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]

Also, "play to find out" doesn't necessarily mean less prep. The prep is just different. People inclined to write up reams on information, draw detailed maps or build terrain are all going to do that regardless of whether they are playing 5E or Dungeon World. You still have to know what the world is like and who is in it and what their motivations are and how the various factions interact and on and on in order to "play to find out" in a way that has any worthwhile consistency.

I think it depends on how you measure "prep". Like, dreaming up new factions, or thinking of new NPCs or new encounter ideas is stuff I can do in the shower, or while driving, and never need to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). It's the tactile stuff like maps and terrain that takes a while, so I just don't normally do that, as a very low-prep DM.

Honestly, I think the style of game (whether it be modern D&D storypath play, narrative play, or dungeoncrawl/sandbox classic play) has a pretty limited impact on the overall amount of prep. I think your personal needs as a DM have a much greater impact.

 

[overgeeked]

I think it depends on how you measure "prep". Like, dreaming up new factions, or thinking of new NPCs or new encounter ideas is stuff I can do in the shower, or while driving, and never need to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). It's the tactile stuff like maps and terrain that takes a while, so I just don't normally do that, as a very low-prep DM.

Honestly, I think the style of game (whether it be modern D&D storypath play, narrative play, or dungeoncrawl/sandbox classic play) has a pretty limited impact on the overall amount of prep. I think your personal needs as a DM have a much greater impact.

The difference being there’s no guarantee you’ll get to use those tactile pieces of prep like maps and painted minis, etc. So if you’re a heavy-prep referee running PbtA games, you’ll quickly find the majority of that prep wasted because the PCs went right when you assumed they’d go left. This usually causes heavy-prep referees to not run PbtA games or to stop prepping so much. Either way, problem solved.

 

[Reynard]

I think it depends on how you measure "prep". Like, dreaming up new factions, or thinking of new NPCs or new encounter ideas is stuff I can do in the shower, or while driving, and never need to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). It's the tactile stuff like maps and terrain that takes a while, so I just don't normally do that, as a very low-prep DM.

Honestly, I think the style of game (whether it be modern D&D storypath play, narrative play, or dungeoncrawl/sandbox classic play) has a pretty limited impact on the overall amount of prep. I think your personal needs as a DM have a much greater impact.

I agree. I was just pushing back against the idea that "play to find out" style eliminates prep time. I'm a low prep, high improvisation GM pretty much no matter what game I'm running.

 

[Zaukrie]

Reading thru the intro adventure.....this is a great way to teach the game and is well written so far (not thru it all the way). Now, clearly, I've played a lot of RPGs, so maybe it's just me, but this seems to work well.

 

[Distracted DM]

Oh! Apparently the beta is being made available at retail. Have I mentioned that? My local is trying to get copies in.

A paid playtest physical copy like Pathfinder2e did?

 

[p_johnston]

Quick thoughts via mobile (might do more in depth later from home) after discussing it with a buddy last night

1) love all the player/gm advice stuff. Having safety tools and inspirations for the game up front awesome. Same with making session 0 and character connections part of the base expectations.

2) I love metacurrency so producing some every roll is great. I also like that because of crits more then 50% of rolls generate Hope which is the more important one. Fear is interesting but its mostly showmanship. If I want to adjust things as a DM i can do so behind the scenes but fear gives me the chance to do so in front of the pcs to add to the narrative. I dont really like the names though, particularly fear. Why does me hoping a fence badly and producing fear mean a dragon two days from now can breath fire? Its a little odd.

3) I like the new initiative system. It gives the DM more narrative control to not murder players because of a few bad initiative rolls. In 5e if the big bad goes next and is standing next to the wizard who has 2 hp i either kill the wizard or have to make up a reason they dont which typically ends up weakening the story. In this i can simply choose to activate another mook instead.

4) the choice to suggest using tokens to track pluses to rolls but use pen and paper to track hope is....odd. Im neutral on the cards.

5) the death system is great. All for letting the player choose consequences rather then just I die. Or if they do die at least go out in style.

6) domains and classes seem like a solid framework to support expansion. Easy enough to make a new class from two domains tgat yacent combined yet or just add a few new abilities to domains to expand existing classes. I like the limit of 5 cards per player so that you have access to lots of abilities but at any given moment only have a few to help with analysis paralysis.

7) abstracting wealth, inventory, and language huge plus.

8) Im....wary of the HP system. Any time the game goes "ok ill give you number X and you'll compare it to this table to get Y" my first instinct is "couldnt you find a way to just give me Y?" Dont like ability scores for the same reason. Have to see how it is in actual play.

 

[Reynard]

A paid playtest physical copy like Pathfinder2e did?

Starfinder 2E is getting one as well. I think it a good option for folks who are PDF averse.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

Starfinder 2E is getting one as well. I think it a good option for folks who are PDF averse.

It’s good as a collector’s item, but even the printed version of the PF2e beta became obsolete immediately. If they’re gonna be patching and updating the beta, then a physical copy is just a paper weight.

 

[TwoSix]

I agree. I was just pushing back against the idea that "play to find out" style eliminates prep time. I'm a low prep, high improvisation GM pretty much no matter what game I'm running.

Yea, totally agree. DMs who generally like/require heavy amounts of prep are generally just more likely to bounce off heavy-improv games, rather than be like "Well, I guess I don't need to prep anymore!"

 

[overgeeked]

Still reading though this and finally coming to bits that are disappointing. Daggerheart falls into the same trap as D&D 5E in regards to casters vs martials. The plain martial classes are weak and boring compared to the strictly more powerful and flashier casters. They try to fix this somewhat by making more classes casters, the rogue for example is now a caster.