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.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Its not impossible that something like that could happen just via sort of a blind stumble by someone not seeing the implications, but it seems like a low incidence event at worst.

 

[Fifth Element]

No, it hasn't. And you must have joined the conversation without actually reading the discussion, because the issue was about white room theorizing rather than actual playtesting.

Incorrect. The discussion was about a mechanical disadvantage to taking actions instituted by the rules, and the potential for unintended consequences.

Your claim that it will never happen without strict intent is, of course, just white room theorizing. So you clearly have no issue with such theorizing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

From upthread

I don't know if @Reynard means the same by "narrative game" as does Paul Farquhar. I also can't comment on whether DaggerHeart is intended to be played as a narrative game in that sense.

Well, the designers themselves call it a narrative game. What do you all think they meant?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Same principle applies when it’s 2 characters of different combat optimizations. Just not as extreme of results.

The thing is, if you taking actions that pull punches then causes my character to die… that is a problem.

You can't die in Daggerheart without your consent.

 

[Campbell]

Its not impossible that something like that could happen just via sort of a blind stumble by someone not seeing the implications, but it seems like a low incidence event at worst.

It's also not gaining very much competency outside of combat compared to a build that focuses on both. The vast majority of your competency outside of combat is going to come from two spends per tier (your first character trait spend and the improve two experiences spend). Every other spend (and really even those*) [except the second and third attribute spends] is going to primarily have an impact on combat efficacy in some way.

This is not really dumping combat skills to become a better diplomat in games Legend of the Five Rings or Vampire. It's trying to buy every skill in the game.

* I'd like to point out that not picking these up is likely not combat optimal anyway because accuracy kind of matters.

Not saying there aren't character build issues as constituted, but it's more completely dumping offense for defense or vice versa that's likely to be an issue.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Its not impossible that something like that could happen just via sort of a blind stumble by someone not seeing the implications, but it seems like a low incidence event at worst.

It's not very likely (say 1%) that your car's self driving function will go wrong, so we can safely ignore it?

If this is going to be a success, you are talking about tens of thousands of games. So even low probability problems are going to occur somewhat regularly. It's much better to address them before launch than try and patch them up later, after the damage has been done.

Everyone in this thread wants this game to be a success. I'm not sure how some people think blindly ignoring potential problems will contribute to that?

 

[FrogReaver]

You can't die in Daggerheart without your consent.

K, then whatever bad thing happens to you when you are beat to a pulp.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

K, then whatever bad thing happens to you when you are beat to a pulp.

If you choose not to die your maximum Hope is decreased.

Mechanically, it's better to choose to die though, since going out in a blaze of glory is likely to turn a TPK into a victory. And you can always get a new character.

This is another potential issue. In theory, you can choose not to die. In practice, it's self-serving and can hurt the other players.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's not very likely (say 1%) that your car's self driving function will go wrong, so we can safely ignore it?

If this is going to be a success, you are talking about tens of thousands of games. So even low probability problems are going to occur somewhat regularly. It's much better to address them before launch than try and patch them up later, after the damage has been done.

Everyone in this thread wants this game to be a success. I'm not sure how some people think blindly ignoring potential problems will contribute to that?

Sometimes things are features not bugs - especially when there are tradeoffs for eliminating or even limiting them. *And there are always tradeoffs.

For me, I look at how miniscule similar 'problems' are with face characters in 5e games. I'd suggest this 'problem' will be one on a similar scale to that.

 

[pemerton]

Well, the designers themselves call it a narrative game. What do you all think they meant?

From p 7 of the playtest rulebook:

Daggerheart is a collaborative roleplaying game . . .

Daggerheart is a heroic narrative-focused experience with combat as a prominent aspect of play, facilitating emotionally engaging, player-driven campaigns that are punctuated by exciting battles and harrowing challenges. The game takes a more rules-light approach in its design, encouraging players and GMs to focus on the story they’re telling rather than the complexity of the mechanics. It asks them to act in good faith with one another to tell the best story they can, and looks to provide structure when it’s unclear how things might resolve within that story. The system has a free-flowing approach to combat to avoid stopping down the game into rounds, and it doesn’t rely on grid-based movement for the maps and minis. This is all purposeful in creating a game that utilizes the kind of terrain and map-building that miniature-based games are known for while making Daggerheart streamlined, approachable, and focused on delivering a great narrative experience at the table.​

That the RPG is collaborative seems unremarkable. Acting in good faith with one another to tell the best story they can suggests what I would think of as "neo-trad" play. Taken literally, it means that a player - in declaring actions for their character - should be thinking not just of what their character wants but also what they, the player, together with the rest of the group, want out of the story.

It is possible that this is what the game authors intend by describing it as a "narrative-focused experience" that is "focused on delivering a great narrative experience at the table".

I am still reading and digesting the resolution rules, and so don't have a view on whether that claim is plausible, nor on whether the game would also provide a good experience if played in a less "meta" fashion in which the players just play their characters in accordance with their understanding of what their characters want.