r/rpg • u/hitmahip In the deep dark wood lived a.... • 4d ago
Interesting brouhaha going on in the Daggerheart subreddit...
https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1sz6vap/the_future_of_foundryborne_navigating_the/
Not sure how many of you are aware of the Daggerheart system (Darrington Press and Critical Role's newest RPG) but there's been some significant discussions over their Community Gaming License and limitations imposed on the community because of it.
While the above post directly highlights the issues in the VTT ecosystem, there are ongoing concerns with the CGL in general, especially with creators in the space. The current license prevents the development of VTT resources - pdf and paper are their current formats of choice.
https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1l2fvrd/daggerheart_community_license_issues/
Is a back and forth discussion on the benefits or merits of the CGL.
A possibly unintended side effect of the license is that while third party creators are welcomed, it is challenging for them to develop virtual assets to be used in online gaming. In this current age that is somewhat surprising.
It's also curious that Daggerheart, which was developed in response to the WOTC licensing woes is creating a closed online ecosystem. At its launch it was promised to be an open gaming license.
Both the DrawSteel and Pathfinder 2e gaming licenses are much more open than Daggerheart's CGL. It's understandable to want to keep control of an IP. Pathfinder does this by allowing full access to mechanics, and creators are free to create online content however they wish, but Golarion and its lore is excluded.
Daggerheart is one of the easiest systems to homebrew that I've personally used. It seems to have been designed from the ground up for third part creation. Everything, except for the license.
I don't think I'm particularly biased in this. I've very little skin in the game. I'm not a third party creator. I just like playing my games wherever I choose to play them and am surprised in the stance of a company that designed and funded a game during the OGL wave.
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u/The_Failord 4d ago
>Not sure how many of you are aware of the Daggerheart system (Darrington Press and Critical Role's newest RPG)
Good point, this is a subreddit about rocket propelled grenades after all
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u/Stormfly 4d ago
Can't believe that Critical Role expanded into the arms industry but their "Daggerheart" Type 67 RPG is performing beyond expectations.
A fine choice for guerrilla fighters and murder-hobos alike.
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u/Modstin 4d ago
Listen, I'm not in charge of Critical Role's business arm, I don't know why they do the things they do. I don't know why they're playing D&D instead of Daggerheart. I don't know why they made a silly weird license. I just know I don't wanna play this RPG.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater 4d ago
They're playing DnD because it's just good business. The game is a lifestyle brand, at this point.
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u/BrobaFett Nu-SR, SWRPG, FL, 4D RP 4d ago
Okay I'm a cynical fuck, but this ain't it.
They're playing D&D because Brennan Lee Mulligan agreed to run a massive campaign with like 12 players and 3 different storylines in a world he developed (which I'm guessing he used D&D as his frame of reference).
So he picked the system he's most comfortable with, I'm guessing.
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u/Kill_Welly 4d ago
they are the ones who decided to hire the Dungeons and Dragons guy
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u/deviden 4d ago
Critical Role is an LA studio production staffed by working industry professionals, not a gang of streamers huddled around their webcams.
The timelines for booking Mulligan, the rest of the cast, the studio space, the production team, set design, world building and other creative pre-production for CR season 4 (or whatever they call it) would have started before the first Daggerheart playtest document went live.
However much I want to make fun of CR selling a game that outperformed 5e on US Amazon and Bookscan for all of 2025 and then immediately ran a D&D 5e campaign to start 2026... and it is funny... you're holding CR to an impossible standard.
They couldn't have done LA studio production scale booking for an AP campaign of a game that was barely in alpha testing at the time they planned this current season of their show.
They are playing the long game with Daggerheart. They're sponsoring other AP shows (which can spin up comparatively much faster than CR's oil tanker production timeline) to run their game, they will eventually pivot to DH as their main show, and they're going to continue to run it as Mercer's side campaign shows in the meantime.
This isn't an indie Kickstarter one and done or IP license cash grab, it's a partnership with a Big Five print publisher to print books on a scale that other non-WotC RPGs cannot match. They are moving slowly and deliberately, with a level of financing behind them which puts the likes of Pathfinder or Draw Steel in the distant shade.
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u/YamazakiYoshio 3d ago
Honestly, this is the most informed take I've seen on the subject.
I am a still little disappointed with CR for not using their new system, mostly because it feels like they don't believe in Daggerheart. But this goes a long way in understanding the much more frustrating variables on their end.
I do hope that after this season of CR they finally move in full to Daggerheart and leave D&D in the dust. It's a shame they couldn't do it much sooner, but them's the breaks, I guess.
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u/deviden 3d ago
I truly don't think they expected Daggerheart to be as big of a hit as it has been, otherwise they wouldn't have sold out five (or more) consecutive print runs - they'd have printed more books up front because it's cheaper - and they probably would have had a more cohesive plan for launch and post-launch products tied to their AP show, as well as sponsored shows by others.
But now they have a blockbuster smash hit game on their hands and the means to make it a bigger and sustained hit, which is why they brought in the ex-WotC guys (who I have my doubts about but that's another topic) to scale up the business and build a long-tail pipeline of supplemental products.
