Daggerheart has been Officially Released

[OB1]

I'm on the fence about picking this up. I'm a huge CR fan, but don't spend much money on the brand (a couple of t-shirts and a mug over 7 years), and do have the two Exandria campaign source books, which are excellent work (EGtW is perhaps my favorite campaign setting book of all time) and have used both in games I've run. Point is, when I spend money on CR, it's usually for something with practical use for me, not just to put on a shelf and look at.

I read thru the initial playtest material and didn't vibe with it. It felt very under developed and seemed that it would take a lot of work to run from both sides of the table, especially for a group like mine which isn't the 'theatre nerd' type (we're book/movie nerds). Also couldn't make it through an entire episode of the beta real plays they did in the system. I like an RPG with a strong frame to focus play thru and spark creativity from, without so much crunchiness as to bog play down in rulebooks. The first version of Daggerheart almost seemed the opposite of that to me, with an open frame of play combined with very fiddly character mechanics. At any rate, I didn't follow development of the game after the initial playtest materials came out.

All that said, the video interview with Mercer got me thinking that maybe they improved the system quite a bit since the initial beta launch and that it might be worth a deeper look. It sounds like the frame of the final product may be stronger than those initial playtests and the character mechanics toned down.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It felt very under developed

I didn't appreciate the playtest material I saw either, it seemed kind of "bleh", but the actual release game is not something I could possibly call underdeveloped. Quite to the contrary, it's very heavily developed and well-considered!

I got it due largely to FOMO/hype but I'm surprised at how impressed I am with the system (on paper). I do slightly dread trying to get the cards printed - I wish they had something like with the old DDI for D&D 4E which put all the cards for your character on a page together. Hmmm maybe the Demiplane/Nexus thing does that, I shall have to check!

especially for a group like mine which isn't the 'theatre nerd' type (we're book/movie nerds)

We're the same way and I don't anticipate any problems with Daggerheart if we run it - my group did great with Dungeon World, and this is like a more straightforward but also crunchier DW in a lot of ways. It's in that sort of modern medium crunch space complexity-wise, more complex than low-crunch games for sure, but definitely a layer down from D&D 5E or PF2.

 

[Reynard]

I got it due largely to FOMO/hype but I'm surprised at how impressed I am with the system (on paper). I do slightly dread trying to get the cards printed - I wish they had something like with the old DDI for D&D 4E which put all the cards for your character on a page together. Hmmm maybe the Demiplane/Nexus thing does that, I shall have to check!

Worst case, you should be able to cut and paste from the SRD.

 

[dbm]

I don’t have the rules yet (should be with me in a day or so) but my current impression is that DaggerHeart seems similar to 13th Age in so much as the combat system has a fair bit of crunch while the non-combat mechanics are a lot more lightweight while still being present. I liked that about 13th Age.

I think Lancer has a similar dual-weight approach to mechanics.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think Lancer has a similar dual-weight approach to mechanics.

It does.

The main difference with Daggerheart is they have a much more PtbA-like approach to combat in that it's not a separate state of being the way it is in most RPGs (there's no initiative or dividing line between combat and not-combat, this is very much intentional), and is about flow rather than strict sequences. The combat mechanics definitely are towards the more crunchy side, with tactical decisions being made, but heavily informed by narrative stuff.

 

[dbm]

I’m looking forward to reading it.

This is the second new game to capture my interest; the first was The Broken Empires. They are both systems which take a greatest hits of mechanics in other systems and mix them together to produce something new and interesting. But both are very different with different aims.

And ironically, both created by voice actors who stream RPGs…

 

[Arilyn]

Bit surely they've got a vested interest in selling every bit of merch they possibly can? Why skip on anything that might make a dime? It's all about the merchandising! Critical Role, The T-Shirt! Critical Role, The Coloring Book! Critical Role, The Lunchbox! Critical Role, The Breakfast Cereal! Critical Role, The Flamethrower!

@beta-ray is just making a terrible groany pun. Investment.

 

[Kichwas]

Youtube reviews are mixed

That last guy you linked did his review right after he did his unboxing review. He hadn't even read the book yet. So it's really a playtest review. He also ordered the limited set, and then spends time complaining that it came with "stuff" that only the limited set came with.
- He's the guy who went into McDonalds, saw a burger meal and a happy meal, stated that he hated meals that came with toys, and the bought the happy meal - then wrote a review slamming it for having a toy... when the 'burger meal' was a regular meal and $100 cheaper.

 

[Kichwas]

If you're going to do a day one review, this is how you do it:
- that's 6 and a half hours of 'lets read this on stream page by page and talk about every little thing we find.

I lasted a couple hours, and he seemed to really like it when I fell asleep.

 

[Baron Opal II]

The Hope/Fear system is unlike anything in D&D or DW though, and I'm absolutely blanking on the RPGs where you hand a token to the DM on certain roll results, despite having run them - hopefully someone can name some of these! Certainly it's another influence though!

Deadlands did something like that with chips. Poker hands were used instead of dice, and a particularly good or bad hand would determine success or failure and possibly chips to spend as a metacurrency.