Critical Role publisher Darrington Press is celebrating the tabletop streaming team’s ninth anniversary in style – by offering fans the chance to playtest its latest RPG. A February 28 press release confirms that fantasy TTRPG Daggerheart is on the way in 2025, and a Daggerheart playtest begins on March 12.
Before Daggerheart, Darrington Press was publishing plenty of other board games and tabletop RPGs on behalf of Critical Role. This includes third-party DnD books like Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn and the Candela Obscura RPG system.
We don’t know much about Daggerheart’s setting at this point, but we do know its character options cross over with DnD races. As well as Elves and Dwarves, you’ll be able to play as Daemons, mechanical Clanks, and the Ribbet frog people.
The RPG dice system revolves around two d12s, one labelled ‘Hope’ and the other ‘Fear’. “This duality between the forces of hope and fear on every hero drives the unique character-focused narratives in Daggerheart”, says Wednesday’s press release.
Daggerheart was first announced in April 2023, and Darrington Press says it’s spent over a year in development. It saw some playtesting at GenCon that same year. Now, though, the publisher is casting a wider net for feedback.
Anyone over the age of 18 is eligible to take part in the new Daggerheart playtest. If you want to play from the comfort of your couch, you’ll be able to download playtest packets from the Daggerheart website or DriveThruRPG. Demiplane will also be hosting a digital character creation tool ahead of its dedicated Daggerheart NEXUS.
You can also take part in person by turning up at Darrington Press Guild Stores. These select stores will be offered physical playtest packets to host games with. However you want to play, Darrington Press asks for feedback to be sent via online gaming surveys on the Daggerheart website.
“I’m so excited for people to get a sneak peek into the game we’re building”, says lead game designer Spenser Starke in Wednesday’s press release. “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”, Starke continues. “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.”
For more Critter titbits, here’s everything you need to know about the core Critical Role cast and characters. Or, for more RPG tools, here are the DnD classes you might pick for your next 5e character build. You can also follow us on Google News for more tabletop updates.