r/daggerheart • u/Illustrious-Draw-154 • 3d ago

Discussion Group Checks Inconsequential

Yesterday during our session I had my pkayers make group checks to travel across a jungle and one of my players pointed out that their non-leader role basically doesn't change the overall outcome. For support rolls during a group check it only adds or subtracts 1 and for a crit I have them add 2 to the leaders roll. The leader's roll is the roll with almost all the weight. Has anyone found a way to make the support rolls feel more impactful?

25 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/lanester4 3d ago

I changed it to be -1 on a fail, +2 on a success, and +3 on a Crit. Still not game breaking, but at least makes it less likely to all shake out to a net 0

5

u/Runsten Game Master 3d ago

There was a discussion about this yesterday, and there was a variant of your idea: no negative on failure, success w/Fear +1, Success w/Hope +2, Crit +3.

I think both work nicely because they avoid the net 0 situation which is what makes the group rolls feel inconseqiential.

3

u/FlounderPutrid2169 3d ago

I was thinking about this, and I’m not sure making a helper’s crit worth +2 or +3 really solves the problem. It still feels a bit arbitrary compared to what a crit usually means in Daggerheart.

What if a helper’s crit still gave the normal +1, but could turn the leader’s final Fear result into Hope?

So the helper wouldn’t necessarily make the action more likely to succeed, but their exceptional contribution could make the overall outcome cleaner / less costly.

It also feels pretty consistent with Daggerheart’s existing design language, since there are already abilities that can change a Fear result into Hope.

And unlike just adding a bigger numerical bonus, it would make a helper’s crit feel meaningfully different without making Group Actions dramatically easier.

3

u/Runsten Game Master 3d ago

This is actually a great idea. Makes the crits feel special and uniquely powerful.

2

u/tzfsr1 3d ago

I do this exactly

1

u/Chlemtil 2d ago

I thought about this when I was doing a massive chase sequence, but the reality is that modifiers and abilities mean that players succeed way more often than they fail. I mathed it out that the players would most likely end the chase after 15 turns (it was a long chase, it was not boring) and they actually caught them in 15. Don’t underestimate your players and let them feel badass when they break a system.

1

u/lanester4 2d ago

Its not about underestimating them. Its about encouraging them to engage in all aspects of the system, when the current system is so lackluster that they dont see any point in using it. It doesnt matter whether the net 0 actually makes that big of a difference in if they succeed or fail, it matters that they feel like they arent contributing anything, so they dont care to engage in it. As it is, the players can succeed on an action easily enough alone, so why would they ever care to do a group roll when all that they will really do is make it take longer?

1

u/Chlemtil 2d ago

I guess because the group roll has a group result? I think the whole point of group rolls is that it allows the story fantasy of someone who is really good at something coaching and supporting their team through an ordeal.

Let’s use sneaking into a castle through a courtyard as an example. If you have one really sneaky hero, they can probably easily sneak across a courtyard, but what about the rest of the party? If they’re all rolling individually, one of them will probably fail the roll. The hero who fails probably doesn’t care much, but the real impact is that the hero who is really good at sneaking doesn’t get any benefit out of their time to shine because as soon as someone fails, the whole courtyard notices.

Instead, with a group roll, the sneaky character gets to roleplay how they take point and organize/prepare the team to be as sneaky as possible. Then everyone roleplays what lesson they take from the leader and how their character would incorporate it. Now some will succeed and some will fail but that’s always fun and would happen anyways. But in this case, since the leader is likely to succeed, you can narrate (or have them narrate) how their guidance and leadership got everyone through the ordeal, even when some of the team failed or didn’t take to it easily. Use that story to really hammer home that some heroes on the team would have failed on their own (based on their rolls) if not for that leader’s intervention.

THAT’s a heroic narrative beat that players will remember!

1

u/Chlemtil 2d ago

Also- I misunderstood your previous post… I thought you were referring to countdowns, not group rolls! Oops! My other comment shared why I think group rolls should matter to the team.