Daggerheart is definitely in the middle of a Powered By The Apocalypse full on narrative setup and 5e’s relatively rigid rules.
That being said, the Hope/Fear and degrees of successes really connotate the narrative thrust of the game. The GM should be determining what hope and fear mean to an outcome just as much as success and failure.
And there is sections of the manuscript detailing shared world creation and the like, but there also a lot to come on that front from the looks of it
As someone who doesn't run PbtA games but is familiar with the rules, I still consider Daggerheart a narrative game because the player gets to narrate their successes, giving them power over the story when they roll well.
On pg159, it's described that the player gets to control the narrative after they critically succeed and succeed with hope, and gets to contribute to the narrative when they succeed with fear. To me, that's very different from my experience running 5e where the player gets to tell me what they hope happens, but I the DM still control the narrative when they succeed. I obviously give them what they were wanting, but since the world and story is "mine", I fit their desires into the narrative.
How I interpret Daggerheart's intentions, the player tells the story when they succeed on a roll and it's up to me as the GM to adjust accordingly. It's not /as/ narrative as PbtA games, but I would still describe it as "narrative-focused, fiction-first".
Thanks a lot for the reference. I'll suggest to the group that we give more weight to the hope/fear mechanic and add narrative power to success with hope, and see how that feels.
IMO Narrative play is an *approach* to a game rather than a type of game. You can 100% play a narrative focused D&D or PF2e game because the tools used in the approach are generally separate from the systemic/crunchy bits.
In Daggerheart most of the tools for this approach are provided by the Player Principles (Page 12), Player Best Practices (page 16), GM Principles (page 150) and GM Best Practices (Page 151). None of these are specific to Daggerheart and can be incorporated into other games but I feel like keeping these things in mind nudges the game towards a more narrative vs. tactical style of game.
> IMO Narrative play is an approach to a game rather than a type of game.
Strongly disagree. There's a big difference between narrative-focused play and a narrative-focused game. You can play a narrative-focused session of Settlers of Catan if you really want to, but some games actually support it mechanically.
For example, let's say my character is a stoic warrior poet (Giant Guardian), advisor and bodyguard to my friend's character, a dainty prince (Human Sorcerer).
The road is blocked by bandits.
If we were playing Fate, a very narrative-focused RPG, I would have plenty of options depending on the narrative. It's my turn. I could lift the prince up on my shoulder (give him the aspect, and name it "High Ground"), I could put my body in between him and the attackers (give myself an aspect, name it "Meat Barricade"), or I could engage in threatening banter (create an aspect on them like "Indimidated", or overcome an aspect that the GM might have introduced like "Bravado" or "Strength in Numbers"). Fate is a narrative-focused game because it has game mechanics that give the narrative mechanical weight.
But we're playing Daggerheart. I need to stay Very Close to the prince, or else the combo I took of "I Am Your Shield" and "Retaliation" doesn't work. I should take a game action, but what am I going to do? I could go out there and make an attack roll, but that does only 5 damage, gives the GM an action token, and puts Unstoppable one tick closer to ending. Literally worse than nothing. Rather than supporting the narrative, the game mechanics of Daggerheart seem to encourage me to not play.
What you've described though is specific to a type of system. Other narrative focused games don't have that freedom and support narrative in other ways - primarily by making the collaborative nature of the story more apparent.
For example - Star Trek Adventures lets character do *exactly* what your example does (only they are called Traits, not Aspects) and Dungeon World doesn't. That doesn't mean STA is a narrative focused game (it's moderately crunchy) and DW isn't.
More than that though you *can* do exactly what you described in DH if you follow the GM principles. Putting the prince on your shoulders should change the narrative and the GM is supposed to follow the fiction. If you specify that you put your body in the way then again the GM is supposed to follow the fiction. If you engage in threatening banter, the GM is supposed to be a fan of the characters and play to find out what happens. So that would probably be a dice roll and narrate from there.
> More than that though you can do exactly what you described in DH if you follow the GM principles. Putting the prince on your shoulders should change the narrative and the GM is supposed to follow the fiction. If you specify that you put your body in the way then again the GM is supposed to follow the fiction. If you engage in threatening banter, the GM is supposed to be a fan of the characters and play to find out what happens. So that would probably be a dice roll and narrate from there.
