Critical Role Announces Daggerheart Open Beta Playtest

Playtesters will be able to get their hands on Daggerheart, the eagerly anticipated fantasy RPG published by Critical Role's Darrington Press. Today, Darrington Press announced that it would launch an open beta playtest for Daggerheart on March 12th (which coincides with Critical Role's anniversary), with playtest material available on Daggerheart's webpage. Additionally, Critical Role announced plans to publish a final version of Daggerheart sometime in 2025.

Daggerheart was first announced last year as a new fantasy tabletop RPG, built around a new game system focused on two 12-sided dice. One 12-sided dice is the "Hope" die and the other is the "Fear" die, with players making checks by rolling both dice, adding them together and then determining whether the check was made with Hope or Fear based on which die has the higher number. A check made with Hope may result in a narrative bonus of some kind (even on a failed check), while a check with Fear could result in negative narrative consequences. An early version of the ruleset debuted at Gen Con, with attendees able to check out an early build of the game. 

Additionally, character creation for Daggerheart utilizes a card system that allows for a modular creation with players choosing cards based on Ancestry, Community, Subclass, and Domain to choose various character options. 

As part of the playtest, Demiplane will open a character creation tool on its new Daggerheart NEXUS page. Also, Critical Role will run a playtest session on its YouTube and Twitch channels on March 12th at 7 PM PT. 

"I'm so excited for people to get a sneak peek into the game we're building," said Spenser Starke, lead game designer on Daggerheart and senior game designer at Darrington Press, in a press release announcing the open playtest. "It's been over a year of work behind the scenes and now we're ready to show you Daggerheart's current status. By opening this project up to the community while it's still in progress, we have the opportunity to build this game together. The Open Beta will give us insight into what people like, what they don't, and how to best support the players. Throughout the development process, we'll make changes and release new versions of the game based on the feedback we receive, which means you'll see the game take shape in real-time with us! I hope you have a great experience learning to play, and we can't wait to hear your thoughts."

Be sure to check out Daggerheart's website for additional details.