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.

 

[zakael19]

Even AoU isn't all that Grimdark in the grand scheme of tTRPG settings unless you really lean into it. It's explicitly about bringing back Hope and Light, most "true" GrimDark has at most a hope of retaining the status quo, and everybody is bastards and terrible including the protags.

 

[Reynard]

I'd push back slightly and yet still agree, the choices of the players and DM influence tone.

To step out of the frames and go back to DnD, Eberron is both pulp and noir and how a table goes can push to a darker, more noir vibe or go the other way and have a more heroic, swashbuckling and pulp vibe.

So ... for me, yes, while Age of Umbra is the only one that is pretty explicitly grimdark, the others can certainly go that way.

Sure, but amaris was specifically talking about the frames as presented. You can make anything grimdark or hopelight as you want at the table.

 

[Imaro]

Eh, I don't think the mechanics allow for true grimdark to be played with Daggerheart. IMO, without serious modification/homebrewing...it is very much heroic fantasy with a coat of paint/flavoring over it.

 

[Reynard]

Eh, I don't think the mechanics allow for true grimdark to be played with Daggerheart. IMO, without serious modification/homebrewing...it is very much heroic fantasy with a coat of paint/flavoring over it.

Scars that permanently limit one's Hope pool does have that feel, tho.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Eh, I don't think the mechanics allow for true grimdark to be played with Daggerheart. IMO, without serious modification/homebrewing...it is very much heroic fantasy with a coat of paint/flavoring over it.

It depends which scale you're grading on. If grading on a D&D-curve then I'd say it can do better grimdark than any D&D. But it's not CoC or WFRP.

 

[Parmandur]

Scars that permanently limit one's Hope pool does have that feel, tho.

Having difficulty and setback isn't Grimdark, though. That is just having a story with stakes.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Having difficulty and setback isn't Grimdark, though. That is just having a story with stakes.

But a Scar isn't an ordinary setback; it's permanent.

 

[Reynard]

Having difficulty and setback isn't Grimdark, though. That is just having a story with stakes.

But a Scar isn't an ordinary setback; it's permanent.

yeah, I am not sure @Parmandur quite understands the permanently reduce Hope pool. it is an inevitable death spiral. You are literally Doomed.

 

[Imaro]

It depends which scale you're grading on. If grading on a D&D-curve then I'd say it can do better grimdark than any D&D. But it's not CoC or WFRP.

Disagree... DH misses the mark on grimdark just as much if not more than D&D.

 

[Imaro]

Scars that permanently limit one's Hope pool does have that feel, tho.

This one mechanic, which only gets invoked if you avoid death (with getting to the point where this is necessary being a pretty rare occurrence in my DH play so far)... does not make Daggerheart and it's high heroics, super-powered heroes feel grimdark. I mean it's literally a possible consequence of just being able to declare that your character avoided death. The other thing is that in AoU scars actually increase a PC's damage which is actually more beneficial than vanilla DH... I really don't like this rule since for me it doesn't make sense.

I'm running an AoU game right now and honestly I've had to use tougher monsters and make most of them Umbra-touched... I also changed the rule and allowed myself as GM to raise downed NPC's/characters as a zombie for free as opposed to spending a fear and I raise them as a brawny zombie. for 1 fear. Yeah the power level of a group of PC's in DH, IME, just doesn't vibe well with a grimdark game without more/different modifications than AoU provides. Hoping the gothic horror setting in the upcoming sourcebook Hope & Fear does the dark fantasy setting mechanics a little better than AoU.