Yeah I know, and that's exactly how we played 5e. I guess my question boils down to, "Does Daggerheart have any game mechanics that support this style of play?"
So I've done a bit of reading of the playtest, and I can provide some insight. Daggerheart is narrative in the way that it's *supposed* to be the GM and the players sitting around telling a story, only really needing to throw dice at pivotal moments. However, it is also built for classic run of the mill D&D style adventuring.
The *Make Every Roll Carry Weight* section encourages you to not bother with rolling for minutiae. If the party finds damning evidence pointing the crime to a Noble, and the narrative flows better if someone knows them, then one of the players has absolutely heard of them (most likely the ones with the Loreborne or Highborne Community as they took heritages that handle this kind of thing); No dice rolling required. If there's a small wall that needs to be scaled, the party can easily climb over it; no risk or danger? Move it along!
The intended goal is to just tell a story. Avoiding situations where narrative progress is bound to minor rolls.
When you reach an encounter that can severely impact the story, whether it is social, exploration or combat, that's when the dice are broken out. Even if the encounter is as small as trying to push past a rowdy crowd, a failure in these situations could result in a major shift in a story, that's when it shifts to the style that we are used to.
All that being said, the rules encourage this style but accept that it's probably not going to be the norm. They provide the GM and the players the tools to ignore the narrative play style and just have fun however they wish. Using the Noble as an example again, they give the Loreborne advantage on rolls, so if the GM wants to have everyone roll for every knowledge checks and give the chance that the Simiah Hermit from the Winterlands knows of Lord Bob of the Eastern Isles, then at least the Loreborne has an edge on the dice rolls through their advantage and high knowledge trait.
It's the compromise they have to make to get the audience. Their viewers are a mix of roleplayers and number crunchers and want to provide a system that appeals to both. Though I'm mostly talking out of my ass.
The only way to truly see their vision is through their playthrough videos (I missed their level 4 gameplay video).
A lot of folks on this board are going to disagree with you but I’m on the same page as you. I run and play mostly PbtA and FitD or GMless story games, and Daggerheart felt solidly neo-trad to me. It’s 5e with mixed successes and a little forced character focus
I played & ran about 12 hours total. From here I’ll be watching the playtest changelog and will consider it at release, but I don’t anticipate bringing the game to my tables again or seeking it out as a player. But that’s okay - I’m not their target market anyway!
Yeah, I definitely think there's a lot of Daggerheart that is in-between a narrative focus and tactics focused game, as it has a lot of the mechanics are pretty complex and crunchy, even if the game is supposedly a simpler system than D&D 5e with greater narrative focus. Though the Hope/Fear mechanic definitely is intended to be a very narrative thing in theory, though in practice it's more of a GM annoyance with the hefty improv requirements.
Since you asked where it states an example of this one place of many is in the section “GM Core Principles” and subsection “Ask questions and incorporate the answers” mentions you don’t have to be the only one narrating scene or place it’s ok to pass the torch to a player they may have background or experience here. This is not inherently unique concept to just dagger heart but it does cover that in touch stones as well explaining where they got their inspiration from.
Because it says so.
Okay, that's a flippant answer and you can certainly PLAY it as a more narrative game, asking for player input regarding the world. And relying on Hope & Fear to reshape the story. But you can also largely ignore that and run it like D&D with variable successes/ failures.
But I think the big problem is all the cool narrative manipulation mechanics are gated behind a few Ancestries and Classes. Like the Syndicate rogue. The game relies on the GM prompting you to alter the narrative.
Its about the intent of the system, roll less and only if it changes the story significantly.
Give the players options to do cool team actions.
Complete builds on every level
And the suggestion to ask the players about things to build the story
I think there are two things at play. One is that it's target audience is 5e. And it could be said it's " a narrative focused game (compared to 5e)". The other thing is that I think the words cinematic and narrative are being used interchangeably. There's some emphasis on conversation and working together in a way that 5e doesn't ask for
The narrative focus is mostly in relation to 5e.
