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 friend of mine is going to run this for my wife and I soon, at his request. A lot of the mechanics really intrigue him. He described it as a cross between 5e and Monster of the Week, and I can definitely see that perspective.

 

[SteveC]

We're discussing the game and Initiative was one of the things that came up. I suggested just running it as written and seeing what happens, but after talking some more, I developed a house rule that we will use if there are problems. Tell me what you think. Obviously, house ruling something we haven't even played is a little silly but with our group I can see some potential problems. Here's what I did:

Once a player acts, assuming they roll with Hope and the PCs get to go again next, the same player can act again, perhaps even multiple times. The GM will interject each time asking the group if anyone else wants to take an action. This is designed for quiet players.

If more than one player wants to act at once and the group can't agree on the order, everyone who wants to act rolls 1D12 + either Agility, Instinct, or Presence. This is not a roll that can generate Hope or Fear, just a tie-breaker. Highest roll goes first. On a tie, the tied characters roll again.

Hopefully we won't have to use these rules, but I do think they make sense and can help out in cases where there's party conflict.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I wonder how this would work as a one player one GM game?

 

[Fifth Element]

That seems like an aggressive amount of formalism that isn’t needed.

It was a suggestion to improve the design of the character sheet. The amount of pushback is getting silly.

 

[Reynard]

It was a suggestion to improve the design of the character sheet. The amount of pushback is getting silly.

I admit to misunderstanding the concern and reacting inappropriately. I think I get your concern and think using cards for weapons or having an inventory list with little check boxes for Primary, Secondary and Inventory would be the easiest solutions.

 

[Faolyn]

At the moment, I'm unsure about whether or not I'd want it. But in my reading thus far, I kind of wonder why they didn't go classless. Give each domain an ability, let you pick two domains, and let you pick another ability as well, with those abilities taken from the subclasses.

I really like how they did the faeries and the goblins. The anthro people are so obviously expies of D&D races they didn't excite me.

 

[Reynard]

At the moment, I'm unsure about whether or not I'd want it. But in my reading thus far, I kind of wonder why they didn't go classless. Give each domain an ability, let you pick two domains, and let you pick another ability as well, with those abilities taken from the subclasses.

I really like how they did the faeries and the goblins. The anthro people are so obviously expies of D&D races they didn't excite me.

I think the purpose of the classes is to just make it easy for folks to pick and go. There's definitely a "first RPG" vibe in the text.

Which I actually think is super interesting. If folks' first RPG is something much more narrative and "play to find out" and low prep, how does that change their expectations when they almost inevitably will go give D&D a try?

 

[Faolyn]

I think the purpose of the classes is to just make it easy for folks to pick and go. There's definitely a "first RPG" vibe in the text.

Fair enough. Although they could always create templates of a sort. "If you want to play as a warrior, use X and Y domains. If you want to play as a mage, use A & B domains."

 

[Campbell]

One of the really nice things about Daggerheart from my perspective is that there are no derived values. Your Damage thresholds, evasion, hp, etc are not dependent on your attribute array in any way. Features/abilities can change that, but picking up a playbook class packet is very straightforward and will have the sort of values expected for that class regardless of your attribute array. The nice thing is that also leaves room for the quick athletic guardian as much the pocket of plate armor guardian, even if the latter is a bit more effective.

 

[Jahydin]

Skimmed it tonight and nothing is clicking for me at all. Was Mercer involved at all? I don't see his influence anywhere...

Oh, found out it was written by Spenser Starke. That explains everything...