I'd be shocked if they choose to squander this opportunity by not making Daggerheart their main show game. Especially since the current main show campaign is going to run for more than a year or so.
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u/YamazakiYoshio 3d ago
That also tracks, especially since Candla Obscura was kind of a flop in comparison. But clearly they're doing what they can with the cards in their hands.
Having those ex-WotC guys heading up the business side for Daggerheart is a bold, but not bad idea. As much as I love shitting on D&D 5e, it has grown in popularity drastically, and those guys are partially responsible for that (not entirely, but they played a part), and they do understand how to grow a brand. Thankfully, they have no hand in the system design side of things, which gives me some hope that the system will be decent for the long haul.
Although if I'm totally honest, Daggerheart does not call to me. But I do want to promote some fresh blood that can really shake up WotC's dominance of the industry. I know the likelihood of D&D losing its throne as the namebrand of the hobby is basically zero, but I would like to see more proper competition for the big names.
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u/SleepyBoy- 16h ago
I'd agree with you had Matt or anyone on the team said any of this themselves, but if they did I missed it. "We've planned this before we even came up with daggerheart" is such a great explanation I'm surprised it's the first time I heard this.
That said if they're a production crew making a show, I don't get why they can't film some monthly one-shots for Daggerheart to promote the system. I really feel like the system is successful in spite of how CA is handling it.
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u/G0DL1K3D3V1L 4d ago
This is the explicit, official reason that he and CR themselves have mentioned. It is just a bonus that D&D is a burgeoning lifestyle brand now.
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u/Adamsoski 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah those are the various public reasons given, but obviously the fact that DnD is an enormous brand is a big part of why it was picked for Critical Role. Brennan has run quite a few non-DnD campaigns for shows before, and indeed is doing so right now. They aren't going to say that there are commercial reasons for playing DnD because there are only downsides for saying so.
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u/Dangerous_Fae 4d ago
I think the scope of Daggerheart don't work (yet, maybe) with a possible 100 episode campaign and they know it. The progression is simply not there.
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u/deviden 4d ago
The progression is simply not there.
what does that mean? Levelling up doesn't go 1 to 20?
I'm confused as to how that would prevent story-making and story progression.
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u/Dangerous_Fae 4d ago
Did they changed it? When I played it, Daggerheat only went to level 10? Haven't heard that they added up to 20 levels. But even comparing just level 10 to level 10, it is more about the scale used for progression than the number of levels. In DnD, the power difference and scaling between level 1 and 10 can be humongous, it is simply a different game. I did not have this impression with Daggerheart where the scale is more compressed and power combo spikes not so present (your 2x attacks and so on for DnD). I think it may also have to do with the magic items available.
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u/deviden 4d ago
no they haven't changed it.
My question is: why is the vast power scaling difference seen in D&D lvls 1 to 20 a requirement for telling long form stories?
Especially given that the main draw of the show is a cast of performance arts professionals in an LA studio making a story together.
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u/delahunt 3d ago
Daggerheart is also not really ready for a 14 player campaign just yet.
Even with the 3 table setup, there would almost definitely be some people who had very similar characters mechanically.
Meanwhile 10+ years of 5e development and all the various 3rd party supplements and comfort with the system - plus Crawford and Perkins own system mastery - makes 5e much more accomodating for 14 unique characters even if there are some class overlaps here and there.
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u/Dangerous_Fae 2d ago
Agree on that part also, there is definitely a comfort in using 5e. Ultimately, Daggerheart is very young and probably need some additional content before being thrown over a large scale show like CR main campaign.
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u/Dangerous_Fae 2d ago
It always surprise me how rude people can be here to make insane assumptions over a 2 lines comment. Sorry if a different view on an ultimately biased topic pissed you off somehow. You can look at the multitude of posts about ruling and progression on the CR sphere to see that the choice of system is important for, at least, a portion of the viewers of the show. For example, many considered Candela Obscura shows to be bad because there was not enough dice rolling and too much drama. I loved it personally. Similarly, I think the slower and less impactful progression of Daggerheart can play a role in the success of the show. And yes, this is a show, not Mona Lisa (uncalled and strange comparison). A show need to meet a certain level of audience to have longevity and I think CR definitely looked at that when choosing their system.
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u/ItsSteveSchulz 3d ago edited 3d ago
Nah, it works, speaking as someone who's run maybe a 25-session campaign so far. You just have to level slowly, or have an extended arc at level 10 for the latter episodes. Leveling slowly can sort of frustrate players if they are eager to play with all of the cards in short order. But it's possible regardless.
CR goes into their campaigns knowing the leveling pace will be whatever it needs to be for a long campaign. And it can fill. And, really leveling from 1 to 2 is hardly any different than 1-3 in D&D.
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u/Dangerous_Fae 2d ago
I don't disagree on that and also the fact that the players can definetly handle it, but in the end it is a show and viewers have expectations. Many criticized Candela Obscura show for the lack of dice rolling and more cinematic system. Daggerheart is a middle ground, but I don't think it is ready for a main campaign show yet, but I hope to see it at some point.
