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

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.

 

[Reynard]

It's not really a PbtA style game.

What?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What?

What what? It is not. Seems pretty obvious by looking at the rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And they are going to have to adapt or go back to D&D. If the point was to just be a D&D, CR would not have written a narrative PbtA style game.

I think their point was to make a successful game that they themselves want to play, tailored to their interests which have proven commercially popular. That success is going to be predicated on getting customers on board, and most of those customers are going to be coming from WotC 5e. In that environment, that game is going to inform this one.

 

[thefutilist]

So you're saying some characters doing nothing during the combat isn't a problem? I think it will be a problem for many people.

Even if people don’t get super tactical, I think the system is flawed. They creating a genre based, combat heavy, action adventure game. I doubt most of the combat is going to be filled with highly consequential moral choices that illuminate character and pressure their values. So it’s just going to feel kind of sucky if your character can’t contribute to the combat without making it harder.

 

[Reynard]

What what? It is not. Seems pretty obvious by looking at the rules.

I did not say it ws a PbtA game. But it is very clearly in that style of design. The entire GM section is essentially lifted from Apocalypse World, for one. Then you have the playbook style character progression, countdowns/clocks/etc.

 

[Minigiant]

What?

Daggerheart is more like a 2d12 low lethality OSR game with feats than a PBTA game

 

[Reynard]

Daggerheart is more like a 2d12 low lethality OSR game with feats than a PBTA game

I would like you to explain what DH has in common with OSR games.

 

[Campbell]

It's not really a PbtA style game.

The core resolution mechanic is highly inspired by Forged in the Dark and Powered by the Apocalypse, and the combat mechanics are an attempt to wed those resolution mechanics with D&D style tactical combat. They likely will need some fine tuning because that's a bit of a heavy lift, but the intent seems obvious to me.

It utilizes the same core GM Move game tech, talks about soft and hard moves all over the place, and enumerates player and GM principles.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The core resolution mechanic is highly inspired by Forged in the Dark and Powered by the Apocalypse, and the combat mechanics are an attempt to wed those resolution mechanics with D&D style tactical combat. They likely will need some fine tuning because that's a bit of a heavy lift, but the intent seems obvious to me.

It utilizes the same core GM Move game tech, talks about soft and hard moves all over the place, and enumerates player and GM principles.

Yes, It has that in its DNA. But it also tries to have the complex tactical combat game of D&D, which transforms it into something else. I think this marriage has some serious friction!

 

[Minigiant]

I would like you to explain what DH has in common with OSR games.

Very very simple core rules skeleton.

It's just 2d12+2 vs DC for everything. And for combat you roll damage. And the turn structure has no inherent other rules and barely any standard actions/moves with rules attached to them.

That's the whole cause of worry. Stuff is layered on top of that without heavy thoughts on balance or a rules skeleton to enforce a style.