Daggerheart Sold Out in Two Weeks, Has Three-Year Plan in Place

A recent interview with Business Insider revealed just how well Daggerheart did for Critical Role's Darrington Press when it first launched earlier this year. Ed Lopez, Critical Role's chief operating officer, revealed that Daggerheart sold out in two weeks. According to Lopez, Critical Role anticipated that their stock would last a year, but the game was forced to go into reprints in a hurry. "The amount of units that we ordered we thought was going to last us a year, and it lasted us literally two weeks," Lopez said. "It's a great problem, it's a Champagne problem, but it's now changing our view in terms of what this product can be."

Lopez also revealed that Darrington Press has a three-year plan in place for Daggerheart, which includes the already announced Hope & Fear expansion, which adds a new domain and several new classes and backgrounds to the game.

Lopez also spoke about the hires of Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins, stating that the two would be working on both Daggerheart and D&D material for Darrington Press. "We really want their creative juices brought to the world of 'Daggerheart.' That being said, we're also doing a bunch of 'D&D' stuff, and who better to bring in than the guys who used to do it?" Lopez said.

 

[Reynard]

I can say I've had combats where I didn't get to do anything becuase I had no fear and they were not even missing. And others where a minor encounter for flavor was, due to constant failing with fear, me wiping the walls with them until the randomizer graced them with successes.

Any given PC roll in combat has a notably higher chance of handing the spotlight back to.the GM than to another player (the exact chance being dependent on the difficulty). If one experiences a run where the players keep the spotlight and never generate fear, check their dice...

 

[zakael19]

Yeah, I've never had an issue with having enough fear to take the spotlight as the narrative requires in those few cases where players like succeeded with hope a 3rd time in a row. I guess my general cadence with t-ing up events with sufficient stakes to drive a roll and generate fear hits right.

I think we've also had enough Resting cadence where I've got some mandatory Fear gen walking into a case where an encounter is called for by the narrative / their choices, since I tend to run most of my encounters as either pure situation escalation meant more to show danger and threat (in which case I spend maybe 1 or 2 fear and am totally content) or my goal is to push them to have to rest after via my quick adversary choice (always adding in a leader or solo with some Fear building Action and damage on save Reaction Roll stuff etc).

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, I've never had an issue with having enough fear to take the spotlight as the narrative requires in those few cases where players like succeeded with hope a 3rd time in a row. I guess my general cadence with t-ing up events with sufficient stakes to drive a roll and generate fear hits right.

I think we've also had enough Resting cadence where I've got some mandatory Fear gen walking into a case where an encounter is called for by the narrative / their choices, since I tend to run most of my encounters as either pure situation escalation meant more to show danger and threat (in which case I spend maybe 1 or 2 fear and am totally content) or my goal is to push them to have to rest after via my quick adversary choice (always adding in a leader or solo with some Fear building Action and damage on save Reaction Roll stuff etc).

I totally forgot about the rest generated Fear.

In any case, I have never run into a situation where I was devoid of fear, which means even if the PCs are enjoying a run, I could always interrupt.

 

[zakael19]

It's a common enough complaint that it clearly happens, I'm not denying that. I just haven't had the experience! Like I think I dumped through a majority of my fear at the end of last Thursday session (before the holidays ; ;. ) but I also got a Death Move; at least one player went Vuln from marking all stress, they all burned through hope doing some really cool Tag Teams, etc. So I know we'll be taking a short rest at the start of the next session which means I'm starting to regain already.

 

[aramis erak]

Any given PC roll in combat has a notably higher chance of handing the spotlight back to.the GM than to another player (the exact chance being dependent on the difficulty). If one experiences a run where the players keep the spotlight and never generate fear, check their dice...

Not strongly so in tiers 1-2.
The combination of low TN means Hope results are 62 of 144. Crits are 12/144.
Fails, with typical needed rolls of 8 (2d12+2 for att) or 6 (invoked experience, too)...
Nat 6 is (1+2+3+4-2)/144=8/144 fails, {redoing the math}, leaving 136 successes, of which 10 are crits, so 126 non crits, and 63 of those hand off due to fear. 71/144. Not quite half.


At low levels, it's not hard for players to get 4-7 successive turns, barring stupidity.
Also, i can rule out the dice: we're using the die-roller on Foundry. All of us using the same roller.