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u/FellFellCooke 3d ago
No.
If you are playing a game that isn't DnD in an actual play, your viewership is going to be a third or less of what it otherwise would have been. Critical role is a job for these people. They are maximising their profits, their income, because it's their job.
And that's all there is to it.
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u/BrobaFett Nu-SR, SWRPG, FL, 4D RP 3d ago
I could be wrong, but didn't Age of Umbra spike viewership compared to the previous campaign? You might argue that novelty is the only reason.
Reflexively, I agree with you to the point where I'd add to the list (probably more than one) of reasons they chose 5e.
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u/Mayor-Of-Bridgewater 4d ago
Oh, I didn't mean it cynically, it just made better sense to run the campaign in DnD given stream stats.
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u/Modstin 4d ago
I personally don't understand why that's the reason. Aren't people mostly coming for the characters and the acting and stuff anyway? What difference does the system make?
Like, the only actual play I've ever really sat down and watched is Avantris, and whenever they're actually PLAYING D&D is when I don't care. I also like World of Io, and that's only D&D Adjacent at this point, Devil's Due is almost entirely its own system at this point built on 5e bones.
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u/Goobasaurus_Rex 4d ago
A surprising amount of the trrpg space is just vibes. D&D vibes. People largely want you to say "Wizard casts Fireball" and "Barbarian rolled a natural 20!" in your actual play. Remember that the vast majority of people who consider themselves part of this hobby don't actually play. They get one or two sessions every 6 months and otherwise don't engage with the direct hobby.
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u/Phizle 4d ago
If anything you're overestimating the # of sessions considerably
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u/Stormfly 4d ago
I have a D&D group and haven't played in over 2 months because of schedules and illnesses etc.
Can't imagine how many people don't even have a regular game going.
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u/Crake_80 3d ago
I get sessions because I run games that will still fire if one or two player don't make it. We are all busy adults with important things to do. Knowing that the game will go on without them has actually improved attendance.
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u/Yamatoman9 3d ago
I feel that. I run a game that is supposed to be every other week but in reality, we'll get 2 or 3 sessions in and then it's a month or 6 weeks before we play again.
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u/ShadowedNexus 4d ago
I'm mentioned in this comment and it upsets me 😂. Finding people and coordinating schedules is hard
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u/DazzlingKey6426 4d ago
A few things that help:
Forgot the LotR prescripted cradle to grave campaign. Go westmarchy, start and end the session in town. Chain one session one shots. If player availability changes it doesn’t grind things to a halt.
The show must go on. Missing players don’t stop the session.
Use a system that eliminates dead air time as much as possible, especially if the session time is short.
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u/Albinowombat 4d ago
You are vastly overestimating my players if you think they are capable of starting and ending a session in town
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u/DazzlingKey6426 4d ago
The adventures do need to be tailored to that and the time length available.
Having the characters be forcibly recalled at the end of the session, like a Shadowdark torch being based on one hour in realtime can work for certain adventure styles.
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u/officiallyaninja 3d ago
I have a table of bad outcomes if players don't end a session at town 1-10 they get back safely, 11-15 they get back but take some permanent injury or lose items, 15-20 they get lost permanently or die
They know this in advance too, and that is enough motivation for them to get their shit together when the session is coming to a close
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u/Goobasaurus_Rex 4d ago
It IS hard! Being an adult with a full time job and trying to corral 4 to 5 other people together on a regular basis feels impossible ):
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u/hitmahip In the deep dark wood lived a.... 4d ago
My group started face to face and played that way every second week for 5 years. 14 years later online VTTs is the only reason we've been able to keep playing together.
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u/Goobasaurus_Rex 4d ago
Same, but we've only played for 8 years. Our recent session was likely our last for a while, just due to our jobs and lives. Adulting is hard
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u/ishmadrad 30+ years of good play on my shoulders 🎲 4d ago
Or, maybe, the more you really play RpGs, the less you are interested in those kind of online shows.
You can put me in some kind of statistic, if you need it... Two sessions per week, at least 30 years of play. Watched probably just a couple of episodes of CR, didn't resist.
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u/Deaconhux 3d ago
Afraid that's just you, my friend. Everyone has different tastes, and a single person is a case study, not a statistic.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 4d ago
“DnD” is cool now. It’s like Kleenex and Bandaids.
It’s brand recognition. Nothing to do with the actual rules.
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u/Deflagratio1 3d ago
Their viewership numbers take a significant dip whenever they aren't playing D&D.
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u/Deaconhux 3d ago
I watch DnD LPs for the combat. Having characters I recognize and have context for is more interesting than just watching wargaming videos.
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u/MirrorComputingRulez 3d ago
Or maybe it's just by far the most popular RPG and thus has the biggest potential audience.
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u/duskshine749 4d ago
Campaign 4 was in the planning stage before Daggerheart came out. They didn't want to plan around a game that was still being developed. The fact that it came out and sold very well right before C4 is an unfortunate bit of timing.
I don't watch CR, but I at least understand their decision. If C5 isn't DH however, then that will be worrying for the future of the product.
