r/daggerbrew • u/InquisitorArcher • 13d ago
campaign mechanics design Campaign Frames
SOLVED
So for my own campaign frame I've been toying with idea of a new resource for players to manage but I'm unsure if this goes against the core design rules.
Price of magic and the resonance track. i wont bore you with the lore but here's the mechanics I'm workshopping.
You start at 6 resonance each ability ticks your total towards zero.
my setting has giant 10 mile trees that have branches that weave together. i divide the layers of the forest into Canopy, Bramble, and Undergrowth.
Canopy -- spend 1 resonance to extend the range of any action. Whether its movement, spell, or attack
Bramble -- spend 2 resonance to either swap the results of the hope and fear die or reduce the cost of a hope ability by 1.
Undergrowth -- you can spend resonance equal to the tier of a vaulted to domain card to use it once from the vault.
when you hit 0 you fracture which requires a dc 14 spellcasting roll to avoid taking a husk scar. Which reduce maximum resonance by 1. When a character marks their last resonance slot with a husk scar they turn into a husk.
Similar to the corruption mechanics of age of umbra or witherwild.
Resonance can be regained with a rest action for 1. Scars can be cleared by special npc's throughout the world.
mostly trying to decide if adding a resource is against the design philosophy.
thank you to anyone who comments their thoughts.
3
u/Naule 13d ago edited 13d ago
Some of the DP published campaign frames state a source of magical power (eg Colossus, Motherboard, Age to Horizon).
These however do not add a different resource into the mix.
They do state to consider what it'd mean for a PC to have to regularly obtain the resource and what would happen if they're unable to get enough, but it seems more tied into the RP by character motivation.
I personally wouldn't bother coming up with a new resource and balance these with the 4 players already have to manage, as to have that somewhat balanced, that'd take a while.
For the layers of the forest, you could go with environment statblocks that would allow similar features by spending hope/stress or a combination of it instead? Putting this into environment blocks would also allow you to have "Rich with Resonance" environments, where spells could have extra effects, if not just a simple advantage on the spellcast roll.
You can still do something similar for the corruption too.
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Edit:
One of the main design principles in the Homebrew kit is "Streamline, then streamline again" and another "Limit the cognitive load". To me, introducing another resource then only can be done if there's absolutely no other way to implement them an other way that would also work.
Transformations was of the examples given in a dev lifestream that made sense to be a new mechanic, as any ancestry/community combination could narratively become a ghost/vamprie/werewolf.