Daggerheart - Starter Guide
What is Daggerheart?
Daggerheart is a fantasy RPG published by Darrington Press - the publishing house behind Critical Role. Designed by Spenser Starke and Rowan Hall, it launched in 2025 following an extended open beta period. The game is built for cinematic, character-driven fantasy: heroic adventurers, meaningful choices, and stories where hope and adversity are in constant tension.
The tone is warm and optimistic - sometimes described as "hopepunk" - without losing dramatic weight. This isn't grimdark, but it's also not a game without consequences. Characters are capable heroes who face real challenges, and the system actively supports both emotional beats and tactical encounters.
How Does the System Work?
The heart of Daggerheart is the dual d12 system. When you make an action roll, you pick up two twelve-sided dice: a Hope die and a Fear die. Add a relevant modifier and compare the total to a target difficulty. Here's what makes it distinct: which die rolls higher matters just as much as the total.
- Hope die higher: you succeed with Hope. Things go well, and you may gain a Hope token.
- Fear die higher: you succeed with Fear - or fail with Fear. The GM gains a Fear token, which fuels their side of the fiction.
- Both dice show the same number: a Critical Success.
Hope and Fear tokens aren't narrative flavor - they're a currency. Players spend Hope to activate abilities and push their luck. The GM spends Fear to complicate scenes, trigger consequences, and activate enemy abilities. This creates a living tension that runs through the entire session, not just individual rolls.
Character building centers on your class, ancestry, community, and domain cards. Each class grants access to two domains - thematic ability pools - and you build your character by selecting cards from those domains as you level up. This card-based system makes progression tactile and visible in a way that a traditional feat list doesn't.
What Do You Need to Start?
The Daggerheart Core Rulebook contains everything for both players and the Game Master: core rules, setting information, classes, ancestries, and GM guidance. There is no separate Player's Handbook and GM Guide - it's all in one volume.
Darrington Press ran an extensive open beta with free PDF access during development. Check their website to see whether a free quickstart or starter set is currently available - availability changed as the game moved from beta to full release.
For dice, you need two d12s in different colors to distinguish Hope from Fear, plus a standard set of polyhedral dice for other rolls.
Who Is This Game For?
Daggerheart works best for groups that enjoy character-driven storytelling, care about the emotional arc of their characters, and want a system that actively supports both players and the GM in shaping the narrative together.
It's a strong fit if your group enjoys Critical Role-style play: cinematic moments, meaningful relationships, and a GM who wants mechanical tools to create dramatic pressure without purely adversarial play.
It's probably not the right fit if your group prefers very tactical, rules-heavy combat (think D&D 4e or Pathfinder 2e), or if you want a wide-open sandbox with minimal mechanical scaffolding.
How Does It Differ From Other Systems?
Compared to D&D 5e, Daggerheart puts more mechanical weight on the emotional state of characters and the shared narrative economy. The Hope/Fear system means every roll has consequences beyond success or failure - the GM is always gaining or spending narrative leverage. D&D 5e is more player-facing; Daggerheart deliberately balances spotlight between players and the GM.
Compared to Powered by the Apocalypse games (like Masks or Apocalypse World), Daggerheart uses a more traditional dice roll structure and has more explicit character advancement through its card system. It's somewhat more rules-present than a typical PbtA game, but shares a similar emphasis on fiction-first play.
Where Do You Start?
- Read the Core Rulebook introduction and the GM chapter first. The Hope/Fear economy clicks faster when you understand it from the GM's side.
- Pick one of the starting classes and build a character from scratch. The domain card system makes more sense once you've actually done it rather than just read about it.
- Run a short one-shot before committing to a full campaign. Daggerheart's pacing works differently from D&D, and a test session helps everyone calibrate expectations.
- Darrington Press has official content on their website and YouTube channel, including actual play sessions from the beta that demonstrate the system in action.
- The Critical Role community is active and has produced a wide range of tutorials, one-shot adventures, and actual play content.
Recommended Products
The Daggerheart Core Rulebook is your starting point - it covers everything for both sides of the table. For dice, look for sets that include two clearly distinct d12s; some publishers have produced themed sets designed with Daggerheart in mind. Any additional domain card expansions or setting supplements are worth considering once your group has a few sessions under their belt and knows which parts of the game they want to explore further.