Fifty years ago, Dungeons & Dragons paved the way for the entire medium of tabletop RPGs, inspiring uncountable adventures—and other games that offer different approaches to the format. Few have stood out as Darrington Press’ Daggerheart, which officially released just over a month ago.
Like other successful D&D alternatives, Daggerheart essentially stepped out of the original game’s lengthy shadow, but unlike Pathfinder, it emerged not from an earlier version of D&D but from a highly popular group of D&D players: Critical Role. What began as a group of voice actors live-streaming their home game has taken on a life of its own over a decade, leading to the creation of Darrington Press, the game publishing subsidiary of Critical Role Productions, in 2020.
Now the company’s signature TTRPG system is in the hands of players everywhere, and the reaction has been enthusiastic. But what is it about Daggerheart that makes it one of the most potent challengers to Dungeons & Dragons‘ supremacy over the medium?
An Increasingly Powerful Party of Developers
To begin with, the team behind Daggerheart was impressive from square one. The game’s lead designer is Spenser Starke, who had previously designed Kids On Brooms for Renegade Studios and Alice Is Missing, a silent yet collaborative game played via text message. Since joining with Darrington Press, Starke led design for their previous TTRPG, Candela Obscura, a game of paranormal investigation with heavy Lovecraftian or dark fantasy-inspired tones.
Critical Role’s main Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer brings his considerable experience as an additional Game Designer, and his signature approach to running adventures is infused through much of the book. The credits are similarly stuffed with experienced tabletop creators of all stripes, providing the game with a diverse array of perspectives.
Furthermore, over the last few weeks Darrington Press has acquired two particularly interesting individuals—Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford have joined the company as Creative Director and Game Director, respectively, after they left D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast together earlier this year. As two of the most prestigious leaders in the industry for the last few decades, D&D‘s loss is Daggerheart‘s direct gain. Todd Kenreck, the veritable face of D&D‘s social media, was (bafflingly) laid off as well, and will now be creating content independently for both games.
A lot of powerful forces in tabletop RPGs are rallying behind Daggerheart, and this collective pedigree alone should have players sitting up and taking notice.
A Bountiful Core Rulebook
Whatever term a game uses for its main player-facing rulebook, it becomes the most essential tome to have, and Daggerheart‘s Core Rulebook breaks the mold compared to most of its peers.
The main component is the actual hardcover book itself. Its 366 pages contain all the essential ingredients for individual players and groups alike—efficiently performing the job of the Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide of other games, with a dash of a Monster Manual as well. While the improved layout was one of my favourite components of the 2024 version of Dungeons & Dragons, flipping through the Daggerheart Core Rulebook felt even more streamlined and effective.
The other half of the Core Rulebook package is the box of cards which contain the info for all the components which make up a complete character. Ancestry, Community, Subclasses, and features associated with the various Domains make up this set of 279 cards, contained in a magnet-clasped box for storage and transport. While info is found in the book itself, the cards are useful during character creation and as a reference while playing.
For a comparable price, Daggerheart‘s Core Rulebook stands out from the competition, achieves more in fewer pages, and truly feels like it’s worth its space on the table amongst your notebooks, minis, dice, and snacks.
Shaking The Foundations
Dungeons & Dragons is so influential, and so prominent, that it’s hard to escape many of the fundamental elements it entrenched within the bones of tabletop roleplaying games. Many fledgling games have gone out of their way to distinguish themselves… and in the process, can go so far that they end up alienating potential players or getting lost in the mechanical weeds.
When it comes to original/non-licensed TTRPGs, Daggerheart feels like it has set itself at an appropriate distance from the progenitor in many areas. Players still utilize polyhedral dice, but rather than focusing on the d20, the main mechanic revolves around a pair of 12-sided dice. One is designated the Hope die, and the other, the Fear die.
When a player makes an action that requires a roll, they roll these two together and add the result, while also noting which die had the higher number. A player who rolls a 10 “with Hope” (ie. where the Hope die’s number was higher) earns a Hope with which they can power a future ability, but might still fail their action; a player who rolls a 21 “with Fear,” however, gives the game master a Fear, which they spend to throw a wrench in the works, so even if the action succeeds, it can bite them down the line.
