GM moves are your most important tool as a storyteller in Daggerheart. Everyone who picks up the game will interact with them in different ways, and that’s okay! The way you make moves truly defines the story you’re telling, so no GMs should feel like they have to use them the exact same way as anybody else. As long everyone is having fun, you’re staying true to the story, and you’re acting as a fan of your PCs, that’s what matters.

The following examples span the gradient from softer moves to harder moves. Rather than jumping straight to a hard move, it’s a good idea to look down the list until you find the move that seems appropriate. Don’t describe your move in the terms used in this section, however—instead of saying “I show the cost of collateral damage“, contextulaize it for the players, describing how to comes to be and why the scene changes because of it.

When you make a GM move, you might…

• Show how the world reacts.
• Ask a question and build on the answer.
• Make an NPC act in accordance with their motive.
• Lean on the character’s goals to drive them to action.
• Signal an imminent off-screen threat.
• Reveal an unwelcome truth or unexpected danger.
• Offer the PC what they want in exchange for marking a Stress.
• Make a move the characters don’t see.
• Force the group to split up.
• Show the cost of collateral damage.
• Make a character mark a Stress as a consequence for their actions.
• End a temporary condition or effect.
• Make an attack.
• Gain a Fear (on a roll with Fear).
• Spend Action Tokens.
• Capture someone or something important.
• Use a character’s backstory against them.
• Take away an opportunity permanently.

Show how the world reacts.

To show how the world reacts, simply think about the way the PC’s move has affected the world and narrate that change in a way that drives the story forward. At its softest, you might describe them successfully breaking down a door, then give them a description of the next room and what danger they find there. You could also make the person they are negotiating with present an option for compromise, or have an enemy they just hit attempt to retreat. This is your opportunity to make the world around the PCs feel real and alive. This option also includes ticking down a countdown (like a consequence countdown) to show the world reacting and/or time passing.

Ask a question and build on the answer.

This is perhaps the most collaborative move—presenting the player with a question, and using their answer as truth to build the scene. You might ask them something like, “What do you see here that reminds you of home?” or “What about this place tells you somebody else has been here before you?” Usually utilized when establishing information about a scene or when you’re interested in a specific character or player’s perspective on the current situation, this can be a great way to get the whole table involved in worldbuilding during the game.

Make an NPC act in accordance with their motive.

When a scene includes characters other than the PCs, you can spotlight what these NPCs are doing in response to the actions being taken. You might show a friendly NPC helping the party in a fight, a group of townsfolk taking cover, or an enemy moving positions. Make sure their actions always follow from their motive.

Lean on the character’s goals to drive them to action.

One of the most powerful things you can do as a GM in a scene is use something personal to the PCs to drive the fiction forward. If they have an NPC they care for, you might reveal something they desperately need or put them in danger. If they are seeking out a specific object or creature, you might reveal where it is and why it’s going to be so challenging to get there. Using a PC’s own desires to drive them forward is a great way to reinforce why this scene matters to them.

Signal an imminent off-screen threat.

The rustle in the trees, an alarm bell being sounded, the clanging armor of reinforcements headed their way—this move creates a ticking clock for your PCs in the scene. They need to get moving now.

Reveal an unwelcome truth or unexpected danger.

This is a very versatile move that’s usually applicable in any scene—you’re simply heightening the drama or tension in a narrative way. Maybe an unexpected person steps out of the shadows, or the characters receive is bad news or information that makes them rethink what they thought they knew. A soft version of this move might be to have a Guard Captain emerge to see what her guards are yelling about as you’re fighting them, or simply to move a group of dangerous foes into striking range of the party. A harder version of this move might be an enemy pinning a PC up against a wall or tackling them to the ground, making a PC Restrained until they make a roll to escape the adversary’s grasp.

Offer the PC what they want in exchange for marking stress.

The PC can can get it done, but it’s not going to be easy—this is usually used on a success with Fear when you’re not sure what other consequences apply. When you have a player mark a Stress, describe why it’s stressful in the narrative—or ask the player to do so. Is it physically taxing in some way? Does it bring up painful memories? Are they under significant pressure?

Make a move the characters don’t see.

This is usually most useful when you have something happening behind the scenes that you’re waiting to reveal. You might mark a GM clock, tick a current Countdown an additional time, add more damage dice to an enemy’s upcoming damage roll, adjust a narrative situation the PCs have yet to encounter, or anything else the players don’t see the result of immediately. When you do this, don’t tell them the move, but do create fun tension at the table by letting them know your machinations have changed: “Everything is fine… for now.”

