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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"A" rule is often wrapped up with a bunch of other subsystems.

True, but that doesn't mean one ingredient won't spoil the dish for you.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh, I would try to run it “by the book” at first. But I can foresee it quickly spiraling out of control as three 12 year old girls yelled over each other trying to take their actions all at the same time, and me trying to rein them in and discern what each of them was saying. Or, if I turn out to be a crappy Daggerheart GM, I would probably have to keep prodding them to do something as they sat around goofing off instead of paying attention.

This is my concern too. I can see why you would want to get rid of turns and initiative, but this looks like a system where whoever shouts the loudest has the most fun. Leading to a very noisy game where quiet players feel left out.

Or, the GM chooses who will act, and thereby imposes their own preferred narrative on combat.

It also looks very RNG and swingy. "It's better to be lucky than good." The more complex the underlying maths, the harder it is for the players to guestimate what tactics are likely to be effective.

Has anyone tried this with a VTT? It's hard to see how a game can be a commercial success in 2025 if it isn't playable in this way. But VTTs make it harder for players to read when another player wants to say something.

 

[SakanaSensei]

I am not personally worried about a lack of initiative, mostly because actually having played Ironsworn and Blades in the Dark with people has shown me it isn’t a problem. But if it does become one, I’ll add one rule: when you place your action token, before you take your turn, tell another player they are on deck. They will be the next PC to act.

Quick, gives quiet people time to think of what they will do (something I notice often as a need), and has the whole table be responsible for keeping the spotlight moving.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"Narrative, asymmetric, rules-lite"

It sounds like they WANT to be virulently hated by certain quarters of the RPG community!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I doubt I will have anyone actually want to playtest this, but I have made a few comments based on reading through the rules:

“It asks them [players] to act in good faith”

I’ve come across situations where players believe they are acting in good faith, but still manage to upset other players with their role-playing.

“it doesn’t rely on grid-based movement for the maps and minis.”

Making maps and minis is fun! Re-reading. Okay, it's just gridless, I'm okay with that.

“Spotlight Your Allies”

Two problems with this. One, it’s difficult for some players, and Two, some players don’t like being put in the spotlight. It’s like the teacher who selects the student they know doesn’t know the answer.

World building – default setting is very pseudo-Christian.

Refluffing encouraged. Some people won’t like that!

“Fungirl” ancestry?! Or is that my dyslexia?

For something that’s supposed to be rules-lite the rules seem pretty complicated.

GM prep – is exactly the same as preparing a narrative game for D&D (and several other RPGs I’m familiar with). But the rule-book is more explicit about it “don’t you dare consider playing this game in a non-narrative fashion”. Stryx-Wolf. I like that, mind if I steal it?

 

[NaturalZero]

“Fungirl” ancestry?! Or is that my dyslexia?

Technically, any ancestry can be a fungirl.

 

[SakanaSensei]

"Narrative, asymmetric, rules-lite"

It sounds like they WANT to be virulently hated by certain quarters of the RPG community!

Tabletop, video games, miniature war games, card games, it doesn’t matter what you do, people are going to get twisted up about it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Tabletop, video games, miniature war games, card games, it doesn’t matter what you do, people are going to get twisted up about it.

True, but those three things seem to have the longest threads hating them on the D&D section of this forum!

(if you interpret "rules-lite" as "there are not enough rules for X situation")

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Narrative, asymmetric, rules-lite"

It sounds like they WANT to be virulently hated by certain quarters of the RPG community!

I like to think of it as merely that they are taking a stand with this game, design-wise. I respect the will demonstrated to do so.

 

[Fifth Element]

"A" rule is often wrapped up with a bunch of other subsystems.

Indeed. And many people understand how systems work together. RPG rules are not rocket science. Not saying this applies to everyone, but you said you couldn't understand why anyone would do it, and this is why some people do it.