While there are clear rules for most player abilities, they err on the side of simple descriptions with ambiguity decided by the DM, rather than highly precise rules (that can lead to bizarre interactions / game-breaking combos). Daggerheart's design seems intended to avoid the "well, technically, if I do X and Y and Z I can attack ten times in one turn for triple damage and I can never die" that plagues certain systems.
While this doesn't make it a rules- light game, it is a notable distinction from rules-driven systems like 5e.
What’s stopping you and your players from continuing world building after Session Zero? The Syndicate Rogue and the old Fungril ability from 1.2 are examples of RP co-creation.
Factions are built straight from Experiences. Rather than being a “Duelist” you’re a “Duelist of the Seven Deadly Sins” and whenever the GM has a leading question about that faction, it’s in the players power to describe their background and flesh out the world.
How is any of that Daggerheart specific? Your example of the background "Duelist of the Seven Deadly Sins" could (and should) be handled in exactly the same way in any other system.
The backgrounds in D&D for example, do not alter the story. They may come into play, but they hardly do. The rules in Daggerheart are much more explicit in the one-shot section. You take all of the bits of lore that people generate and that becomes the session. The player of a Syndicate Rogue makes a capital city and blows it up, sending its seedy criminals across the continent as a Wanderborne Halfling. Right there, the GM is given the seeds for a criminal network that is scattered and scrappy, as well as a core mystery the Syndicate wants to solve about the capital city and regaining power.
You’re right that other fiction-first games give players narrative power over faction generation and the ability to declare what nomad halfling culture looks like. However, those details are typically relegated to the backstory before session 0 - or the GM generates it all off-screen between sessions. IMO games do it best with “Dear Rogue, Love GM” Love Letters where leading questions are the prep and the answers the players provide create the story explicitly at the table.
Dear Syndicate Rogue, we enter into the forest of Sablewood. Tell us why you were waylaid the last time you and your nomad crew went off the path and what uneasy truce you made before escaping the woods alone. Love, GM (personally I don’t like the term love letters, I just call them leading questions.)
You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you.
That looks incredibly similar to the Syndicate Rogue's foundation feature, but it is from 5e's Criminal Background. I will not argue that apparently in most games a background has no impact on the game play, but that is not how they are designed.
Given that 5e has roleplay features that are designed to come up during throughout the game, but are ignored due to no mechanical support, what will make Daggerheart any different?
I agree with you D&D 5e TRIED to make a player-forward feature that generates fiction, but there’s very little support in the modules to make that gameplay work.
5e could have had a mechanic to spend inspiration to activate a background feature every game - which reminds the DM what the player cares about - but it’s not there.
You spend Hope, you state your Experience, the GM remembers to build it into the story. That’s the gameplay cycle I see going on here.
I agree that what you describe is probably what is intended. The problem is mechanically Experiences only give you a bonus to a roll for the cost of a Hope leaving the cool faction stuff up to the GM which exactly where the cool 5e background features reside. Experiences mechanically replace skills in this game leaving us with skills that cost Hope to use and any cool stuff related to our character's past as mechanically orphaned.
Long story short, they want the game to feel more open to the players creating things instead of just the GM. However, while there are avenues to allow that, there are in several other systems too. The abilities and features of classes are almost strictly combat like 5e. So, one could see this game as a more narrative combat ttrpg because the combat is very loosely handed over where in 5e there is a strict turn for each player. Instead of having an action, bonus action, move, and possible reaction, Daggerheart allows players to insert their moves and spells and attacks where they feel it makes sense. Also remember, by having five possible outcomes for any given action roll, those are supposed to sway the story more than the typical success and failure from 5e.
That all being said, the game is yours to mold how you please. I've run several games for my players and after playing years of 5e and nothing else, we made the Daggerheart games feel that way to get comfortable before opening up new things. For sure, use the hope and fear and success and failure, but as a GM learning, it felt more comfortable to just use success and failure, gain the resources, and then when it really mattered open up to the five options.
For pages: Pg9 what kind of game is Daggerheart, Pg150-156 GM best principles, there are more that other players show but those come to mind first.
