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.

 

[Aldarc]

Disagree... I think for shy or reserved new players(and yes I've seen this first hand) the demand of instant improv and being put on the spot is uncomfortable and at times a deterrent which can actually lead to them feeling rpg's aren't for them.

Im not sure where the idea that everyone, unless D&D somehow hurt the part of their brain connected to it, find being put on the spot to instantly create fictional things in front of an audience easy, awesome or even fun by default.... but its just not true.

Your language is a bit stronger than need be, Imaro. I don't think that insinuating that people's brains are somehow damaged by D&D is particularly respectful. Nor do I think that there is a "demand of instant improv" with Daggerheart. You can just ask the players some easy questions framed as soft pitches. You can also throw out ideas to help them generate things too.

When the party enters a character’s hometown, you might invite that player to describe the local market. Rather than narrating a character’s deadly blow on a critical success, you can ask the player to take the spotlight and detail their triumph. In dramatic or even commonplace moments, you might ask questions about a character’s motivations, emotions, and history, then connect the answers to the current moment.

Emphasis mine. This is hardly a "demand" for instant improv, though I suppose it's easier to argue against the assumption of a much more hardline opinion than what is actually present in the book. Following this it says that some groups may want to take this further with world details, but that hardly makes it a demand. This is pretty on-par with common practices in D&D. "You landed the killing blow. How did you kill this skeleton?"

 

[Neonchameleon]

Also like, the entire core of DH fits on a single play guide sheet (3rd page, 4th if you include the char sheet “sidecars”) because you don’t have heavily enumerated subsystem rules and such.

And every single player-side ability or spell on the game except for the base class abilities fits onto a card that should be right in front of the player in play. There will also be a very strictly limited number of cards the player has.

 

[zakael19]

You can just ask the players some easy questions framed as soft pitches. You can also throw out ideas to help them generate things too.

Yeah I’m assuming the latter is part of what @Neonchameleon is talking about regarding knowing his players. Sometimes I ask a question I’m curious about or didn’t write a hard answer to at a player who hasn’t been spotlighted recently to keep inclusion and focus (and ideally get their character’s and player’s unique input!), but I’ll always give a scaffold to prompt and toss out some leading strings if they start to think - and of course each person knows they can always pass if they want!

 

[Aldarc]

and of course each person knows they can always pass if they want!

 

[mamba]

Really? All my new to TTRPGing players in the last 5e campaign I ran got way more into play when they were adding details and providing the impetus for the next quest then when we were running the plotted campaign they had picked.

deciding on a quest or picking a campaign is not that much more than answering ‘what do you do?’. I was thinking of actually adding things to the world, frequently on the fly, not of ‘assigning a task to the DM’

Now yeah, some people simply struggle with in-the-moment creativity (my wife is one, she can’t do even baseline TTRPG RP improv at all despite wanting to join in), but I’m seeing across a broad spectrum of players minimal issue.

struggling with it is one thing, the other is it just not being what they want, as it breaks the 4th wall

 

[Neonchameleon]

deciding on a quest or picking a campaign is not that much more than answering ‘what do you do?’. I was thinking of actually adding things to the world, frequently on the fly, not of ‘assigning a task to the DM’


struggling with it is one thing, the other is it just not being what they want, as it breaks the 4th wall

Which is how you end up with characters that might as well have been Isikai'd in from another setting rather than having connections to this world.

And basically you are saying that every single improv actor who has ever been breaks the fourth wall by doing improv. Which ... no.

 

[mamba]

Yes Daggerheart is significantly less crunchy than 5e. I gave a comparison of how (cutting down 35 numbers to 8) - do you want more examples? And if so from the player side or the DM side?

well, you are the first I see that says DH is considerably less crunchy, most reviews / comparisons pegged it at basically 5e levels

Not sure the number of values on a sheet make all that much difference in the complexity of play, ie DH is not 25% as complex as 5e just because it has 8 values rather than 35… I’d mostly base this on player complexity, so I’d like examples from that side.

 

[Parmandur]

I prefer to bring my players in more than the default 5e assumptions, and Daggerheart gives me more encouragement and motivation to do so but if you run Daggerheart as if it was 5e with an Adventure Path you'll essentially get rules light and chaotic 5e with an unusually cohesive party and slick combat. Is this the best Daggerheart? No. But Daggerheart's near-failure state here is still good 5e.

Is it an unfair impression to say that 5E is a "Trad" game that is fairly conducive to "Narrative" play, whereas Daggerheart is a "Narrative" game that can be played "Trad" ...?

 

[zakael19]

well, you are the first I see that says DH is considerably less crunchy, most reviews / comparisons pegged it at basically 5e levels

Not sure the number of values on a sheet make all that much difference in the complexity of play, ie DH is not 25% as complex as 5e just because it has 8 values rather than 35… I’d mostly base this on player complexity, so I’d like examples from that side.

Here’s a simple way it’s less complex: the majority of play you simply roll one of 5 actions and add your stat bonus. If you want to spend a hope to add an Experience, you can. But otherwise it’s just the same 2d12+ stat regardless of trying to vault a gap, find a face in a crowd, or cut a foe’s head off.

 

[Imaro]

Your language is a bit stronger than need be, Imaro. I don't think that insinuating that people's brains are somehow damaged by D&D is particularly respectful. Nor do I think that there is a "demand of instant improv" with Daggerheart. You can just ask the players some easy questions framed as soft pitches. You can also throw out ideas to help them generate things too.

I wasnt the one insinuating DnD stunts one's ability to improv, it was the insinuation I got and was arguing against in @Neonchameleon earlier post. Not sure how you arrived at that being my stance...

Yes you can ask soft questions and I can use my own ideas...no one's arguing against that.. and some players will still be uncomfortable with it. Im honestly not sure what the argument here is.

Emphasis mine. This is hardly a "demand" for instant improv, though I suppose it's easier to argue against the assumption of a much more hardline opinion than what is actually present in the book. Following this it says that some groups may want to take this further with world details, but that hardly makes it a demand. This is pretty on-par with common practices in D&D. "You landed the killing blow. How did you kill this skeleton?"

So DH is no different from DnD in its expected collaboration and improv? That seems off to me but if thats what you came away with from reading it I cant say your interpretation is wrong.