How do I run a Daggerheart scene? | Set it, then hand them the job

There is no initiative clock on my table. If you can run one scene that way, you can run the rest of the night.

A Daggerheart scene is a room you name and a job you hand them, then the dice decide who keeps the spotlight. There is no turn order to award. A Hope result keeps the beat with them, and a Fear result still gives them the thing and hands you the next move in that same room before anyone explains the roll.

Here is how I open a room, how the four Duality results move the spotlight, when the scene is over, and what I write before they sit down.

How I open a Daggerheart scene

Name what is there, in present tense, and then hand the table a job. That is the whole start. I put them on the ferry landing, because I already know that room, and I do not need a new one to show the loop.

The landing boards are slick with river grit, and the last skiff is already pulling its rope in. A clerk with a salt-stained ledger is waving you back as if the tide takes requests. Who talks to them?

If they talk, they talk. If they shove past, that is an action roll. I do not need a map yet. I do not need a round of where is everyone standing. The question is the handoff. Until I ask it, I am still performing, and they are waiting for me to finish the landing.

I keep the opening short on purpose. One thing they can see, one person who wants something from them, and one question that can become a roll. If I add the mayor, the cult, and last week’s raid, I have written a plot into a room they have not entered. They can hear the clerk. They cannot hear the gazetteer. The scene starts when they answer the question, not when I have finished explaining why they came.

Who talks is a soft job. It lets one of them step in without a fight. If nobody talks and somebody moves, the job changes and the roll appears. I do not punish them for skipping the clerk. I roll the thing they actually did. The scene is still the landing until the skiff, the clerk, or the watch is no longer the point.

How the dice move the spotlight

When they roll, the Hope die and the Fear die decide more than pass or fail. A success with Hope means they keep the spotlight and the world says yes. A success with Fear means they still get what they came for, and I take a token and a small cost. A failure with Hope is a no with a crack in the door. A failure with Fear is a no, and I take the spotlight and make a real move.

I ran the landing that way. Someone tried to jump the gap to the skiff. It was Agility at 12. They made it with Fear, so they are on the boat, and the clerk has already shouted for the watch. I do not pause to award a turn order. The fiction points at the next person, or at me. The shout is me, because the Fear die said the room gets a beat. The person on the boat still has what they came for.

A failure with Hope on that same jump would leave them on the boards, with a rope still in reach. I offer the crack. I do not take the night. A failure with Fear is the one where I move first. The rope goes, or the watch is already on the gangplank. I pick one. I do not stack both because I am nervous.

The spotlight is not a baton I pass clockwise. After a Hope success I ask who is with them. After a Fear result I have already taken a token, and I spend it or I hold it for the beat the room is pointing at. I do not stop the scene to explain Duality. They heard the result. I show it.

When a Daggerheart scene is over

The loop is short. I set the scene, I ask, I build on the fiction, and I do it again. A scene is over when the job on the landing is done, or when everyone is looking at me for what happens next, and I have spent the Fear or I have not. If I keep describing the same boards after the skiff has left, I am holding a scene that already ended.

If the watch arrives, that is a new beat, not a new initiative. I spotlight the clerk, or I spotlight the first watch officer, and then I give it back. The officer is a person in the room, not a turn marker. They say what they want. The table answers. If that answer is a roll, the dice move the spotlight again. If it is talk, we stay in the talk until somebody acts or I spend to make the room change.

I build with the last true thing they did. They are on the boat, so the next line is the boat, not a return to the ledger. If I reset the room every time I speak, they learn that their action did not stick, and then they stop offering actions.

When I am stuck, I look at who has not spoken, or I spend the Fear I already took and I make one move. I do not invent a second scene to escape a quiet table. The landing still has a job until the skiff is gone or the watch has them. Then I stop.

What I write before they sit down

I write four lines for one room. I write what is there. I write the question. I write the first likely roll and its Difficulty. I write one move I will make if the Fear die wins. Then I run only that. I stop when the landing is no longer the point.

The four lines live under the box I will read, not inside it. The question is for them. The Difficulty is for me. If I put the number in the sentence I say aloud, I start teaching the page instead of standing on the boards. They can hear twelve later, if the roll happens. They need the clerk and the rope first.

I also write who the Fear die points at, so I am not choosing a victim after the fact. On the landing, the clerk shouts, or the watch officer steps onto the gangplank, or the rope burns a hand. One of those. If the first roll is Hope, the line stays in the notes. I do not spend a Fear I did not gain just to complete the plan. The scene can stay kind for a beat. The next Fear result can take the line.

Name the room. Hand them the job. Let the dice say who keeps the beat. Stop when the job is done.