A Dagger in the Heart
Much has been made about the recently-published (May 2025) fantasy tabletop roleplaying game Daggerheart. Intrigued by what I had heard and read, I purchased the corebook (along with its attendant cards) for myself for my birthday. I've had plenty of time to read through it, and it's been a joyful experience. This post is less a review and more an accounting of that experience so far.
The book itself is gorgeous and physically pleasing, a hefty tome with full-color art and easy-to-read text -- thank you so much, Darrington Press, for that latter, as my eyes continue to deteriorate with age! I prefer physical books as a bibliophile, but I find myself having to resort to PDFs simply to be able to zoom the text, far too often these days.
The rules of the game are easy to understand, requiring far less mental commitment than, say, D&D. (You know I love D&D; this is just a complexity comparison, not a judgement!) Characters have flavorful abilities that are easy to understand, but tend to be fewer in number than most fantasy RPGs -- there are faint echoes of D&D 4th Edition here. Those abilities can be either written down by the player or, as intended by the game, kept by the player on the printed cards that accompany the book.
Enemies are given simple, easy-to-remember and easy-to-use stat blocks, and are divided into a series of useful categories that can have actual mechanical effects on gameplay and encounter creation. It feels like play should be lightning-fast.
Things I like most? The absolute rainbow of Ancestries (which themselves have breadth of individual representatives) and the baked-in capability to cross them; the way classes share Domains of power with other classes while being unique combinations of those Domains; the Communities, which influence both backstory and character traits; Experiences, which resemble Fate Aspects; and the example Campaign Frames, each of which presents a tasty, flavorful way to play Daggerheart in a not-bog-standard-fantasy world.
Things that will take some getting used to? The fact that the dice mechanics are asymmetrical, mostly -- the players roll the 2d12 "Duality Dice", but the GM rolls 1d20, and Advantage/Disadvantage for players is +/- 1d6, but for the GM it's D&D style 2d20. I'm also not totally convinced on using the cards. They're meant to ease play and to encourage character divesity by preventing power duplication between PCs with matching Domains, but they could get damaged or lost and replacements aren't cheap. Thankfully the cards are all listed in the book itself for more standard play.
Am I glad I bought Daggerheart? Absolutely. Am I looking forward to more? Definitely. Do I want to play it? Hell yeah. Am I confused that Critical Role went with D&D 2024 for their latest campaign and not their own game? Definitely. We'll see what happens.