D&D 5E (2014) Amazon US book sales rank.

[Yaarel]

Daggerheart hasnt been on my radar. I noticed this when googling out of curiosity.

"Daggerheart is a system where GMs and players share in narrative worldbuilding."

Not sure exactly what mechanics accomplish this. But a game doing well that emphasizes the role of players in defining the setting, is interesting.

 

[darjr]

320 out of all books in Amazon US.

Still really good and while it looks like it’s in stock I’m skeptical.

Only 18 reviews, which some folks out a lot of stock into.

 

[TerraDave]

Leave it to the Canadians:

Daggerheart is #26 in overall books sales on amazon.ca.
PHB 2024 is #216

 

[aiouh]

Daggerheart hasnt been on my radar. I noticed this when googling out of curiosity.

"Daggerheart is a system where GMs and players share in narrative worldbuilding."

Not sure exactly what mechanics accomplish this. But a game doing well that emphasizes the role of players in defining the setting, is interesting.

There's no real mechanic per se, but it is part of the GM principles

(Daggerheart SRD: https://www.daggerheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/DH-SRD-May202025.pdf)

Daggerheart is tightly interwoven with the Powered by the Apocalpyse type games, which have been played for ages now, so here is an excerpt from the freely distributed Dungeon World Guide, a D&D like game built on Apocalypse World to see how this tradition shakes out in practice. ()

(...)

So the collective worldbuilding is more of a game running practice rather than mechanic. Rather than planning out the lore of the temple, DW encourages you to ask your players and use their answers to incorporate in your world, so your world immediately has something the GM knows the Players like.

 

[Bae'zel]

This "collaborative" world building can really work well (with the right people).

Some people really bounce off that idea in a negative way, so it's best to sort that out in session zero. Just in case.

 

[AlViking]

If this is just a Daggerheart thread, shouldn't it be spun off onto it's own thing? Even if it's compare and contrast or discussing alternative games ... whatever. Maybe kind of merge it with the Perkins and Crawford discussions?

As far as Daggerheart selling well it's not really an indication one way or another of long term success. New and shiny frequently sells well at first. I whish them luck of course, they seem like a good group of people and competition is a good thing. But it's also a different approach to gaming which may take over the TTRPG world or just become competition for other narrative style games while not having much impact on D&D and related games.

 

[SteveC]

It is really interesting to see Daggerheart selling more books than D&D, even if only for a little bit. I'll have to check Amazon Canada to see how things stand a month from now.

 

[darjr]

Very very few RPG books sell this well. Like it’s pretty much WotC D&D books and that’s it. So daggerheart selling this well, days after release, is pretty phenomenal.

 

[Rainbow Scissors]

It is really interesting to see Daggerheart selling more books than D&D, even if only for a little bit. I'll have to check Amazon Canada to see how things stand a month from now.

While I do not think that the D&D 2024 books are "bad," I do think they missed the mark when it comes to a not-small-portion of the audience wanted. Some of my group has talking about how, despite the books being visually being gorgeous, they change the vibe and tone of the game in a way that feels different in a not-necessarily-positive way. (We also discussed that the "celebration" of D&D's 50th Anniversary was very lackluster.)

I think Daggerheart is benefitting from a combination of positive buzz on its own merits and WotC fumbling a lot of momentum.

 

[Stormonu]

It is really interesting to see Daggerheart selling more books than D&D, even if only for a little bit. I'll have to check Amazon Canada to see how things stand a month from now.

This happened with Pathfinder, when 4E stopped making books. The next D&D book isn't until August or September and the 2024/25 core rule books have been out for close to six months. If Daggerheart material continues to top the charts for the next few months - especially when the new D&D book releases, that's when WotC needs to take notice and ask what's become of D&D. In the meantime, it's just amusing to see the jockeying going on.

As I told my brother, when editions/core books changes that's when people re-evaluating what they're doing and either decide to continue forward, change direction or stop entirely. We're in that sort of bubble right now and the main contenders for attention are WotC D&D, Shadowdark, Daggerheart, Level Up and Pathfinder 2 I would believe.

I believe WotC D&D will stay on the top of the heap, but it will be forced to look at those systems nipping at its heels and find out what it can do to draw those gamers back into WotC's ecosystem (generally by adoption "innovations" from those systems).