Critical Role to Run Grimdark Daggerheart Miniseries

Critical Role has a new Daggerheart miniseries in the works, which will showcase the Age of Umbra campaign frame developed by Matt Mercer. In a recent video posted to social media, Mercer showed off the final print version of Daggerheart's core rulebook, which will release in May. During the video, Mercer discussed some of the campaign frames that will appear in the new book, including the previously announced Age of Umbra setting. In the video, Mercer announced that Age of Umbra will be featured in the next Daggerheart Actual Play miniseries being developed by Critical Role.

Mercer developed the Age of Umbra campaign frame as an intentionally grimdark setting inspired by Dark Souls and Kingdom Death: Monster. Speaking at PAX Unplugged, Mercer discussed the setting in further detail. "The campaign I created, Age of Umbra, is [similar to] a Soulsbourne," Mercer said. "It is a dark, challenging very grim place by design. In Daggerheart, our menagerie games are very silly and very fun and lean on flexing and going over the top with our characters. Age of Umbra is meant to be the opposite. It is a landscape that has been without gods for over 100 years; they abandoned the people and the realm itself is kind of rotting and dying. The survivors that exist there have to hold on to what community there is to get by as the dark things in the shadows grow darker and larger as time passes."

"There are threats and dangers whenever you rest that might give the GM more Fear," Mercer said later in the panel. "You might actually be attacked before you finish resting, so you want to have somebody take the Watch action while you have downtime to mitigate that danger. There are mechanics in this frame to set that theme that no place is really safe. There are things lurking out there and there's longstanding corruption beyond just damage that exists in this space."

The announcement, while minor, has some major implications for Critical Role. The popular actual play show recently wrapped up its third campaign and there was speculation that the show would switch from Dungeons & Dragons to Daggerheart for the next ongoing campaign. Considering that Age of Umbra is developed by Mercer and is being featured in a new miniseries, it seems like the plan is still for Critical Role to focus on Exandria in their ongoing campaign and use various miniseries to explore other kinds of stories and worlds. We'll have to see as Critical Role said they'll make more announcements about its future later this spring.

 

[nyvinter]

In Umbra you always get a scar when surviving, which crosses out a Hope. You can have six of those at start and when the last is out, you're gone.

So you can...
choose to survive when you'd normally die by paying hope... that's not really grimdark imo

In grimdark stories the protagonist always survive all kinds of horrifying endeavours. They just get mangled and suffer collateral damage. And seriously, since it's a choice talk to the players about the tone and how they should think about this when the time comes. And it's fiction first game, there are ways to make it grim — a decapitated arm or head don't care for your hit points or armour.

The rules are available in the SRD.

 

[Arilyn]

In Matt's Umbra campaign, if your character dies with no more hope to cross out, their spirit gets consumed by the void. So you'll probably choose for your character to die sooner or let your character's end be pretty horrific. Also, as the scars pile up, your character will become less and less capable.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

In Matt's Umbra campaign, if your character dies with no more hope to cross out, their spirit gets consumed by the void. So you'll probably choose for your character to die sooner or let your character's end be pretty horrific. Also, as the scars pile up, your character will become less and less capable.

I really like all that you said here, is that in the rules as written? or is that just Matt making extra stuff up that actually is not a rule or mechanic (the whole soul eaten, scars less capable, etc) ?

 

[Reynard]

I really like all that you said here, is that in the rules as written? or is that just Matt making extra stuff up that actually is not a rule or mechanic (the whole soul eaten, scars less capable, etc) ?

Scars reducing your max Hope is RAW. The soul eaten bit is a setting mechanic.

 

[nyvinter]

In the normal rules, you gain a scar when choosing to survive a death and rolling a equal or below your level with the Hope die. In Umbra, you don't roll but just get a scar right away.

 

[Reynard]

In the normal rules, you gain a scar when choosing to survive a death and rolling a equal or below your level with the Hope die. In Umbra, you don't roll but just get a scar right away.

Ah. I did not catch the difference on a quick read.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Maybe someone familiar with the Daggerheart rules can answer this question but what mechanically makes Daggerheart a game that is well suited for grimdaek fantasy? To be honest I've gotten a totally different picture (tonally) of the game.

Just about any success-with-consequences game has a huge advantage over any non-success-with-consequences game for grimdark fantasy. On every single roll the PCs have about a 45% chance of "Rolling with fear" which means something gets worse, and a 45% chance of "rolling with hope" which allows to spotlight how bad things almost are.

Also when you're taking stress, the fear level is increasing, and you burn hope to cast spells you can easily play into grimdark. Far moreso than any edition of D&D.

Finally it's an official campaign setting. One where the PCs risk turning into the monsters when they take too many scars and where resting has consequences.

And just as a kicker there is only one grimdark mechanic in Call of Cthulhu. Sanity. Everything else is setting.

So you can...
choose to survive when you'd normally die by paying hope... that's not really grimdark imo

This is a textbook mistake. Death isn't grimdark; it's heroic. Grimdark is living, crippled, having to watch the consequences of your failure. Or it's inevitably turning into a monster.

 

[Imaro]

Just about any success-with-consequences game has a huge advantage over any non-success-with-consequences game for grimdark fantasy. On every single roll the PCs have about a 45% chance of "Rolling with fear" which means something gets worse, and a 45% chance of "rolling with hope" which allows to spotlight how bad things almost are.
Also when you're taking stress, the fear level is increasing, and you burn hope to cast spells you can easily play into grimdark. Far moreso than any edition of D&D.

But these are also the rules used in high fantasy, techno-fantasy, and every other genre Daggerheart is used for... its not specific to a grimdark game, its generic to any Daggerheart game.

Just to be clear I'm not arguing Daggerheart as a more narrative generic/but not really generic fantasy game is a bad thing, because that's exactly what I'm hoping to use it for... but I did notice it doesnt seem to be gettting the same level of scrutiny around how it mechanically supports other fantasy genres that the trad generic/but not really generic fantasy game gets... and Im wondering why.

Finally it's an official campaign setting. One where the PCs risk turning into the monsters when they take too many scars and where resting has consequences.

Ok so it has rule tweaks/changes to support a grimdark campaign... thats what I'm asking about, notgeneric Daggerheart but what exactly are the bolted on rules that support grimdark specifically.

And just as a kicker there is only one grimdark mechanic in Call of Cthulhu. Sanity. Everything else is setting.

I don't disagree... but then I wouldn't consider Call of Cthulhu a grimdark game... all horror isnt grimdark

This is a textbook mistake. Death isn't grimdark; it's heroic. Grimdark is living, crippled, having to watch the consequences of your failure. Or it's inevitably turning into a monster.

But you can also choose to die... and this option of choice is, from what I understand, the generic death mechanic Daggerheaart uses.

 

[dbm]

I really like all that you said here, is that in the rules as written? or is that just Matt making extra stuff up that actually is not a rule or mechanic (the whole soul eaten, scars less capable, etc) ?

The campaign frames in the book are both ‘official’ and ‘examples’ in my opinion. They exist to illustrate how GMs can add campaign-specific rules to tailor the core experience to whatever you need for a desired game feel or theme.

 

[Reynard]

The campaign frames in the book are both ‘official’ and ‘examples’ in my opinion. They exist to illustrate how GMs can add campaign-specific rules to tailor the core experience to whatever you need for a desired game feel or theme.

I do wish the section on campaign frames had explicit "rules" or guidance for making those changes. As it is, it is very much a "look, examples! do that" kind of thing which isn't quite as helpful.