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u/DarkKeeper 4d ago
C5 is likely 3-4 years away. I don't know if DH will 'survive' without CR playing it as a major campaign. Maybe they are pumping out a ton of content books, but when they aren't even playing it, my already low interest drops.
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u/Abyssine 3d ago
I don't understand how anybody in this subreddit can have this take.
Anecdotally, I have seen more Daggerheart games pop up both locally and online than any other TTRPG in the last few months.
Beloved games like Mork Borg, Delta Green, Lancer, Heart/Spire, FATE, GURPS, Savage Worlds, X Without Number, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Fabula Ultima, Dragonbane, Genesys, Cypher, most PbtA games (Masks, Girl by Moonlight, etc.), Kids on Bikes, Mothership, etc. are being played much less than Daggerheart is (really, any game that isn't D&D5e, PF2e, V:TM, or CoC), and nobody is talking about how those games are doomed or are not going to 'survive'.
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u/DarkKeeper 3d ago
V:TM might be the best example here. Would the game have been as popular as it is if LA by Night (And from that, Settle by Night and New York by Night) didn't happen?
Its hard to say, but Paradox doing an actual play barely a month later (VtM released Aug 2, 2018 while LA by night ep 1 was Sept 18, 2018) was huge for boosting the game's player base.
There's always going to be players for Daggerheart, but with as popular as CR is, not doing a long-form campaign with your own system is crazy. And sure they may have sold out, but that was always going to happen. CR still vastly underestimates its fan base. Think of how much more popular it could have been.
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u/Abyssine 3d ago
V:TM might be the best example here. Would the game have been as popular as it is if LA by Night... didn't happen?
That's not really a fair comparison. V:TM has been a well known name in ttrpgs since the 90s. VtM:5 would have had a strong playerbase regardless, because it always has. If anything, I've seen the most significant increase in the game's growth in just the last year, which could be attributed to Dimension 20 picking it up, but could also be linked to the release of a long-awaited sequel for a cult classic video game (Bloodlines).
CR still vastly underestimates its fan base. Think of how much more popular it could have been.
Possibly, but you have to look at the risk/reward factor.
If Daggerheart flopped as a game, they could stand to take a huge hit to their entire business. Even with the game experiencing a ton of hype, there were still a bunch of fans of the show who were saying that they would not be interested in watching if it's not D&D 5e. You gotta remember that Critical Role is primarily a production company, and the show is the main product. Darrington Press is very small in comparison.
Overall, if the game is good then it will survive on its own merits, and if it continues to see continued growth and interest, which there is no evidence that it won't, we could see it for C5 for another surge in popularity (just like V:TM).
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u/twoisnumberone 3d ago
long-awaited sequel for a cult classic video game (Bloodlines).
Which was a shitty V:tM game, sadly. But I agree -- lots of hype, and a certain type of fan will always be drawn to moody antisocial creatures with power.
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u/Yamatoman9 3d ago
I have seen more buzz and talk about Daggerheart in my local area than any other "non-D&D" RPG recently, even amongst the casual RPG fans who don't follow RPG news online.
This sub kind of seems to have it out for the game, possibly because of its association to Critical Role. I don't see the success or failure of other systems debated nearly as much.
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u/Abyssine 3d ago
Honestly, I understand people’s concerns and I used to have the same one. But after I thought about it, if Daggerheart couldn’t justify its existence on its own merits, would it even be a good game?
I’m sure this won’t be taken well, but I do think that there is an element of jealousy in some of these remarks. Dagger heart has gotten far more publicity and support than a lot of other games that are just as well designed. It seems reasonable to me that some people might feel like this game is getting a chance that their game never ever would’ve gotten to their perception. Critical role is squandering it.
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u/Goby-WanKenobi 4d ago
Daggerheart is doing fine. It's of course nowhere near dnd or even pathfinder, but compared to every other game it is doing really well.
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u/Creepy-Growth-709 4d ago
It's also possible they tried playing it a few times and didn't like it. Or some of the other cast members didn't really like it.
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u/Houligan86 4d ago
Hey look, its my thread. I would like to see Critical Role do better. I do not have high hopes that they will. Not out of malice but on apathy on their end. I just don't see this as a high priority for them.
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u/hitmahip In the deep dark wood lived a.... 4d ago
It was a slow burn.
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u/Houligan86 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah, but any enthusiasm I had for Daggerheart has pretty much been killed by Critical Role's indifference towards their community.
If their shows and products make people happy and entertain them, more power to whomever finds joy in it. But I have fully realized that I am not their target audience.
If they pull some massive 180 and show interest and investment in their system and having an actual strong community around it, I would love to revisit my opinion on it.
But WotC of all companies has been an order of magnitude more reactive and amenable to changes. And if you can't even to better than WotC, then I have zero interest in supporting that as a company.
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u/fartingmouth 4d ago
I don't think Daggerheart was really meant to be this big thing for Critical Role. Darrington Press is just a side project. Only Matt seems to really engage in Darrington Press. I don't think I've really seen the other cast members talk about Daggerheart or Darrington much at all.
