Critical Role's upcoming Daggerheart TTRPG will be released soon and, if successful, could get itself more supplementary material down the line. With all the excitement around the project, Critical Role may already be thinking about what should come next for the game in order to compete with Dungeons and Dragons.
Following what happened with Dungeons and Dragon's OGL two years back, where Wizards of the Coast's attempts to deauthorize its Open Game License threatened the very third-party industry that had propped up 5e's success, many indie companies began to pursue their own heroic fantasy TTRPG systems. Despite WOTC dropping these plans, these D&D competitors did not stop their development. This year will see the fruit of these labors, not only in the form of MCDM's Draw Steel, but Critical Role's much-hyped Daggerheart.
Anjali Bhimani Talks Playing Yatzli And Participating In Critical Role's Avowed One-Shot
Actress Anjali Bhimani speaks with The Best War Games about her role as Avowed companion Yatzli and as Ylva in Critical Role's Avowed one-shot.
The Sourcebooks Critical Role's Daggerheart Needs
The release date for Critical Role's Daggerheart is May 20; players will finally get access to a finished 300-page core rulebook for the system. Given Critical Role's reach, and the success the group has had releasing supplementary sourcebooks for D&D 5e, Daggerheart is set up for success. If the game is well-received by players, it's likely that the developers will follow through with new official materials for Daggerheart, including new character options, new monsters, and new campaign settings. While it's unclear what the exact contents of Daggerheart's core rulebook will be, there's a lot that will likely be left up to future books.
Exandria Setting Guide
Fans of Critical Role will likely want to play adventures in the main campaign setting for the group's live show, Exandria. Exandria is DM Matthew Mercer's campaign setting, shaped by the show's cast of players, and is where the 3 campaigns of Critical Role take place. Daggerheart will be taking on elements of this setting, such as a playable Clank ancestry (the homebrew ancestry that Sam Riegel's character Fresh Cut Grass belonged to in campaign 3), so the door is wide open for the group to go all-in on their creative legacy.
However, it's clear that Critical Role's goal for Daggerheart is to have it stand on its own two feet. From what's been released so far of the game's art, references to the live show's world and characters have been minimal; the covers for both editions of the core rulebook make no reference to the player characters of Critical Role. This is a respectable way of going about the project, and will likely improve Daggerheart's longevity. Nonetheless, a conversion of Critical Role's 5e Tal'Dorei setting guide, or even a massive guide to the whole world of Exandria, would be a sensible first step for expansion.
New Character Options, Familiar Matt Mercer Classes
Character options are by far the best-selling expansions in fantasy TTRPGs, with Dungeons and Dragons sourcebooks like Tasha's Cauldron of Everything hitting the big numbers. More character options will be in high demand if Daggerheart is successful, and there's a lot that Critical Role could do to add to the core rules. For instance, the classes of Daggerheart more-or-less serve as analogs for core classes in D&D 5e—and the team working on the system could continue this trend (filling in for overlooked classes like the Monk and the Warlock), or add character options that go in completely original directions.
On the subject of classes, though it may not fit the tone of Daggerheart, Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter class could finally see a revision through a conversion. Moreover, subclasses like the Gunslinger and the Chronurgy Wizard could also be used to bring in more fans of Mercer's past character option offerings, while also revising elements that the community has since found outdated or overpowered.
Daggerheart
- Type of Game
- Tabletop Fantasy RPG
- Game Duration
- Long-term Campaigns
- What's Included
- Daggerheart Core Set: Rulebook, 279 cards Daggerheart Limited Edition Core: Rulebook, 279 cards, keepsake box, GM screen, rip pad, set of 9 dice, and 102 acrylic crystal tokens.
- Number of Players
- 3-6