Tabletop Roleplay Spotlight Review: Daggerheart

Daggerheart: A Storytelling Engine

Daggerheart, from the creators of Critical Role and their publishing side Darrington Press, is a TTRPG built from the ground up to support collaborative, narrative-driven gameplay. It prioritizes dramatic moments and creative freedom over rigid rules. This system is for players who want their successes and failures to equally push the story in exciting new directions. It’s a game that values what's cool and dramatic over what's technically perfect.

The Mechanics: Hope, Fear, and Narrative Flow

Daggerheart uses a unique two-dice Duality system: a d12 for Hope and a d12 for Fear. On a skill check, you roll both, add the results together and if that result beats a target set by the Gamemaster (GM) then they succeed. In addition, if the Hope die is higher, then the result is with Hope whether it succeeded or failed, gaining the player character a Hope resource, and a narrative opportunity to alter the outcome of the roll. If the Fear die is higher, you can still succeed and fail, but the GM will gain a Fear that can be used later and potentially add some narrative tension to the scene.

The Duality system means that there are more potential outcomes to a single dice roll, Succeed with Hope or Fear, Failure with Hope or Fear and also a critical success when a player rolls the same number on both Duality dice. What this achieves is a lot of opportunities for narrative story telling as a result of a dice roll and moves away from the traditional approach of success or failure.

Fear and Hope aren't just a type of result on a dice roll they are also resources that power character actions and GM moves. Hope can be spent in a variety of different ways by players on class specific abilities, helping other characters or by using a character's Experiences. Experiences are a narrative features of a players character that, if the player can justify the appropriateness of to the GM, can be added to a Duality Dice result.

Fear on the other hand is the GMs resources to use to make GM moves that create tension, change the narrative flow or challenge players. These can be as simple as having an adversary (Daggerheart's "bad guys") act or escalating a scene in a dramatic way.

Who is This Game For?

This game is perfect for narrative-focused groups and fans of Critical Role who love player-driven storytelling. If your group enjoys the narrative and roleplay side of Tabletop Roleplay games and wants to create a compelling story together without getting bogged down in complex rules, Daggerheart is an excellent choice. It's a fantastic system for a long-form campaign with rich character development.

Personal Thoughts

What I Like: 

I will state that I am not a Critical Roll fan, I do not dislike it, it is just not for me. Initially I came into looking at Daggerheart with a lot of scepticism, not liking the sound of initiative less combat or the Duality system and I was put off by the fanaticism that sometimes follows Critical Roll. In spite of all that, as I looked deeper I began to like it more and saw through to what I think is quite a compelling system.

The Hope/Fear mechanic is good. It does mean that there is some extra maths for the players to do in adding the numbers together with their modifiers as well as noticing which die was larger, but that is a minor gripe. Being based on 2 d12 rather than a single d20 means that on average the players will be rolling higher than traditional d20 roleplay systems, often giving them a feeling of greater accomplishment. This is nicely balanced out by when they do fail or roll with fear that the GM gets to do something narratively, either by making an adversary attack or other not combat consequence. Over all it makes every single dice roll feel meaningful, and the "Fail Forward" philosophy is built right into the system.

Daggerheart also encourages a lot of player collaborative story telling, allowing the players to more directly control where the story goes and often the specifics of adventure. An example of this is rather than the GM saying that "Rumours have circulated around the locals of the Craggy Caves being infested by Goblins," in Daggerheart the GM might ask a player to come up with name of the caves they've heard through whispers and rumours. I know this is nothing new and something that veteran GMs will do naturally, but it is nice to have it explicitly spelt out for newer GMs, and at the core of the game mechanics.

There is no initiative system in Daggerheart for combat, and while I initially found this to be a little jarring I have actually come to really appreciate it, especially when playing other game systems. Having an amazing idea for what you want to do on your turn only to be last in the initiative order can sometimes take the wind out of your roleplay sails.

How I run it 

The game is new, the community and available content are still growing. This means the GM needs to be prepared to do a lot more world-building and session prep from scratch compared to a game like D&D.

Some people throw criticism on Daggerheart for things like Fear and GM moves saying that a good GM should be able to do those things freely anyway without resources to spend, "If I wanted the bridge to collapse then it would have collapsed." While I might agree a little bit with that sentiment, I think overall this structured resources does make it easier for newer GMs to take the reigns and shows the players that exactly the narrative forks in the road adding to the overall feeling of collaborative story telling.

Currently I am writing a Beast Feast adventure and having a fantastic time with a more whimsical and colour world than what I usually write. Looking forwards I think I will be taking Daggerheart on as a core system, and I can foresee myself using primarily over Dungeons and Dragons.

If you want to try our Daggerheart for the first time then have a look at what adventures are currently available, with Beast Feast to be added soon (or already if you are reading this in the far future)

Daggerheart Adventures