At GenCon 2025, I worked as volunteer through Envoy/Double Exposure to run 45-minute demos of Daggerheart, the new TTRPG from Darrington Press and Critical Role.
From Thursday through Sunday, I was tasked to take up the morning shift with several others to present a quick, condensed, optimized run-through of the first two chapters of the Daggerheart Quickstart Adventure. For those four days, we each were tasked with completing 20 runs of these 45-min sessions with fifteen minutes in between for overrun, resetting, and breaks. Altogether, it was 20 hours of dedicated table time in front of new groups of players 5-6 at a time running the same presentation over and over again.
… and looking back, I’m still not tired of running it. … Call me a glutton for punishment, but every single experience running this demo for brand new players was an entertaining experience with something unique for every group. Seeing the players eyes light up each time was a joy! … Every time we reached the end of the demo, it was a mix of laughter, shouts, and players wanting to continue the adventure, if it wasn’t for those pesky 45-min time limits.
Today, I want to share seven of my biggest takeaways from this experience. In its own way, this is a mashup of GM advice from someone who’s been running RPGs for over a decade, with reviews of the Quickstart Adventure, the general rules for Daggerheart, and the demoing experience itself..
Disclaimers
A few things before getting started! … I am not an employee of either Envoy/Double-Exposure, or Darrington Press, and my views and approach are not representative of their company culture or marketing campaign. Some words are going to be a bit evangelistic; I just happen to be someone who enjoys where this game is coming from. I think it is fair to observe that Daggerhearts buzz is starting to form a bandwagon, which is a sociological thing that can be hard to stomach especially when honest critique is important. That said, I’m feeling quite sold on the experience as a long time GM myself who truly appreciates narrative, active play, improvisation, and rulings over rules.
Many of the takeaways I highlight are the kind of things that long-time GM’s may consider fairly basic stuff. I’d argue that some things that may be considered basic to one are taken for granted in many games.
Also, I need to be clear out the gate that running the first two chapters of the Quickstart Adventure 20 times is by no means a full retrospective of the whole Daggerheart experience. … However, as with all things, analyzing the game through different lenses is key to get the fuller picture, and I hope to provide this as a lens that exists to analyze the fun little sandbox I’ve set up here.
And honestly, sometimes the best way to see the range of a system is by running the same segment multiple times with different groups of people and see what falls out!
1) The Art of Presentation
Yes, my friends! … The getting started adventure is some of the best I’ve read in bringing new players to the fore-front of how to play the game. Its simple to read, provides clear guidance to the GM, succinct in its execution as a tutorial, and (along with the Player and GM guides), it barely requires prep aside from a single skim-through beforehand.
One thing I absolutely love is the sidecar, a sheet which you can place on one side of the main character sheet or the other. The sidecar provides clear information on what each part of the sheet does, and is an amazingly quick way to consume the mechanical bits of a PC and answer some questions ahead of time.
Every table I ran at GenCon found this part to be a HUGE help in understanding the sheet as we followed along section-by-section. Plenty of positive comments from players in terms of how useful it is as a tool.
Additionally, quickstarts are there to condense the basic rules and deliver the tone of the setting, which not all games really succeed at for the ease of new players. This one is successful at providing clear and simple dice rolling opportunities, prompts for role play, and the basics of combat. Its as vanilla on the rules as it gets while still being open-ended enough to not be stale 20 runs later. Of course, I’ve worked to make my experience unique, and the game is one that highly supports changing up the status quo where needed.
2) Odds in the Heroes Favor!
As the game masters, we use the ever lofty and enigmatic d20 for our rolls. However, your players are special! They are a heroes! … Therefore, they have been granted the Duality Dice, a set of different colored d12s. One is the Hope die, and the other is the Fear die. When taking an action or attack, both are rolled together After tallying up and adding bonuses, you have your score! … If it equals or is above the difficulty, it is a success.
However, I’m going to sidestep to point something out. Its’ obvious to those looking at dice probability, but 2d12 puts the characters at an advantage in comparison to the GM.
Now, this doesn’t have a big effect against the games mechanics, which are built with this in mind. In fact, this empowers players with more capable characters. However, I believe that in demonstrating, I can make the argument for timid game masters that this is not a disadvantage, but an opportunity! … A keen-eyed Game Master sees this as a permission structure to challenge the players, and increase the heat in the kitchen! Its an invitation to take opportunities in their failures, play with the Fear component, and think strategically about combat and the environment.
3) Telling a Story with the Dice
The first opportunity to roll dice in the quickstart adventure occurs when the carriage containing the PCs is forced to stop due to a toppled merchant cart blocking the path.
In walks a Strixwolf , a wild majestic carnivore with the head of an owl, body of a world, and wings perched upon its back. In its beak is the severed hand of the dead merchant. Shortly after, two pups enter the scene, signaling that this is a mother.
