Critical Role‘s publishing arm Darrington Press has continued its foray into TTRPG publishing with the show’s new project, Daggerheart. This is a fantasy-adventure RPG that takes almost as much inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons as it does steps to distance itself.

Daggerheart‘s open beta playtest, released alongside several helpful videos on the Critical Role YouTube channel, gives fans some insight into what the game will be like.

So far, with the beta rules alone, it looks pretty damn good. Critical Role‘s Daggerheart won’t be a TTRPG for everyone, but it will definitely find an audience. It innovates on many conventions of fantasy TTRPGs, draws on a wealth of sources for mechanical inspiration, and suits Critical Role‘s low-combat, high-improv playstyle well.

That said, it’s not perfect. If it were, Daggerheart wouldn’t need an open beta playtest. Although the system has a lot of genuinely interesting ideas and fun design choices, there are some places where the Daggerheart playtest falls short.

A disclaimer: I have yet to play Daggerheart. I am trying to arrange a game. These articles are based purely off of reading the rules and watching Critical Role‘s one-shot. It may be that some of these flaws I point out vanish in actual gameplay.

The Overuse of Hope and Fear

Daggerheart is quick to set itself apart from D&D with its different dice resolution system. On a surface level, it looks similar. The players roll dice and compare them to a target number set by the GM, adding modifiers to get as high as possible.

However, the similarities between Daggerheart and D&D 5e stop there. Daggerheart uses 2d12 rather than 1d20. Furthermore, these are two separate dice. One represents ‘Hope’ and the other ‘Fear’.

If the Hope die is higher, the player gets Hope to fuel their abilities, regardless of success or failure. If the Fear die is higher, there are negative consequences either way (and the DM gets their own resource). This is a central building block of Daggerheart in its playtest format. Despite this, it feels like the system leans on it too much.

Seven in every twelve rolls give Hope (rolling the same number on both dice gives a crit, which is an automatic success with Hope) and five give Fear. There is never a roll that won’t involve these mechanics. As a result, the PCs are always going to be gaining fuel for their abilities and the GM always has to think of further negative consequences on any roll.

Managing the Hope economy sounds like a difficult task, particularly with slightly vague rolling guidelines. However, it’s the other mechanics tying into Hope and Fear in Daggerheart that make me wary.

For instance, many of the flying abilities included in the playtest last until a player rolls Fear. With very few ways to influence which of the d12s rolls higher (some abilities allow the Hope die to become a d20, for example), this leaves players at the mercy of blind luck.

A Daggerheart character might soar triumphantly into the air only to crash the first time they try to do anything. If Hope and Fear were a little less omnipresent, or if players had more of a way to influence them (such as the d6 advantage die adding to Hope), I might be more at ease.

The Sheer Amount of Stuff It Calls For

Daggerheart goes out of its way to state that players and GMs don’t need miniatures, maps, or other things to play the game. However, this is about the end of its space-saving efforts for groups.

A Daggerheart player character sheet (unique to each class) covers multiple A4 sheets of paper in its own right. As in most TTRPGs, they need dice (likely two sets, given the 2d12 requirement).

On top of that, players need cards for their Ancestry and their Community, their subclass abilities, their Loadout (up to five Domain cards) and their Vault (the other Domain cards they have access to). They also need several character tokens.

This adds up to a lot of stuff to bring to a game, particularly when you multiply it by several players. The GM has their own things to bring, and the possibility for adding maps and miniatures if they want.

I’ve played sessions of D&D 5e with little more than dice, a sheet of paper, and a pencil. I couldn’t imagine doing that in Daggerheart, at least not as fluidly.

The optimal Daggerheart play experience seems to include a lot of objects that take up table space and risk being dropped, damaged, or lost. All of these issues are exacerbated in public game shops where D&D reigns supreme.

Daggerheart Isn’t as Rules-Light as it Wants to Be

Critical Role‘s Daggerheart does a lot of things well. It offers in-depth and fascinating character creation, plenty of space for improv, some interesting new takes on old ideas, and charm by the bucketload.

What it doesn’t offer is a rules-light experience, something that Daggerheart claims to be in the playtest book’s introductory section.

For my first piece of evidence, consider that the Daggerheart open beta playtest document is well over three hundred pages long with an entire section not included. It’s not light in text, reading time, or (if you print it off) physical weight.

Lasers & Feelings, a gold-standard rules-light TTRPG, is one page in its totality.

Even looking at Daggerheart‘s character creation, which is genuinely a triumph, ‘rules-light’ doesn’t spring to mind. It requires throwing at least as much jargon at somebody as D&D 5e, if not more. Between Ancestries, Communities, Classes, Domains, Experiences, and more, you’re really having to look at a lot of rules text.

I have heaped praise on the Daggerheart open beta’s character creation rules. They are flexible, inventive, and look to be plenty of fun. I wouldn’t say they go with Critical Role‘s stated intention to make a rules-light title, however.

Certainly, Daggerheart is less simulationist and less crunchy than a lot of titles. It has fewer rules than Pathfinder Second Edition. So does algebra homework.