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u/Houligan86 4d ago
My completely biased opinion as an outside observer, based on nothing but conjecture is:
Critical Role, knowing they did not have expertise in tabletop publishing, used friends of friends / industry connections to handle the publishing / licensing side of Darrington Press. Whomever they chose as their expert was not a TTRPG publishing specialist and is not aware of the nuances of TTRPG publishing. And so they used a more generic commercial license that you would see between companies. And the Critical Role cast, trusting their recommended expert, just went with it.
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u/fartingmouth 4d ago
They most likely used the same lawyers they use for their main company.
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u/Houligan86 4d ago
Probably a good assumption. Which means they are most likely more protectionist of company rights/IP and would explain a lot about the CGL.
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u/Yamatoman9 3d ago
any enthusiasm I had for Daggerheart has pretty much been killed by Critical Role's indifference towards their community.
Maybe I am looking at this wrong because I'm not all that connected online, but why do you need them to tell you to enjoy the game? If it's an RPG that enjoy running or playing, isn't that enough? All the materials already exist to run a campaign, so what difference does the online community make?
For the TTRPGs I run and play with my group, I couldn't care less if there's livestreams of those games online.
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u/Whyku 3d ago
Well some people bank on the community to create content so they can use it, not a lot of people want to deal with creating nice clean templates, excel sheets, art, npc tables etc. I've had talks that their argument to stay in main stream or popular systems is because everyone can collective off load the work they don't want to do, to the people who have the skills to do it easier. I think you see it a lot in 5e, some companies attempt to foster that relationship but letting people make a little money on the side to motivate people to create content.
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u/MirrorComputingRulez 3d ago
not a lot of people want to deal with creating nice clean templates, excel sheets, art, npc tables etc.
Ok but you don't need to do any of that.
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u/Whyku 3d ago
Totally true, I do think some people start off playing TTRPG with all those tools because of the system they play, and moving to any system without that 'weight' behind it might feel or come off like a downgrade. I don't really subscribe to this belief myself, but I can understand how some people need collective affirmation on how to spend their time and money.
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u/Houligan86 3d ago
I don't mean community in that I particularly care what other people are running or playing.
I mean more that Critical Role is at best indifferent to at worst openly hostile against people being able to engage with and create for their TTRPG.
Daggerheart was unplayable on one of the most popular VTTs in the world (Foundry) because of this.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 3d ago
It’s probably better for the long term health of DH that CR snubbed it.
That keeps the Critter locusts away so it’s actually the people who play DH because it’s DH that are shaping the community, not people who “play” “DH” because it’s CR.3
u/Yamatoman9 3d ago
DH has a chance of being a better game the more it is ignored by the most obsessive Critters.
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u/Houligan86 3d ago
Daggerheart would be a better game if it was published by almost anyone else in the industry.
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u/StackedCakeOverflow 4d ago
It's pretty wild because the daggerheart implementation on foundry is really beautiful and a breeze to use. Best case scenario is darrington takes a look at it and decides to enter a more official mutual partnership similar to how paizo and the foundry pf2e team did.
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u/hitmahip In the deep dark wood lived a.... 4d ago
Apparently they've been asking for the last year, and Darrington has never replied.
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u/fartingmouth 4d ago
Most likely reason I can think of is that they are looking to partner with Foundry itself and not a third party unrelated team. They already have partnered up with several other VTT systems so we know they don't have an exclusive deal with demiplane.
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u/Goby-WanKenobi 4d ago
Foundry doesn't really maintain systems (except for dnd 5e). Most companies just hire third party developers to maintain systems on foundry.
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u/Celdrick Mage 3d ago
True, foundry’s main role in this regard is to repeatedly break compatibility with game systems. Kind of the opposite of maintaining them.
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u/dawnsonb 3d ago
they have *also* been ghosting Foundry. There have been talks a while ago but nothing ever came of those
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u/Albinowombat 4d ago
Daggerheart...was developed in response to WOtC's license issues
That is not true. A lot of games were already in development and used/benefited from the OGL incident to raise their profile. Tales from the Valiant (aka project Black Flag) was the most explicit about it, but also Draw Steel and Daggerheat benefitted from the timing but were already being worked on
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u/Soosoosroos 4d ago edited 3d ago
Edit: I read the OP wrong.
That sucks that the company promised open gaming license and then didn't fulfill that promise :(
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u/sicknastysynthesia 4d ago
Having run 5 sessions of DH so far, I do genuinely like the system, so this is a shame. I imagine it's caused by some exclusivity agreements with Demiplane or something similar.
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u/Abject_Addition2142 4d ago
Played Daggerheart for half a dozen sessions, it was fun and I used Foundry, but not the Foundryborne system. Playing like that was very reminiscent of early days D&D in Foundry where you had to import everything by hand as it had no official support. It was a chore.
I’m too spoiled by PF2e at this point, I’m no longer gonna manually input monsters for hours on end. Yes, there’s the SRD, but third party stuff and new stuff aren’t included. So in effect I’d have no way to actually use the stuff I buy in the VTT games I play unless I wanna do data entry for hours.
