Critical Role’s ‘Daggerheart’ RPG Is Almost Here – Gets Summer Release Date
The wait is nearly over! Critical Role’s new RPG, Daggerheart, will be up for pre-order early this summer.
Daggerheart, the fantasy RPG from Critical Role‘s publishing arm, Darrington Press, is full of all sorts of things. For one, there’s its sprawling card-based mechanics. There’s the Hope & Fear dice that it leans on. And it finally has pre-order and release dates!
We are so thrilled to announce Daggerheart will officially be released May 20th, 2025! Years in the making, thousands of characters created and beta games played, uncountable edits, tweaks, and adjustments and now it is here. Thank you all for everything, all the comments, playtests, and feedback forms—this game would not be the amazing game it is without you.
Folks can pre-order starting May 20th via the Daggerheart.com, Darrington Press Guild, and their FLGS for physical copies. If you prefer digital you can snag one on Demiplane and DriveThruRPG. The game will be available everywhere else on June 3rd.
If you want the Daggerheart Core Set – Limited Edition, you’ll have to pre-order through Daggerheart.com and the Darrington Press Guild. This limited edition will NEVER be remade and contains a GM screen, a dice set, a rip pad of character sheets and tokens, as well as sweeping, alternate cover art. Get your order in now; supplies won’t last forever.
What is Daggerheart?
At the heart (pun intended) of Critical Role’s new RPG are a few different mechanics. In a nutshell: PC classes have two different “Domains” available to them. These are broad sets of powers that thematically come together. Things like Blade or Arcane or Bone, for instance. Each class gets to pick abilities from within those domains.
Classes in Daggerheart are pretty standard of fantasy tabletop RPGs. There are bards, druids, rangers, sorcerers, rogues, and warriors. But there are also a few you may not have played in other systems, like Seraph and Guardian.
While many games now are on the simpler side, Daggerheart is reminiscent of D&D in its crunchiness. Not absurdly or dauntingly crunchy. But a level that will feel right at home if you’re already familiar with the big name tabletop RPGs. Players pick a class and character traits.
There are foundations, heritages, and hit points, and quantified hope. Many aspects of character creation are made with cards; they also give you powers. For example, there are domain cards, ancestry cards, and community cards. And these help build bits of who you are playing. But most interesting, characters are asked to create connections between the other characters in the party and the world around them.
Matt Mercer and Spencer Starke explain more about Daggerheart’s unique mechanics…
If you want to try the system out for yourself, the Darrington Press crew will be at GAMA Expo, Gen Con, UK Games Expo, PAX Unplugged, and a bunch of other events. Make sure you check your favorite convention’s schedule.
