The summer’s first big blockbuster has arrived. Daggerheart, from Darrington Press with the support of Critical Role, is now in the hands of role playing fans around the world. The company also turned heads this week by luring away Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins from Dungeons and Dragons.
Darrington Press sent me a review copy of the game. I’ve been able to get it to the table a few times both as a player and as a Game Master. I’m happy to report that I enjoyed my experiences building and playing adventures in fantasy worlds with my friends.
How To Play Daggerheart
Daggerheart uses a pair of twelve sided dice in its central resolution. Players roll them, add whatever bonuses they have and try to defeat a target number. One die is the Hope Die and one die is the Fear die.
If the Hope die is the higher die, the player gains a Hope point and things turn out better than they planned. If the Fear die comes up high, the GM gets a Fear point and things might take a turn.
Hope points can be used by players to add their experiences to rolls, power certain abilities. Each class also gets a thematic ability that costs three points to use. My favorite use of Hope points is the tag team attack where once per session a player gets to describe how they and another player do a big, flashy combo and both roll attack and damage to put the hurt on a brutal bad guy.
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Fear points let the GM put some nasty twists in the narrative. They can interrupt players, add bad guys to the scene and activate special attacks. It’s a fun feeling to tell the players you’ve spent a few points on something wicked, then watch them sweat for a few moments before you reveal what it is.
Daggerheart Corebook Contents
The core set contains two parts. The main rules are a gorgeous full-color book full of evocative art full of plenty of Easter eggs for fans of the show. The second part is a box with cards that reference the main parts of the character to make making characters and playing the game easier.
Characters are built using classic elements from role playing games. Players pick a class, an ancestry and a background that gives the character spells, combat techniques and other cool tricks to use in play. The cards make these powers ebay to reference, though they aren’t required for play as every character element is detailed in the book.
Each class also provides access to two domains. The domains overlap one another so part of character creation is figuring out which domain power each player claims if they share one with another player. It’s one of many examples of how Daggerheart encourages collaborative play between the players.
This cooperation extends to building the world together. The game offers worldbuilding advice for session zero and encourages the GM to ask the players to develop the world in play. The game includes some blank maps for the group to fill in together to get started.
For those groups who want a little more guidance, there are a handful of campaign frames as examples of settings where Daggerheart shines. There are a few fantasy ones but the genres also dip into technomagical science fiction and weird westerns. They also contain some rules that groups can use for their original worlds, such as cooking monsters, crafting weapons and gear and adding firearms into the mix.
Daggerheart Impressions
Daggerheart is a gooey, narrative indie-style game baked inside a crispy Dungeons & Dragons crust. It takes inspiration from several games that do things differently than D&D but also shines in tactical combat and specific character builds. Players who want high stakes drama while also busting out the minis for a fight will find a lot to love here.
The game cites influences front and center complete with a bibliography in the first few pages. Every designer is inspired by other games and it’s nice to see one of the biggest releases of the year encourage its audience to go out and play more games. I’ve played a lot of the games on this list and not only have they come together well, in a few places, they’ve improved upon the original idea.
The Duality Dice supply a steady drip of Hope and Fear points. It was nice to stock these points if a dice roll didn’t have a clever twist I could use. I never felt constrained as the GM by Fear, knowing that I could save up a stack to make the final combat more epic.
Combat features a fluid initiative that I enjoyed. Rolling with Fear gives the GM a chance to cut in and do some damage. I really enjoyed the groans and cursing of my players when I would spend those points to give my bad guys a turn.
Every player character can take two big hits, three medium hits and six little hits. Armor can reduce the severity of the hit and also affect how big the damage is. Even one hit damage from non-battle focused characters feels significant and the heavy hitters have ample opportunity to one shot bad guys if the dice are kind.
I really appreciated the digital side of the launch. The main website has character sheets, printable cards, game play aids and even a preview of upcoming classes. Making characters with the Daggerheart Nexus was easy and it was a great resource during play.
I like how the cards enhance play by having the full text of abilities right there. No more scribbles in the margins or lookups that kill gameplay momentum. This could have easily been an accessory that would have made Darrington Press more money but it’s a shrewd way to lower the bar of entry to their game.
Calling Daggerheart a “D&D killer” is looking at it from the wrong angle. It celebrates the best parts of D&D while also not having to worry about legacy mechanics and earlier editions. Daggerheart stands on the shoulders of giants to climb to bigger battles and brighter adventures ahead.
Daggerheart is available directly from Darrington Press, online retailers like Amazon and at Friendly Local Gaming Stores around the US.
