Daggerheart Review - A Narrative Forward 'yes and...' TTRPG That Is A Force To Be Reckoned With

It was big news when Daggerheart was announced from Darrington Press, the tabletop publishing arm of Critical Role. The company, built on Dungeons & Dragons Actual Plays, steps into the high-fantasy TTRPG space, and what they've come out with is a blast. Plenty of Character Options and DM tools are included, but I have a feeling I know just who this all won't click with.

What Comes With Daggerheart?

For the core set of Daggerheart you'll be receiving a 360+ page Core Rulebook. This includes everything you need to play the game from building a Player Character and how to interact with the world, to a list of different Adversaries a party might fight and information about the Campaign Frames to set your adventures within.

To learn more about what went into the creation of Daggerheart and how designers, Spenser Starke and Rowan Hall, look to support DMs check out our pre-release interview.

In addition to the physical book there is also a folder of cards, these cards include information about each of the different sub-classes (two sub-classes for each of the nine classes), Ancestry information, Community information, and a deck of cards for all of the abilities for each of the Domains (think of these like spell and ability lists)

When building a character out you can put it all into your character sheet, or you can juggle between the abilities and weapons that you might keep on your character sheet and the physical cards for quick referencing your abilities.

Building A Daggerheart Character

There's a lot of TTRPG where you'll hear people say "building a character is very fast" but Daggerheart is one where I would agree. With the cards laid out in front of you you get to pick a sub-class (that comes with the Class and it's Class features), Ancestry (species), Community (what type of upbringing your character has), starting equipment, and input basic stats.

You'll know as soon as you have picked your Sorcerer sub-class that you'll want to pick a Instinct weapon, then it's just a matter of picking two abilities for your domains.

Stats are based on a standard array (+2, +1, +1, 0, 0, -1) and other characteristics like your starting evasion, hit points are all based on your class.

You'll end up with a completely filled-out character sheet and five playing cards, and you're ready to go.

I loved the character creation process. While it did feel like there were less options being presented to me the walls that each of those options presented were far more spaced out. An example might be the Sorcerer's Minor Illusion.

"Make a Spellcast Roll (10). On a success, you create a minor visual illusion no larger than yourself within Close range. This illusion is convincing to anyone at Close range or farther out."

It's a simple roll and then the world is your oyster. Whether you use this for flavor, to try to fool an adversary, or include it as part of a performance. There's no nitty gritty about inspections, whether it can or can't make a sound, etc. This kind of prioritization for creativity is seen in a lot of the abilities.

Character Growth

Leveling up in Daggerheart offers characters a variety of options depending on what level they've reached (where the max is 10). These are things like gaining an additional Hit Point, Stress Slot, upgrading your experiences, or more.

Each level up has six or more possibilities for you to choose two from, letting you prioritize what you're most interested in and begin to create further diversification with your character.

This is also where the Tiers come into play. A level 1 character is Tier 1, but a Level 5-7 character is in Tier 3. Each of these Tiers is a good indicator for the GM, but also the players what kinds of experiences they should be having at the table. Each time you ascend a Tier you know that you've graduated to a new level of adventuring.

Where To Obtain What Information

When first opening up all of the cards and reviewing the character sheets it seemed like there would be cards for abilities, whether those abilities be tied to what kind of creature you were playing or what they specialized in, and that the player sheet would be for tracking weapons, inventory, and stats/resources.

I was mistaken, realizing that class features instead go on your character sheet. It felt like an arbitrary line had been drawn between what would get it's own card and what would be on the character sheet and the most basic Class features didn't make the cut.

Tools For A GM

When playing Daggerheart at no point did I not feel supported by the Core Rulebook. This thing is absolutely packed with not just all of the rules that you'll need to manage the game, but also to make it your own.

A large number of rule explanations, like how to craft encounters, create new adversaries, and to deal with the results of player rolls don't just tell you what to do, but extrapolate on the different ways that you can handle these events, and even how the designers would approach these situations.

There's a lot of effort put into reassuring the GM that there's no one 'correct' way to play the game, and that in situations that call for it you can definitely fudge or ignore certain aspects of a stat block or rule.

Hope and Fear Always Progressing The Story

The most unique aspect for me in Daggerheart is that all skill checks are performed with two D12, one for Hope and one for Fear, as opposed to a D20 or a group of D6. You'll always add the numbers together, but whether the higher number was Hope or Fear will have different effects.

Succeeding your skill check with a 5 on the Fear die and a 9 on the Hope die will give you a total of 14 and you'll earn Hope for your character, if those numbers were reversed you may still pass your skill check, but the GM obtains a fear point and while there is a success there might be a consequence.

