Reigns: The Witcher Guide - How to Stop Dandelion From Repeating Himself
Dandelion has an ego the size of Novigrad, but even he runs out of material if you do not know how to force new inspiration out of his lute-strumming head.
The core of this game relies on a very simple but incredibly fragile illusion. You are playing as Geralt of Rivia, but you are not actually making Geralt's choices. You are dictating the narrative flow of a story being told by Dandelion to a room full of rowdy, half-drunk tavern patrons. Every time you swipe left or right, you are choosing how the bard embellishes the tale. It is a fantastic framing device that excuses all the bizarre continuity errors and sudden deaths that happen during a standard run. But there is a massive catch to this mechanic. Once you figure out the optimal path for a specific story and max out your star rating, the novelty wears off entirely.
You end up stuck in a repetitive loop. You will find yourself answering the same prompts, fighting the same monsters, and watching Geralt suffer the exact same indignities over and over. If you want to keep the crowds throwing coin and actually experience the breadth of the writing, you need to unlock more of Dandelion's Ideas. The game does not hand these out for free. You have to earn them by engaging with the underlying progression systems. Here is exactly how I managed to expand my roster of stories and keep the tavern crowds entertained.
Grinding the Bard's Ego
Progress in this game is tied directly to how much you can inflate the narrator's sense of self-worth. Leveling up Dandelion is the most consistent way to earn new narrative concepts.
After every run comes to an inevitably tragic or hilarious end, the game throws a score screen at you. This is not just for bragging rights. The points you earn are calculated based on two critical factors. First, the game looks at the sheer number of days you managed to keep Geralt breathing in the harsh reality of the Continent. Second, it calculates your performance regarding the specific objectives of your active tale.
Getting a high score feeds directly into a progression bar. I found that playing it safe and just trying to survive the daily grind rarely pays off if you want to unlock things quickly. You need to actively pursue the objectives the game gives you, even if those objectives put Geralt in massive danger. When that bar finally fills up, Dandelion levels up. He awards himself a completely unearned new title, but more importantly, he generates a brand new idea or two for a tale. This is the baseline grind. If you are ever stuck wondering what to do next, just focus on surviving longer and hitting those specific story goals.
Selling Out for Lord Barkwaf
Eventually, your standard tavern gigs will catch the attention of people with actual money. This is where the job system comes into play.
As you spend time completing standard performances across the regional map, you will start receiving invitations to complete unique, high-paying jobs. Lord Barkwaf is the first major client you will run into. Barkwaf does not just want a generic monster hunting story. He has highly specific tastes and demands tales that meet exact narrative prompts. It is essentially corporate gig work for a medieval bard.
I cannot stress this enough. Whenever one of these job markers appears on your map, drop whatever generic tavern run you are doing and head straight for it. Pleasing these high-profile clients is the fastest way to inject completely fresh variables into your deck of cards. Completing Barkwaf's requests will unlock entirely new characters and bizarre inspirations that bleed into your regular runs. If your only goal is to unlock as many tales as quickly as possible, these map jobs are your absolute top priority.
Glorious Failure and Perfection
This is where the dark humor of the swiping mechanics really shines. The game rewards you for finding the perfect path, but it also rewards you for spectacular, morbid failures.
I spent a few hours tracking my unlocks and noticed a very clear pattern. Getting a perfect three-star rating on a tale almost always opens up a direct continuation or a wild branching path for that specific storyline. The game recognizes that you mastered the basic version and throws a more complicated sequel at you.
But you can also unlock tales by dying in highly specific ways. The game tracks how Geralt meets his end, and certain deaths trigger new narrative ideas for Dandelion. Early on, you get a tale involving a hunt for a serial killer. I played my cards right, tracked the killer down, and secured my three stars. The game then rewarded me with a twisted follow-up tale. The new objective was to intentionally sabotage the investigation, actively help the killer, and willingly let Geralt get murdered by them. It is an incredibly morbid twist, but it fits perfectly with the idea of a drunken bard making up increasingly unhinged lies to keep a crowd engaged.
Unlocking Mechanics Breakdown
Here is a quick reference guide for exactly what actions yield which rewards during your runs.
TL;dr
The worst thing you can do in this game is play defensively. If you just try to balance your resources and stay alive indefinitely, you are going to get incredibly bored.
Whenever you see an opportunity to three-star an objective, take it immediately. Even if committing to that choice completely ruins your resource balance and guarantees a game over three swipes later, the unlock is worth the sacrifice. A short run that secures a new tale is infinitely more valuable than a fifty-day run of dodging consequences. Embrace the chaos. Let Geralt look like a complete idiot in front of the tavern. Get him stabbed, get him thrown in jail, and let him fail the quest. Dandelion will just write it off as a tragedy, the crowd will cheer, and you will get the new cards you actually need to enjoy the game.
