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.

 

[TwoSix]

In the instant there is any disparity between the PC combat capability that the players notice and care about.

There are noticeable disparities in combat effectiveness between build choices in 5e.

Is that a design flaw in 5e, or a necessary condition to allow build choices to have meaningful consequence?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don’t really get it. Who or what is forcing the non-combat focused player to take their turn or not take their turn in combat?

They can choose to do so. But if they are choosing to do so that must be because they want to.

They might want to participate but understand that doing so would be tactically unwise so they don’t.

 

[FrogReaver]

They might want to participate but understand that doing so would be tactically unwise so they don’t.

So kind of like face pc vs low charisma rest of party in d&d?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There are noticeable disparities in combat effectiveness between build choices in 5e.

Is that a design flaw in 5e, or a necessary condition to allow build choices to have meaningful consequence?

It is not a flaw in 5e as in 5e the weaker character taking an action doesn’t make the situation worse nor can they give an action to a stronger character by not acting.

 

[FrogReaver]

There are noticeable disparities in combat effectiveness between build choices in 5e.

Is that a design flaw in 5e, or a necessary condition to allow build choices to have meaningful consequence?

To be fair, in 5e skipping your turn doesn’t mean 1 less monster turn. So if you do build low combat PC you still are forced in 5e to contribute to combat.

 

[TwoSix]

It is not a flaw in 5e as in 5e the weaker character taking an action doesn’t make the situation worse nor can they give an action to a stronger character by not acting.

I just see it as a difference in degree. The question is still "Does the table provide social pressure to take the most optimal action in combat?"

Does the table yell at the cleric in 5e if they use a crossbow instead of casting bless on the fighter-types? If they don't do that, then they shouldn't yell at the social-focused bard in DH for taking a turn instead of the combat-focused guardian.

It's a question about the table's concern for action efficiency. If the party wasn't overly concerned before, a change in how the action economy for monsters plays out really shouldn't change it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So kind of like face pc vs low charisma rest of party in d&d?

Possibly. But conversation takes place in real time, whilst combat is ultra slow motion. So the combat-weak character spends a lot longer on the bench.

If the character is terrible at combat, it’s almost certainly by intent

But, the way this game is designed, it's optimal if the best fighter does all the combat. Even if you are second best, taking a turn means giving a turn to the other side.

Sure, system design can help. I think you can address in other ways though than locking things down to explicit turn sequences.

Sure you can. I don't think anyone is saying "must have turns". You could, for example, acquire some kind of negative token every time you make two combat moves in a go, or, every time someone else does something everyone else's character acquires a bonus token that must be used immediately.

But to ignore the issue completely is going to hurt the commercial prospects of this game.

 

[FrogReaver]

Possibly. But conversation takes place in real time, whilst combat is ultra slow motion. So the combat-weak character spends a lot longer on the bench.

But you still have the charisma weak character setting out social? D&D functions just fine even though this can and does happen.

That’s the same class of problem as a social strong but weak combat character sitting out combat.

 

[TwoSix]

But, the way this game is designed, it's optimal if the best fighter does all the combat. Even if you are second best, taking a turn means giving a turn to the other side.

I think there's a pretty obvious negative feedback loop if one character takes all the party's combat turns. If they do that, they're going to be absolutely dogpiled by the enemies, and have no recourse to say "But the enemies should attack the whole party!" if the rest of the party is just standing there.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think there's a pretty obvious negative feedback loop if one character takes all the party's combat turns. If they do that, they're going to be absolutely dogpiled by the enemies, and have no recourse to say "But the enemies should attack the whole party!" if the rest of the party is just standing there.

Great point! Offensively it’s probably the best. Defensively it may not be.