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.

 

[Aldarc]

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!

Potentially. But I believe that is also the case for Strike! which some people have described as a love child of 4e and narrative games (but with terrible layout and art).

 

[Stalker0]

I just read through all the rules and saw a few videos online giving people's initial reaction after the playtests. My quick thoughts:

• While the mechanics are in many ways similar to 5e, I think the approach of "both sides really driving the narrative" is what will set it apart in play.
• While I like fear and hope bennies, that fact that EVERY SINGLE PC ROLL generates these things just feels too much. I wish it was even one dice was X amount over the other die or something.
• Overall this system really relies on an accomplished GM who takes the lesson of the game to heart and uses the mechanics to heighten the narrative rather than diminish it. There are a lot of places in this system that really trusts the GM to know what they are doing. I do worry that GMS that "don't want to feel like an ass" are going to struggle, because the system kind of expects the GM to ratchet up the tension, sometimes mess with the PCS using fear, etc. For a super healthy and communicative group, this will lead to high narrative accomplishment, but a GM that might be lacking some confidence or doesn't quite know what their players want might be very loathe to utilize some of those mechanics.
• Compared to 5e, this system actually feels more rules heavy for players, at least martial ones. There is a fair amount of math to do (even just the basic addition of 2 dice + ability is more than the standard 5e roll). You will have a lot of "card" abilities + all of the things you use hope for.
• Feel wise, its a lot more like 4e than 5e in several ways. Which I don't think is bad, 4e had some solid mechanics the problem was feel and presentation. And a system that solved the presentation problems could highlight some of the potential that system had.
• I'm not sure what the point of treasure is in the game.
• Some of the monsters look really cool at first glance. That volcanic dragon is AWESOME looking!!! I also like how they do minions.
• I would say that my number 1 concern with this system is.... that player inaction might be the strongest action at times. Because of:
  • PC actions generate enemy actions.
  • PC actions can also generate new fear tokens.
  • PCs have the ability to go multiple times rather than everyone in the group goes once.

This means that there is a lot of mechanical incentive to let the "strongest PC in X situation" just go a bunch of times while everyone else sits on the sidelines. Now that can be fun once in a while, and sometimes it narratively makes sense. But I worry that there are going to be "optimizers" in a group that will clash with players that want to make roleplay characters but still want to participate in combat, even with those combat actions might be worse than letting "the best combat character" go multiple times.

Again, good group dynamics and communication can solve that, but its never great to have your game system incentize what could be bad group behavior. I would rather have it where a player can go again but maybe it generates 1 additional action token. There will still be times where it makes sense for the PC to go again and again but the system at least notes "most of the time that's just not a great idea".

 

[Stalker0]

According to tactically-minded optimizers, yes. According to most people, no. Most people are just going to happily play the game without caring what the optimal strategy is. There are things in 5E optimizers spotted on day one that casual players still haven’t noticed. It will basically be the same here. Only better, because tactically-minded optimizers will be less likely to play this explicitly narrative-focused game.

I think the issue is people are assuming this is going to be optimizers vs casuals as the cause of issue. The optimizers going "I should go multiple times!" and the casuals going "um...but I want to contribute too!"

But I can see in some ways a worse scenario. Many players want to win fights, even if they are casual, and want to be helpful to the group, not a hinderance. I've had players show frustration in their builds, not because they were combat monkeys, but because they felt they weren't "carrying their own weight" and were a drag on the group. That social pressure is real.

So such a player might acknowledge, "wow my buddy does literally twice as much damage as me, I should let them go instead of me", and will sacrifice their combat participation because they don't want to drag the group down. And that person will quietly be bored out of their minds during combats all in the name of doing "the right thing for the group".


I think that is a real problem with the system as currently designed.

 

[Stalker0]

Oh one thing I really like in the system is the note "at the end of combat, the GM converts every 2 remaining action tokens into 1 fear".