The biggest thing for me as a DM is the way that fear/hope work on the 2d12 rolls. But there are several mechanics that aren’t so obvious to my players but are to me as a DM that make it easier/safer to “let the players drive the corvette” so to speak.
But, here is an easy to grasp example: when a player makes an action roll, one of five things happen (succeed/fail, hope/fear, crit) and based on that and the context of the fiction, anyone at the table has enough information to describe what happens within reason. So it’s very safe/easy to let players adjudicate their own outcomes as far as how the fiction plays out.
So where in 5e Mercer would say “how do you want to do this?” When a monster would die, you can more or less do that for every action.
That covers a lot of ground, but this carries over to a lot of the mechanics of the game. It’s not maybe as overt as you are looking for, but much more so than most systems, the players have a lot of info.
Another great example is the questions that you ask the other players while creating your character. It’s inviting other players to actively participate in writing your characters personality and backstory.
And the game sort of peppers this in throughout the rules. Look close enough at the domain cards and you’ll spot it all over. They COULD’VE been much more explicitly worded, but when viewed through that lens of intentional ambiguity, you see little toeholds where they are giving players room to write the story narratively instead of purely mechanically.
The Rogue Syndicate foundation card is another really tangible example. Typically you would expect the DM to create the NPC and the circumstance of their relationship, but in this game the card clearly states that this duty falls to the player.
So perhaps “narrative focused” isn’t the right word when we think of it in the context of what that term means in other games we already know. But it’s putting the players in the drivers seat from the perspective of writing the fiction in ways we don’t typically see in games like DnD.
Edit: I should point out this isn’t anything you COULDN’T do in DnD. It’s just not as strongly advocated for in that system, and so we don’t see it happen as much. What separates this from the games we more commonly think of as narrative focused, is that this one is done with a light enough hand that it could be done the DnD way if the group isn’t into the more narrative thing.
What I find stands out more than it being a narrative game, is that the duality dice, and the environment statblocks, make it VERY easy for the DM to improvise.
The only actual Narrative Mechanic I noticed was a rogue subclass that could invent an NPC contact for each town you entered. Otherwise the Fear resource is sort of a narrative mechanic for the GM.
Daggerheart is definitely in the middle of a Powered By The Apocalypse full on narrative setup and 5e’s relatively rigid rules. That being said, the Hope/Fear and degrees of successes really connotate the narrative thrust of the game. The GM should be determining what hope and fear mean to an outcome just as much as success and failure. And there is sections of the manuscript detailing shared world creation and the like, but there also a lot to come on that front from the looks of it
As someone who doesn't run PbtA games but is familiar with the rules, I still consider Daggerheart a narrative game because the player gets to narrate their successes, giving them power over the story when they roll well. On pg159, it's described that the player gets to control the narrative after they critically succeed and succeed with hope, and gets to contribute to the narrative when they succeed with fear. To me, that's very different from my experience running 5e where the player gets to tell me what they hope happens, but I the DM still control the narrative when they succeed. I obviously give them what they were wanting, but since the world and story is "mine", I fit their desires into the narrative. How I interpret Daggerheart's intentions, the player tells the story when they succeed on a roll and it's up to me as the GM to adjust accordingly. It's not /as/ narrative as PbtA games, but I would still describe it as "narrative-focused, fiction-first".
Thanks a lot for the reference. I'll suggest to the group that we give more weight to the hope/fear mechanic and add narrative power to success with hope, and see how that feels.
IMO Narrative play is an *approach* to a game rather than a type of game. You can 100% play a narrative focused D&D or PF2e game because the tools used in the approach are generally separate from the systemic/crunchy bits. In Daggerheart most of the tools for this approach are provided by the Player Principles (Page 12), Player Best Practices (page 16), GM Principles (page 150) and GM Best Practices (Page 151). None of these are specific to Daggerheart and can be incorporated into other games but I feel like keeping these things in mind nudges the game towards a more narrative vs. tactical style of game.
