Critical Role's 'Daggerheart' Open Playtest Starts In March

On March 12th, Critical Role's Darrington Press will be launching the open playtest for Daggerheart, their new fantasy TTRPG/

Using cards and two d12s, the system plays on 'the dualities of hope and fear'. The game is slated for a 2025 release.

Almost a year ago, we announced that we’ve been working hard behind-the-scenes on Daggerheart, our contribution to the world of high-fantasy tabletop roleplaying games.

Daggerheart is a game of brave heroics and vibrant worlds that are built together with your gaming group. Create a shared story with your adventuring party, and shape your world through rich, long-term campaign play.

When it’s time for the game mechanics to control fate, players roll one HOPE die and one FEAR die (both 12-sided dice), which will ultimately impact the outcome for your characters. This duality between the forces of hope and fear on every hero drives the unique character-focused narratives in Daggerheart.

In addition to dice, Daggerheart’s card system makes it easy to get started and satisfying to grow your abilities by bringing your characters’ background and capabilities to your fingertips. Ancestry and Community cards describe where you come from and how your experience shapes your customs and values. Meanwhile, your Subclass and Domain cards grant your character plenty of tantalizing abilities to choose from as your character evolves.

And now, dear reader, we’re excited to let you know that our Daggerheart Open Beta Playtest will launch globally on our 9th anniversary, Tuesday, March 12th!

We want anyone and everyone (over the age of 18, please) to help us make Daggerheart as wonderful as possible, which means…helping us break the game. Seriously! The game is not finished or polished yet, which is why it’s critical (ha!) to gather all of your feedback ahead of Daggerheart’s public release in 2025.

 

[overgeeked]

Eh, I don't see them abandoning Dungeons & Dragons. To quote the man himself:

Are those clips from before or after the company behind the game tried to screw over CR and the majority of the RPG industry last January?

I don't think this was ever about wanting something different to play, or "beating them at their own game," or anything like that. They play D&D because they love it, not because there's a lack of better options.

I think it's about playing a game that is custom built to suit their playstyle and their mode of play, i.e. streaming. They play RPGs because they love them. They continue to stream RPGs because they're really good at it and it makes them a lot of money.

It's also worth noting they started playing their home game with D&D 4E and switched to Pathfinder once their home game became a campaign. They played PF until just before they started streaming and only switched to 5E because it was lighter. I see them switching to Daggerheart for much the same reason. It's lighter than D&D 5E and, again, it's custom built for their playstyle. It's not D&D that's special, it's RPGs.

 

[CleverNickName]

Are those clips from before or after the company behind the game tried to screw over CR and the majority of the RPG industry last January?

Both were definitely before last January (which was what, 60 days ago?)

 

[OB1]

Very interesting read so far, some great ideas (love how Damage Thresholds, HP, Armor and Stress interact), but can already tell there is no way this game would work for my table, as it puts way too much on the players.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Beyond Daggerheart possibly being used for Critical Role, I think an RPG system that's designed to support drama and narrative without turning your actual play into endlessly watching the top of people's heads while they roll dice is something that I suspect is going to appeal to a lot of other shows as well.

Obviously, there are shows where the game system is the big attraction, but for the shows built around the personalities of the players, I can see this being a very tempting way to go.

It would be an extremely good idea for WotC to not shoot themselves in the foot again around the time Daggerheart is officially released.

 

[Scribe]

Both were definitely before last January (which was what, 60 days ago?)

 

[Minigiant]

Looks cool but also looks like a "streaming" RPG.

 

[Zehnseiter]

Ok this class packets are seriously impressive when it comes to effort for a play test.
This went from not really on my radar to I need to look deeper in this by sheer strength of presentation pretty fast.

Edit: I think I can make a high level character with those things without even looking into the main rulebook.

 

[overgeeked]

I’m digging the GM advice, principles, etc. And I’m enjoying the references. Firefly for the win.

 

[MockingBird]

I wish them all the success in the world for this game, but looking through it I gotta say it's not for me. Just after a first look through it appears to be crunchier than 5e. I'm not a fan of the cards but time will tell. I'd definitely like to watch it being played. Another concern is how will this adapt to different play styles? I feel like most will watch how "they" play it and it'll be the "one way". I dunno, definitely going to be watching and reading more about it.

 

[SakanaSensei]

I wish them all the success in the world for this game, but looking through it I gotta say it's not for me. Just after a first look through it appears to be crunchier than 5e. I'm not a fan of the cards but time will tell. I'd definitely like to watch it being played. Another concern is how will this adapt to different play styles? I feel like most will watch how "they" play it and it'll be the "one way". I dunno, definitely going to be watching and reading more about it.

I could be wildly mistaken based on a very cursory look through, but all of the cards feel like they took features that would just be written onto your typical character sheet and put them onto a card. I don't see why you couldn't write them down as usual with a little tick-mark to denote when the card is or isn't in your loadout.