Hope & Fear in Daggerheart

Breaking down Daggerheart’s core mechanic

Hope & Fear

When a player rolls with Hope they receive x1 hope to add to their character sheet. On the other hand when a player rolls with Fear the GM receives a fear token. 

Hope and fear respectively are used to fuel certain abilities and actions:

Hope tokens (players) – Max 6

• Spend to:
  
  • Help an Ally
  • Utilise an Experience
  • Initiate a Tag Team Roll
  • Activate a Hope Feature of your character or on a spell
    

Fear tokens (GMs) – Max 10

• Spend to:
  • Interrupt the players to make an action in battle
  • Make an additional GM move 
  • Add an additional adversary during a battle
  • Use an adversary’s Fear feature
  • Use an environment’s Fear feature 
  • Add an adversary’s Experience to a roll made for them

Using Hope

Hope and Fear tokens can be spent on a number of actions. As outlined above most are pretty flexible, but have some applications that if applied, make the best use of your tokens.

Hope represents a character’s determination to meet their goals, as it runs out, this shows a character pushing themselves past their limits. Hope is a limited resource, so spend it wisely.

Hope economy

Everytime you make a roll in Daggerheart there is a chance to generate Hope at least half the time. With the max you can hold being 6, you might as well make good use of it. Tag team attacks burn 3 all at once, so if you are at max, they provide a good way to give you room to generate more, while tipping a battle in your favour. Outside of fighting use the help action liberally, you can provide a 1d6 modifier to anything your friends are attempting, so lend a hand often to make sure you don’t stay maxed out. 

Considering any action with a role has the chance to generate hope, act often. Investigate, rummage, convince, push, pull – do anything you can to generate more Hope. Of course this does also offer the GM a chance to generate Fear to, so don’t make rolls just to farm hope, or it might come back to bite you later.

When your Hope token pool is high (5 or 6), consider using it liberally — it replenishes on more than 50% of rolls, so being generous benefits everyone. However, when you’re low on Hope, use caution. Save it for desperate situations where it could save a character, change a battle, or turn the tide of a scene. Initiate more Duality Rolls to recover Hope more often — take proactive narrative actions like scouting ahead, persuading NPCs, or investigating problems. These encourage rolls and increase your chances of replenishing Hope naturally. This may feel meta, but it aligns with how the system encourages ongoing character activity and emotional engagement.

Help an ally (add +1d6 to their roll)

When an ally is about to make a check, whether in combat, social situations, or using their skills – you can spend one hope to grant them an additional 1d6 to their roll. 

Advice

• If an ally is attempting an important action (disarm a trap, land a final blow, convincing an NPC), your assistance could tip the balance. But pick carefully, your hope will run out fast if you use it constantly.
• If you can’t get to an enemy, help an ally who can make sure their attacks are more likely to land. This is particularly useful if adversaries are resistant to the damage type you are dealing, but an ally has the right kind available.
• You might see an ally struggling in battle, offer them a helping hand so their attacks hit, and avoid the enemy gaining further advantage.
• To compare this to D&D, imagine the whole party has the spell guidance (with a limited number of uses), that would be incredibly impactful and in Daggerheart represents one of the best uses for hope. Strongly consider using it to shift an encounter in your favor early on.

Utilise an experience

Each character has a set of Experiences,  equivalent to skills in D&D. Experience highlights specific bits of personal history, such as being a soldier before, a trained blacksmith, or someone who just likes to defend their allies a lot. They increase in potency as you level up and your character will gain new ones as part of their ongoing story. 

When making a check that can be argued to connect to one of your Experiences, you can spend a point of hope to add your current experience bonus to your roll. GM must agree that the experience applies to the task at hand

For example your character has the experience ‘Apprenticed at the Arcane College’. When deciphering ancient runes, you spend a hope to use this experience to make it more likely you will succeed.

Advice:

• This can only be used on your own rolls, so try to pick experiences that will play to your strengths and things your characters could be doing a lot, such as singing for your bard or tracking as a ranger.
• Be ready to argue your Experience’s application. There will be times your GM may not see how it links to your current situation, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be swayed. Consider sharing how your character might have done something similar in their backstory and how it applies here..

