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Core Mechanics · SRD

Turn Order & Action Economy

Daggerheart's turns don't follow a traditional, rigid format: there is no explicit initiative mechanic and characters don't have a set number of actions they can take or things they can do before the spotlight passes to someone else. A player with the spotlight describes what their character does and the spotlight simply swings to whoever:

  1. the fiction would naturally turn it toward
  2. hasn't had the focus in a while, or
  3. a triggered mechanic puts it on

Optional: Spotlight Tracker Tool

If your group prefers a more traditional action economy, you can use tokens to track how many times a player has had the spotlight: At the start of a session or scene, each player adds a certain number of tokens (we recommend 3) to their character sheet and removes a token each time they take an action. If the spotlight would swing to someone without any tokens, it swings to someone else instead. Once every player has used all their available tokens, players refill their character sheet with the same number of tokens as before, then continue playing.

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This work includes materials from the Daggerheart System Reference Document 1.0, © Critical Role, LLC, under the terms of the Darrington Press Community Gaming License (DPCGL), available at https://darringtonpress.com/license/. More information can be found at https://www.daggerheart.com. Daggerheart™ Compatible. This work is not affiliated with, endorsed, or sponsored by Critical Role or Darrington Press.

Reformatted and reorganized for presentation on PostRoll; minor formatting changes. No previous modifications by others.

Licensed under Darrington Press Community Gaming License.

srd-1.0 · Version 1.0.0 · Updated Jul 10, 2026