This means that even if the PCs have a blow away fight, it allows teh GM to come at them even harder in the next fight, so every fight has some purpose.

 

[overgeeked]

I think the issue is people are assuming this is going to be optimizers vs casuals as the cause of issue. The optimizers going "I should go multiple times!" and the casuals going "um...but I want to contribute too!"

But I can see in some ways a worse scenario. Many players want to win fights, even if they are casual, and want to be helpful to the group, not a hinderance. I've had players show frustration in their builds, not because they were combat monkeys, but because they felt they weren't "carrying their own weight" and were a drag on the group. That social pressure is real.

So such a player might acknowledge, "wow my buddy does literally twice as much damage as me, I should let them go instead of me", and will sacrifice their combat participation because they don't want to drag the group down. And that person will quietly be bored out of their minds during combats all in the name of doing "the right thing for the group".

I think that is a real problem with the system as currently designed.

That’s not a design problem, that’s a player attitude problem. You can design out the possibility of optimization without making all characters mechanically identical. As you say, in monster-fighting games, the players want to fight and win. Even if they contribute little to the actual fight, they’re still there to play and have fun. In 40 years of playing RPGs I’ve never once seen a player decide to skip their turn because someone else did more damage. I doubt that will suddenly be a thing now for just this game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That’s not a design problem, that’s a player attitude problem. You can design out the possibility of optimization without making all characters mechanically identical. As you say, in monster-fighting games, the players want to fight and win. Even if they contribute little to the actual fight, they’re still there to play and have fun. In 40 years of playing RPGs I’ve never once seen a player decide to skip their turn because someone else did more damage. I doubt that will suddenly be a thing now for just this game.

But in most games you cannot give your turn to a more effective character, so you doing poorly doesn't actually make the situation worse! In DH it does. It is absolutely a design problem, and quite unique one.

 

[Crusadius]

That’s not a design problem, that’s a player attitude problem.

It also can be a player expectations problem.

If a GM presents their campaign as one of equal mix of combat and social interactions and players choose to either build an optimised combat or social character, if the GM then always does combat or always does social scenarios then one of those two groups of players will not be happy with their character's performance.

 

[overgeeked]

But in most games you cannot give your turn to a more effective character, so you doing poorly doesn't actually make the situation worse! In DH it does. It is absolutely a design problem, and quite unique one.

You don’t “give your turn” to someone else in Daggerheart. You not taking a turn does not grant someone else an extra turn. You can choose not to take your turn, that’s it. Just like in every other game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You don’t “give your turn” to someone else in Daggerheart. You not taking a turn does not grant someone else an extra turn.

Yes it effectively does. A PC taking an action gives an action to the enemies. So each action the PC party takes, equals one action against them. However, the PCs can freely choose which of them take actions, so it makes sense for only the most effective characters to act at all.

You can choose not to take it. Just like in every other game.

No, not like in every other game. You do not seem to understand how the system works, nor its implications.

 

[Stalker0]

This is one of the examples in the book on how a "Roll with Fear" works, but honestly it seems exactly the opposite of how the book expects you to run these.

“Yes, but this time I want to be scanning for threats,” Nick says.
“That will be a roll with Instinct,” Max replies.
...
Nick makes a roll with Instinct for Lavelle. He gets a 1 on the Hope die, a 6 on the Fear die, adds 1 for Instinct, 2 for Krasz’ help, for a total of 10, with Fear.
...“But what you don’t see, dear adventurers, is the wraith emerging from the wall behind you, looming over Shepherd and Tabby as Lavelle and Krasz take the lead. The wraith grows wide, its midnight eyes devouring the light behind you. The room grows cold as it reaches out toward you…
"

My understanding is that a Success with Fear is supposed to give you what you were going for, but potentially with additional complications. In this case, the PC is specifically trying to look our threats, and they do succeed. So the idea that the GM then ambushes them with a Wraith they don't see "because it was with fear" to me is exactly the opposite of what you are supposed to do.