A Critical Review: Daggerheart RPG (Open Beta Playtest) 

💥 My book, Delve, is LIVE on Kickstarter! www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobworldbuilder/delve-5e-shadowdark?ref=apoi0j

"Medieval if you squint" is a great pull quote, though.

"ribbets aka the best guys ever" - a wise man

Honestly, when it comes to the similarity between Daggerheart and 5e, it feels like a move that justifies itself more than anything else. I'd be flabbergasted if Campagin 4 wasn't in Daggerheart, so even if Daggerheart's just to free CR to use something other than DnD, it'll probably be worth it to them. Still, Daggerheart could have been a lot more similar to 5e than it is and, as someone fascinated by game design, I've loved seeing the reactions all around to the Open Beta.

Yeah I'm increasingly becoming aware of the differences between what my players want and what I want haha. I hate tokens and props and stuff too, but my players love them. I'm increasingly realizing that GM's want less to do, and players want more to do. And so a lot of GM's that I know really like rules light systems but the players like crunchier systems. It's making me more and more aware of a concept that I haven't heard other people talk about yet, so for now I'm calling it player facing crunch versus GM facing crunch. For example, I really like how dagger heart has this complex armor system for the players to use. But so far I haven't had any enemies have armor. Which is great, armor is fun for the players because it gives them more to do, and it's hell for a GM because it gives them more to do XD. It makes me wonder if there's more "grit" that the players could be asked to do that the GM doesn't have to do.

The abacus idea is fantastic

thank you for mentioning Pathfinder, because I can't help but feel all the people complaining about how similar Daggerheart is to 5e are forgetting the next most popular TTRPG literally began its life as a reprinting of D&D mechanics. Shadowdark, everyone's new favourite, is an OSR game very clearly inspired by BX D&D, but no one's complaining about how that's not fresh and new. Darrington Press, as you mentioned, is clearly aiming for the 5e crowd who won't try a different game, but *might* now that Critical Role is putting out a new game, so OF COURSE they're going to make their game very superficially similar because they have a clear vision of their target audience and what they want. Personally I'm just happy to see that it's not another roll over d20 system, and I'm very happy to see them lean into inspiration from narrative forward systems like Blades in the Dark and PbtA. It's a similar enough feel to 5e that my 5e-only players tried it and loved it, and these are the same people who swore they'd never play a different a game, so that's enough for me to be invested and want to support the project.

My friend when I told them about Daggerheart: "Dang this train is ruining my bit" Wow Bob, I didn't expect you to be that spot on

Watched the overview video for the 1.3 changes, and I'm super excited to dive deeper the updated beta materials. A lot of what they talked about were the changes I hoped to see

I think the action token/no initiative system is totally fine so long as no one gets their turn skipped. It seems to me really weird that they didn't at least include an optional rule that requires everyone to go before someone can go again. But with this one change, the action token system actually creates a very cool and unpredictable flow of combat we're rolling with fears this big "oh shit" moment, without introducing any toxic elements. And honestly, if your table can't handle the responsibility of choosing which players go first in a round then the players can absolutely just roll initiative. That absolutely should be included as an optional rule as well. But importantly, the monsters shouldn't have to roll initiative, cuz it's a b**** and a half to roll initiative for monsters and this system is a very cool way of getting around that.

The first review of Daggerheart that I've seen that both was based on actual play and didn't feel sycophantic. Thanks!

I think we're seeing MOST companies following Pathfinder 1e's trajectory: hook them with similiar-but-slightly-different-from-5e, and in the second or third iteration, try and do new and complex things. Spot on review.

I think it’s amazing that at the exact same moment, for me that Bob complained about the train there was a train driving past me, drowning him out.

In my in-person groups, 5e inspiration is given out as physical coins and all of my players love it. I allow them to share the inspiration and the group will often offer up their own inspiration at a climactic moment or when someone is struggling with bad rolls. It adds an extra sense of comradery and teamwork, that I feel isn't quiet there in my online games where my players will forget they have the resource. For the Critical Role Show, I think this will help the players remember their resources at a quicker glance and let others jump in with a "Oh you have 3 Hope, you can use your class ability" to their fellow players

Your abacus idea is brilliant. I've been toying with the idea of using one to track every time a monster gets hit.

One thing I've come to realize is that their games seem to employ lots of artifacts/tokens and such. I know it can be fun and more "tactile", but damn does it make their games less accessible? I mean, you can play mouseritter, cairn etc with just some dice and paper to track things. Even some other types of tabletop games that allow you to play with a normal deck of cards. Again, I think it's fun merchandise, but I also think sometimes it's just too much to depend your game on (even if they allow you to print your own stuff)... I think I just prefer stuff to be at least a bit leaner.

Tbh, Daggerheart thematically is to 5e as Pathfinder was to 3.5e. The main difference between these is that Pathfinder was really just a mechanical polish for 3.5e, whereas Daggerheart is very reminiscent but distinct in how it plays.

