D&D Alternatives: Daggerheart

Those of you that know how I feel about modern D&D vs old school D&D are probably shocked to see that I’m posting an article for Daggerheart. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised I even pulled the trigger and bought a copy. After all, if you paid any attention to the hype surrounding this release, you have probably heard that Daggerheart is a watered-down TTRPG that takes its inspiration more from anime than from Tolkien. I’m not exactly sure that is an accurate assessment. But either way, it seems to be the last thing an old grognard like me would be interested in. Well, I don’t completely disagree with you. But at the same time, I have to admit that I was extremely curious. And, at the end of the day, that curiosity got the better of me. So, here we are.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Daggerheart is the name of the new TTRPG from Matt Mercer and Spenser Starke. It’s been embraced by Mercer’s Critical Role, and many have speculated that the next season of his show will actually use Daggerheart rules instead of Dungeons & Dragons. This speculation has been further hyped by the fact that Mercer has recently hired both Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins (former D&D designers) to work on future updates to Daggerheart. I’m not a betting man, but if pushed, I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to wager that Daggerheart is indeed going to be the primary system behind Critical Role going forward.

Knowing this, I couldn’t help but ask myself the following question; Is Daggerheart just another 5E clone? I honestly didn’t know because until I decided to purchase the book, I had done almost zero research on the game. Well, I’ve now had a copy of the Daggerheart core rulebook in my hands for several weeks, and I have a lot of thoughts.

Let me state this right up front. No. Daggerheart is not just another D&D clone. Yes, it is a TTRPG that uses polyhedral dice. But, it actually seems to take inspiration from a number of different sources. As a result, it doesn’t feel anything like D&D. If pressed to compare it Dungeons & Dragons, I’d have to say it feels closers to 4E than any other version. The combat in this game is definitely more 4E-like than 5E. Also, the character development also feels more like what was seen in 4E. But the biggest departure from D&D is the fact that this game is not based on the d20 system. Instead, it uses a unique mechanic called Duality Dice.

The Duality Dice system requires the same set of polyhedral dice that most D&D players are already familiar with. The difference is, players will need two d12s – each of a different color. One color (usually the lighter colored die) will represent “Hope”. The other die will represent “Fear”. When making an ability check or attack roll, two d12s are rolled and the total determines a success of a failure. The twist here is, the die with the higher number will determine if the roll succeeds (or fails) with either “hope” or “fear”. When rolls ends with “Hope” the result is extremely positive and the player earns what is called a “hope token”. When a rolls ends with fear, the result is usually complicated in some way and the GM earns a “fear token”. These tokens can be used in a number of ways. Players can utilize hope tokens to do things like activate abilities, get a bonus on a roll, etc. In the same way, GMs can use fear tokens to unlock special attacks from a monster, add traps or hazards to a specific encounter – you get the idea.

As someone who has always played D&D, this concept is pretty different. I come from a world where the DM has final say over everything and most decisions are made strictly according to a set of pre-defined rules. If a dragon has a special ability, the GM decides when and how its going to be used. It’s obvious that Daggerheart doesn’t adhere to these legacy standards. In fact, the whole concept of the “DM being a god” is thrown completely out the window with this game. Matt Mercer encourages game masters that are running Daggerheart to actually let their players decide certain outcomes or describe the world in front of them. For example, imagine a character opens a dungeon door. Instead of the saying to them, “You open the door to find a room consisting of a stone, dirt-covered floor. A table sits in the center of the room and a far corner contains a bed. A cloak is hung on a peg in the opposite corner.” – The GM is now encouraged to say something like, “Your character opens the door, describe to the table what they see…” From here, the player is supposed to add to the story and actually determine what happens next. That’s a pretty radical concept!

Admittedly, I’m not sure how I feel about that. We all know that some players would say something like, “I open the door and see… A MAGIC SWORD THAT GRANTS +10 TO HIT!!”  – Yeah. That’s not going to work. But, even though Daggerheart encourages this type of collaborative narrative, at the end of the day, the GM still has final say over what happens.

But aside from collaborative storytelling and the new Duality Dice system, Daggerheart has several other mechanics that make it very different from Dungeons & Dragons. For example, the combat system does not use initiative rolls to determine who goes first. Instead, there’s a “spotlight” system that allows players to “take the spotlight” and describe what their character is doing in combat. It’s completely open. Both the players and GM determine who has the spotlight next, based on the actions taken prior. Again, this is a wild departure from the way most TTRPGs are played. I find it compelling and perhaps it could work with the right group of players. But it seems like it’s something that could also easily be abused if the GM is timid.

