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]

I have played narrative games. They tend to not have involved and detailed combat mechanics and a ton of combat powers like DH. Those will absolutely lead people thinking combats as winnable minigames.

I see what you are saying but I still think you are critizing this feature as if it were in D&D and not DH.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You both seems to be arguing two opposing points simultaneously, but maybe I am misunderstanding you.

The player is a "jerk" if they are hogging spotlight time. For that to be true, the other players need to feel like it is their turn because their actions have something to contribute to the narrative. If it makes sense in the fiction for the Hand of God to take down his targets in the first couple actions of the combat, that is what should be happening. If it isn't though, and that player just wants to dominate the tactical part of the game without regard to the fiction, they are being a jerk.

Remember that there is a GM here, too, that designed the encounter with the fiction in mind. If the encounter is poorly designed, then the jerk player is in fact the GM.

This game is not D&D. That's the point. In D&D the dice rule the story. This is the other way around. "Balance" should be a moderate concern, but not to the degree you are talking about it here. Do not let the tactical part of the game overwhelm the narrative part of the game.

"In D&D the dice rule the story" is a heck of a claim.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes. But it’s incredibly unlikely to actually happen in play. You’d have to have a tactically-minded optimizer player build a character who is somehow bad at combat in a monster-fighting game where basically everyone’s good at combat, and for them to not engage in combat, and then have them complain about their PC not being good at combat (their choice) and not engaging in combat (again, their choice). In this very unlikely situation, the fix is simply swapping your load out to more combat-focused cards.

Players who are not tactically-minded optimizers would very likely not notice this “strategy” and happily play however they want, having fun and throwing dice while gleefully being unaware they were playing “less than optimally.” They would only notice “the problem” if a tactically-minded optimizer decided to be a jerk and tell this player how they’re “having fun wrong.”

So this might technically be a thing on paper, but it very likely will not be a thing at the table.

They might notice if they deal 1 stress and the tactical guy deals 3 HP for the same 1 action token.

And when the monster crushes them to deal 30 damage 3 HP to get through the tank's high severe thresholds

This isn't a "Funs and Silliness" low combat low rules RPG. Daggerheart is for bog standard combat lovers. It has too many rules for people who don't care about combat.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Narrative is not always fair and balanced. Story and gameplay sometimes work at cross purposes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I see what you are saying but I still think you are critizing this feature as if it were in D&D and not DH.

Where do you think the majority of players for this game are going to come from?

 

[Reynard]

"In D&D the dice rule the story" is a heck of a claim.

I guess? I mean, D&D doesn't have any narrative player facing mechanics other than the output of their rolls.

 

[Reynard]

Where do you think the majority of players for this game are going to come from?

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.

 

[overgeeked]

I think it will become rather obvious quickly, as long as some characters are better at combat than others. People are new to this game now, and mostly have played maybe one session. But over time it will become obvious, that as PC actions generate NPC actions, one should weigh whether acting at all is "worth it."

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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I guess? I mean, D&D doesn't have any narrative player facing mechanics other than the output of their rolls.

Mechanics are not what has to determine story.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

It's not really a PbtA style game.