Below is a list of principles for all players to keep in mind while engaging with Daggerheart.

Be A Fan of Your Character and Their Journey

Find ways to show off what your character does best and what they do worst. Push your character’s story forward and always strive to make interesting choices. Learn more about who they are through play, and let them grow with the fiction.

Spotlight Your Allies

Look for opportunities to put other characters in the spotlight. Set your allies to make a move they do well, look to them for help, or ask them to elaborate on a description.

Play to Find Out What Happens

Everything you do should flow from the fiction. Listen to the other players and the GM, and react to what they say and how they act. If you roll the dice, let the results lead you through what happens next. Embrace complications with the same vigor that you celebrate victories.

Address the Characters and Address the Players

Speak to the other characters within the world of the fiction. Lean on your connections, ask them questions, and create a story using your conversations as well as your actions. Speak to the other players outside of the fiction. Ask them what their character might do next, and what they want to see happen in the narrative, then consider their preferences when you play.

Hold On Gently

Improvisational storytelling isn’t always perfect, and that’s okay. Hold on gently to the fiction, enough that you don’t lose the pieces that matter, but not so tightly that the narrative has no room to breathe. Make mistakes and make changes. Smooth the edges and shape them to fit your shared goals.

Build the World Together

In Daggerheart, every participant is a storyteller, not just the GM. Daggerheart is a highly collaborative game—perhaps more so than other games you’re used to—and reaches its greatest potential when every player (PCs and GM) is working together. This means actively advocating for the story beats you want to see, offering suggestions to enrich the arcs of the other player characters, creating parts of the world with others at the table, and thinking deeply about your character’s motivations.

Following these principles will help to guide you in telling exciting, unpredictable, and meaningful stories together at a table.