New Daggerheart Kickstarter Announced, Chris Perkins, Jeremy Crawford's Plans Revealed

Daggerheart has ambitious plans for the upcoming months, with several major partnerships announced and a new Kickstarter planned for later this year. Today, Darrington Press announced that it would be Kickstarting Class Packs for Daggerheart, a class-based product that contains everything you need to play a specific class. The 76-card packs contain ancestry cards, community cards, subclass cards, and all cards from each of a class's two domains. Also included for Kickstarter backers is a digital PDF of the Daggerheart Core Rulebook.

Also announced were several new collaborations and campaign expansions from the game. A campaign frame focused of romantasy will be released in 2026, focused on the Exandria in-world book Tusk Love. Also announced were collaborations with Legends of Avantris, Dungeons and Daddies, and Bonus Action, all of whom will produce Actual Plays using Daggerheart as a game system.

Darrington Press also announced that Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, and Twogether Studios are all working on new campaign products for the game. Crawford is leading the design of a "devilishly scary" campaign setting (which will be fully fleshed out unlike a campaign frame), while Perkins is building a series of adventures that will span multiple campaign frames and connect into a larger arc. Details about Keith Baker and Jenn Ellis's world was not revealed, but it would feature new player options as part of the "brand-new world."

 

[Vael]

Character packs are cool, but I don't know if I'll bother backing the kickstarter. I'll be interested in seeing the price point though. Because I do like these as a way for players to buy in without having to shell out for the full system.

More campaign frames and settings are really cool, I'm into a romantasy frame and I'm eager to see what Perkins, Crawford and Baker (!!!) create for Daggerheart.

 

[BruceWright]

Todd Kenreck (!) goes over all the new stuff in this video. New campaigns, new frames, new ancestries in HeroForge. Art of Daggerheart book. New dice.

Jeeeze. This game is on FIRE.

 

[DevL]

I sincerely hope this kills the notion and delusions that Darrington Press hired Perkins and Crawford to create 5E content for Darrington to sell via DnD Beyond.

 

[overgeeked]

The Kickstarter is kinda weird to me. Who is this for?

Players who don’t want to buy the full core set? They aren’t selling just the book. Not yet at least. So that should be assumed in the near future though not announced yet.

Players using the SRD? There are artless cards to print.

So this is for fans who: 1) don’t want the core set, or; 2) will buy an unannounced future book-only release, or; 3) use the SRD but still want pretty cards at the table, or; 4) want spare cards.

It’s CR and the new hotness so of course it’ll do gangbusters.

Also, the packs appear to include all ancestries and community cards along with the class and all cards from both domains. So if you buy two or more you’ll be swimming in piles of duplicates in no time.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

Also, the packs appear to include all ancestries and community cards along with the class and all cards from both domains. So if you buy two or more you’ll be swimming in piles of duplicates in no time.

Which isn't a bad thing, imo. Escpecially if you keep the cards in their holders. The point seems to be to allow a player to have everything they need to play their class without having to share.

I'm definitely not the market for this since most of my games have been relegated to online play, but it's cool they are doing it. Not sure why it HAS to be kickstarted though.

 

[nyvinter]

Not sure why it HAS to be kickstarted though.

Because the sad reality is that if you put it up on preorder on the store, a lot of people will go "nah, I'll wait until it's released." And that will not give them the numbers they need for printing them — and that's the big issue considering that they keep selling out copies.

A kickstarter will have more people push to pledge, this is how it is and part of why Free League have kickstarters instead of preorders.

 

[BruceWright]

The Kickstarter is kinda weird to me. Who is this for?

Players who don’t want to buy the full core set? They aren’t selling just the book. Not yet at least. So that should be assumed in the near future though not announced yet.

Comes with a PDF of the full core set.

It's for GMS to say to their players, "Stop getting fingerprints on my cards. Buy your own damn cards."


It's a cheaper way for players to get in the game, with nice cards. Without separating the pristine card set that the GM keeps in sleeves.

 

[DevL]

The Kickstarter is kinda weird to me. Who is this for?

Players who don’t want to buy the full core set?

Yes. And you get the core rulebook as a PDF.

 

[overgeeked]

Which isn't a bad thing, imo. Escpecially if you keep the cards in their holders. The point seems to be to allow a player to have everything they need to play their class without having to share.

Right, but it's a player who knows enough about the game to decide ahead of time which class they want to play. So they either already have the book (which means they have all the cards and don't need these), or they're going off the SRD, or they're an assumed buyer of the stand-alone book that will be released soon.

And that player will be locked in to that class unless they buy a new class pack. At which point they'll have a pile of duplicate cards. Then there's the question of multiclassing, which lets you dip some cards. So will you have to buy a whole new pack just for that one or two cards?

The core set has the book and all the cards for $60. When they do a stand-alone book release, it's a safe bet it's not going to be $40. It'll be $50 at least. I doubt they'll be selling the card packs for less than say $15 each. So one book and one card pack will set you back $65+. For $5 less you get all the cards. Or they sell the packs for $10, okay so one book and one pack costs the same as the book and all the cards.

So unless they stop selling the core set, these card packs will not sell. But, if they stop selling the core set, fans will freak out about the money grab.

It's a weird product that makes no sense to me.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't know how I feel about adventures being written for Daggerheart. It seems antithetical to the core engine that they created.