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.

 

[Umbran]

Thanks for that contribution, I guess. Are you here to frame Daggerheart as being "scary" for shy players based on your claim that it "demands improv"?

Mod Note:
Hey, chill out.
Folks should be allowed to have some criticism of the game without being jumped on.

Rather than try to dismiss the concern, maybe suggest ways that concern can be managed better, or something else more constructive. "Yes, that can be a problem, and maybe you should talk about it with your players before play begins. In the past, I managed it this way..." or the like? Thanks.

 

[Vael]

I've found that the Background and Connection questions have done a lot of heavy lifting to get players into improv-ing and thinking about their character. It was fun to see in our session 0, already seeing roleplaying and collaborating between the players as they answered those questions.

 

[djotaku]

Addressing the character sheet - dnd sheets CAN be much less "scary". If you look at the dnd adventure club pregen character sheets, they fit on 2 pages (and most of the 2nd page is backstory) In reality, now that we have computers in the year 2026 the ideal situation would be a simple app that spits out the numbers you need onto a simplified sheet. (Could also be done with a spreadsheet full of formulas or a programmed PDF) Looking at a standard 5e character sheet - most of those numbers don't need to be there during play. You just need them to recalculate the numbers that matter when you level up.

ALSO, I could be wrong, but I think that Daggerheart has character sheet per class. (I think Paizo sells something similar for Pathfinder) I would LOVE to see this become the norm for the hobby. Sure, sure...people could multiclass or do weird things, but if I'm a Fighter (without a magic subclass) I have different needs than a Wizard for my sheet. For example, instead of a sheet for spells, I could have a sheet for my special fighter moves (called different things in different 5e variants)

 

[zakael19]

Addressing the character sheet - dnd sheets CAN be much less "scary". If you look at the dnd adventure club pregen character sheets, they fit on 2 pages (and most of the 2nd page is backstory) In reality, now that we have computers in the year 2026 the ideal situation would be a simple app that spits out the numbers you need onto a simplified sheet. (Could also be done with a spreadsheet full of formulas or a programmed PDF) Looking at a standard 5e character sheet - most of those numbers don't need to be there during play. You just need them to recalculate the numbers that matter when you level up.

ALSO, I could be wrong, but I think that Daggerheart has character sheet per class. (I think Paizo sells something similar for Pathfinder) I would LOVE to see this become the norm for the hobby. Sure, sure...people could multiclass or do weird things, but if I'm a Fighter (without a magic subclass) I have different needs than a Wizard for my sheet. For example, instead of a sheet for spells, I could have a sheet for my special fighter moves (called different things in different 5e variants)

It definitely feels like DH followed in the footsteps of class-playbooks from PBTAs like Dungeon World etc there, with the core moves on the sheet and customized space for unique class features.

 

[Vael]

ALSO, I could be wrong, but I think that Daggerheart has character sheet per class. (I think Paizo sells something similar for Pathfinder) I would LOVE to see this become the norm for the hobby. Sure, sure...people could multiclass or do weird things, but if I'm a Fighter (without a magic subclass) I have different needs than a Wizard for my sheet. For example, instead of a sheet for spells, I could have a sheet for my special fighter moves (called different things in different 5e variants)

Daggerheart does have class specific character sheets, but also a generic one as well. TBH, because a lot of design is in the subclass and domain cards, the class write-ups are tiny compared to DnD. Most of the classes in the Daggerheart Core book are a single 2 page spread, and that's everything for the class and both subclasses. So yes, it's helpful to have class-specific character sheets, it's also just Daggerheart's design is just a lot lighter on class mechanics.

If you take away all the Domain cards and Subclass cards ... this is all you need to define a Daggerheart class mechanically:

• Starting HP and Evasion
• A Hope Feature: All classes have a "Spend 3 Hope to do something awesome" feature.
• One or Two Class Features. And these have to be brief, the space for them on the character sheet is not big.

Then for flavor:

• 3 Background Questions
• 3 Connection Questions
• Starting equipment and character description prompts.

 

[Imaro]

I think DH is slightly more complex at low level vs. 5e... about equal or a little less at mid and much simpler at high levels compared to 5e

One thing I think that DH has is very few if any assign and forget abilities...which means the players have to keep in mind what they can do in order to activate or use an ability or experience when the opportunity arises... vs. something like I always get a +x to this.

There are also DH classes that have secondary resources (tokens) that are tracked in addition to hope... the sorcerer in our group has a power where they track tokens on a domain card and I believe the Brawler has something similar for stances. Finally just like magic in 5e there are also classes that have entire subsystems with their own rules that are part of a character at tier 1... two examples being the Druid's shapechanging and the Ranger's animal companion. I think the simplicity of DH is being overstated a little in these discussions even if I do think it is an overall simpler game than 5e, especially at mid to high levels.

 

[zakael19]

I think the simplicity of DH is being overstated a little in these discussions even if I do think it is an overall simpler game than 5e, especially at mid to high levels.

So like a lot of recent designs, DH front-loads its characters a bit in a way 5e does not if you start at 1st level. There's a trend in games coming out to basically give an equivalent of a 5e 3rd level character at first (with some back and forth in just how much complexity that means), at least in terms of baking in a "subclass" type thing.

In that comparison, a L1 DH character probably has more complexity then a L1 5e in terms of abilities; but probably less then a 3rd level one. But to your point, once you get that front load, the ramp from there is pretty slow. If we take above as given, a 3rd level DH character is loosely equivalent to a 5th level 5e one when there's usually a big jump in power via various things. DH doesnt do that so much, it's a lot more smoothed IMO.

Additionally, the core of the game is streamlined. Beyond the accessibility stuff they've baked in that @Neonchameleon highlighted and you did as well ("place X tokens on this card," the card design and relatively streamlined abilities, the push towards tactility and simple additive mechanics with "marking" HP/stress instead of doing subtractive math), you've done away with stuff like the entire turn-based combat subsystem in most D&Ds down to something pretty lean.

I'm running both DH and DS! right now, and the difference in crunch is pretty comical actually.

 

[mamba]

So like a lot of recent designs, DH front-loads its characters a bit in a way 5e does not if you start at 1st level. There's a trend in games coming out to basically give an equivalent of a 5e 3rd level character at first (with some back and forth in just how much complexity that means), at least in terms of baking in a "subclass" type thing.

In that comparison, a L1 DH character probably has more complexity then a L1 5e in terms of abilities; but probably less then a 3rd level one. But to your point, once you get that front load, the ramp from there is pretty slow. If we take above as given, a 3rd level DH character is loosely equivalent to a 5th level 5e one

which 5e level does DH level 10 correspond to?

 

[zakael19]

which 5e level does DH level 10 correspond to?

12ish?

Edit: with some caveats it’s hard to draw direct comparisons. But you’re nowhere near a late teens Demi-god like a 5e spell caster in particular. 7th level spells at best I think?

 

[mamba]

12ish?

Edit: with some caveats it’s hard to draw direct comparisons. But you’re nowhere near a late teens Demi-god like a 5e spell caster in particular. 7th level spells at best I think?

yeah, that makes it pretty comparable to 5e for me, I don't think I will ever go past level 14 or so anyway