Critical Role Announces Two New RPGs

Critical Role’s publishing arm, Darrington Press, has released a ‘State of the Press’ video announcing two new tabletop RPGs.

​

Two new RPG systems we’ll be releasing: Illuminated Worlds, optimized for short story arcs and adaptable to myriad settings, and Daggerheart, a fresh take on fantasy RPGs with emphasis on longer campaigns and rich character options.

At Gen Con this year, you’ll be able to play AND purchase Queen by Midnight, and you’ll even be able to take our two upcoming RPGs for a spin. We hope to see you there!

 

[Aldarc]

PBTA is much better for live performances, as it mostly means the story keeps going forward, and there's not people (including math-challenged CR cast members) stopping to do addition all the time.

CR's Monsterhearts one shot was arguably one of their best shows ever.

Going back to this point and building on it: IMO, it's important to remember that one reason that Critical Role switched to 5e D&D was because it was easier to stream than Pathfinder 1 with also less moving parts. I think that Critical Role may likely be wanting something that streams more easily than 5e D&D and builds on the talents of their cast. As their company has grown and transitioned from being just an actual play stream to now also a game design company, they likely have begun looking at the surrounding market, playtested other tabletop games, and pulled in tabletop designers to create something that would work better for their needs. Sure, it remains to be seen whether or not Critical Role will switch to Daggerheart, but it will likely see some form of play on their streams.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

The video @overgeeked does suggest that the GM is supposed to ask the players questions about the world, such as "could you tell me about this city we are in?" I can definitely see how something as simple as that will ruffle the feathers of a few people in this forum.

Only because my players usually balk at narrative elements like that. The first time I tried playing Dungeon World was a complete disaster. Oh well. Things like that are easy enough to skip over if your player’s aren’t into it.

 

[overgeeked]

Daggerheart First Impressions: Critical Role's New TTRPG Blends Crunch and Narrative Play in Unique Ways

Daggerheart, the new longform fantasy campaign-style tabletop RPG by Critical Role’s Darrington Press, is a surprising blend of vasty different playstyles that somehow blend together for a very fun experience. This weekend at Gen Con, ComicBook.com had the chance to run through basic character...

comicbook.com

 

[Yora]

Only because my players usually balk at narrative elements like that. The first time I tried playing Dungeon World was a complete disaster. Oh well. Things like that are easy enough to skip over if your player’s aren’t into it.

I can't do prep if I don't know the game world.

But I feel in practice, you can always just not ask the players such questions, even when the writers of the rulebook believe you should.

 

[Reynard]

Daggerheart First Impressions: Critical Role's New TTRPG Blends Crunch and Narrative Play in Unique Ways

Daggerheart, the new longform fantasy campaign-style tabletop RPG by Critical Role’s Darrington Press, is a surprising blend of vasty different playstyles that somehow blend together for a very fun experience. This weekend at Gen Con, ComicBook.com had the chance to run through basic character...

comicbook.com

I will be curious to see how generic it ends up being, in the sense that it could be used to play in anything from Exandria to Dark Sun to Eberron to Middle Earth.

 

[bedir than]

The comicbook dot com story talks about how the character sheet is three pages, plus at least five cards that must be laid out in a specific manner so that they only expose the abilities you have.

This is quite cumbersome and not something my group would have any interest in trying to do. Table space is at a premium for people who don't have million dollar studios designed around your play experience.

 

[MockingBird]

The comicbook dot com story talks about how the character sheet is three pages, plus at least five cards that must be laid out in a specific manner so that they only expose the abilities you have.

This is quite cumbersome and not something my group would have any interest in trying to do. Table space is at a premium for people who don't have million dollar studios designed around your play experience.

Definitely wouldn't work well for my family game (bunch of kids and young teens). I bought them all 3 ring binders to make a character portfolio type thing and they have been very hard on those fairly sturdy 3 ring binders.

 

[MockingBird]

I love CR and I love their campaign world. I was hoping that Daggerheart would have been a lighter 5e. I understand why they would want to make something different though. First impression is this probably won't work for me but I'm interested to see what the final product looks like.

 

[agrayday]

They (The main cast members of CR) have said many times through the last two campaigns as they fold in new players, they intend to lift up and create other opportunities for new players. I presume they will have new additional shows starting this year and next with new players, and new formats (Midst). The impression I am getting, is they are creating a network of shows of various stories and players. Wasn't Geek & Sundry like that, but less focused on a this particular topic?

 

[OB1]

Or it could be that they are expanding their capable cast so they can run more than one core campaign at a time. Between splitting the party while adding cast in Campaign 3 and both Chapter 1 & 2 of Candela Obscura they're at maybe 15 total cast and have probably used more than 20 in the last year.

They've increased their diversity and capability at the same time.

This is good. We'll all get to enjoy a wider variety of stories from Critical Role than we ever have before, and they'll be using at least three game systems to do so.

This makes a lot of sense. It's like when you have a popular show like CSI or the Walking Dead and spin up another show. You don't stop the already popular show to start the new one.

If they have 2 weekly games each with a full cast, they could also have players move back and forth across the games. I wonder if Mulligan would agree to run the Dagger Heart campaign under the CR banner. It feels like the system is almost built for his style of DMing.