The adventure poses that the characters should shoo away the creature (or interact with it in “other ways”). It is clear about the stakes of a success/fail, but there is more nuance to consider when approaching this scenario.
Success vs Failure is a staple of most tabletop RPGs. It makes an attempt to accomplish a steep climb, leap across a gorge, or strike an opponent with a sword a simple binary; a yes-or-no proposition. Deep down, we all know that its not like that in real life. When scaling a cliff, there are hundreds of decisions we take when reaching out to grab the next stone, along with any number of tiny incidents can happen.
However, in waltz Hope and Fear, and suddenly there’s more to play with. Not only is the simple binary shattered, but we have been presented an in-universe thematic construct with a spectrum of possibilities. To illustrate this, here are a few Presence rolls we took in-game, and how the encounter fared:
Success with Hope
The mother stands alert, but is far more curious than afraid, tilting its head 90 degrees as each of the PCs step out of the carriage. The PCs can carefully interact with the pups. All are amenable to offers of food. When noises of others lurking in the brush, the mothers alertness adds to the PCs Instinct roles.
Success with Fear
The mother is watchful, hooting to her children to stay behind her as she remains protective, but not showing aggression. The PCs are not allowed to interact with the pups, and attempts will be treated with aggression. She is amenable to food, but dont make any sudden moves.
Failure with Hope
The mother growls at the PCs and stands their ground. Any approach is met with threat of attack. Casual food offers are treated with suspicion. Someone who is keen on interacting with wild animals, or someone who can pose a magical distraction may be more successful in compelling the animals away.
Failure with Fear
The mother growls and snaps her beak at the first PC she sees. She hoot-howls as if calling for other Strixwolves. The PCs dont have a lot of time to beckon them away. Someone who is extremely careful (or large) can urge the animals to leave, but they risk being attacked.
Of course, we’re not limited to quad-results either if we feel so emboldened to expand the horizon. I am by all means in support of reviving those age old questions: “What do the numbers mean? What does a failure with 4 mean versus an 11?” … and additionally … “What does hope mean versus fear in this context?” … A game that actively supports rulings over rules and sensible narrative over strict-RAW is one that supports granularity in the result beyond rigid thresholds when the table seeks it.
4) Everyones a Scene Painter!
The quickstart adventure begins with the party travelling by carriage through the Sablewood. From the outset, it asks two questions of the players. One is simple: who is driving the carriage? The second is an open-ended invitation to the creators stage:
You’ve noticed something unique about the look of trees here in the Sablewood. What is it?
Running through this 20 times, I gathered together just a few descriptions the carriage driver provided to their surroundings, super brief:
- Mushroom forest with blue glowing spots, and glimmering spores.
- Bloody red-leafed birchwood with animated, pulsating vines.
- Gnarled, leafless trees straight out of a kiddie halloween decoration.
- Upside down trees with a canopy of roots with tiny fae creatures that hop and dance.
- Snowcovered trees, completely silent and serene. Perhaps too serene.
To the Daggerheart Core Rulebook, this exercises is the GM principle “Ask Them Questions and Incorporate the Answers”. To me, a 3-year improv student, this is a players invitation to engage in scene painting! … Scene Painting is an on-stage improv activity where performers set up the scene by dictating parts of the environment while (or before) a scene begins. They can play the role of a single narrator for a short time, or hand it off to the next person to add something more. This way, the audience can imagine the setting that the players are working in, which adds to the immersion.
Looking further into the quickstart adventure, there are only a few moments that prompt this, and I do feel this tool could have used more. However, this first opportunity is a fantastic initiator. … Even in less centralized GMing experiences, the power of handing the narrative and environmental descriptions over to the player cannot be overstated. Allowing them to step up to the plate and create with the game master is, I think, essential to a cohesive experience where the players are part of the creation process.
5) Rulings (of Cool) over Rules
... enter the "Tongue-tree Gambit"
Daggerheart is pulp fantasy at its core. The type of experience people expect of the game is deeply informed by its creators and associated media (mainly Critical Role). As it’s a game designed by people who love epic adventure stories, the stylings of the game represent a higher degree of narrative and improvisation. In fact, the importance of fiction is emphasized in the top line items of the player and GM principles found in the rulebook.
Player Principles (p.9)
- Be a fan of your character and their journey.
- Spotlight your friends.
- Address the characters and address the players.
- Build the world together.
- Play to find out what happens.
- Hold on gently.
GM Principles (p. 142)
- Begin and end with the fiction.
- Collaborate at all times, especially during conflict.
- Fill the world with life, wonder, and danger.
- Ask questions and incorporate the answers.
- Make every roll important.
- Play to find out what happens.
- Hold on gently.
Player Best Practices (p.108)
- Embrace danger.
- Use your resources.
- Tell the story.
- Discover your character.
GM Best Practices (p. 144)
- Cultivate a curious table.
- Gain your players’ trust.
- Keep the story moving forward.
- Cut to the action.
- Help the players use the game.
- Create a meta conversation.