Very thorough and fair. You also come across as a nice guy. Which you are. Well done. -Professor DM

As someone who has played many games based on the "powered by the apocalypse" system, specialist character sheets for classes/roles/archetypes (whatever the current game calls them) is a great feature, especially if the character sheets have role specific features (resource pools, action points, experience tick marks whatever). Not only helps to introduce new players, they are a good reminder for all types of players, often make character creation easier etc. Now i actually miss customized character sheets when return to games that dont have them and for example I see the perpetually empty "mana pool" field that takes up space on my non-magical martial character - space could have been used for my role-specific resource points

Im happy Crit knows the right people, I mean the community as a whole, invited them along the journey. Especially so early in the development cycle.

Man, I love trains. Thanks for keeping those little interruptions in the video. Delightful!

I'm with you, Bob! The mechanics must dissolve and support the collective mind-zone you need to get into to experience a really good TTRPG session.

I'm glad you use a real mic to hold in your hands instead of holding a tiny lavalier to your face like some weird people do

It seems like their first update to the game is definitely taking some of these criticisms into consideration. Very curious to try their freeform initiative.

"Oozing Kobold" 😍👍 "Dang it, that train is ruining my bit!" 😃😃😃

IDK why but your look reminds me of a modern day firbolg.

Talking about the 'freshness' section is my biggest problem is my biggest problem with all these new competing systems. What new things do they really offer? A lot of them really feel like popular homebrew rules/tweaks rolled into a 'D&D system killer' but then doesn't truly offer anything fundamentally different. The one thing that has me at least intrigued about Daggerheart is the 2d12 with Fear/Hope mechanic - that's at least something different.

Sounds good and might be worth a try when it comes out. I hear your concerns about GM overload though. Since I started running Symbaroum I've realized just how much it helps me as a GM when the players roll all the dice and I almost never have to. I get freed up to pay more attention to the scene, tracking whats going on, and note taking rather than fiddling with dice or cards or whatever.

For the timing of this Video I'm guessing this is based on V1.2? If so I'd love to see a video on your thoughts on the 1.3 changes, though I'm sure you're already thinking about that!

Great review and the abacus tracker is genius - but more and more I coming back round to OSR systems that facilitate emersion rather than focus on 'mechanical' processes - why I love Shadowdark.

"Like bending in Avatar" Uhh... that's like, the hardest magic system there is in pop culture, lol

Dungeon theory and it's designed with both 5e and Shadowdark in mind? Bob.. I didn't know you felt that way, why to leave such a perfect gift at my feet... I don't know what to say. EXCEPT TAKE MY MONEY YOU HANDSOME MAN

IMO the train in the background is kind of nice, but I grew up in a place where trains were often heard off in the distance. What I've heard about Daggerheart so far (that's mostly from your channel) sounds cool, but doesn't make me eager to play it. The cards and whatnot look nice, and I bet my players would like them until about halfway through the first session when they start to lose them. And I as the GM have all I can keep up with already. I'm still writing my character sheets on notebook paper because it's too much hassle to print out "real" ones, so I definitely wouldn't use class-specific sheets. I'm most interested in the hope and fear mechanic. I think I'd have to see how it plays out in an actual game before knowing how I feel about it.

I love how you're randomly in the woods. 👍

Always appreciate your content. Currently going back through older videos on specific topics for a little gaming technique tune-up.

Thank you for the honest review. I will have to try it out. Also, I love the background music changes, the overly dramatic "bad stuff" bgm made me laugh

I'm the one that keeps asking for more of these "medieval" games! I still don't have a system I'm quite satisfied with. Maybe I will make that one day.. but in the meanwhile I keep checking out all the other games =)

Excelente video! Me encanta que siempre nos des tu mirada objetiva, es lo que mas valoro de tu canal. Gracias!

Super excited to see more Daggerheart content from you! I hope there's more to come! But man, the timing is rough. You should check out v1.3!

I Love ALL Bob Worldbuilder videos! Especially when he films outdoors. Bob in the wild for the win.

Great review! Really enjoyed your insights! I'm overall very positive about Daggerheart so far, having played & DMed both., I do have concerns about the amount needed/cost of all the fiddly bits: aka Duality Dice, Action Tokens, Class Dice, Class modifier tokens, Action tracker, GM Tokens/Fear Tokens, and of course, extra card decks when players need duplicate cards for shared domains, ancestry, etc. We had some possible solutions but will be curious to see what comes out of the Beta. A Box set like what you received seems the best first approach. Secondcomplaint, I liked most of what the Seraph does mechanically, but I think the word "Seraph" & the flight ability would be better as an ancestry(literally an Aasimar). Seraph means angel, yet clerics/paladins are mortal beings of any race, and there are some cooler terms that are synonymous with Cleric/Paladin/Holy Warrior. The 40 page Quick start I thought was the best onboarding experience of any ttrpg I've played. Thanks for the video!

