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.

 

[NaturalZero]

Class removed from what? DnD? Well yes, this game isn't DnD even if its high fantasy adventures. It doesn't need to adhere to the player's handbook — I wish they'd been a little more inventive with the classes as is and had a different magic class than wizard.

I do think this would be a great opportunity to break the shackles of DnD tradition and reorganize the spell caster line-up. Necro has enough concept to be a whole class, as does Summoner. Sorc only exists in DnD because the developers wanted a different vancian casting mechanic in 3e but didn't have the backbone to toss the Wizard, essentially giving us a Wizard variant. Magical warrior is probably the biggest trope in popular fantasy that DnD doesn't handle well and we kinda get a particular version with Seraph, leaving us with a huge design space.

 

[NaturalZero]

I’m here for the Mos Eisley Cantina Effect. Bring on the frogfolk, the rabbitfolk, the mushroomfolk, the monkeyfolk, the cat- and dogfolk, the more the merrier. Having them in the game and not used for certain campaigns makes way more sense than simply not having them.

Having options to flesh-out a DM's unique vision is better than not having them. IMO it's weird that a single author's worldbuilding is expected to dictate the worldbuilding of anything that's considered fantasy. The setting I'm working on for 5e has more variety in character gen than base 5e but doesn't have elves, dwarves, orcs, or halflings at all, because I'm not running Tolkien's setting.

 

[nyvinter]

Magical warrior is probably the biggest trope in popular fantasy that DnD doesn't handle well and we kinda get a particular version with Seraph, leaving us with a huge design space.

The current classes have domains annexed in the radius, if future classes do across the diameter then it might be something like arcana & blade or codex & bone.

 

[Zaukrie]

I’m here for the Mos Eisley Cantina Effect. Bring on the frogfolk, the rabbitfolk, the mushroomfolk, the monkeyfolk, the cat- and dogfolk, the more the merrier. Having them in the game and not used for certain campaigns makes way more sense than simply not having them.

Agreed. They are there, use them or not. Much better than not being there. Plus, no idea why everything has to be like Tolkien all the time. This is refreshing.

 

[Steampunkette]

This I also agree with. I prefer my fantasy to stick to standard tropes so human, elf, dwarf...etc. I can see catfolk and lizardfolk being there, but the others do take some of that away for me. Of the four character concepts my group is thinking of for our first play test this weekend, I have a giant, a simiah and a galapa (fourth player yet to decide). Straight away that just feels like wrong not to be the traditional Tolkein-esqe races. As someone said earlier on this thread, it feels like the Star Wars cantina scene. But that view may change for me as we get playing.

I often play humans and half elves just for the John Crichton effect.

Class removed from what? DnD? Well yes, this game isn't DnD even if its high fantasy adventures. It doesn't need to adhere to the player's handbook — I wish they'd been a little more inventive with the classes as is and had a different magic class than wizard.

Ehhhhh... It's HEAVILY inspired by D&D. They outright say as much in the intro to the book.

If they'd gone away from Bard/Druid/Ranger/Sorcerer using the tropes and mechanics D&D basically created for them I'd be less annoyed by it, for sure.

But looking over it? It's very much like someone grabbed a D&D 5e PHB and DMG at a garage sale from a single parent whose toddler child ripped out half the pages and a 4e MM, and then decided to "Fill in the Blanks" mechanically.

 

[TwoSix]

Ehhhhh... It's HEAVILY inspired by D&D. They outright say as much in the intro to the book.

I definitely think you could use these rules and set the game in Forgotten Realms or a very cosmopolitan Greyhawk. It's definitely a D&D-like fantasy (replacement?) at its core.

 

[Reynard]

"D&D fantasy" is a genre of its own at this point. Why are we pretending Daggerheart is doing something out of line from what 1000 other games, both tabletop and digital, have done over the last 50 years?

 

[nyvinter]

It's really hard to not be inspired by some part of DnD when you make heroic fantasy but that also depends on what you feel DnD is. For me it's the rules not the settings. (And personally, I think parts of Forgotten Realms and a very cosmopolitan Greyhawk would make far more sense and be better as a Swords of the Serpentine setting than DnD. But that's just me.) Long rest and advantage being the two big DnD rules I can find in this at a casual glance.

They're being upfront with their inspirations and taking it in their own direction. And for better and worse, I think one should judge them how they do that rather than compare it to how completely you can port over as character from 5e or 4e.

Me? I'm weary about all the meta currencies. I like them as a concept but this might be too many. They also might make more sense and interact far better in play than they read — like quite a few boardgames does.

And one really good thing: the concept art in the PDF that depicts lots of different characters for the ancestries. Really hope they keep that instead of going with one flashy image.

 

[TwoSix]

It's really hard to not be inspired by some part of DnD when you make heroic fantasy but that also depends on what you feel DnD is. For me it's the rules not the settings. (And personally, I think parts of Forgotten Realms and a very cosmopolitan Greyhawk would make far more sense and be better as a Swords of the Serpentine setting than DnD. But that's just me.) Long rest and advantage being the two big DnD rules I can find in this at a casual glance.

They're being upfront with their inspirations and taking it in their own direction. And for better and worse, I think one should judge them how they do that rather than compare it to how completely you can port over as character from 5e or 4e.

Me? I'm weary about all the meta currencies. I like them as a concept but this might be too many. They also might make more sense and interact far better in play than they read — like quite a few boardgames does.

And one really good thing: the concept art in the PDF that depicts lots of different characters for the ancestries. Really hope they keep that instead of going with one flashy image.

For sure. To be clear, I totally think making DH as D&D-like in tone (if not mechanics) is a good thing, if broad acceptance is the goal. For me, it's striking the right balance between "feels like D&D" and "trying out its own ideas".

 

[Reynard]

about 1:23 in give or take....

That combat completely sold me. Awesome.