Critical Role Announces Age of Umbra Daggerheart Campaign, Starting May 29th

An 8-part Daggerheart miniseries is coming from Critical Role. Announced today, Age of Umbra is a new Actual Play series featuring Matthew Mercer as game master and co-founders Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, and Travis Willingham as players. The new miniseries will take up the bulk of the summer months, providing more of a break to the core cast ahead of an assumed fourth full-length D&D campaign.

Daggerheart is a new TTRPG developed by Critical Role's Darrington Press. Although the base game is intended to be a high fantasy RPG, the game includes several "campaign frames" that add additional rules for specific types of stories. Age of Umbra was developed by Mercer and draws inspiration from games like Dark Souls, Tainted Grail, and Kingdom Death: Monster.

The miniseries will air on Beacon, Twitch, and YouTube, with episodes airing every Thursday. The first episode debuts on May 29th, with Session 0 airing on various Critical Role platforms on May 22nd.

The full description of the series can be found below:

Age of Umbra

is an eight-part Daggerheart mini-series from Critical Role of dark, survival fantasy, debuting May 29 on Beacon, Twitch, and YouTube. Set in the Halcyon Domain, a world abandoned by gods and consumed by darkness, the series begins by following five people from the isolated community of Desperloch as they fight to protect their own in the face of rising horrors.

The Halcyon Domain is a lethal, foreboding land where the souls of the dead are cursed to return as twisted, nightmarish forms. A dark, ethereal mass known as the Umbra roams and holds these fiendish monstrosities, further corrupting anything it touches. Sacred Pyres keep the corruption at bay, and small communities endure through cooperation. Out in the beyond, whispers speak of ancient secrets and powers, wonders of a lost age, ready for discovery to those brave enough (or foolish enough) to seek them.

Game Master Matthew Mercer leads fellow Critical Role co-founders Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, and Travis Willingham in a high-stakes actual play exploring hope, sacrifice, and survival in a world where death is only the beginning.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

you're assuming. you don't have access to Matt's encounter notes, or anything else to definitively claim all the fights were deadly in all 4/5 episodes. Furthermore death was only on the table in one fight... that's a fact other than that it's all speculation

I think someone could actually check - someone on the boards was noting down the monsters and their stats from the AoU encounters. But I admit that would require more effort in searching the subreddit than I am keen to expend lol!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The difficulty with D&D is that there are some quite complex rules for certain things, which even experienced players may need to look up/check

Lack of familiarity with the rules is going to slow down any game, but 5e is pretty simple (especially compared to 3e) and I know most of the rules. Not often I have to look something up. That’s the main drawback of moving to another system - having to learn new rules. And as I get older it only gets harder.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The minimal gain would be seen in a group where no-one described any of their actions, no-one ever did anything clever or unusual, they just said stuff like "I hit AC 17 for 7 slashing damage, I am attacking Orc #3", and all the PCs were Champion Fighters or similar.

And various factors make a difference so it will vary by table and even by VTT/in person.

The VTT/in person difference kicks in after the damage roll. In 5e you take the result of the damage roll away from the hit points remaining (or add them to taken). In Daggerheart you do more, simpler operations by comparing the damage to the thresholds (anyone can do this fast) then marking one, two,or three boxes, of which one may be armour.

In person, with even vague proficiency with the rules, comparison is faster than addition is faster than subtraction. And marking boxes is easy. But how much the time save us varies by person. On a VTT the computer is too fast at sums for this to be an issue and the slowest part is the choice of do you spend an armour point?

The huge part where DH is faster is however starting turns. There's never a "Jake it's your turn! What do you want to do?" situation. Or even a "who's next on the initiative tracker?" Players almost always start their turn with their plan ready due to the initiative rule. And this lack of "faff time" makes things a bit faster and makes them subjectively feel a lot faster.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The huge part where DH is faster is however starting turns.

Yeah this was the huge thing at the table when we played. No initiative tracking and no action tracking was an insane boost compared to 5E. Also I didn't realize it until later but not using specific PtbA-style moves where the player had a significant decision point AFTER rolling also seemed to speed things up even compared to other no initiative, no action tracking PtbA games.

 

[Clint_L]

The huge part where DH is faster is however starting turns. There's never a "Jake it's your turn! What do you want to do?" situation. Or even a "who's next on the initiative tracker?" Players almost always start their turn with their plan ready due to the initiative rule. And this lack of "faff time" makes things a bit faster and makes them subjectively feel a lot faster.

Maybe in theory, but that's not what's happening in the AP that this thread is about. It's like you're asking me not to believe my lying eyes.

I mentioned Diablo earlier, with regards to setting, but another way that the AP reminds me of Diablo is in how many items are being collected by the party. In 5e, magical/special items are rare, but in AU players are constantly finding stuff that offers minor or situational upgrades.This is one place where I do notice a substantial design difference, though I'm not sure if it is inherent in the rules or just how Mercer designed this particular campaign.

 

[nyvinter]

In 5e, magical/special items are rare, but in AU players are constantly finding stuff that offers minor or situational upgrades.

That's Mercer in all his campaigns. The main campaigns even have magic shops where they can get personalised magical items.

 

[Clint_L]

That's Mercer in all his campaigns. The main campaigns even have magic shops where they can get personalised magical items.

Not like this (again, seen every episode; set my campaign on Exandria - my players visit those magic shops) - in episode 2 of AU they are getting items every few minutes, but all of the enhancements are very incremental - sometimes mundane items but still an improvement. It feels much like Diablo where you are constantly upgrading.

Plus, he became much stingier with magic items after Campaign 1, where it got pretty crazy.