Force the group to split up.

Usually used as either an environmental hazard or an enemy’s trap, splitting up the party can make your players have to think differently than they normally would about how to accomplish a task. It can also make for some fun cutting back and forth in the scene as the two groups work independently before finding a way back to each other.

Show the cost of collateral damage.

This is a great move to use when the player tries to do something powerful and there’s a consequence. That fireball that missed? Maybe it went wide, struck the side of the mountain, and now they hear rumbling from above. An avalanche is headed this way. Whenever the PC does something that could have a significant impact on the world around them, you can use this move to show them the natural ramifications of that event.

Make a PC mark a Stress as a consequence for their actions.

In a parallel move to “Offer a PC what they want in exchange for stress,” this is usually used when a player fails a roll and you’re not sure what consequence to offer—they don’t get what they want and they mark stress because of it. Again, it’s important to investigate the why here. What about that failure is particularly stressful for them?

End a temporary condition or effect.

You can clear a temporary condition or other effect. In combat, you can easily do this by spending an action token (see “Activating Adversaries”), but you can use a move to end an effect at any time. If a PC just started using an effect, however, think twice before ending it—you’ll likely want to wait until ending it would be narratively satisfying, giving it a chance to play out and affect the scene first.

When you make this move, lead with the narrative, describing who or what causes the effect to end, then how it changes the PC’s situation. For example, if an adversary is Vulnerable because they’re being held down by a tangle of vines, you might describe them using their blade to hack away at the vines to break free. Or if the effect is caused by a spell, you might describe the adversary unleashing a hail of arrows toward the caster, missing them but inhibiting their ability to focus on the spell any longer.

Make an attack.

This move raises the stakes of a scene very quickly. For example, maybe a discussion in a tavern escalates to violence, or a shady diplomat is tired of being questioned and tries to stab the PC with their hidden blade in an attempt to escape. When you choose to do this, you can have an adversary move anywhere within Close range, make an attack roll with your d20 (see “The GM’s Die” earlier in this chapter), then describe the attack and whether it succeeds or fails. If the PCs decide to fight back, that’s a good time to bring out the action tracker. Once the action tracker is active, you don’t need to use this move to attack—instead, you’ll use action tokens to make future attacks (see “Spend Action Tokens” below).

Gain a Fear (on a roll with Fear).

On a roll with Fear, you don’t have to introduce an immediate cost or complication—instead, you can gain a Fear token and save it for later. When you make this move, describe how the tone or mood of the scene shifts and tension mounts before passing play back to the PCs. See the “Fear” section below for details on how you can later spend this token to augment the scene, such as by using an adversary’s Fear action or adding additional tokens to the action tracker.

Tip: If you are struggling to come up with the consequences of a PC who rolls a success or failure with Fear, this move lets you just take a Fear and move the story forward. But try to avoid making this choice too often—immediate consequences help to drive the story in unexpected and engaging ways.

Spend action tokens.

If the action tracker is active, you can spend an action token to activate an adversary or the environment. This often means making an attack roll, but can be anything that spotlights the adversaries’ tactics and motives or changes the environment in interesting ways. Some adversary and environment moves allow you to spend Fear (along with an action token) on especially unique or dramatic actions. You may also spend these tokens to end temporary conditions or effects. Once you are done spending tokens, play should pass back to the PCs.

Capture someone or something important.

Taking away something the party desperately wants or needs can quickly ratchet up the tension in a scene. You might knock a weapon from a PC’s hand, capture a fellow party member or ally of the group, or steal an object of power right from under their noses. These moves are an exciting, fiction-forward way to advance the story.

Use their backstory against them.

Integrating a player’s backstory into your move you make can leave a huge impact on the PC and make the story much more personal to them. Maybe someone from their past shows up here, or a mistake they made long ago catches up with them, or the scene simply parallels something they’ve already been through before—giving them the chance to make a different choice. By grounding the move in a character’s own experiences, it makes the moments that happen next in the scene matter even more to them.

Take away an opportunity permanently.

When things get really dire, sometimes the PCs forever lose the opportunity or opening they once had. A softer version of this move might be collapsing the party’s straightforward pathway through a cave system, forcing them to find another, more treacherous way through. As a harder application of this move, you might instead kill a valuable NPC or destroy a desperately needed object of power. These moves can be used to great effect when you want to twist the trajectory of the story in a new direction.