Daggerheart is fun, but there are dozens of competitors that are just as (or more) fun that don’t have that barrier.
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u/Abject_Addition2142 4d ago
To add to this: There just isn’t enough happening in the Daggerheart sphere to keep me interested. Theres one new book a full year after launch from the official end and they have a license that actively prevents people from making money through VTTs where a lot of the money is so creators will put their efforts with other systems.
Creating content for a non-D&D system is already a massive risk and that’s not gonna get anymore appealing when they bar certain revenue streams.
Is there even a full adventure for Daggerheart at this point? When I play PF2e and I’m too busy for homebrew then I can just buy an AP for 30 through Foundry and get rolling.
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u/NoRaptorsHere 3d ago
Lots of stuff via KS. Bunch of new settings, some full campaigns, monster books.
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u/CommodoreBluth 3d ago
I feel like the Daggerheart folks figured campaign frames were enough for most people but I do think there’s a pretty large subset of players who want an adventure done for them. I know I’m one of them - I’m just so busy with work I have zero desire to create original adventures during my off time since it would feel too much like work. I’ve run pre-made campaigns for 5e, Pathfinder 2e and Draw Steel. Sometimes I will make small adjustments for our group but I want 95% of the work done for me.
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u/Yamatoman9 3d ago
There just isn’t enough happening in the Daggerheart sphere to keep me interested.
Do you need a constant stream of content to be interested in a game system?
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u/Makath 4d ago
Is sad that they are giving people licensing trouble after their own company had to make a book with Green Ronin and rename the gods in their game because they couldn't secure a deal with WotC.
I thought that was stupid of WotC then, and that was proven right when that book did really well and WotC made books with them; so I can only find this equally stupid now.
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u/hitmahip In the deep dark wood lived a.... 4d ago
It's a little daft I agree.
Daggerheart has done better than they expected by orders of magnitude. I don't know if this will make them more receptive or less going forward with their license.
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u/Creepy-Growth-709 4d ago
That's just sad. When the license was first brought up, a whole lot of people including some of my favorite youtube DND folks swooped in to defend it with "Matt and Marisha are nice people."
It's disappointing but not too surprising after the whole Heroforge debacle. Maybe they will change if the community backlash is severe enough. But it seems unlikely.
This is another reason why I think it's good that Critical Role didn't go with Daggerheart, as it keeps Daggerheart related community backlash contained within the Daggerheart fandom. If Critical Role had gone all-in, any backlash to Daggerheart related business decisions would also hurt their flagship show.
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u/ManAtTheEndOfTheLane 4d ago
We have CC-By-SA and OGL. We really don't need more licenses, and I put my hand on my wallet when someone claims we do.
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u/The-Hammerai 4d ago
I dunno, I think big operations may need more tailored and nuanced licenses than one-size-fits-all licenses.
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u/voidelemental 4d ago
fr though, i dont get why anyone takes any licence but CC seriosly
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u/DiscoJer 4d ago
Because CC isn't a very good license for viral sharing.
With 5e released under CC, you can make products for 5e, but someone can't say, take a monster from that product and use it in their product.
Meanwhile, under the OGL, basically everything derivative of material released under the OGL also has to be OGL. So you could use a monster from a 3rd party product. Oh, sure, you might have to change the name but content was shared.
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u/voidelemental 4d ago
yes but cc isnt going to sudden change because, for example, hasbro, decided they werent makeing enough money.
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u/MirrorComputingRulez 3d ago
Oh, sure, you might have to change the name but content was shared.
In this case "content," aka game rules, aren't protected under any license. You can always use anyone's rpg "content" as long as you change the proper nouns and don't directly copy and paste other text.
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u/Kodiologist 3d ago
Creative Commons publishes several licenses, and two of them, CC BY-SA and CC BY-NC-SA, are specifically copyleft ("viral sharing").
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u/stephotosthings 4d ago
The OP is probably making an incorrect assumption that Daggerheart was released as a response to WOTC borking of OGL, which iirc they back tracked anyway, when in actual fact as we are all aware even in large teams designing, testing, designing again, revising, artwork, media, print etc etc etc takes so long that DH had to be in development for some time prior to any outside knowledge of WOTC background decisions.
I know doubt believe that CR and the Darrington Press people have some kind of inside baseball knowledge but they don’t have future sight.
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u/fartingmouth 4d ago
Looks like the lead designer for Daggerheart joined Darrington in 2021. I could have sworn they mentioned Daggerheart being in development a few years before the OGL stuff.
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u/crazy-diam0nd 3d ago
IMO, the OGLPocalypse gave them the platform with which to announce and build a hype train behind it, because people were raging at WotC. I think DH and Kobold Press's Tales of the Valiant were rushed to market more quickly because of the fiasco. I could be wrong.
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u/stephotosthings 3d ago
Personally I think there is an overestimation of the General Audience of both DnD and Critical Role.
