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.

 

[Parmandur]

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.

The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson has characters who die tragically, or struggle with serious mental illness, or physical disabilities. The Stormlight Archives...is not Grimdark.

Grimdark would be all Fear, no Hope. Daggerheart seems to want a more swing high stakes story where things can go very right or very wrong, neither Grimdark or Cozy.

 

[zakael19]

Like I said, to me true grimdark is when the absolute best case you can hope for is the sustainment of an already terrible status quo AND everybody is a bastard. It has little to do with mechanics (protags in grim dark media often survive despite everything), and more to due with the futility of struggle. I think Mork Borg is probably the best TTRPG version of this, verging into nihilism.

If you ran an AoU where there was no hope of a better tomorrow, there were no children or intelligent denizens, and no matter what you did it failure to have an impact, that would be pretty grim dark.

 

[Reynard]

Grimdark would be all Fear, no Hope.

I disagree. Grimdark is often about fading and diminishing hope and about the inevitability of failure. Scars do that just fine.

I don't think that subgenre absolutism is particularly compelling.

 

[zakael19]

I disagree. Grimdark is often about fading and diminishing hope and about the inevitability of failure. Scars do that just fine.

I don't think that subgenre absolutism is particularly compelling.

I think that DH doesnt want to do genuine GrimDark so much inherently, but between Stress & Scars, you've got much better hooks to show people who think they're heroes slowly getting crushed by the reality of hopelessness if that's something you want to do!

 

[Reynard]

My favorite grimdark novel is The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie and I don't think there is any reason to think you can't emulate that march toward nihilism with scars in DH.

 

[zakael19]

My favorite grimdark novel is The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie and I don't think there is any reason to think you can't emulate that march toward nihilism with scars in DH.

Yeah, he's definitely where my mind goes; and IIRC the entire series is basically just "we struggle and hurt and at best we keep the status quo" (except for uhhh, the chain in Best Served Cold?).

 

[Parmandur]

I disagree. Grimdark is often about fading and diminishing hope and about the inevitability of failure. Scars do that just fine.

I don't think that subgenre absolutism is particularly compelling.

Grimdark is an awfully specific subgenre, however. It is not about absolutism, and more that the term means pretty specific things.

 

[Reynard]

Grimdark is an awfully specific subgenre, however. It is not about absolutism, and more that the term means pretty specific things.

So here's the part where I ask you to name your top Grimdark novels and watch as other people come in to argue with those choices.

 

[Parmandur]

So here's the part where I ask you to name your top Grimdark novels and watch as other people come in to argue with those choices.

Abercrombie seems fairly definitive, and from what I have read of him Daggerheart would be a peculiar choice.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think that DH doesnt want to do genuine GrimDark so much inherently, but between Stress & Scars, you've got much better hooks to show people who think they're heroes slowly getting crushed by the reality of hopelessness if that's something you want to do!

This. I don't think that DH is a GrimDark system. But it provides significant tools that support attempted GrimDark play in ways that D&D is entirely devoid of. I'm trying to think of a less GrimDark system than D&D 5e that allows for the possibility of death. I'm grading on a curve here.