Initiate a tag team roll

Tag team rolls allow two players to work together in a synergistic, narrative-driven way. By spending a point of hope, you initiate a joint action with another player, where both of your efforts combine to accomplish a shared goal. It comes at a significant cost of the initiating player spending 3 of their Hope. Tag team rolls can be initiated once pers session for each party member.

This can be as simple as climbing something high, in which case both players roll to see if they can do it and choose the best outcome of the two, which applies to them both, offering a better chance of success.

In combat the same is true for the roll to hit, then both players roll damage and combine the outcomes into a total set of damage. 

Advice

• Be wary that to activate a tag team roll, the cost is 3 Hope, half of the maximum that can be held by a character. While Tag Team Rolls are powerful, you are reducing the prospect of using Hope for other means. So there is a notable risk vs reward here. Of course it can be recovered on any roll, but there’s just as much chance that you generate Fear instead. I would consider it a better investment if you are in a position where you feel the successful combined attack would finish the enemy, but it depends on the characters involved and what they generally use Hope to accomplish.
• To execute a Tag Team Roll you need to be relatively close to the ally (depending on what you describe the maneuver to be will decide just how close and will be at the GM’s discretion. If you plan to execute a Tag Team Roll, stay close to that ally or you will struggle to convince the DM it’s possible.
• Tag Team Rolls also only count for one action on the action tracker, butthe main advantage is the fact your characters are taking two rolls and taking the best of them to hit. While this is useful, it costs 3 hope. So consider the risk vs. the reward.
• In the situation that all of your allies are fully stocked on hope and in a conducive battlefield position again a single foe, there definitely an argument to be made for pushing as many Tag Team Rolls as possible to the start of the fight to get an unassailable advantage over the enemy, with attacks that are more likely to hit.

Activate a hope feature on your character sheet or a spell

Many character classes and spells in Daggerheart have features that activate by spending Hope. These are impactful and heavily tailored to what that class wants to do, as such they are less universally applicable (like the Help action).

Examples include:

• Rogue’s can increase sneak attack damage by spending Hope
• Rangers can apply a Focus on an enemy, increasing damage dealt to them and more
• Warrior’s can gain advantage on actions to restrain a target and apply damage to it. 

Plenty of spells can also be upgraded by spending hope, making them more effective or damaging.

Advice

It’s hard to advise on using these, as they are all so varied. But knowing the features/spells available will be invaluable for knowing whether you need to reserve some hope for using these. The rogue’s damage increase in particular can be devastating and thus would be important to reserve a Hope point for getting the drop on an enemy.

Using Fear

It’s vital to note that Daggerheart is not necessarily posing the DM against the players. Using Fear will always pose obstacles for them, but the focus is how it provides narrative opportunity and increases tension in the game. 

Fear is banked by the GM each time a player makes a roll with Fear or they take an action on combat. Here are the ways a GM can use it and advice to keep in mind for using it as a storytelling instigator.

Make an additional GM Move

GM Move’s are a wide concept that effectively acts as an umbrella for any time the GM intervenes and impacts the plot. This can include activating enemies in combat, but could also include environmental hazards like traps or disasters. These are used to escalate tension, complicate choices, or respond dynamically to a player’s action. They are typically, but not always used after a player rolls with Fear.

Advice

• Consider spending fear to interrupt a party taking advantage of too many rests. While important to allow players downtime so they can replenish resources, it also shouldnt be without some risk, and a GM can make that felt if the party abuses the opportunity a lot.
• Environmental effects can be a good way to balance player success, if they are finding things are going well often, you can add rain, snow, fog or other effects to make things more difficult and force players to rethink their plans.
• Enemies can find themselves backed into a corner by players, consider using a GM Move to have one make an escape, this could leave players sleeping with one eye open for a while!

Interrupt the players to make an action in battle

Combat works differently in Daggerheart to D&D, rather than a set initiative, players continue to act until the GM spend’s Fear (2 per enemy) to allow an enemy to act between actions. This can happen more than once, allowing the GM to stack up actions as they see tactically effective.  

