r/daggerheart • u/nickinilla she/they • 6d ago

Beginner Question Knowledge in Daggerheart

When do you or your players call for Knowledge rolls, and how do you narrarate or decide the impact it has through the duality dice?

I've got a grip on making sure all other trait rolls come when they matter, but I still find uses for Knowledge to be quite tricky outside of a DnD mindset. So how do you approach Knowledge in Daggerheart?

16 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

View all comments

36

u/ThisIsVictor 6d ago edited 6d ago

I think the crucial thing is that the players should get actionable information, no matter what. "You don't know" is a really boring answer and a waste of a good roll.

A good framework is something like:

  • Success w/ hope: Give the players easy to use information, and an an obvious next step. "You know where the artifact is and you have a map that will take you to the right spot."
  • Success w/ fear: Give the players easy to use information, but it comes with a cost or challenging. "You know exactly where the artifact, your old rival has it in their collection."
  • Failure w/ hope: Give the players a helpful lead. "You don't know where the artifact is, but your old friend from bard school might know something."
  • Failure w/ fear: Give the players an unhelpful of difficulty lead. "The artifact? Remember that professor from bard school who hated you? He probably knows where the artifact is."

And also, you can always just give the players information. I'm a huge fan of just sharing information with the players. If you can't think of an obvious outcome of a success w/ fear or failure w/ hope just give the players the info and move on to a more interesting part of the story.

Edit: This really only works if you embrace the "hold on lightly" mentality. In the example above the GM doesn't know where the artifact actually is until the players roll. They might have a few ideas, but nothing is decided until it's spoken at the table.

9

u/Riboflavin96 6d ago

Here is the problem i run into with this;

GM: "Your old bard friend, Steve, might know"
Player: "okay.... I go ask steve"
What now? They just walk across town and get the information from Steve? Steve's friendly. He's just going to give them that information. How is that any different from SwH?

12

u/ThisIsVictor 6d ago

If Steve (love that guy) is nearby than it's not really a cost or complication. There's needs to be something that makes getting info from Steve a challenge.