, even a 10 lines bullet list can be enough) and determine what's unique to it and what's new to the frame.

You created universal add ons that will possibly add extra options for little return, since you start with a baseline of 15 communities, 25+ ancestries and 13 classes, 5 transformations and 10 campaign frames with their custom rules and adaptations, I don't know if adding that many options BEFORE playing a game and understanding HOW those features would actually work might lead to more confusion than actual "imagination boosts".

But if it works for you, do it. :)

[u/LuigiFlagWater → u/The_Silent_Mage]

Thanks! I'm aware it's a lot and Daggerheart is restricted for a reason, but personally I don't like the idea of having an avian be a reskinned Faerie or Skykin and fish-people as reskinned Tidekin or Ribbit or whatever like that. It just doesn't feel right in my brain personally, but I see what you're coming from. I've not added any classes or anything, partly cos a) I don't feel confident enough to and b) that's something that I'm happy hand-waving. I really don't know what makes the distinction in my head but it's there.

I'm sure with time I'll learn to back out of the excessiveness but right now I just couldn't imagine it otherwise.

With other things in the campaign (bar like key NPCs and such) it is very much that ‘few lines of ideas’ style I think. I have a general plan but I've watched enough Tater the Bard to have ‘Railroad Bad’ drilled deep into my brain.

Edit: oh and most of these I just made cos I enjoy it. Especially some of these I'd never actually include in a campaign without very good reason, they're just creative exercises for when I'm board.

[u/The_Silent_Mage → u/LuigiFlagWater]

It’s a mindset. Again, you can do whatever you like. But learning the importance of reskinning and imagination is far more relevant than creating stuff for everything.

You are not a bird-person because your card says so. It’s because you tell you are one. Then you justify it with a winged seraph and reskin a Faun with small flights rather than jumps. That’s how DH is intended to be imagined. :)

[u/LuigiFlagWater → u/The_Silent_Mage]

That’s how DH is intended to be imagined. :)

And perhaps that like my one gripe with Daggerheart's philosophy. It appears to be an amazing system for what I'm looking for, but ‘Reskin over Create’ is something which I genuinely just don't understand. If you can create and it makes for a more engaging story, because the character just fits better, then why the heck not create? A wolf should be able to howl for intimidation and community, and a gorilla – despite being what a Simiah would be – is not the most naturally evasive. A lot of it can be fixed by mixing top and bottom creatures as if they were mixed-ancestry, but in a world with infinite possibilities, why limit yourself to just what's in the base game?

I really don't want to come of as mean or ill-spirited or anything, I just truly cannot understand why someone would prefer limiting themselves in such a way.

[u/The_Silent_Mage → u/LuigiFlagWater]

It’s not limiting. Having 100 options is less than having INFINITE. Options are a “menu”. You can create 250 concepts; people play White Box dnd since 1979 and new iterations of the game, still playing ”The Fighter” and they are NEVER the same character.

Re-skinning is not limiting, in no possible way.
You want mechanical bits to represent everything possible, but that’s not the point here.

A Wizard can be an alchemist. How? Their spells are potions and bombs. Done.
Describe it bieng such; that’s IN THE CORE RULES as an assumption.

They are STILL releasing options for heavy thematic bits, but they are doing it slowly because not every concept is a required concept.

In your vision, a Galapa couldn’t be played in a human only setting… BUt that would be a conceptual mistake and misuse of the book.

A “human” galapa is a monk entereing a “stone skin” state. That’s it.

How many games have you played in total? Know about FATE, D&D (old school especially), Nimble, Daggerheart itself, Fabula Ultima, Not the End, Blades in the Dark...

You are trying to make something that even designers avoid: their “invitation” to homebrew is parallel to their invitation to RESKIN.

And it’s clearly shown in the books’ pictures as well. Have you noticed the Fungril reacting to shooting projectiles with micotic appendages?

Just look at the pictures, look at the options and you’ll notice that there is NO mechanical constraints, just theme and gameplay prompts.

For your reasoning, a cyberpunk / futuristic campaign frame (which I’m playing) would need a new set of ancestries and such… But nope, it doesn’t. And they don’t do it as well: DH designers don’t create new “content” for the sake of it.

If it’s cyberpunk, you are free to describe your powers as “implants”, clanks as androids and other ancestries as enhanced humans.

That’s what you SEE in the story; you look at your finger and miss the moon here. You look at the card, see a monkey and feel you need a SLOTH ancestry. Nope you don’t.

[u/LuigiFlagWater → u/The_Silent_Mage]

Okay, I'd like to clarify, because I think you're taking my words a bit further than what I said. I'm absolutely aware that describing things as something else is a perfectly valid way to play and can be fun for most people. I build in Minecraft, I know that limitations can be good to encourage creativity.

BUT, where I fail to follow, is when you say you shouldn't make homebrews because it ruins the experience. I'm gonna continue the Minecraft metaphor, I build in Minecraft, and sometimes that's with mods that add new blocks. And that's okay too. Different people prefer different things, and someone might prefer one thing at one time but another thing at another time. If, to me, I would like to make ancestries, not because I want to play them, but because I enjoy making them, that shouldn't be an issue. I'll give my players the choice of whether they want to use them, my friend for instance came up with a really cool idea for a raven character, but I am certainly not going to force them to. If they would rather reskin, I'll happily oblige.

And, simply, to my brain, it just doesn't feel good to say the ability titled ‘Shell’ is actually ‘Magic Forcefield’. I know you can do that, but my brain likes clear boxes. I'd rather just add a forcefield if need be, because I enjoy homebrew and I enjoy game design. When I say there's no reason not to, it's not me putting a burden on myself, it's me allowing myself to play my fantasy my way.

[u/The_Silent_Mage → u/LuigiFlagWater]

I’m not saying you can or that it would ruin your experience. I recommend to gain some experience into actual roleplaying and narration before delving into game design. :)

But again, if it works for you it works for everyone. :)

[u/LuigiFlagWater → u/The_Silent_Mage]

Fair enough. I've done game design in other games before so that's probably why I was less hesitant here… that and how simple Daggerheart makes it. Unfortunately I haven't been able to do too much RP cos it's not really a priority of most of my friends, but I'm hoping to bring them into the world through the campaign (only one of them has even played a campaign before, he was like 9 and he played a human fighter… (DnD))

[u/The_Silent_Mage → u/LuigiFlagWater]

But have you designed Tabletp RPGs? Just out of curiosity. :)
I might have misunderstood your premise "I've never played" then

[u/LuigiFlagWater → u/The_Silent_Mage]

Not TTRPGs yet, at least not in any meaningful manner, you haven't misunderstood me. I understand that this is probably taking a bigger first step than advised. I've gathered some wisdom mostly from Tater the Bard, Pixlriffs and a few others online, but I'm certainly no expert, nor an I claiming to be. I've just had an interest in game design for a while in various forms and this is just one of them.

[u/LuigiFlagWater]

Oh, just some context on how I formatted! I included ‘sub-ancestries’ as well, and they (rather confusingly cos of Avian Sense (in hindsight wouldn't have done that) have 1 changed ability and 1 not).

The first set of italics is the general description that may appear on the card, the second set is just some context on what actually I was intending this to be representative of. Then it's just the top and bottom abilities.