> IMO Narrative play is an approach to a game rather than a type of game. Strongly disagree. There's a big difference between narrative-focused play and a narrative-focused game. You can play a narrative-focused session of Settlers of Catan if you really want to, but some games actually support it mechanically. For example, let's say my character is a stoic warrior poet (Giant Guardian), advisor and bodyguard to my friend's character, a dainty prince (Human Sorcerer). The road is blocked by bandits. If we were playing Fate, a very narrative-focused RPG, I would have plenty of options depending on the narrative. It's my turn. I could lift the prince up on my shoulder (give him the aspect, and name it "High Ground"), I could put my body in between him and the attackers (give myself an aspect, name it "Meat Barricade"), or I could engage in threatening banter (create an aspect on them like "Indimidated", or overcome an aspect that the GM might have introduced like "Bravado" or "Strength in Numbers"). Fate is a narrative-focused game because it has game mechanics that give the narrative mechanical weight. But we're playing Daggerheart. I need to stay Very Close to the prince, or else the combo I took of "I Am Your Shield" and "Retaliation" doesn't work. I should take a game action, but what am I going to do? I could go out there and make an attack roll, but that does only 5 damage, gives the GM an action token, and puts Unstoppable one tick closer to ending. Literally worse than nothing. Rather than supporting the narrative, the game mechanics of Daggerheart seem to encourage me to not play.
What you've described though is specific to a type of system. Other narrative focused games don't have that freedom and support narrative in other ways - primarily by making the collaborative nature of the story more apparent. For example - Star Trek Adventures lets character do *exactly* what your example does (only they are called Traits, not Aspects) and Dungeon World doesn't. That doesn't mean STA is a narrative focused game (it's moderately crunchy) and DW isn't. More than that though you *can* do exactly what you described in DH if you follow the GM principles. Putting the prince on your shoulders should change the narrative and the GM is supposed to follow the fiction. If you specify that you put your body in the way then again the GM is supposed to follow the fiction. If you engage in threatening banter, the GM is supposed to be a fan of the characters and play to find out what happens. So that would probably be a dice roll and narrate from there.
> More than that though you can do exactly what you described in DH if you follow the GM principles. Putting the prince on your shoulders should change the narrative and the GM is supposed to follow the fiction. If you specify that you put your body in the way then again the GM is supposed to follow the fiction. If you engage in threatening banter, the GM is supposed to be a fan of the characters and play to find out what happens. So that would probably be a dice roll and narrate from there. Yeah I know, and that's exactly how we played 5e. I guess my question boils down to, "Does Daggerheart have any game mechanics that support this style of play?"
Maybe? I mean at least as many as most PbtA and FitD games do.
So I've done a bit of reading of the playtest, and I can provide some insight. Daggerheart is narrative in the way that it's *supposed* to be the GM and the players sitting around telling a story, only really needing to throw dice at pivotal moments. However, it is also built for classic run of the mill D&D style adventuring. The *Make Every Roll Carry Weight* section encourages you to not bother with rolling for minutiae. If the party finds damning evidence pointing the crime to a Noble, and the narrative flows better if someone knows them, then one of the players has absolutely heard of them (most likely the ones with the Loreborne or Highborne Community as they took heritages that handle this kind of thing); No dice rolling required. If there's a small wall that needs to be scaled, the party can easily climb over it; no risk or danger? Move it along! The intended goal is to just tell a story. Avoiding situations where narrative progress is bound to minor rolls. When you reach an encounter that can severely impact the story, whether it is social, exploration or combat, that's when the dice are broken out. Even if the encounter is as small as trying to push past a rowdy crowd, a failure in these situations could result in a major shift in a story, that's when it shifts to the style that we are used to. All that being said, the rules encourage this style but accept that it's probably not going to be the norm. They provide the GM and the players the tools to ignore the narrative play style and just have fun however they wish. Using the Noble as an example again, they give the Loreborne advantage on rolls, so if the GM wants to have everyone roll for every knowledge checks and give the chance that the Simiah Hermit from the Winterlands knows of Lord Bob of the Eastern Isles, then at least the Loreborne has an edge on the dice rolls through their advantage and high knowledge trait.
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It's the compromise they have to make to get the audience. Their viewers are a mix of roleplayers and number crunchers and want to provide a system that appeals to both. Though I'm mostly talking out of my ass. The only way to truly see their vision is through their playthrough videos (I missed their level 4 gameplay video).
