Critical Role's 'Daggerheart' Open Playtest Starts In March

System plays on 'the dualities of hope and fear'.

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On March 12th, Critical Role's Darrington Press will be launching the open playtest for Daggerheart, their new fantasy TTRPG/

Using cards and two d12s, the system plays on 'the dualities of hope and fear'. The game is slated for a 2025 release.

Almost a year ago, we announced that we’ve been working hard behind-the-scenes on Daggerheart, our contribution to the world of high-fantasy tabletop roleplaying games.

Daggerheart is a game of brave heroics and vibrant worlds that are built together with your gaming group. Create a shared story with your adventuring party, and shape your world through rich, long-term campaign play.

When it’s time for the game mechanics to control fate, players roll one HOPE die and one FEAR die (both 12-sided dice), which will ultimately impact the outcome for your characters. This duality between the forces of hope and fear on every hero drives the unique character-focused narratives in Daggerheart.

In addition to dice, Daggerheart’s card system makes it easy to get started and satisfying to grow your abilities by bringing your characters’ background and capabilities to your fingertips. Ancestry and Community cards describe where you come from and how your experience shapes your customs and values. Meanwhile, your Subclass and Domain cards grant your character plenty of tantalizing abilities to choose from as your character evolves.

And now, dear reader, we’re excited to let you know that our Daggerheart Open Beta Playtest will launch globally on our 9th anniversary, Tuesday, March 12th!

We want anyone and everyone (over the age of 18, please) to help us make Daggerheart as wonderful as possible, which means…helping us break the game. Seriously! The game is not finished or polished yet, which is why it’s critical (ha!) to gather all of your feedback ahead of Daggerheart’s public release in 2025.
 

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Campbell

Relaxed Intensity
Fair enough.

The problem with using terms like "rules light" is that everyone knows what they themselves mean, but nobody knows what anyone else means when they use them.

Yeah. I think "rules light" has come to be associated with games that explicitly specify where and how GM judgement is intended to be used, but most of those games are not really lighter on rules than 5e. Like because there isn't a specific mechanic that says this is exactly what happens in Daggerheart's countdown section or GM Moves in most PbtA games doesn't make them not rules or necessarily lighter. It just means there's some leeway to their application. They constrain rather than specify.
 


Aldarc

Legend
Yeah. I think "rules light" has come to be associated with games that explicitly specify where and how GM judgement is intended to be used, but most of those games are not really lighter on rules than 5e. Like because there isn't a specific mechanic that says this is exactly what happens in Daggerheart's countdown section or GM Moves in most PbtA games doesn't make them not rules or necessarily lighter. It just means there's some leeway to their application. They constrain rather than specify.
I sometimes think that it would be helpful to distinguish between Rules Light vs. Rules Heavy on at least one axis and Rules Open vs. Rules Closed/Tight on another. I get the feeling somtimes that when people talk about some of their games as "Rules Light," what they really mean, in some cases, is that their game is Rules Open. This is to say, that the rules are open to be interpreted, ignored, or vague as desired by the GM.
 


I don't understand this. If players are engaged with the game, and they feel that they don't need to do anything at a given moment, what is the problem? It is a narrative game. The things that happen in it are supposed to form some sort of story. Sometimes, the camera lingers on one character longer than another.

The idea that it isn't fair or the character not acting is somehow being cheated only makes sense if you think the only important thing in a game is combat.

It is not about "not wanting" to take an action. They might want to do so, but optimal play is not to. Taking an action grants an action token to the GM, thus enabling an enemy action. So if your action does not help more than the enemy action would hurt, you should do nothing. Often the optimal play would be the character with best abilities to hurt the enemy to act, whilst others do nothing.

Now this is not fun, and you don't actually need to play this way, but I think it is flaw in the system to create incentives like this.
 


Come on friends! Fear and Hope, the central thematic axis of the game, as clumsy meta-currencies that clash with the purposed "Story Centric" ambitions stated by the game? Commoditization, as an answer to help determine legitimacy of actions, was Fate's misguided answer towards narrative gaming. We tried that already!

They are a pacing tool...where the agent is random generation and the subject are the humans at the table. It is us who are being paced...
Duh? Whats wrong with the humans being paced?
 

Campbell

Relaxed Intensity
Because they became a liability. Next fight they are more likely to go down again because they have less hope, which endangers the whole team and leads to more scars. Tactically, the blaze of glory option is always the one you should use. So “one character dies” would be the standard outcome of any tough fight.

I think we should look at this through the prism of the game's core premise and principles. The sense I get is that it is intended that the other player characters are not just people you adventure with, but some of your best friends in the world. People who have been there for you and you can depend on (and not just in a foxhole sort of way). As part of character creation, you are required to ask other players a set of questions about how your characters are related. Examples below:
  • Druid
    • What did you confess to me that makes me leap out into danger for you every time?
    • What animal do I tell you that you remind me of?
    • What affectionate nickname have you given me?
  • Seraph
    • What promise did you make me agree to, should you die on the battlefield?
    • Why do you ask me so many questions about my god?
    • Who have you told me is more important to save here than yourself?
  • Warrior
    • How did we know each other long before this party came together?
    • What mundane thing off the battlefield do you usually help me with?
    • What fear am I helping you to overcome?

 

BTW, what I liked was the character creation. I watched the Critical Role session zero where they did it. It had clear steps in which you chose interesting things that seemed thematically distinct. Questions that created connections between the characters were an excellent idea as well. So I kinda like how the game is structured and presented, but I really don't like the actual mechanics that much.
 
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