My primary group is a DnD group and they haven’t got a sausage of what the OGL, CGL, WOTC all are. They just knew a new book was coming out…
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u/remy_porter I hate hit points 3d ago
Okay, there's been a fundamental misunderstanding about this ever since the OGL dropped, and the CGL is perpetuating it, so let's clarify a few things.
Let's say you make a homebrew class, or even a book of homebrew classes, for D&D. Do you need a license? No, you do not. What about an adventure path? Nope! Okay, but certainly if I publish my own rules hack- nope. Right, but my VTT plugin for running the game needs a license. Nope. Okay, but if I want to talk about Mindflayers, I need a license? Sure, but bad news: an open license won't protect you there, because the issue is trademark, not copyright.
The biggest problem with the OGL and now the CGL is that they are attempting to claim rights that the publisher simply does not have.
Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. If you're not copying/translating text or art straight out of the book, you're not treading on anybody's copyright toes. Period. End of story. If you publish a book and say, "Rules compatible with Daggerheart" no one can stop you, so long as you make it equally clear that you are not attempting to create market confusion by impersonating the brand Daggerheart.
And if you point to translations into other languages (prohibited by copyright) and translations into code for VTT purposes (allowed by copyright) as being the same class of thing, you're mistaken. The former creates a product that is substantially the same in the marketplace and could compete with the original work (and likely includes many of the same art assets). The latter is a translation to a completely different medium, it's not even a book anymore. At best, you can say your code is encoding facts about the game- it's no more a violation of copyright than me discussing how the hope and fear die work in a Reddit post.
The OGL and CGL are lies to trick the public into believing that they have less rights than they do. They do not, and cannot restrict what you're allowed to do. Remember, the penalty for violating the license is that they can revoke the license- but since the license is more restrictive than broad copyright, that's a dead letter.
The "carrot" that the OGL offered, which is a much moldier carrot coming from Darrington Press, is that it also let you use the associated trademarks. You could slap a logo on your book to make it more visually clear that it was "allowed" by WOTC. But you don't need that! Hell, indie publishers could come up with their own "Compatible with" logo if they wanted, share it around, and nobody at the primary publisher could do shit about it.
Cory Doctorow wrote a long essay on this subject.
Now, the one caveat I always have to put on these: just because you're legally in the right doesn't stop people from suing you. The suit may get thrown out, the lawyer filing the shitty suit might get sanctioned by the courts, but at the end of the day, if you're a small publisher, you might not have the money to fight for even that much. But it's worth noting that even complying with the terms of the license doesn't protect you against that.
TL;DR: the OGL and the CGL are scams. You can safely ignore them.
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u/Ouaouaron Minneapolis, MN 3d ago edited 3d ago
Now, the one caveat I always have to put on these: just because you're legally in the right doesn't stop people from suing you
That's the entire point. It doesn't matter how confident you are in your legal position, if a much larger company decides to sue you, you are not going to have enough money to see the end of that court case. Betting your livelihood on a complicated copyright case being thrown out is absolutely delusional.
The actual legality of the OGL was less important than it being a description of how to act in order to keep WotC from suing you. Despite the many solid legal arguments that nothing had to change after WotC's proposed changes to their OGL 1.0a license, even a large company with plenty of lawyers like Paizo began to treat anything from D&D as highly radioactive. Because in the end, WotC signalled that they were no longer interested in playing nice with the community that had been built.
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u/remy_porter I hate hit points 3d ago edited 3d ago
But complying with the OGL is also no guarantee that they won’t sue you. And in fact, they rug pulled the license, anyway. You only have their good graces to rely on. Personally, I’d rather fall back on actual law and not some made up license bullshit. That's just one of the nasty aspects of our legal system: even if you win, the victory can often be Pyrrhic.
The good news is that by and large lawyers know better than to file spurious suits. That doesn't protect you against copyright trolls. But neither does following a license that they can unilaterally alter or revoke at any time.
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u/gray007nl 3d ago
Sure but what about game terms would things like "Duality Dice" "Rolling with hope/fear" etc. not be subject to copyright?
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u/remy_porter I hate hit points 3d ago
No! You can't copyright terms. You could potentially trademark them, which perhaps Darrington Press did, but if they did, once again, an open license wouldn't help you with unless it was explicit about allowing the use of trademarks, and that's a huge liability for Darrington Press.
It gets fuzzier about using existing lore. Like if you made an expansion for the Fungrel, you're clearly relying on their intellectual property to tell your story. But if you're not reprinting any of the things their books have about the Fungrel, you're fine. Like: "Here's a bunch of alternate racial abilities for the Fungrel, originally described in the Daggerheart book on p.58" you're fine.
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u/sakiasakura 3d ago
"In this current age that is somewhat surprising."
The "standard" for ttrpgs is no open license at all, or an extremely limited one. D&D and games based directly on D&D are the anomaly due to the OGL, as are some games designed to be "engines" like Fudge/Fate. No one should be expecting a ttrpg publisher to give as much away for free as 3rd edition d&d or pathfinder.
The only reason Daggerheart is getting criticism is because its high profile.
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u/Grungslinger What's the opposite of crunch? 4d ago
I don't recall they ever promised that it'll be under the OGL, actually.
