Campaign Frames¶
When starting a Daggerheart campaign, you may wish to begin with a campaign frame.
These frames provide inspiration, tools, and mechanics to support the story your table will tell. You can choose one of the campaign frames from the following pages or use their structure to create your own.
Every campaign frame has a complexity rating that indicates how challenging the campaign is to run. Campaign frames with a lower complexity rating often sit squarely within the kind of genre Daggerheart is built for and don't have many additional mechanics to consider. Campaign frames with a higher complexity rating often push the genre of the campaign outside the bounds of traditional fantasy, contain more in-depth mechanics to implement, and require a GM who is comfortable creating new game elements (often known as "homebrew")—such as stat blocks, equipment, and similar content—for their players.
Each campaign frame includes the following sections:
- A pitch to present to players
- Suggestions for the campaign's tone, feel, themes, and cultural touchstones that helped shaped it
- An overview of the campaign's background
- Guidance for how certain communities, ancestries, and classes fit into the setting
- Principles for players and GMs to consider during the campaign
- Unique setting distinctions
- An inciting incident to launch the campaign
- Special mechanics to use during the campaign
- Questions to consider during session zero
You can find each campaign frame map in the appendix or at www.daggerheart.com/downloads.
Campaign Frame Breakdown¶
The following steps highlight the important parts of a campaign frame and describe how to use a frame to start a new campaign.
Step 1: Pitch the Campaign¶
Use the pitch to give your players a brief idea of what the campaign will be like. You can also pull from the touchstones section (eliminating or adding your own as you'd like) and share the tone & feel and themes. Answer any question they might have and ensure they are interested in the campaign.
Step 2: Provide the Foundations¶
Once the players are onboard, give them the overview and player principles. You may also choose to read them your GM principles. Additionally, provide them any information from distinctions you think might be relevant, as well as any campaign mechanics they should know.
Step 3: Guide Their Characters¶
As they are brainstorming what kind of characters they want to make, you can share the information from the communities, ancestries, and class sections as applicable. These can be overwhelming to engage with all at once, so as they become relevant, discuss as needed with your players.
Step 4: Build the Map¶
Once players have made their characters, pass a copy of the campaign frame map around the table, adding locations to it collectively from either the available list or your imaginations. Follow the rest of the Session Zero prep as usual.
Step 5: Run a Session Zero¶
Choose any of the session zero questions from the campaign frame to ask your players.
Step 6: Begin the Adventure¶
Finally, use the provided inciting incident—or write your own—to start the campaign!
Each campaign frame in the following section is written by a unique team of writers and is specialised to the needs of the campaign it facilitates. Because of this, their style, voice, complexity, and approach vary more than other sections of this book. Use these frames as inspiration when developing your own campaign. We don't want you to be hemmed in by a strict template, so expand upon the pieces that work for your table and let the rest fall away.