I'm stoked for this game and for your book! Gonna have to get more shelf space.

20:00 either an abacus, or a fidget toy popper

I as a GM felt completely different about the combat, though I get your points . For the first time it felt like I was actually on par with the players, having to manage my own resources and being a "fair" competitor Also I think the 1-3 hitpoint system helps for describing what's happening, as pure damage numbers are so abstract. When my players hit and I can tell them "it was a really severe hit" they know how they're faring

Excited for delve!

Basing it on people's views, what problems, flaws and unpolished imperfections the Dagger Heart apparently has, it still has a way to go before it becomes leading mainstream and before that, trends and popularities can change and other systems pop up, so I think it's too early to say that Dagger Heart is the main TTRPG lead of the 2020s. But it's still an interesting addition to the range of TTRPG systems available and the future is still open and unpredictable.

Hey Bob. I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate how you go outside and film your videos. Such a good reminder of how beautiful nature in the outdoors is. And it just makes me feel happy. Keep doing what you're doing. You're kind of like the Bob Ross of D&D videos

I am glad that you didn't have to debunk any claims of being "funky" as well as "fresh"

I kept counting how many times Bob got stabbed by sticks in this video. Good on you for fighting back!

The Pathfinder 1e comparison was great. I love all Bob Worldbuilder videos!!!

I love that train sound. Reminds me of a place where I grew up AND it seemed to punctuate your points. The train agrees!

Great video and always nice to see a critical point of view - meaning pros and cons. I think Daggerheart is a great TTRPG for the style Critical role plays and many more. I wish I could try it out, but my group at the moment is busy enough with PF2.

*Bob was exiled to a forest for this review*

Hey Voluntary Shill, great video. Super unfortunate to post this immediately after the 1.3 release. The rulebook was edited down to 300 pages...but still, it's a DM Guide, Rulebook, sourcebook, and campaign setting book wrapped into one thicc volume. I won't be surprised if they edit it further, both to trim length, and to organize it into rules/advice/character creation/setting. Also, a lot of character options changed...including several of the ones you mentioned. For Freshness: it might not be the most unique, but there's a reason nearly every full RPG has a handful of stats, classes, and racial/background features. It's a great way to game-ify the actions a PC takes, and make them feel unique. You might even be able to define a full-sized RPG by having this type of character creation. The freshness is indeed in the hope/fear. Scaling success was probably my favorite part of the Star Wars RPG, and DH managed it with two dice instead of....I think my highest SWrpg roll was nearing 20 dice. As a DM, Daggerheart felt very fresh, and well worth playing again. In my premade adventure, combat ran fine with 4 people. I originally thought open initiative would be an issue; it was not. It ran significantly better than initiative for 4 players and a bucket of monsters. The fact that players didn't get a turn unless they had an action ready to go meant that everyone was paying attention and took their turn quickly and/or flavorfully. That flows so much better than someone's initiative coming around and something changed which caused them to rethink, or they're not ready because they were distracted, or they have to think of who goes next. There was never an awkward pause, despite 4 players learning how to play their new characters in a new system. Lastly, something you didn't mention is that a lot of focus has been put into making this easy game easy to run as a DM. I could feel it. The players have crunch; abilities, resource management, initiative to take actions, etc. I, as the DM, have only one resource (interchangeable fear/action). I don't decide when I go. I don't need to worry about armor, positioning, action economy, stress, etc. And enemies are easy to run; you choose which enemy to use, use their big ability if they have one. Keep using fear/actions until you're out of tokens or enemies. There's not much decision-making there, which leaves headspace for the story/scene. They've done incredibly well to reduce status effects, concentrations, caveats, exceptions etc. All of that means a smoother game.

Also, I'm really looking forward to the Shadowdark version of Delve! Thanks so much for that, and my you enjoy much success.

...huh, when you phrase it the way you did, you could use the tracker from the Digimon TCG to track Action/Fear tokens pretty well

My biggest takeaways are the armor system, and giving two resources to the GM, I feel like armor should always take damage before HP, and adding an option for stress was weird, and seemed like too many steps. And as for the action tokens and fear, I don't understand why they just couldn't lump those two together, at least in terms when a player rolls with fear, it should just give another action token.

Thank you for keeping "Kick-Sharter" in the final video 😂

A fun review, thank you!

Glad to see your honest opinions. GL with Delve

preciate the vid, Bob! bummed to see the art and overall tone/style of DH feeling recycled... I had high hopes indeed. Is CROWN n SKULL fresh?

Great video Bob! My players also really enjoyed playing daggerheart and asked for an extended campagin and we'll be running the session 0 sometime this month. Hope to hear your thoughts on some of the 1.3 changes in some way!