It's an easy method to create varying levels of success and when Hope is capped at six per player and Fear for the DM stops at Twelve. This resource will continue to gather for the player or DM with every single check or attack allowing you to be spending and receiving them freely. Your access to this resource will also let you pull off bigger and badder abilities.

I really think Daggerheart has nailed something here with these resources. It's a way to promote even the most basic of gameplay and mean that even if you fail a skill check there's a chance for you to gain at least something. There's no wasted action and it also allows for the DM to prompt for more actions knowing that they too can obtain more resources from it.

Combat Is Freeform

Combat is where I believe players will either really enjoy it, or really not like it. Combat in Daggerheart is freeform, letting the players make moves in whatever order they want until the GM decides to cut in, spending one or multiple Fear to activate an Adversary dealing some damage.

This style of combat creates a scenario of requiring patience and planning, knowing when you'd like to jump in, but it also requires you to maintain attention on the battlefield. You'll never know if the enemy you're next to is about to take multiple swings at you, or when a party member is going to invite you to participate in a combo attack.

Running Daggerheart, I personally enjoyed goading players into more attacks, seeing them roll with Fear to work my way towards consecutive attacks to push back on the party. It felt like there was more of an ebb and flow between what I was doing and getting to respond to them in the moment.

What I saw at my table from my players was really interesting compared to our standard game of D&D. I have multiple players who tend to disengage when it's not their turn while playing D&D and return to focus when they're up, for Daggerheart through I got mixed responses.

One of my normally disengaged players ended up being the most engaged at the table, wanting to throw additional dagger slices into the fray any chance they got (that also meant they were the one potentially feeding me the most Fear) while the other player remained disengaged, hopping in when they wanted to.

A line to take turns can allow space for disengagement, but everyone understands a line. Not everyone understands sharing the spotlight, or has the drive to take that spotlight if there are louder voices present

There will be players who prefer an initiative, taking a turn to perform their action so everyone gets one turn per round, and there will be players that enjoy the freeform style of gameplay. This is likely something that is going to be very hard to determine for a player until they're put in the situation to try it out.

Without putting limitations on actions this kind of combat play style can also lead to introverted players not hopping in. The Daggerheart Core Rulebook does offer some suggestions to make sure that the spotlight is shared including adding a number of actions that each character can perform before everyone's actions are refreshed.

Campaign Frames For All Styles

While there are no trial adventures for a GM to kick off with, there are a number of different Campaign Frames that are offered. While I had originally believed these to just be thematic settings, these are so much more.

Each Campaign Frame comes with a pitch to gauge player interest, a list of tones, themes, and inspirational touchstones, and pages of information detailing starting points for stories, Session Zero questions, Campaign Frame-specific mechanics and more.

Fans of Princess Mononoke or The Legend of Zelda can hop into a fantastical world at risk of corruption in the Witherwild Campaign Frame, Delicious in Dungeon fans can explore Beast Feast where the benefits of a short or long rest are replaced with mechanics for how to restore yourself by eating meals made of cooked monsters, and if you're a fan of Wild Wild West or Shadow of the Colossus you can be a cowboy scaling gargantuan beasts in Colossus of the Drylands.

One Campaign Frame has even included a completely made-up language that my mind went wild wondering how to slowly drip-feed that information to my players.

While I can't imagine some of the gimmicks of these Campaign Frames working for a multi-year campaign, I'm definitely excited to run short adventures of hungry adventurers or dungeon diving where the dungeon itself is a monster.

Daggerheart Review | Final Thoughts

Having been a fan in the original beta period and getting to return I have been blown away by the level of polish that Daggerheart has received and by the amount of clear and concise information that has been provided to the players and GM alike.

I do still wish that there was additional Class cards for the Class abilities to create a separation between the kind of info on the Character Sheet and what's on the cards, but I suppose the easy workaround for this would be to keep the ability information on the sheets to.

I imagine the hardest part of deciding how to run this is the extra coordination required when reaching combat, making sure as the DM you're aware of all of the pieces on the board and how they can all act at any time, but also to make sure none of your players are getting left out of the fray. This will be the piece that is most hit or miss with players.

Overall, Daggerheart promotes strong narrative gameplay that is propped up by mechanics. It's not just schoolyard posturing, but you can have a unique experience that then lets you show off your prowess. It's supporting of the player and it's supporting of the GM which leads to a very happy table.

The copy of Daggerheart used for this review was provided by Darrington Press. All photos were taken during the course of the review.