Dagger

Dagger is a role-play game produced by Brave Halfling Publishing under the open games licence and is a derivative of the original game or as most of us would call it Dungeons & Dragons and uses common elements of old school game mechanics which anyone playing Swords and Wizardry or Labyrinth Lords will recognise.

So what makes Dagger any different from all the other retro clones and other games produced under the open games licence. Well for a start this version of the original game is aimed at children as young as 5 and uses a stripped down system which has such innovations as no ability scores, using only the most basic character classes and using only two resolution mechanics.

The game can either be down loaded for free in pdf. This version is even more rules light and only contains the bare bone of the game, it is in black and white and consists of only nine pages.

The version you pay for is also excellent value costing only $1 US or about 60p UK with no postage and packaging as it is sent to you in PDF. This means even if the game was rubbish you would not loose any money in getting yourself a copy. I an assure you having no played the game it is far from been rubbish. 

This stripped down game allows you to create characters in less than a minute and get right into the game. If you are using it for what it was intended for and that is introducing children as young as 5 to table top role playing it does exactly that. It provides them with enough of a frame work to get to grips with what role-play is without over complicating things.

I will start by looking at the character sheet it has on one side a nice big box for the player to draw their character. Next comes the characters name and then their class. Under his it has a box for special abilities and a box for equipment.

Along the other side of the character sheet you will find a large Square for the player to record their Level, underneath we have a pentagram for hit points, a shield for armour class and finally a circle for saving throws. The character sheet is completed by a small grid to record to hit armour class. The publishers are very careful not to call it THAC0 however.

So how does this relate to character generation and the rules. Well ignoring the character name and sketch for a moment lets take a look at class. A player may choose from playing a Knight, Wizard, Elf, Dwarf and includes the optional character class of Halfling. This is very similar to the old Dungeons and Dragons we see in the Red Box Set and the Rules Cyclopedia. The Knight and Wizard are humans.

Each class comes with set abilities and set beginning equipment. Their are no Clerics or Thieves. This I guess is because the game is aimed at children. By taking out clerics you do not have to deal with messy questions about gods and religion. By dropping the thief you can avoid moral questions about why are we playing criminals. 

The fighter is renamed a Knight and has the best Armour Class and the best to hit role. They start with plate armour and a shield and a sword. The Wizard is the main source of magic in the game. They have no armour to start with and cast spells from their staff which allows them to have two spells per level. They only get to choose from four one of which any veteran of D&D will recognise as been a cleric spell.

The Elf is effectivly a Fighter-Wizard, they have a bow and a wand which allows them to cast 1 spell per level. Their armour class is not as good and neither is their to hit role. The Dwarf is an axe wielding, chain mail wearing warrior.

Halflings are small and quick and good at sneaking around been almost silent and invisible. The have a sling and an AC of 6 even though they only have a shield.

All characters use the same dice for hit points a D6 per level and share the same experience point table. As their level goes up their saving throw improves as well. It is also possible for all characters to search, listen and open doors. Again a simple D6 is used to resolve this. Between this simple D6 roll or the saving throw you do not really need anything more complicated to see if players succeed or not. 

Combat is quick and effective and is resolved by comparing your opponents armour class with the number you need to roll above on a D20 to hit. If you you then apply damage. Damage is usually rolled on a D6 which is quite lethal at first and which remains that way if you are unlucky with your dice.

This means even as you level up combat never becomes as easy  as it does in other systems. Whilst talking about level the core Dagger book only takes players up to 5th level so at best a Fighter will only ever have a maximum of 30 hit points. Of course you can get a Wizard with similar hits but at this stage that does not really matter. Most weapons and monsters in the system do D6 damage some like Dragons and Giants do more. I fond with adults this helps them to lean to respect monsters more and to keep a distance and plan attacks better. 

It also teaches the younger players the importance of not just wading in as they soon see their hit points fall. 

When I first got Dagger I did two test games one with veterans. and one with a mixed group of children aged 5 to 11. The adults went for one member of each class, whilst the Kids chose two knights both played by boys one 5 the other 6. One of the girls a 7 year old chose a dwarf because thats what her mum played and the last girl an 11 year old chose an elf because she wanted to have magic and be able to fight.

Both groups soon leaned the folly of fighting goblins with no plan. It was interesting seeing how the veterans had simply dismissed the goblins as a threat after one clash which saw the knight go down and their dwarf and elf on half hits with the elf out of spells for that go. That left a wizard and Halfling facing of against 6 relatively uninjured goblins. Even latter as they went up in level they never again under estimated their goblin foes.

For the kids they learned two valuable lessons if you co-operate you can slay more monsters and are less likely to get hurt yourself and that missile weapons are wonderful for keeping yourself alive but letting you defeat monsters!

As I mentioned earlier Magic is very simple their are but four spells per level from which the Wizard and Elf can choose from. One is combat based, one healing based, one manipulation based and one more adventurer based. This works quite well to begin with and it allows younger players to learn their spells of by heart ready for when they move onto one of the more complicated versions of the game.

All of the spells come with a full description and the relevant information needed to cast the spells and apply the results.

Their are clear tables which explain to hit roles and saving throws for both player characters and monsters. This makes things easy to read and find in the booklet all of which speeds up play and that is defiantly a strength of this game.

The book also comes with its very own monster section detailing some of the more common monsters found in traditional old school games. This means the referee can be ready to roll in minutes and it only takes an hour or so to read through the rules in the first place.

Well as you might guess I was really impressed with this game. It does not claim to be new and revolutionary instead it takes a well established game system and successfully adapts it for younger players. It actually makes role-play games accessible to children and provides parents who role-play with a tool to include their kids.

It makes a wonderful bridging tool to take children from story time to role-play time. The game mechanics are simple use either D20's pr D6 tweo of the more common polyhedron dice available and provides parents and referees with a system which is ready to use, and cost effective.  

Even as a game for adults it is so rules light it may well appeal to free formers as well as traditional gamers and it is easy to expand on using other classes and spells from other products.

I have already added clerics and thieves to my fantasy games and have created a campaign set in a Steampunk 1890 setting called Pax Britannica which uses two of the new Osprey War Game books, In her Majesty's Name and Heroes, Villains and Fiends as source books.

Overall I would rate this game 5 out of 5, a game for children which actually delivers without loosing site of its objectives.