“Empowering” is one of the most resonant words I could use to describe Daggerheart, alongside “collaboration.”
The Duality Dice mechanic may take a little time to adjust to for some players, yet it feels more natural in practice than it may sound on paper. It also remains sufficiently D&D-esque so that people who are firmly grounded in that game can ease into Daggerheart‘s paradigm more easily.
One other interesting mechanical diversion is the way the game handles death. When a player character’s hit points are depleted, they get to take a “death move.” One might choose to sit out the rest of the battle (and potentially gain a permanent “Scar”), to ensure they live to fight another day. They might “Risk It All” instead and roll their Duality Dice—if Hope is higher, they make a miraculous recovery, but if Fear wins, they die. Or, they can opt to go out in a Blaze of Glory, with a (GM-approved) automatic critical success and retire their character.
Death saves are tense in other games, but Daggerheart‘s new norms offer players a much more active (and potentially dramatic) role in the proceedings.
Broadening Horizons Via Campaign Frames
I love a good breakdown of classes, but what was perhaps the most interesting part of the Core Rulebook for me was the section on Campaign Frames.
To go back to D&D‘s inescapable example once again, one barrier to entry it possesses is that it’s still tied to longstanding settings. Wizards of the Coast has tried admirably throughout Fifth Edition to present it as a setting-agnostic game—and some independent creators have achieved incredible things, homebrewing the rules to fit distinct worlds like Final Fantasy XIV or Destiny 2. Yet the original worlds of D&D lore, like Faerun or Greyhawk, can feel inexorable.
Daggerheart feels more setting-neutral, perhaps just by virtue of being a blank slate without five decades of baggage. It lays out a basic cosmological template—ie. the Mortal Realms as the physical world, the Hallows Above and the Circles Below as the stand-ins for heaven and hell, etc—and baselines for the various classes, spells, and ancestries… and then it turns game masters loose to make it their own.
Chapter Five of the Core Rulebook presents a handful of Campaign Frames to either give players the sandboxes they’ll play in, or an example of how to create their own. Each frame is an intriguing setting-in-a-bottle; Mercer channels his love of Dark Souls and Berserk into “Age of Umbra,” a harrowing dark fantasy campaign setting, while “Beast Feast” offers a more lighthearted route through Delicious In Dungeon territory, and “Motherboard” blends technology and fantasy like Horizon.
Better still, these frames are incredibly customized and distinct from one another. The creators highlight the specific philosophies game masters should employ to bring these settings to life, and present players with distinct mechanical options. “Motherboard” contains its very own machine language to be used in puzzles, and others present specific rules to make ancestries and classes work better in those settings.
As a regular DM, I’ve brought forth a setting from my own creative writing to host D&D campaigns in, and it can require a lot of chopping and screwing to make it feel authentic to me and my players. Daggerheart‘s Campaign Frames, however, offer an elegant solution. I immediately felt compelled, after just my initial skim through this section, to use their template and start converting my homebrew setting. I have every bit of faith that this game will empower TTRPG content creators through this model.
Empowering Collaboration
Indeed, “empowering” is one of the most resonant words I could use to describe Daggerheart, alongside “collaboration.”
The Campaign Frames empower game masters to realize their settings and share them. The unique spin on TTRPG mechanics, like Death Moves and new damage calculations, increase player agency.
But perhaps the best portrayal of these attributes is the Spotlight concept, which sets aside the rigid initiative order of other games. No more waiting for your turn based on a single die roll at the very start of combat; instead, the party collectively chooses the right order to act in, until a Fear roll puts the “Spotlight” back on the game master. This ever-shifting turn cadence, in particular, can keep the energy and collaborative spirit alive when other games lag.
While I’m still enjoying the updated D&D rules, Daggerheart certainly makes a compelling case for tabletop RPG fans to branch out in new directions—and I can’t wait to see where Darrington Press and the community can take it over the years to come.