And I've had several cases where they went 3-4 fights between rests... no fear generated for not resting.

 

[zakael19]

Not strongly so in tiers 1-2.
The combination of low TN means Hope results are 62 of 144. Crits are 12/144.
Fails, with typical needed rolls of 8 (2d12+2 for att) or 6 (invoked experience, too)... that 6 is 15/144. 8+ is 28/144. (remember, doubles crit.
At low levels, it's not hard for players to get 4-7 successive turns, barring stupidity.
Also, i can rule out the dice: we're using the die-roller on Foundry. All of us using the same roller.

And I've had several cases where they went 3-4 fights between rests... no fear generated for not resting.

Your experience is so wildly different from mine it's baffling.

If you're not playing with a large group (both of mine are 4 PCs) I'm guessing its because I looked at the system and made a few decisions:

• Every encounter I make has either a solo or 1 other chunky adversary (bruiser/leader) with a difficulty towards the top of the tier range. Eg: a 12 or higher for T1.
• At least one adversary with a fear generating ability in each encounter. Not always on hit either, the auras are really good.
• Ensure there's a decent bit of Reaction Roll damage going around, either from environmental effects; adversaries; people making creative choices and falling; whatever. Even if it's only Minor thresholds, it uses up resources and tips the decision point on resting.
• Push rolls. Which means pushing stakes. Framing scenes where stuff is at stake and players want to take Actions means chances to roll with Fear (or hope! I don't want them to be Hope starved either, because I like seeing Tag Teams happen).

 

[aramis erak]

Your experience is so wildly different from mine it's baffling.

If you're not playing with a large group (both of mine are 4 PCs) I'm guessing its because I looked at the system and made a few decisions:

• Every encounter I make has either a solo or 1 other chunky adversary (bruiser/leader) with a difficulty towards the top of the tier range. Eg: a 12 or higher for T1.
• At least one adversary with a fear generating ability in each encounter. Not always on hit either, the auras are really good.
• Ensure there's a decent bit of Reaction Roll damage going around, either from environmental effects; adversaries; people making creative choices and falling; whatever. Even if it's only Minor thresholds, it uses up resources and tips the decision point on resting.
• Push rolls. Which means pushing stakes. Framing scenes where stuff is at stake and players want to take Actions means chances to roll with Fear (or hope! I don't want them to be Hope starved either, because I like seeing Tag Teams happen).

I've a 5 player group; they just hit tier 3.
I've a 2 player group; we ended one just at tier-up to tier 3.

The math is that at tiers 1 and 2, things can go strongly in their favor with minimal luck. Different players and playstyles: My players NEVER use Tag teams. They usually invoke an experience, they use creative narrations for earning advantage (it's the only motivator for colorful narrations that works with either group), and as soon as they could, they took hope-conversions abilities.

 

[Retreater]

My players NEVER use Tag teams.

My players often resort to tag teams when they're facing adversaries that are generating clocks. For example, I think the Medusa will turn someone to stone after X# Actions. So it makes sense to combine turns.

 

[Retreater]

I really enjoy Daggerheart. I'm running two campaigns currently (Witherwild and Motherboard). I'm finding that I like it more than I've liked D&D in 20+ years.
But I don't think it has enough content or interest for me to fuel years of gaming. It's sort of like Dungeon World or something - good for a few months of play.

 

[aramis erak]

My players often resort to tag teams when they're facing adversaries that are generating clocks. For example, I think the Medusa will turn someone to stone after X# Actions. So it makes sense to combine turns.

Mine didn't versus a trio of medusae; they did, however, use help occasionally. We also are using the action tokens for the PCs, and help spends one as does tag team, but hope is cheaper and (vs medusae) not a huge difference from tag team in odds.

because we use maps extensively, it's not uncommon for advantage to be gained from help, positioning, and narration... thankfully, thats +3d6k1, not +3d6k3.

I will say the demons of despair and wrath, combined, are freaking nasty fuel for the GM. 3 session fight. Many of them rolling d8 hope and d20 fear...
Fights where I got nothing are not tne norm, either... but I've had 3 in the big group.
And I've had a couple fights where it was zippery back-and-forth.