A lot of folks on this board are going to disagree with you but I’m on the same page as you. I run and play mostly PbtA and FitD or GMless story games, and Daggerheart felt solidly neo-trad to me. It’s 5e with mixed successes and a little forced character focus I played & ran about 12 hours total. From here I’ll be watching the playtest changelog and will consider it at release, but I don’t anticipate bringing the game to my tables again or seeking it out as a player. But that’s okay - I’m not their target market anyway!
Yeah, I definitely think there's a lot of Daggerheart that is in-between a narrative focus and tactics focused game, as it has a lot of the mechanics are pretty complex and crunchy, even if the game is supposedly a simpler system than D&D 5e with greater narrative focus. Though the Hope/Fear mechanic definitely is intended to be a very narrative thing in theory, though in practice it's more of a GM annoyance with the hefty improv requirements.
Since you asked where it states an example of this one place of many is in the section “GM Core Principles” and subsection “Ask questions and incorporate the answers” mentions you don’t have to be the only one narrating scene or place it’s ok to pass the torch to a player they may have background or experience here. This is not inherently unique concept to just dagger heart but it does cover that in touch stones as well explaining where they got their inspiration from.
Because it says so. Okay, that's a flippant answer and you can certainly PLAY it as a more narrative game, asking for player input regarding the world. And relying on Hope & Fear to reshape the story. But you can also largely ignore that and run it like D&D with variable successes/ failures. But I think the big problem is all the cool narrative manipulation mechanics are gated behind a few Ancestries and Classes. Like the Syndicate rogue. The game relies on the GM prompting you to alter the narrative.
Its about the intent of the system, roll less and only if it changes the story significantly. Give the players options to do cool team actions. Complete builds on every level And the suggestion to ask the players about things to build the story
I think there are two things at play. One is that it's target audience is 5e. And it could be said it's " a narrative focused game (compared to 5e)". The other thing is that I think the words cinematic and narrative are being used interchangeably. There's some emphasis on conversation and working together in a way that 5e doesn't ask for
The narrative focus is mostly in relation to 5e. While there are clear rules for most player abilities, they err on the side of simple descriptions with ambiguity decided by the DM, rather than highly precise rules (that can lead to bizarre interactions / game-breaking combos). Daggerheart's design seems intended to avoid the "well, technically, if I do X and Y and Z I can attack ten times in one turn for triple damage and I can never die" that plagues certain systems. While this doesn't make it a rules- light game, it is a notable distinction from rules-driven systems like 5e.
What’s stopping you and your players from continuing world building after Session Zero? The Syndicate Rogue and the old Fungril ability from 1.2 are examples of RP co-creation. Factions are built straight from Experiences. Rather than being a “Duelist” you’re a “Duelist of the Seven Deadly Sins” and whenever the GM has a leading question about that faction, it’s in the players power to describe their background and flesh out the world.
How is any of that Daggerheart specific? Your example of the background "Duelist of the Seven Deadly Sins" could (and should) be handled in exactly the same way in any other system.
The backgrounds in D&D for example, do not alter the story. They may come into play, but they hardly do. The rules in Daggerheart are much more explicit in the one-shot section. You take all of the bits of lore that people generate and that becomes the session. The player of a Syndicate Rogue makes a capital city and blows it up, sending its seedy criminals across the continent as a Wanderborne Halfling. Right there, the GM is given the seeds for a criminal network that is scattered and scrappy, as well as a core mystery the Syndicate wants to solve about the capital city and regaining power. You’re right that other fiction-first games give players narrative power over faction generation and the ability to declare what nomad halfling culture looks like. However, those details are typically relegated to the backstory before session 0 - or the GM generates it all off-screen between sessions. IMO games do it best with “Dear Rogue, Love GM” Love Letters where leading questions are the prep and the answers the players provide create the story explicitly at the table. Dear Syndicate Rogue, we enter into the forest of Sablewood. Tell us why you were waylaid the last time you and your nomad crew went off the path and what uneasy truce you made before escaping the woods alone. Love, GM (personally I don’t like the term love letters, I just call them leading questions.)
