Daggerheart Release Date Revealed

Daggerheart will be coming out on May 20th. Today, Darrington Press, the games publishing arm of Critical Role, announced that its upcoming TTRPG would come out on May 20th. The game will first release at local game stores, followed by a wider release at all stores that games are sold (i.e. book stores) on June 3rd.

Daggerheart is built around a Duality Dice system that uses 2d12 (one designated as the Hope die, and the other designated as the Fear die). On checks, players roll both dice and add the results to determine the ultimate success or failure of a roll, with the higher die result representing either a positive or negative narrative twist both in and out of combat. The game also uses a character sheet that includes overlays and cards to show character abilities.

While Daggerheart is a high fantasy TTRPG, the game also includes campaign frames that provide specific worlds to encounter and adds additional rules based on the type of story being told. The core rulebook will include six campaign frames, including Beast Feast, a "cozy cooking and dungeoneering campaign frame" clearly inspired by Delicious in Dungeon and a post-apocalyptic world of technological wonders called Motherboard.

 

[The Soloist]

Marisha Ray is the one pushing to do all the board games and RPG projects, according to Matt Mercer. My understanding is that Darrington Press is the plan B for Critical Role should they decide to stop doing live role-playing. That is prudent and makes sense to me.

As usual, I'll wait for reviews, after the game comes out.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

Well, as someone still looking for a good generic fantasy game that I enjoy, I’m looking forward to the final product.

And it’s a complete game in one book, I don’t understand this obsession online people have with whether or not there will be future products.

 

[Bomberooski]

I'm not sure I understand the point of the hostility here. Of course, you don't have to be excited for it, but why bother trying to throw cold water on those that are?

Totally agree. Personally I think the mechanics sound kind of cool! I need to sift through the Open Playtest thread.

I do feel like CR always has really cool artwork attached to their name and although I realize that is nowhere near the point of their book it is something I'm looking forward to seeing in the Daggerheart book.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Good points @Cergorach …I’m curious how long Daggerheart, tales of the valiant and others have sales that keep them afloat or just more crowd funding to make new products, like monster 2 from ToV.

I don't know that the old model is what we should judge by, any more than we should measure a film's success solely on its box office, without considering how much money it makes for a studio on streaming.

Using a 1974 ruler to measure things in 2025 isn't always going to give us an accurate result.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Do we know if Exandria will be one of the six campaign frames? It seems likely to me given how Campaign 3 recently ended, and to say it without spoilers, seems to be pushing the game away from the classic D&D framework...

It would be shocking if there wasn't something like this coming.

 

[Piperken]

When I look at Darrington Press, I see average to 'Meh!' board games from them on BGG. When I look at their 5e product "Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn", with 4 reviews on DTRPG and 80 globally with Amazon, sure they score high, but not a large enough pool of reviews to get anything resembling a balanced view. For something that's out for almost 2 years, that ain't great imho.

[snip brevity]

Fair points.

I've listened to others who've mentioned this system is a good candidate for those players & table runners who'd like to move into the flavored-systems space, but desire to familiarize themselves with the greater emphasis placed on fiction, improv and story construction (e.g. the overlay & card system) in them.

 

[overgeeked]

Do we know if Exandria will be one of the six campaign frames? It seems likely to me given how Campaign 3 recently ended, and to say it without spoilers, seems to be pushing the game away from the classic D&D framework...

We don’t know. But it would be a huge and obvious mistake not to use their long-established campaign setting with their new RPG.

 

[overgeeked]

And it’s a complete game in one book, I don’t understand this obsession online people have with whether or not there will be future products.

Continued support means there will be new stuff to play with. New toys to add to the toybox. RPGs wither and die rather quickly when they’re no longer supported with regular releases.

 

[Reynard]

Continued support means there will be new stuff to play with. New toys to add to the toybox. RPGs wither and die rather quickly when they’re no longer supported with regular releases.

Except Blades in the Dark, somehow.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

RPGs wither and die rather quickly when they’re no longer supported with regular releases.

Yeah, this is just false imo. I mean, Dungeon World has one book and is only now getting around to a 2nd edition after over a decade. People play the hell out of that.

And also, if I buy Daggerheart for $60 bucks and play each of the included campaign frames once. That's 5 or 7 campaigns. So even if i never played an 8th campaign. Thats still a several years of gaming. heck of a deal.