BROOO!!!!! Thank you for making content for Shadowdark!!!

can't wait for your book!

Great review! Now I know more to respond to my players asking about it lol

The main takeaway is that this system is made for people familiar with 5E and not much else (a lot of CR fans), not that there is anything wrong with that! But that also means, it's probably not for me. Thanks for the critical review Bob!

Great Review! I ran the quick start session a few weeks back, in the place of my regular game, due to low player numbers. I hadn't planned to run it, nor had I done much prior research. However, I ran it and at least for myself and the 3 players, it was amazing. I personally found the combat to be much more fluid that 5e, and I do think that at least for my group it may benefit in combat (though I'm not sure how it would end up in cases of disagreement). Whether or not I would run a whole campaign, I'm not sure. But for the one session it was very successful.

Great video! I liked the train subplot

Twigs, trains, and a Daggerheart review. Great vid.

Fuckin’ hell this man’s got fantastic hair.

I'm curious about the Range/Movement mechanics. To me, it seems like the biggest time waster is figuring out which squares a spell effects, where to walk to, and then you just sit there and don't move after engaging an enemy, and if an enemy tries to run away the players want to chase them down and expect it to be on the maps. Getting rid of that in a GOOD way (not just theatre of the mind-ing for all the sticklers in the group) would do a lot to improve combat flow for me and exchanging tokens SOUNDS like a step back.

Super excited for your new book Bob!

yey, already signed-up for notification! lookig forward to get it! hehe

Looking forward to me Daggerheart, Bob. Great job!

Thanks again, Bob! I hope you are right about this game providing a bridge for players to branch out to other games.

Fantastic video and insight about Daggerheart. Thank you! And those branches poking you just want to give you a big ol' hug 😂

I can't wait to delve deep and dig into this upcoming book from Bob

It's the bits and bobs that are my problem. the space my group plays in is small and we have just enough space for 5e and SD. with all the cards, tokens, and coins I know we're going to be knocking things on the floor.

I hope Bob includes his Favored Enemy in Delve… Trains!😂 Great review!

Yippeee happy hopeful video! Agree with pretty much all of it too, honest and clear review

This makes me excited to play. One of my players is going on matleave soon so we're probably going to do some in between sessions in the mean time. Perfect time to try out some new stuff

I'm thinking classes and races are conversions from 5e is because they want to use the system for campaign 4 and not replace the world.

Fantastic review!!! Thanks, Bob!!

Goodness, I would love to see what you think of running a Cypher System game. Great review!

20:24 That reminds me of the spellslot tracker i built

Nice, like this new freshness. You need to check out the Cairn 2E kickstarter and do a video on it. It's FLYING and yes you are a shill for Daggerheart but thats ok!

Dude the abacus is actually a really good idea

Lol. Loved the train noise. Between the woods, hills, and train, it feels like home in Western PA.

Thanks for this review video. Sidenote: there is another indie fantasy RPG called 'Delve' by Feralgamersinc... just FYI, cheers!

Here is my like, comment, and view for the video. I can't wait for your next video, Bob (unless it's more DH content -_-)!

Excellent review! Also thank you for being the first person to talk about the overlap with DH and 5e classes!!! I've read/watched a good number of reviews that talk about leveling and the domains but no one really addressing the classes themselves. When I opened the playtest material for the first time and looked at the classes it immediately killed my interest...and that bummed me out so bad. Sure there's nothing wrong with having staples like rogue and wizard etc but there was just nothing unique to get me to want to learn a new game just to play the same thing

i really appreciate this review, and i will most probably be looking into the delve kick starter. in the last year my game group has gotten out of using miniatures and maps and have really been leaning into that same rule of cool playstyle and its made role playing fun again, not just a board game. now, i have aphantasia and that can lead to some confusion when descriptions are handed out but it's still been a million times better not having to keep up with all the little nicknacks that i used to love, so i guess what i am trying to say is that it sounds like i won't be interested in daggerheart but i am looking forward to your new book.

I love ALL Bob World Builder videos!

One of my issues with the background prompts/questions is that I feel like they sort of funnel the characters a little bit. Obviously how you choose to answer the prompts can vary a lot between players, and people can choose to ignore the prompts and come up with their own, but still it would be nice to have a few more to choose from. EDIT: I think the abacus idea is pretty neat.

I really like this new Bob I'm seeing who's letting his authenticity show a little more. You've kind of shed the camp counsellor polish without losing the quality in your presentation. Ya nailed it bobby.

Our group is play testing this Friday!

Awesome, this is a great review, thanks Bob!

Fun homebrew that came up during one of my test games, I let a player take two ancestry cards instead of an origin for a half-elf half dwarf :)

Thank you for the unbiased review! Great work, and I love the natural nature of your nature shots.

Good review Bob. I appreciate your in depth review.