u/Solas67

Hello all.

This is my first post on this sub, and I decided to let my experience with Daggerheart fully sink in before posting my thoughts on the game as well as run several sessions as part of an ongoing campaign (which I may post more about seperately).

I want to be clear up front that I don't intend to hate on D&D or its players nor those who love it. I will forever be indebted to it for getting me through high school during the Satanic Panic years in the 80s where even my own parents didn't really support me getting into it. My first experience with D&D was with the 'Purple Box' set (you can look it up) with the three-ring binder book, Keep on the Borderlands module and set of dice. I own it (again) as I gave my original set away to a friend who couldn't afford it.

D&D was my lifeblood through the 80s and 90s before I discovered Star Wars, Marvel Super Heroes and even more niche games like the ill-fated Hercules and Xena RPG. When 5th Edition came out, I hadn't played in some time and eventually wound up running a three-year online only campaign during the Covid times. It was coincided with my 40th anniversary as a gamer (my first set was given to me on Christmas Day, so I can always date it) and it was a fun revisiting of the hobby that I'd come to live and inspired my writing and creativity.

Then came the period where at least in my view, the corporate ownership of D&D both undermined and undercut the product at the cost of community goodwill, my own included. This is inclusive of the modern day where in my personal opinion, decisions regarding the mentality of the game as its presented and sold to its customers seemed antithetical and very 'non-gamery'.

Then I was made aware of Daggerheart. Two of my players are Critters, and while I didn't watch Critical Role myself (I simply didn't respond to the presentation of the games whilst I appreciated their enthusiasm and ability to roleplay) and I was alerted to Daggerheart being made. It didn't hurt the product to know that two of the designers behind 5th Edition were joining Darrington Press. But that didn't necessarily make for a good game.

When it came time to return to fantasy gaming for my group, I decided to adapt a campaign of my own setting over to Daggerheart, but that meant investing in and learning the game. I was as one might appreciate, apprehensive about a brand new game system. And I was also wary of the Critical Role-associated hype.

So what swayed me? After I took the time to read a friends' PDF copy, I was struck by a system that I felt was for want of a better term.... relaxed. Where I struggled often to help players find a class, subclass or some combination of factors to help realize their characters in D&D, Daggerheart offered a broad and malleable canvas for a player to paint on and not be punished if their concept wasn't finished just yet.

D&D from my experience strongly deliniates what a character is in a lot of ways by what they're not. Skills particularly do this for me, and to a lesser extent classes. Daggerheart by contrast asks one to consider all the fuzzy things a character is. One of my players used a great example of someone with a farming background where the broad range of those experiences can be beneficial. Haggling for goods. Recognising an animal's droppings. Animal handling. And so on. These are experiences versus skills which I don't think properly reflects a person.

That particularly won me over as well as not 'rules managing' small things like cantrip-like spells or usage of armor or even what you 'can' and 'can't' do dictated to you by ruleset. This isn't advocacy of doing just anything, but rather working with the rules to tell your story better.

This meant for me (and my players have commented on this to me) that my GMing is more relaxed because I'm not having to consider the rules so often so that I can focus on telling my story more fluidly and be more aware of my characters and more importantly the world around me. This isn't to say that D&D doesn't do this, but I think Daggerheart is inherently more 'story sensitive' and rewards you for leaning into that.

I feel at this point in my gaming life that I can advocate for Daggerheart as the better introductory game system over D&D. D&D's linear class and play design is a template yes, but it's a hard template that doesn't allow a lot of deviation from the norm. Daggerheart by comparison is inviting that make believe energy we have as children where ideas are able to be explored without serious penalty nor compromise.

I've had a few people say and I agree with them that rules light systems are becoming more popular and I agree with that. The irony isn't lost on me that my original Purple Box D&D set had just four classes and you could do pretty much whatever the hell you wanted to do. No skills, no feats, not much of anything beyond your basic abilities and I loved the hell out of that. You made decisions and rules on the fly and I do think Daggerheart harkens back to that in some ways.

I don't think Daggeheart is the 'D&D killer' though. It needs to grow old and retain players and a fanbase moving forwards, but I do see its creation as a signpost we can look to and say 'this is a shift in attitude made manifest'. I won't remove my D&D books from my shelves....but now they just have to share.

Thanks for reading.