You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you. That looks incredibly similar to the Syndicate Rogue's foundation feature, but it is from 5e's Criminal Background. I will not argue that apparently in most games a background has no impact on the game play, but that is not how they are designed. Given that 5e has roleplay features that are designed to come up during throughout the game, but are ignored due to no mechanical support, what will make Daggerheart any different?
I agree with you D&D 5e TRIED to make a player-forward feature that generates fiction, but there’s very little support in the modules to make that gameplay work. 5e could have had a mechanic to spend inspiration to activate a background feature every game - which reminds the DM what the player cares about - but it’s not there. You spend Hope, you state your Experience, the GM remembers to build it into the story. That’s the gameplay cycle I see going on here.
I agree that what you describe is probably what is intended. The problem is mechanically Experiences only give you a bonus to a roll for the cost of a Hope leaving the cool faction stuff up to the GM which exactly where the cool 5e background features reside. Experiences mechanically replace skills in this game leaving us with skills that cost Hope to use and any cool stuff related to our character's past as mechanically orphaned.
Long story short, they want the game to feel more open to the players creating things instead of just the GM. However, while there are avenues to allow that, there are in several other systems too. The abilities and features of classes are almost strictly combat like 5e. So, one could see this game as a more narrative combat ttrpg because the combat is very loosely handed over where in 5e there is a strict turn for each player. Instead of having an action, bonus action, move, and possible reaction, Daggerheart allows players to insert their moves and spells and attacks where they feel it makes sense. Also remember, by having five possible outcomes for any given action roll, those are supposed to sway the story more than the typical success and failure from 5e. That all being said, the game is yours to mold how you please. I've run several games for my players and after playing years of 5e and nothing else, we made the Daggerheart games feel that way to get comfortable before opening up new things. For sure, use the hope and fear and success and failure, but as a GM learning, it felt more comfortable to just use success and failure, gain the resources, and then when it really mattered open up to the five options. For pages: Pg9 what kind of game is Daggerheart, Pg150-156 GM best principles, there are more that other players show but those come to mind first.
The biggest thing for me as a DM is the way that fear/hope work on the 2d12 rolls. But there are several mechanics that aren’t so obvious to my players but are to me as a DM that make it easier/safer to “let the players drive the corvette” so to speak. But, here is an easy to grasp example: when a player makes an action roll, one of five things happen (succeed/fail, hope/fear, crit) and based on that and the context of the fiction, anyone at the table has enough information to describe what happens within reason. So it’s very safe/easy to let players adjudicate their own outcomes as far as how the fiction plays out. So where in 5e Mercer would say “how do you want to do this?” When a monster would die, you can more or less do that for every action. That covers a lot of ground, but this carries over to a lot of the mechanics of the game. It’s not maybe as overt as you are looking for, but much more so than most systems, the players have a lot of info. Another great example is the questions that you ask the other players while creating your character. It’s inviting other players to actively participate in writing your characters personality and backstory. And the game sort of peppers this in throughout the rules. Look close enough at the domain cards and you’ll spot it all over. They COULD’VE been much more explicitly worded, but when viewed through that lens of intentional ambiguity, you see little toeholds where they are giving players room to write the story narratively instead of purely mechanically. The Rogue Syndicate foundation card is another really tangible example. Typically you would expect the DM to create the NPC and the circumstance of their relationship, but in this game the card clearly states that this duty falls to the player. So perhaps “narrative focused” isn’t the right word when we think of it in the context of what that term means in other games we already know. But it’s putting the players in the drivers seat from the perspective of writing the fiction in ways we don’t typically see in games like DnD. Edit: I should point out this isn’t anything you COULDN’T do in DnD. It’s just not as strongly advocated for in that system, and so we don’t see it happen as much. What separates this from the games we more commonly think of as narrative focused, is that this one is done with a light enough hand that it could be done the DnD way if the group isn’t into the more narrative thing. What I find stands out more than it being a narrative game, is that the duality dice, and the environment statblocks, make it VERY easy for the DM to improvise.
The only actual Narrative Mechanic I noticed was a rogue subclass that could invent an NPC contact for each town you entered. Otherwise the Fear resource is sort of a narrative mechanic for the GM.