Game Review: Daggerheart

I first started getting interested in Critical Role when The Legend of Vox Machina premiered on Prime. After watching the first season, I dove into the podcast archives to start listening to the creators of the show play their first Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) campaign (called an Actual Play podcast). I didn’t start out as a fan when Critical Role launched in 2015 because I was listening to Acquisitions Incorporated, arguably the godfather of Actual Plays, founded by Penny Arcade and Dungeons & Dragons to showcase the 4th Edition of D&D. I only had so much time available!

But I soon came to truly enjoy Critical Role and their take on roleplaying. Then, in April of 2023, Critical Role announced that they were working on their own Tabletop Roleplaying Game (TTRPG) system, called Daggerheart. I was well into a D&D campaign and had many resources for the system, but I already knew I wasn’t going to invest in the upcoming D&D releases (at the time labeled 6th Edition by those talking about it online, but officially called One D&D by the publisher). I had spent so much on my 5th Edition resources that I didn’t want to start over and buy all the books again. So Daggerheart intrigued me. It also gave me an “in” as a gaming missionary to learn something new and step up as a local Game Master (GM) and potential future expert on the rules. It was a way to build relationships with Daggerheart as the conversation starter.

The game officially released on May 20, 2025. I pre-ordered the base set because the limited edition had sold out before I was able to commit. But I’ll say that the book itself is very high quality, has two ribbon bookmarks sewn into the binding, which is very convenient, and the domain, ancestry, and community cards (which we’ll get into below) are well made. I’m very happy with the game materials, so let’s jump into the review!

Rules and Mechanics

The basic rules are straightforward. Players roll two 12-sided dice (d12), one representing Hope and the other representing Fear. This mechanic alone drew me in when I was finalizing the rules for the Royal Priesthood Roleplaying Game (RP2) because the idea of Hope being important was so similar to the Faith point concept in RP2 (I’ll note that the actual game rules are very different!). In Daggerheart, when a player rolls higher on their Hope die (rolling with Hope), they receive a Hope point that can be used for various actions. If they roll with Fear (higher on the Fear die), the GM gets a Fear point that they can use to take GM actions or trigger Adversary actions. Regardless of whether or not the players roll with Hope or Fear, they can succeed on their actions as long as the resulting number is high enough. They get additional modifiers, like Traits and Experiences, that can boost the final roll result, but the most important thing to remember is that it is possible to succeed with Fear and fail with Hope, adding to the tension in the story.

Character Creation

How a Player Character (PC) is played depends on their Ancestry (what D&D labels as Race) and Class (with one of two possible Subclasses), as well as the Community where the PC grew up. Each ancestry provides benefits that help customize PCs even before a Class/Subclass is chosen. I’ll admit the classes get a little complicated and require a mindset shift if players are used to D&D or Pathfinder. See, each Class’s Subclass impacts the role PCs will play in the story. They have access to many of the same character options, but the difference between the two subclasses may be extreme, to the point where two players with the same Class could have vastly different options.

The Domain mechanic further complicates PC creation and gameplay. Not only does each class have two subclass options, they also have access to cards, with Domain-specific abilities, from two different Domains (like the Ranger’s access to the Bone and Sage Domains). Add to that the fact that each Class overlaps with another Class by sharing Domains. The Ranger, for example, shares the Sage Domain with Druids and the Bone Domain with Warriors. And the core game set comes with only one copy of each Domain card. In the book, they encourage players to coordinate with each other to specifically avoid Domain overlap so that the Ranger and Druid, for example, aren’t attempting do the same thing and making PCs that are too similar. This coordination generally means only one copy of each card is needed since only one player will have access to that card at a time, and of course players can share the card if they both want to use the abilities. But it’s limiting enough that the publisher, Darrington Press, is working on class-specific sets of cards that is available for preorder on Kickstarter.

Still with me? Good. Because we also have Communities, which (if you’re familiar with D&D and Pathfinder) is essentially the PC’s background. It provides flavor, and mechanical advantages, to further describe who your PC was before they started adventuring. Did they come from a rich or politically-important family? Maybe they were Highborn. Were they wanderers in a nomadic tribe? Probably Wanderborn. There are quite a few options available, and it helps players figure out who their PC is.

Gameplay

All of this is important because Daggerheart leans heavily into the narrative aspects of TTRPGs. Like Disciple Gaming Ministry’s focus on players telling a shared narrative, Daggerheart wants players to come together to craft an epic tale. The various cards, and the Domain abilities in particular, are meant to facilitate that goal. The cards don’t go into much detail to describe how an ability functions or what the effect looks like. Instead, throughout the book, the creators encourage players and the GM to narrate how an ability behaves in the story. Are you a Ranger casting a spell to entangle your Adversary? Maybe you narrate that you draw a special arrow from your quiver and shoot it at the adversary, and on a success, the arrow transforms into a thicket of brambles that traps the adversary in place. A Druid casting the same spell? Maybe the trees themselves reach out suddenly-flexible limbs to hold the adversary in place. The mechanic is on the card for consistency of gameplay, but what it looks like is up to the players.