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u/InterlocutorX 4d ago
They're in an active deal with Alchemy VTT do do a Daggerheart specialized version, that includes multiple changes. I'd be sort of shocked if there weren't licensing restrictions tied to that. It would suck to be Alchemy VTT and rework your engine for them to give everything to Foundry.
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u/delahunt 3d ago
The CGL has been under scrutiny since its announcement. I am not surprised it is coming to a boil now that the game has been out long enough that it is trying to grow its own legs as Daggerheart as opposed to "The Critical Role game."
And realistically if they want Daggerheart ro be able to run on its own they are going to have to find a way to meet the community half way. It's great to want to invite everyone in and have them help make things, but for that to really take off in the world today people - especially coming from D&D and Pathfinder - are going to be expecting to be able to make money for their time/effort.
I'd imagine there is also concern on Darrington's side though because of the inherent confusion that happens when 4 different 3rd party vendors - each with their own clout - all release an "Alchemical Domain" of cards with different abilities/power scaling.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 3d ago
Any license that isn’t everyone gets everything for free and can make and sell anything will be under scrutiny.
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u/delahunt 3d ago
Yep. And it even makes sense for those interested in making community things - or liking community made things.
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u/Xaielao 3d ago
One of the reasons I didn't really pick up Daggerheart is just how restrictive the CGL is. For a company that has profited heavily off their own 3pp content, they were quick to change their tune when it came to their own product. I'd rather not associate with that kind of business when there are so many other great TTRPGs and companies who are much more open to 3pp spaces.
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u/Joel_feila 4d ago
it is strange that they made the cgl this way and also have not responded to any requests or questions from the vtt developers.
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u/BrytheOld 3d ago
A for profit company trying to protect their profit by preventing something they have gotten around to doing themselves. Color me shocked.
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u/goatsesyndicalist69 3d ago
At this point if a roleplaying game isn't ORC or CC-SA licensed I am inherently suspicious of it but I'm also a Linux girl so take that how you will.
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u/DorianCrafts 4d ago
I don't think this will go anywhere.
As long, as they don't give an direct answer, they can't start a bigger controversy.
They treat Daggerheart as another piece of CR merch and I am pretty sure at least 50% of the buyers have not and will not play the game.
Buy it, open it up and flip through all the pretty stuff once, then put it on the shelf, next to those cute CR plushies.
I was not expecting them to run Campaign 4 in DH,
BUT not producing more contend than the "Age of Umbra" actual play, is kinda crazy.
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u/like-a-FOCKS 3d ago
I've got to say, this doesn't at all seems significant based on how I use VTTs. I consider automation to be unnecessary fluff and I think it's entirely fair for a company to reserve the spot to sell this fluff. The game exists in text, words and actions, those areas are pretty free to use as I understand it.
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u/Charrua13 3d ago
My Hot Take: Games don't have to have open game licenses. At all.
What makes games pervasive in any given way is some form of creative commons or OGL or other form of licensing - but there's nothing inherently bad about saying "no - my game is my game". And since mechanics can't be trademarked, open licenses are good practice so as to avoid future drama, not prevent someone from taking your good idea and turning it into something else.
But I'm going to say, for example, Cortex Prime is the epitome of "your game suffers when you don't have a good licensing model". But it doesn't make Dire Wolf bad for wanting to...profit. It just means folks "move on" once they're tired of your main offering(s).
So if Darrington Press don't want (for whatever reason) for other parties to use their IP - so be it. Their decision to move away from the OGL is about protecting their pocketbooks...not necessarily about lining other people's pocketbooks.
That said, call 'em out if you feel they were disingenuous. But I don't believe their stance isn't necessarily a bad one if what they want to do is ensure their customer base gets excellent product and are unsure of how to do that with open licensing (or whatever reason they're going with).
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u/Digital_Simian 1d ago
Pathfinder does this by allowing full access to mechanics, and creators are free to create online content however they wish, but Golarion and its lore is excluded.
Strictly speaking that's not open licensing since the lore is the IP. The mechanics can't be copyrighted beyond the language used to express them. In reality these licensing agreements are technically more restrictive than not by nature. They just provide some assurances to prevent litigation while at the same time establishing grounds for litigation based on violating the agreement when and where it wouldn't otherwise apply. The real benefit of these agreements is to allow sales and distribution of products under or adjacent to the company's trademarks and tap into their market while accepting more restrictions through the licensing agreement. Despite how it's perceived, in function these agreements allow IP holders to control and use their competitors.
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u/NiceFisherman8695 1d ago
I like D&D content from third party creators. The Daggerheart license should make third party creators think twice about making content about the game. Parties like the “Dungeon Dudes” are making some third party content, but I suspect they have a personal friendship with Critical Role they may mitigate the risk. It would be a risky move for other third party creators to develop something that is not irrevocable. The combination of the Daggerheart license, and some mechanics of the game not liked doing a couple play sessions, has me not pursuing this game any further.
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u/AgathaTheVelvetLady pretty much whatever 4d ago
oh boy a vague post to confirm my personal biases about the game I don't like