Daggerheart Sold Out in Two Weeks, Has Three-Year Plan in Place

A recent interview with Business Insider revealed just how well Daggerheart did for Critical Role's Darrington Press when it first launched earlier this year. Ed Lopez, Critical Role's chief operating officer, revealed that Daggerheart sold out in two weeks. According to Lopez, Critical Role anticipated that their stock would last a year, but the game was forced to go into reprints in a hurry. "The amount of units that we ordered we thought was going to last us a year, and it lasted us literally two weeks," Lopez said. "It's a great problem, it's a Champagne problem, but it's now changing our view in terms of what this product can be."

Lopez also revealed that Darrington Press has a three-year plan in place for Daggerheart, which includes the already announced Hope & Fear expansion, which adds a new domain and several new classes and backgrounds to the game.

Lopez also spoke about the hires of Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins, stating that the two would be working on both Daggerheart and D&D material for Darrington Press. "We really want their creative juices brought to the world of 'Daggerheart.' That being said, we're also doing a bunch of 'D&D' stuff, and who better to bring in than the guys who used to do it?" Lopez said.

 

[SteveC]

It seems to me that the chronic shortages of the game are clearly related to how fast it sold compared to expectations. The number that I've seen is 2500% of expectations. It's hardly surprising that you saw repeated shortages, especially in parts of the world where shipping is more complicated.

And even for print runs after the first, you had no idea if interest in the game was going to take a sudden nose dive and I'm sure no one wanted to be left with warehouses full of RPG product.

The only reason I even have a copy of the game is that the owner of the FLGS near me put a copy aside and said "here, you want this" before I had even seen it. Turns out he was right.

 

[darjr]

Daggerheart was sold out at FLGS here in the states too.

Our local FLGS had a ton that first day. And then poof, all gone.

 

[mamba]

It seems to me that the chronic shortages of the game are clearly related to how fast it sold compared to expectations. The number that I've seen is 2500% of expectations.

It clearly sold better than expected, but that 2500% percent number is dubious at best. The original statement was it sold a (n expected) year's worth of product in two weeks. That gets you to 2500% if you expect the next 50 weeks to sell just as well as the first two (i.e. the year's worth of product would sell the same number of copies per week / month throughout the year).

That does not feel like a reasonable assumption, I would have expected the first few months to sell as well as the rest of the year or something like that, so the percentage should account for that and be something like 800%. Still great, but not as unrealistic.

 

[zakael19]

As far as that initial print run is concerned, they went pretty big scope wise. No KS style assured set of pre-paid sales, but a full print run in major distribution networks including B&N etc. To then discover even that was undershooting must've been one hell of great news for Darrington.

Im so stoked that it's bringing a variant of fiction-first gaming and much more collaborative and cooperative table culture to a wide audience. It's obviously not vibing with 100% of folks (nothing does!), but it's cool to lurk around the Subreddit and see plenty of folks show up and go "I was worried about XYZ but turns out we all loved it so much."

 

[TheHand]

It was the first rpg game that I had to get on a wait list to buy (from my FLGS). It wasn’t until at least a month or so later that they started having copies on the shelves.

I was kind of lukewarm to Daggerheart in the early playtesting but once I had a chance to play and run the final release I was hooked in a way that an rpg hasn’t grabbed me in a while. So preordering Hope & Fear was a natural for me.

 

[Staffan]

The modern use? muddled as hell. Paizo's Adventure Paths didn't become a thing until D&D 3E in 1999... But AP for actual play in reviews is still present and AP for Actual Play recordings is also widely present.

3e was published in 2000, but I think the first mention of "adventure paths" as a series of adventures meant to form an entire campaign was Shackled City which was published in Dungeon under Paizo's reign in 2003-2004. There had certainly been adventure series before, but I don't think they had been so ambitious.

I don't know what about a TTRPG system makes it designed specifically for LP. Any system can be used for LP. There were systems that emphasized improv and story-focused games before LP shows and podcast really took off. Has the popularity of LP as entertainment influenced more rules-light, improv-focused games.

I think this falls under "wrenches and hammers". You can use a wrench to drive in a nail, but it's not the optimal tool for the job. And this was understood by the Critical Role crew even before they started – IIRC, the original campaign had started in 4e at first (which is why they have the Dawn War pantheon and a goliath character), converted to Pathfinder fairly early (which is why they have a Gunslinger and a cleric of Sarenrae), but switched to 5e before going public because they thought that the lighter system would be more suitable for public consumption (I can't recall if that was something CR themselves came up with or if it was a suggestion from Felicia Day).

At its core, an Actual Play depends on the charisma and performances of the participants. And the CR crew are all professional actors, and good at their jobs (at least two of them have BAFTA awards to their name). That gives them a huge edge over many others, who are often just some nerds who decide to upload their game to YouTube. They're also gaming in person which is a big advantage – many actual plays are just talking heads on webcams because the participants are sitting in front of their computers instead of playing in person, and I think you lose a lot of energy that way. But the system definitely matters. I've listened to Glass Cannon, for example, with their actual plays based on Pathfinder adventure paths (both types of AP!), and the game system definitely alters the flow. And Glass Cannon also has some acting chops on their side, though nowhere near the CVs of Mercer & Co.

"Actual Play" is a pretty set bit of terminology, y'all. WotC will use the term "Actual Play" to refer to streamed games, but "Adventure Path" is not a term that WotC uses in any capacity (they call the large Adventure books "Campaigns", have for nigh 12 years now) .

And they are right to do so. In my eyes, a "path" is something consisting of many distinct steps. An adventure path is a path of adventures – several different adventures following on one another. So it's an appropriate term to use for Paizo's typical offerings which usually come in several volumes, but not for Wizards' books which are usually all-in-one.

 

[Enaknomolos]

Daggerheart was sold out at FLGS here in the states too.

Our local FLGS had a ton that first day. And then poof, all gone.

Exactly the same in the UK too: one day and then unavailable anywhere for quite a while. It was obviously not a marketing ploy.

 

[thatOneLinuxDM]

Exactly the same in the UK too: one day and then unavailable anywhere for quite a while. It was obviously not a marketing ploy.

Not sure where abouts you are, but where I am in the UK I found it about four days after it had "sold out" so it wasn't hard to find.

 

[thatOneLinuxDM]

It clearly sold better than expected, but that 2500% percent number is dubious at best. The original statement was it sold a (n expected) year's worth of product in two weeks. That gets you to 2500% if you expect the next 50 weeks to sell just as well as the first two (i.e. the year's worth of product would sell the same number of copies per week / month throughout the year).

That does not feel like a reasonable assumption, I would have expected the first few months to sell as well as the rest of the year or something like that, so the percentage should account for that and be something like 800%. Still great, but not as unrealistic.

Yeah, this entire thread is (ignoring the D&D bits) conjecture. There are zero solid numbers anywhere, just statements, which doesn't actually mean anything. I can't be sure it's doing well, I can only be sure it has sold copies (heck, I bought one.) I can however, be sure that people are telling me it sold well.

Even Lopez in the original statement doesn't actually tell us anything concrete, just that the 'units they ordered' sold out... and?

 

[thatOneLinuxDM]

I've listened to Glass Cannon, for example, with their actual plays based on Pathfinder adventure paths (both types of AP!), and the game system definitely alters the flow. And Glass Cannon also has some acting chops on their side, though nowhere near the CVs of Mercer & Co.

I really like Glass Cannon, I think it's their energy, something about the East Coast of the USA being a very different play on my psyche. CR just doesn't gel with me, but they're a bunch of millionaires and I'm responding to posts on a forum about TTRPGs, so who's the real winner.