We also have to mention Hope. PCs can store up to 6 Hope at a time, and they can spend it to use Domain features that require it (specified on the card), to invoke an Experience to gain a bonus to a roll, and to team up with another PC for an epic Tag Team action. And while it seems like a lot to keep track of, it’s still only about as much as a standard D&D game. I’m going into detail here because there are so many differences, but Daggerheart is no more complicated than D&D or Pathfinder, and I find it to be more streamlined for my GM style.

My favorite PC mechanic is the Death Move. See, in many other games, when a player loses their last hit point, they either go unconscious or die outright (depending on the game). Sure, there may be opportunities to save fallen PCs from death in those other systems (again, depending on the game), but Daggerheart took a unique approach. Going unconscious is an option. And if players take that option, they risk gaining a Scar, which reduces their maximum possible Hope. But they also have the option to Risk it All or go out in a Blaze of Glory. Risking it All allows players to leave their fate up to chance. They roll their Hope and Fear dice, and if they roll higher on the Hope die (regardless of the total, mathematical result), they are alive and can use the value of the Hope die to restore hit points and clear stress (which can accumulate to complicate various actions and eventually cause damage). If they roll higher with Fear, they are immediately out of the game. If a PC goes out in a Blaze of Glory, they get to perform one final action that is considered a Critical Success (which is also achieved by rolling doubles on the Hope and Fear dice). They don’t have to roll, they simply perform this final action, which is a guaranteed success, and then exit the narrative (possibly with a dramatic final moment to say goodbye).

This mechanic gives a player agency with their PC’s fate. It’s frustrating in D&D when a character falls unconscious, is dying, and then they simply stop living because the player failed the death saving throw. It’s anti-climactic in many cases. In Daggerheart, it gives players a chance to do something very risky, ratcheting up the tension, have one final impact on the story, or decide to play it cool until a companion can help them.

Combat

The last thing I’ll note in this review before getting to my final thoughts is that, from a GM’s perspective, the game will mostly run the same way as other TTRPGs. Except for combat. D&D, Pathfinder, and even Fallout have pretty standard guidance for balancing combat (check out my Fallout review to see my thoughts on combat in that system). Daggerheart also has good guidance, but mechanically it’s very different. They essentially set up a point-buy system that assumes that GMs will use the Adversaries in the core book for the same tier of play (1-4) that the PCs are currently in. Or the GM may adapt Adversaries to fit within the tier of play.

In the first session I ran, I set up a genuinely Balanced combat encounter using the point-buy system and ended up with 6 players and 12 Adversaries. Since combat relies on the “Spotlight” moving from player to player (and to the GM when the players fail an attempt or roll with Fear, or when the GM interrupts by spending Fear), the encounter can go very quickly. Or it can take a very long time if the Spotlight moves to the GM every other roll. On the fly, I had to adapt the combat so that it wouldn’t take 2+ hours.

It surprised me because none of the Actual Play episodes I watched on Critical Role’s YouTube channel indicated that this would happen. The real “problem” is that I was conditioned by years of D&D and was thinking about the scenario without considering the narrative the players and I were attempting to weave. The following week, even though the players never entered into combat, I already knew how to adapt to focus on narrative to keep the stakes high (with Environment actions and fewer Adversaries) without slogging through hours of combat. But it did require a significant amount of mental flexibility and a willingness to completely re-evaluate how I run games.

Final Thoughts

In general, I’m excited about Daggerheart and the games I’m going to run in the future. In fact, I’m going to run a one-shot for the local convention I’ll be attending in February. I’m also running a full campaign (using a setting that I’m developing to post here alongside RP2) at the local church I’ve been working with since January. The players in that game really enjoyed the flexibility of the Spotlight system and didn’t notice any of the issues I mentioned surrounding combat, which means I was able to adjust well even if I felt like I was missing the mark. And the hands-on feedback I received is a big reason why I recommend Daggerheart. Additionally, the high-quality product is (as of this writing) $59.99 and includes the book and cards (compared to a lot of other systems that sell just the book for that same price, or more depending on the book and publisher).

Whether you’re new to TTPRGs or looking for something different, I recommend Daggerheart because it provides so many opportunities for players to tell stories together. From a Christian perspective, since there isn’t a specific setting to limit gameplay themes, it’s easy to integrate discipleship into a campaign by telling fantasy stories influenced by Scripture, like C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien did.