In some places, Daggerheart does an excellent job of stripping away unnecessary crunch to make more straightforward rules that serve narrative progression above all else. At other times, it defaults to D&D 5e-esque ‘ask your GM to make a judgment call.’ Either way, it has a lot of text that, for me, sets it apart from most rules-light games.

The Warrior Class Seems Unusually Uninspiring

Critical Role‘s style of D&D emphasises improv acting and storytelling over combat. This tendency has only grown over time, with each campaign leaning more into the cast’s strengths.

Daggerheart embodies this well, giving far more weight to non-combat abilities and dedicating far fewer rules to violence. Almost every class has plenty of things it can do that don’t involve bloodshed and broken bones.

This is what makes Daggerheart‘s Warrior class so surprising to me. Its base class abilities and subclass features deal almost entirely with combat. On top of that, it’s hard to find non-combat abilities in its two Domains, Blade and Bone.

Almost everything the Daggerheart Warrior does involves rolling attacks, rolling damage, or minimising their own damage. This stands out even from other combat-themed classes like the Guardian, which have more flexibility.

Maybe this is a moot point. Maybe people playing a class called ‘Warrior’ are gunning for combat dominance and nothing else. If so, Daggerheart has those players well-served.

But I think of Warriors as being so much more. Inspiring leaders, peerless athletes, combat medics, intimidating thugs, suave duelists. Admittedly, you can cover some of these areas with rare non-combat Domain abilities in the Daggerheart playtest, but you’d struggle to fill your loadout. Furthermore, basic ability scores can also cover some of this ground.

Nonetheless, as Daggerheart looks to be a low-combat game (a far cry from D&D 5e‘s aspirations of 6-8 encounters per day), I do wonder if Warrior players might spend a long time waiting to be useful.

The Action Tracker Has Downsides Compared to Initiative

One of the ways Daggerheart tries to be looser, lighter, and more narrative than D&D 5e is the order of combat.

There aren’t strict turn orders or initiative rolls in Daggerheart. Players go when they think it makes sense for their character, marking how many turns they’ve taken.

The GM uses the tokens on the Action Tracker to determine how many turns the antagonists get. By default, they take these turns in one go when a player rolls a Fear (see above), but they can also take turns when it seems narratively appropriate.

This system does avoid tracking initiative and feeling stifled by a rigid turn order. At the same time, it comes with a lot of its own baggage.

Daggerheart combat seems to unintentionally favour players who are louder, more confident, or more sure in their abilities. They will likely take more turns and dominate combat more unless the entire group is rigorous about ensuring fairness.

The potential chilling effect on shyer, quieter, or more contemplative Daggerheart players has even been noticed by Critical Role cast members in their session.

Furthermore, it also seems swingy. How many enemies go at once is often very dependent on dice rolls. Daggerheart players have little control over when combat swings to the GM, and the GM often takes multiple turns at a time.

If you’re trying to play the monsters tactically, this could result in player characters being taken out of commission very quickly. Now, GMs are encouraged to suit the narrative rather than play to kill, but sometimes the narrative is “the five enemies who are all taking their turn want one character dead.”

Apart from taking many turns at once based on a Fear roll, Daggerheart GMs are given little guidance for having enemies move, besides ‘remove a token from the Action Tracker and take a turn when it feels appropriate.’

This is unfortunately vague for a significant part of the Daggerheart playtest rules.

Uneven Balance

Far and away, this is the smallest concern with the Daggerheart open beta playtest. Balance is always going to be wonky in a playtest document, it’s one of the many reasons to playtest.

Furthermore, I have yet to play the game. I don’t know how Daggerheart actually feels at the table to play, or how its many character options stack up against one another in a normal session.

At the same time, it does feel like Daggerheart‘s balance isn’t all there.

Even aside from the Warrior’s slightly uninspiring abilities, I didn’t feel that it held its own all that well. The Guardian and the Seraph, two other warrior-themed classes, seemed to be able to do more things and fight at least as well.

Notably, the Guardian seems able to reroll any sort of roll it makes, including out of combat ones, by spending stress while using Unstoppable. Seeing as the ability only ticks down when the Guardian deals damage, this feels most useful when a player uses it for extended periods outside combat.

That sort of thing feels thematically and mechanically odd.

There are other unusual balance choices. With the lack of limited proficiencies (in the D&D 5e sense) and how many weapons are available to each stat in Daggerheart, a lot of the combat abilities seem to pale compared to just making weapon attacks for all characters.

I’d need more time with Daggerheart to truly assess its character options and how well-balanced they are. Furthermore, I’m sure the game’s talented designers will have ironed out many oddities before long.

These have been some of the few ways Daggerheart holds itself back amongst a largely-successful playtest document. I’m very optimistic for this game and looking forward to writing more. Please do leave your thoughts!

For more thoughts on the Daggerheart playtest, check out ‘Things Critical Role’s Daggerheart Playtest Does Better Than D&D 5e‘.

For D&D advice that is honestly fairly system-neutral, consider ‘Tips for Writing a D&D Character Backstory‘.

As always, please do like, share, and read more Artificial Twenty if you’ve enjoyed this. I would love to hear your feedback. Thanks!