Advice

• Use enemy actions to break up player synergy, acting when the best opportunity presents itself, perhaps when a player missed an attack or starts running low on Hope. 
• Throw in multiple enemy attacks at once to turn the tide of combat in their favour or to even the odds. You can focus on one player for maximum effectiveness.
• Act before the party’s healer does, catching them at a moment of vulnerability.

Add an additional adversary during a battle

If you really want to throw a spanner in the works for your players, consider adding reinforcements to the enemy force. 

Advice

• This option should be used judiciously as the power level of that foe is at your discretion. Bear in mind players will feel cheated if they have command of an encounter and you take that from them by plugging in a powerful foe without warning.
• Avoid this by creating a logical reason why this enemy would arrive, perhaps they escaped a previous battle with your players and have been tracking their movements or are guards that could hear the fighting and came to provide support.
• You can balance the idea of the new combatant by having it be neither loyal to the players or the enemies, attacking indiscriminately and adding a new wrinkle to how the battle will play out.

Use a Fear feature

Many monsters or NPCs have special abilities triggered by spending Fear, this often takes the place of a special attack. Of course the effectiveness varies with the enemy at hand, but they often make a good use of Fear and are a good alternative to always overwhelming the players with numbers. Similarly some environments have features that can be activated by spending Fear too. These are often traps, but can be things that deceive or manipulate players, prompting a check to defend against. 

Advice:

• Using an environment’s Fear feature can be a great way to make exploring interesting. This pillar of role playing games is often reduced to checking for traps or searching for treasure. In this case the DM can control the tension on an area and put the players at risk without using combat
• An enemy’s Fear feature provides an ideal way to make combat more cinematic, acting as an in-built way to keep baddies doing different things in combat. For non-spell casters, enemies can be reduced to moving and chopping, but this gives them extra moves to build up to and for players to watch out for.

Add an adversary’s Experience to a roll made for them

Just as players can add Experience bonuses to rolls so can adversaries, but by spending Fear rather than Hope. This could be used to increase chances of landing key attacks, resist the influence of a spellcasting player or pass a check opposing a player, like pushing or pulling something. Narratively this could reflect the enemy calling on past training or leveraging their unique history, if it ties to a specific player who acts as their foil, this can make it more effective.

Collaborative storytelling with Hope & Fear

Treat Hope as a shared resource

Hope tokens are a great way to activate abilities, but an excellent way to keep the group functioning well. It can be useful to watch each other’s rolls if a teammate is facing a major challenge or has low modifiers, offering the Help action. If your party member wants to go for that, describe how your character offers that assistance. Are you giving encouragement? Distracting an enemy? Emotional and practical aid both count.

Embrace Hope and Fear results

Let the outcomes of rolls shape your character’s journey. Success with Fear can add depth to your character’s emotional struggles, presenting something looming on the horizon which they can react to. Failure with Hope shows bravery even in defeat as they see something of a way forward. Don’t skip the story that comes with that roll result.

Use Hope and Fear narratively

For GM’s, frame outcomes with the right kind of descriptions. Hopeful outcomes are graceful, bright and positive so allow characters to shine and look their best. Fearful outcomes are grim and filled with suspense, so describe things in a more ominous, foreboding way. This might sound small, but it makes a difference in how consequential the rolls sound.

Final thoughts

The Hope and Fear system is one of Daggerheart’s standout mechanics, a way to make every roll not just count, but feel exciting. Rolling for a check always has a certain amount of gameplay consequence, but Hope and Fear have a way of making it feel exciting for that character’s individual journey.

It does mean GM’s need to be on their toes, finding ways to make the tone changes weave into the storyline, but players also have a hand in making this resonate with their characters’ reactions to stress and success. It’s an exciting prospect that I look forward to seeing unfold again and again as gaming tables become used to the mechanic and the excitement it can bring.

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Have you had chance to play Daggerheart yet? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Spotlight on Daggerheart