Even though things like the spotlight may make Daggerheart sound very loose and rules-light. That’s not exactly true. There’s plenty of grind mechanics involved with this game. Keeping track of fear and hope, already adds a new layer of complexity to basic ability rolls. But on top of that players now have new mechanics to keep up with like Stress and Clocks. Stress is a measure of physical and mental strain on a player. The more they earn, the more vulnerable they are to certain attacks, or they may receive disadvantage on rolls, etc. Clocks are a sort of sort of a visual circular tracker. The GM can create a clock for just about anything; a quest goal, a countdown – whatever. Once the clock has reached a certain number of segments, it is considered complete and certain story elements may progress. There’s other mechanics as well, far too many for me to get into in this review. But trust me when I say that even though it may seem like Daggerheart is simply a narrative-only game. It’s not. In some ways, parts of it are actually more complex than some other TTRPGs.

When it comes to players options, Daggerheart is a mix of both the familiar and the unfamiliar. The following classes are detailed in the core rulebook:

Bard, Druid, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warrior, Wizard. – These classes are very similar to classes of the same name in other TTRPGs. However, there are few unique classes in Daggerheart.

Guardian – This seems to be a fighter that’s more of a soldier than a lone warrior. Tends to focus on tactics and works better when fighting with allies.
Seraph – Very paladin-like, divine warrior.

The following races (or Ancestries, as they are called here) are as follows:

Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Faerie, Giant, Goblin, Orc – These are ancestries that most players are likely to be familiar with. However, there’s a number of new names in the roster

Drakona – Humanoid dragons (like Dragonborn from D&D)
Infernis – Essentially Tieflings from D&D
Katari – Cat people
Firblog – Unlike D&D Firbolgs, these are more like Minotaurs
Fungril – Humanoid mushroom folk
Galapa – Turtle people
Ribbet – Frog people
Simiah – Anthropomorphic monkeys
Faun – Goat-like humanoids
Clanks – Mechanical sentient beings.

Obviously, some of these ancestries may seem out of place in certain types of games. For example, not every fantasy world is designed to accommodate a race of a mechanical beings. For this reason, it’s important to understand that the above is not a list of guaranteed ancestries that are available in every game. Instead, it’s a list of possible ancestries. This list may fluctuate depending on the world in which the game is set. Which actually brings me to my next topic: Campaign Frames.

Campaign Frames is the term Daggerheart uses to describe “campaign settings”. GMs are encouraged to create their own campaign world, but to help them, the core rulebook provides a number of barebone “campaign frames” to get them started. These campaign frames draw inspiration from a number of sources and run the gamut from classic medieval fantasy settings to a cyberpunk, neo-city environment. The frames provided in this book only scratch the surface of what’s possible, but like everything else in Daggerheart, they serve as a seed that can easily blossom into a something bigger.

There’s so much more I could say about Daggerheart’s rules and mechanics, but the summary above should give you a pretty good idea of what this game is all about. But there’s one thing that I have yet to mention. When you purchase this game, you don’t just get the core rulebook. You also receive a complete set of fully illustrated cards. These cards include information about various subclasses, abilities, spells, etc. Players are expected to keep a deck of cards that are relevant to their characters, so that they have useful information handy at all times. Yes, it’s technically possible to play the game without these cards. But, having them will ensure that the pace of the game doesn’t slow down since players won’t have to keep thumbing through pages to reference various abilities and spells. These cards, like the core rulebook itself are absolutely stunning. They are not cheap, flimsy cards. Instead they are thick, sturdy and contain excellent art work. In fact, even the rulebook is a quality item. Mercer and Darrington Press didn’t spare any expense with this release.

So, at the end of the day, what do I think about Daggerheart? Well, I have to say that I appreciate the fact that it’s not simply a D&D copycat. Many of the mechanics found in this system are bold departures from what most gamers are used to and I think that’s a good thing. On the other hand, I’m not certain that I would have made some of the choices that the designers of this game made. But, I can appreciate what they are trying to accomplish. I plan to run a few one-off games of Daggerheart with my regular D&D group at some point in the future and once I’ve done so, I should have a better idea about what works and what doesn’t work in the real world. Until then, I applaud Mercer and Starke for having the guts to try something new. Critical Role has a huge audience. And I fully expect that people are going to flock to Daggerheart. Will it ever overtake D&D? I doubt it. But if nothing else, it should force WotC to rethink the trajectory they are currently on. In my humble opinion, D&D should stick to its roots and leave the new stuff to games like Daggerheart. There’s room at the game shop for all types of games.

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