The rules for Daggerheart,Critical Role’sMatt Mercer’s new tabletop game, have just been revealed. They’re still in playtest form, so are all subject to change, but we finally have our first glimpse. At 377 pages long, it’s a little rich to call the game “rules light”, but I do understand what it means. Daggerheart is meant to have a better flow than the stop-start nature of many dice-based games, and that requires a lot of rules in the background to help streamline the moment-to-moment play. This apparent contradiction that only makes sense when you squint is typical of Daggerheart’s initial reception.
In a way, Mercer couldn’t really win with creating a new game. Make it too similar toDungeons & Dragons5e, and people would question why he bothered making one at all when he homebrews all of Critical Role’s adventures anyway. Make it too different, and many of his fans with no experience outside of D&D would be confused and maybe even a little annoyed. He opted for the latter, and while I do believe that was the right move for him, for Critical Role, and for his company Darrington Press, there are a few things that make me (as a D&D player) a little wary.
How Similar Is Daggerheart To Dungeons & Dragons?
The first thing to realise is Critical Role do not play D&D. Even when they did play D&D, they weren’t playing D&D. They are professional actors who perform highly polished (and edited) improv while rolling dice. I play with two groups in my own D&D adventures; one that gets into characters with voices and behaving within the established personality, and one which plays as a facsimile of themselves who are in it to solve puzzles, win fights, and experience the story. Both are perfectly legitimate ways of playing D&D, and I enjoy both versions equally. But neither are what Critical Role is, with all its polish and set chewing and drama club vibes.
Note: Scott/Editors at TheGamer, I really do enjoy both versions equally. Promise.
This is the energy Daggerheart channels. The rule getting the most discussion is around how combat works. In D&D, everybody rolls Initiative, including the DM for the enemies. Sometimes the DM rolls once and all enemies attack in the same block, and sometimes they roll for each enemy (I prefer the latter), but there’s a clear system at play. You roll the highest number, you go first. In Daggerheart, “fights play out narratively”. The rules specifically state there are no turns, no limits to the number of actions you can perform, no order for attacks, and not even a set time for a DM to intervene with enemy actions. It’s entirely freeform.
First and foremost, this is great for Critical Role. The gang have been playing D&D together for a decade now, and there’s likely some apathy with 5e in Mercer’s mind here - he has made a game that will let the ‘yes, and!’ spirit of Critical Role shine with more freedom while injecting some variety into adventures. This structureless structure is great for a bunch of professional actors who are also close friends, or the endless Actual Play podcasters who rose up following Critical Role’s success, who just so happen to be Mercer’s target audience. The rest of us? Not so much.
I have written before that’no, but' is as important to D&D DMing as ‘yes, and’. I understand that rules can’t always be written for bad tables (again, friends reading this, you are not bad tables), and that it’s not really on Mercer’s shoulders to stop the loudmouth in your group from hogging the spotlight, or to nudge the quiet player with no ideas beyond ‘I… um… sword attack?’ to get involved. It just feels like there’s a lot of ways this system can fall down.
Why Is Daggerheart Not Using 5e Rules?
There are two main counters to which defenders are rushing to. The first one is to point out flaws in D&D 5e - while combat has a set rhythm, many groups (in part inspired by Critical Role), play non-combat scenarios regularly. Though my own adventure has boss battles and bandits by the roadside and side quests with slaying, there’s also a lot of shopping, riddles, and narrative threads, as well as more ridiculous scenarios like reuniting a rock band, solving a pirate murder, or dealing witha newly adopted fire demon.
As the playerbase moves more towards this style of game, it’s clear 5e struggles. If you are not specifically rolling the dice and fighting, there’s no framework to shut up the loudmouth or to encourage the shy one to say something - anything! - about what their character is doing. Daggerheart essentially accepts that controlling these two styles of players is already necessary in any tabletop scenario, so is not held back by their existence when creating its rulebook.
Note: Ultimately, Daggerheart feels like it was created by someone who is used to homebrewing, loves acting, and has never had table issues. That’s not the reality for most of us.
The other counter-argument is games like these already exist - most Powered by the Apocalypse games, like Monster of the Week, have a similar flow to them. This is not a revolutionary design choice from Mercer, and has been proven to work. Fans of this system will tell you we should be playing as many tabletop games as possible, and soaking up a diverse range of experiences. They’re not wrong. But many of Mercer’s fans got into tabletop through Critical Role and thus have only ever known D&D and maybe dabbled in Pathfinder. Perhaps they should try other things, but the more important question for Daggerheart’s success is ‘will they?’.
Both of these points are entirely correct, and difficult to argue against. But they’re not right, and I’m not sure I want to argue against them. I’m also not sure a confidence-based, narrative inspiration-dependent rule system is for me or my table. It’s for tables that have Ashley Johnson, Travis Willingham, and Laura Bailey. Obviously, the response to that is ‘Don’t like it? Don’t play it!’ and… yeah. That’s what I’m going to do. Or not do.
This could be a great move for Critical Role, and that will inspire a lot more people to check it out, but Mercer’s fans who love D&D (of which there are many) are also right to feel a little disappointed that Daggerheart is not for them, and not for anyone who doesn’t play tabletop games like Laura Bailey.
The jury is still out on Daggerheart, and after these playtests it will be reshaped accordingly. There are also some interesting ideas in its 377 pages, but the combat is just one thing that makes me most wary. There are far fewer people who can actually do what Critical Role does than those who think they can do what Critical Role does, and Daggerheart might sort the true roleplayers from the pretenders.
