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.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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.

But they allow you more control over the tone than simple D&D style success/fail (never mind "roll to see if you have to roll again"). And a lot of grimdark is about the tone.

 

[ruemere]

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.

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.

In a game with a save/load feature, grimdark can be also about dying (see Re:Zero... series). I would argue that canonical old school experience with level one characters dying like mayflies would also constitute a good grimdark example.

That said, the most canonical grimdark is precisely as you've described, protagonists dealing with untenable situation by sacrificing their precious.

Anyway, grimdark is rarely fun unless there is also hope, a chance to shine and adrenaline.

 

[zakael19]

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) ?

Umbra setting as written.

 

[Imaro]

But they allow you more control over the tone than simple D&D style success/fail (never mind "roll to see if you have to roll again"). And a lot of grimdark is about the tone.

But isnt this just description...I dont see how they grant me more control over tone. As DM in D&D I have total control over the tone... here I'm actually more at the mercy of the dice.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But isnt this just description...I dont see how they grant me more control over tone. As DM in D&D I have total control over the tone... here I'm actually more at the mercy of the dice.

If you have total control over the tone you must have a very docile group of players. And yes if you have all the acting done against a green screen you aren't at the mercy of the actual environment and have more direct control

 

[Imaro]

If you have total control over the tone you must have a very docile group of players. And yes if you have all the acting done against a green screen you aren't at the mercy of the actual environment and have more direct control

So are we still speaking in the contex5 of narrating results? If so why would my players being docile or not affect it... does Daggerheart's success range magically make players docile?

As DM in D&D I'm creating or choosing the setting I'm running in so why would the setting work against me? I dont need a green screen when there are grimdark 5e campaign settings as well as my own imagination.

Honestly this entire answer is kind of confusing.

 

[zakael19]

Mechanics like the ones presented here via the hope/fear dice allow for more stuff to be hung off them; and combine with the agenda and principles for players and the GM to create expectations around the narrative experience. If you’re happy with having total control in a conventional D&D style DM role & your players happily accept whatever manipulation you do in the fiction to sustain an oppressive atmosphere despite the inherent heroic cast of anything 3.5e and later, you don’t need any of this.

If you’d rather have your players roll a Success with Fear and go “ah heck, how are things going to escalate here” and be totally on board - maybe DH’s Age of Umbra provides a good example for how a dark tone game can work here.

 

[kevinnc]

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

Not by paying hope, but by reducing your maximum capacity for hope.

 

[zakael19]

Not by paying hope, but by reducing your maximum capacity for hope.

Or said in an even more oppressive and genre appropriate way “have your ability to hope eroded away until you can no longer go on.”

 

[dbm]

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.

Time (and play) will tell, however I think that DaggerHeart has that ‘loosely coupled systems’ quality in its design that makes a system like Savage Worlds easy to home brew in my experience.

I will definitely play the default rules and some of the provided frames to get a feel for things first. Once I’ve played a few short campaigns I think I could ‘get my eye in’ to make some useful campaign frame rules. In fact the campaign frame concept was one of the things that tipped me over into purchasing DH. I love Setting Rules in Savage Worlds and these are basically the same thing.