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.

 

[Maxperson]

I've admitted i don't have experience playing the game... thus I believe it is premature to declare it 2x faster than 5e...

It seems weird to me that you are basing the prematurity on your lack of experience playing the game. If you lack experience playing the game, then you don't know if it's premature or not.

So again... no one actually faced death and youdon't actually know how deadly any of the encounters actually were. Got it.

There were at least two instances where the players chose to roll and risk permanent death. Both got lucky and succeeded.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

What determines player/monster order?

 

[Imaro]

It seems weird to me that you are basing the prematurity on your lack of experience playing the game. If you lack experience playing the game, then you don't know if it's premature or not.

Yes... I can only speak for myself... correct? So I feel it is premature for me to claim or accept that it is 2x faster without the experience to back up my choice... seems pretty simple to me.

There were at least two instances where the players chose to roll and risk permanent death. Both got lucky and succeeded.

And?

 

[Maxperson]

Yes... I can only speak for myself... correct? So I feel it is premature for me to claim or accept that it is 2x faster without the experience to back up my choice... seems pretty simple to me.


And?

And the bolded portion is wrong, "So again... no one actually faced death and you don't actually know how deadly any of the encounters actually were. Got it."

At least two faced death. I'm trying to remember if there was a third instance, but I can't.

 

[ruemere]

What determines player/monster order?

Daggerheart uses the spotlight mechanic. The owner of the narrative (the GM) usually moves the spotlight to the most likely candidate (a party scout for example) among PCs. Afterwards, if the player rolls with Fear, the GM decides whether to use Fear and activate adversaries. If the player did not roll at all, rolled with Hope, or rolled with Fear and a GM said they passed, the spotlight goes to the next PC. The choice of the next PC is up to the previous PC (or up to all PCs).

 

[Imaro]

And the bolded portion is wrong, "So again... no one actually faced death and you don't actually know how deadly any of the encounters actually were. Got it."

At least two faced death. I'm trying to remember if there was a third.

Context of a conversation, especially one that spans multiple posts is key...

 

[nyvinter]

If deadliness is only defied on character actually dying during the game rather than how the rules interact, then Call of Cthulhu isn't particular deadly at all.

Seeing people go "It's gone X sessions and no-one has died!!1!" from the start makes me think people don't care about how players approach the game, combat, and character death. Daggerheart is deadly but with mitigating levers appropriate to the genre it operates in, one of these are the death move to survive and possibly take a scar. You still made a Death Move though. And while you can't be oneshotted in combat as such, if you're pushed of a cliff you will die when you hit the ground even at full health. Heck, I'd even argue that being swallowed by a dragon is there as well. No silliness like 6d6 acid damage each turn while you try to speedrace the intestines.

And while that genre is heroic D&D fantasy, the heroic bit is pretty important. It doesn't care about DCC funnels or OD&D — even if the amount of spells a player have is definitely way more retro than 5e. If you want a meatgrinder then it's not the right game, not that some of the stream audience seem to care about the distinction.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Afterwards, if the player rolls with Fear, the GM decides whether to use Fear and activate adversaries.

Just to be precise, if a player either:

A) Fails a roll

or

B) Rolls with Fear, regardless of success

Then after that action, play passes to the GM who automatically gets to spotlight one (1) enemy NPC (which might be in combat or a social situation or whatever) or otherwise make a "hard move" as it were.

The DM can, at any point, regardless of failure or Fear, spend 1 Fear to act next (after the current action is resolved, and indeed before a player acts if they haven't said what they're doing), and in combat/hostile social situations can keep spending 1 Fear, spotlighting one (1) enemy NPC each time - but it can't be the same one repeatedly (unless that NPC has a special trait like Relentless). Even if you have a lot of Fear, you're going to eventually run out of enemies to spotlight (and you may not want to spend Fear to spotlight all of them).

I note I made a rules error the first time I ran and assume Relentless 2 meant you could spotlight an NPC 2 extra times for Fear but that is not correct, even though it might make sense. In fact Relentless 1 doesn't exist, 2 is the lowest possible value, because it's not extra, it's total times per GM turn, however those spotlights happen. I.e. if a PC fails a roll, you could spotlight your Relentless 2 NPC with the "free" spotlight, and then spend 1 Fear to make them act again, but that's it for that NPC until a PC fails or Fears another roll - you could still use Fear to activate other NPCs, but not that one again.

Daggerheart is deadly

Yeah we got full-on death mechanics in Session 2, and if the player had rolled poorly, his PC would have been out, because he picked the risky option, which would definitely put Daggerheart towards the deadlier end of the RPG spectrum, even though the player can always choose that the PC isn't dead. It actually reminds me a little of Wildermyth, an incredible but very overlooked PC procedurally generated tactical RPG with really strong story elements, where when a character gets reduced to 0 HP, you can choose whether they die, or whether they definitely live on, but injured.

 

[Maxperson]

Context of a conversation, especially one that spans multiple posts is key...

The context was the Age of Umbra combats and their deadliness to the combatants. I followed it back several posts to be clear. Are you unclear on the context of your own conversation?

 

[nyvinter]

I did see some people complain that Age of Umbra wasn't enough soulslike, and I'm sitting here going "no, it's way more deadly." A soulslike ttrpg should have unlimited respawns when you die.