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.

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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!

 

[aramis erak]

Or it could be a huge mistake for them to drop the worlds most popular role playing game as their primary live stream system. Again, don't know why this has to be one or the other.

That severely depends upon how much HasBro insists WotC charge for the privilege of using it live. "Severely under-monetized", after all.

Can anyone explain to me why we're assuming that because Daggerheart is not a d20 system / 5e like or such, that it won't replace 5e for campaign 4?

The cited dichotomy of viewerbase - when they do D&D, they get more viewers per vid than when they do other games.

Seems like it's all based on speculation or people talking past each other... ?

Much internet discussion is even less than speculation.

That turn structure would take some getting used to, especially if a game group has that one player that tries it be the hero and talks to much, the quiet player that at least had to talk once a turn could be drown out in this turn structure.

This would make it totally unfun for one group - I often have to use initiative in social simply to keep certain players (plural) from going on and on and on.

 

[DevL]

As a gamemaster and game designer, the 2d12 mechanic is rather interesting. If we assume that the ”fun” success rate is to be the fabled ~65% (or 2/3) of the time, the modified target number (TN) should be 12. TN:s of 14, 16, and 18 yield success rates of 50%, 36%, and 25% respectively. That’s pretty much the range of target numbers you’ll want to give to your players, after modifiers have been applied of course. This also show how impactful an advantage or disadvantage of +/-1d6 is. It’ll skew the TN by 3.5 on average.

Also, the critical success chance is a constant 8,33% or 1/12. Expect to achieve crits more often than e.g. D&D.

Using a 2d20 mechanic, the corresponding range of TN:s would be 18-28, with 22 being a 50% chance of success. 2d12 is close enough to 1d20 to build on the intuitive feel for what’s difficult and what’s not so that’s another good reason to pick 2d12 over other combinations.

2d10 would work pretty well too, with a range of 10-15 and 12 giving a 50% chance of success.

 

[overgeeked]

As a gamemaster and game designer, the 2d12 mechanic is rather interesting. If we assume that the ”fun” success rate is to be the fabled ~65% (or 2/3) of the time, the modified target number (TN) should be 12. TN:s of 14, 16, and 18 yield success rates of 50%, 36%, and 25% respectively. That’s pretty much the range of target numbers you’ll want to give to your players, after modifiers have been applied of course. This also show how impactful an advantage or disadvantage of +/-1d6 is. It’ll skew the TN by 3.5 on average.

Also, the critical success chance is a constant 8,33% or 1/12. Expect to achieve crits more often than e.g. D&D.

Using a 2d20 mechanic, the corresponding range of TN:s would be 18-28, with 22 being a 50% chance of success. 2d12 is close enough to 1d20 to build on the intuitive feel for what’s difficult and what’s not so that’s another good reason to pick 2d12 over other combinations.

2d10 would work pretty well too, with a range of 10-15 and 12 giving a 50% chance of success.

And don’t forget Hope, the spend it to do cool stuff metacurrency. You generate Hope from all crits and 50% of non-crit rolls. They really want the PCs to have plenty of resources to spend on cool stuff.

 

[DevL]

And don’t forget Hope, the spend it to do cool stuff metacurrency. You generate Hope from all crits and 50% of non-crit rolls. They really want the PCs to have plenty of resources to spend on cool stuff.

This reminds me of Fantasy AGE that awards stunt points. However, you only gain stunt points on successful rolls so if you have (without modifiers) 50% chance to succeed on a roll, you have about 22% chance to gain 1-6 stunt points.

Daggerheart clocks in at 54.17%. Plenty of meta-currency to spend indeed!

 

[overgeeked]

Never mind. Sometimes I’m bad at maths.

 

[BigZebra]

This seems kind of cool. Will definitely follow this.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

I was one of those expecting Daggerheart to be more of a D20 variant a la Tales of the Valiant so I'm quite surprised they are making more of a jump.
However from reading @DevL 's post about the odds and the fact TNs would be roughly convertible, maybe it's not as far away as it first appears.
The use of advantage and disadvantage and I saw "long rest" on the character sheet in the video, leans towards a game designed to be relatable to D&D players despite some major conceptual differences in game style. Which would make a lot of sense given their fan base/target market.

PS as someone who doesn't like initiative (apart from Troika!'s randomised take) I applaud their no initiative initiative. Let us all throw off the shackles of rigid turn order and be truly free!
PPS MCDM in a recent video on their new game also ran into the issue of whiffing on your turn being a null result and having the enemy attack be more of a result of your failed roll than a separate enemy turn so something interesting always happens on your go. The revolution starts here baby.

 

[DevL]

Another effect of switching from 1d20 to 2d12 is that you get more of a bell curve when it comes to the rolled result. Whereas a d20 gives you 5% chance to roll any number, 2d12 ranges from 8.33% for 13 to 0.69% for 2 or 24. 50% of all rolls will end up in the 10-16 range.

AnyDice

AnyDice is an advanced dice probability calculator, available online. It is created with roleplaying games in mind.

anydice.com

 

[Eilathen]

Hmm...looks really nice...but super busy. Also, a loot of stuff for just one "character sheet" . So, not sure if I am the target audience for this. The art is nice for sure.

Btw, as it seems, these two games are not designed by the core-team of CR. Which, to me, is a bit disappointing. I was hoping for a game made by Matt, not just a game with the name of CR attached to it. But i guess they do not have the time or the inclination. I am sure at least Matt will have writing credits and all...but yeah, I really hoped to see what he would design...ruleswise.

On that topic...who is the guy who is in the lead here? Never heard of him. And as it seems, he is mainly "stealing" from other games and not really designing something himself (not that that is strictly necessary, mind you).

Which brings me to my main "man, that's disappointing" point: considering how much the CR team always talks about "we love you" and "we want to uplift other creators in the ttrpg space", i am really disappointed by how they are handling the CO game...it is clearly a FitD game...i really think they should have published it as that...THAT would have been uplifting others (in this case first and foremost John Harper, who really deserves the recognition).
They even gave "their" system an own name, for crying out loud (Illuminated Worlds system)

 

[darjr]

I got Candela Obscura dice from the booth! And gave them away to a friend who missed them after the hall closed in Sunday… I don’t regret giving them away, I regret not getting her a set when I was there.