- Tell them what they would know.
- Ground the world in motive.
- Bring the game’s mechanics to life.
- Reframe rather than reject.
- Work in moments and montages.
For the 45-min demos, that priority was “Present the basics, deliver it through narrative, hook the players with excitement!” … Granted, sometimes you encounter situations that require you to bend those rules. Even more importantly, when playing a game of big narrative ideas, sometimes you need to deliver on something cool! … How does a GM smush rules, narrative sense, and excitement into 45-minutes? … You switch things up!
Example: The Quickstart Adventure confronts the players with Thistlefolk Ambushers, three of which are ribbets (frog-like ancestry) according to their tokens. The fight is simple, but in my opinion, its too simple even as an introduction. The ambusher stat block is paltry at best, especially since a majority of the 5-6 person parties with past TTRPG experience almost always succeeded their roll to stop the ambush. How, then, shall we create a greater sense of danger and excitement in this narrow sliver of time?
Enter what I call the “Tongue-tree Gambit”. … When the “ambush” starts, instead of putting them on the ground, place each of them in a tree flanking either side of the trail. Then, give them an extra ability to use the Long Tongue feature from the PC ribbet stat block!
The strategy is simple; target the fairy PC first! … On a success, pull them into a tree, and follow up with a stab. For the other regular-sized folk, try to target weapons or limbs to complicate their ability to move or fight. If nothing else, use the height advantage to jump down upon a PC for some added damage.
The effects are precisely what a GM could hope for. Each time the gambit starts, the reaction from the table is “Oh snap!”, and suddenly they’re forced to think creatively, not simply as a GM’s game fudge but as a flexible combat prompt. Before you know it, you’ve taken an otherwise vanilla combat encounter, and posed logistical challenges for the PC’s to work through.
As GMs, we already know a lot about making these kind of modifications to a session as needed. In this case, I’m happy to report that each time I ran this gambit, it truly added to the players experience at the table.
6) Play with Fear! Progress the Stress!
Fear plays a tasty role in the combat and skill-challenge dynamics. Not only do rolls with fear throw the initiative back to the GM, those sweet, sweet Fear tokens provide you extra turns to your lovely monsters and nasty NPCs. However, they aren’t just there to provide the GM action economy. When you open up the more stark fear rolls to consequence, you might find yourself in a position of applying an additional complication in addition to the Fear token.
A bad projectile roll means ricochet. A terrible swing with a heavy maul means collateral damage. Too many people in a dead tree means the tree may begin to topple. A fearful spell-casting means magic bolts are deflected,… or a backfire, or an actual fire. Perhaps the mage failing the spell sees a visage of their strict professor scolding them for their recklessness, shaking their belief in themselves.
Aside from scene play, what about those rolls that are less environmental and more personal? … Why not apply Stress? … Stress is a soft-damage indicator which increases when some features or spells are used, when load outs are changed, or when a situation is consequential to the PC’s ability to keep it together. Once it maxes out, all added stress becomes HP damage. It’s a resource to be used, and the perfect soft gauge for danger without inflicting hurt directly.
However, after my 20 runs, it sincerely felt as if stress was designed to accumulate over a longer timeframe during a longer adventure. That risk of accumulating over a short session is low, especially in my case with 45-minutes of demo. My experience here is not representative of a full adventure, but I found myself at a few tables where after a Strixwolf confrontation and an Thistlefolk ambush, no stress was accumulated at all.
And yes… I’ve reviewed further into the adventure, and I know that the Forest Wraiths are a HUGE pain in the butt. However, wouldn’t it be sad to consider that it took as long as that latter encounter to justify stress? No. I don’t agree friends.
Here’s my affirmation of its existence as a resource: don’t underestimate the value of dialing up stress as a consequence for the especially bad roles involving fear, and create more environmental situations which may apply stress if they fail. It doesn’t matter how early in the adventure you are; rack that stress up in the early game when possible.
7) Tag Team Rolls are Amazing!
... and devastating (or hilarious) if they fail!
Capping off as many of my demos as I could, I presented the players with a key feature of Daggerheart combat. … One hero, having accumulated three Hope points, sees how victorious or drastic the situation has become. They turn to look at their compatriot, and they smirk. Nods are exchanged. Translation: “You and me, baby! Lets do this!”
The over-the-top metal music starts playing. Both heroes rush to position. Some hand-formations or chi-summoning gestures are made (optional). Then, they burst forward. Anime-style speed-lines and light beams follow behind them. Together, they perform a two-person epic maneuver using their chief weapon or powers to pool their attack, and come down on their foe with the power of friendship!
Tag Team Rolls provide an opportunity for two characters to choose the higher of their attack rolls, and stack their damage. Not only is it an opportunity for PCs to show off their stuff, but it creates a greater sense of cohesion between characters. There’s a sense that these adventurers can read each others cues making them natural compatriots, or that they have been adventuring for enough time to establish attack strategies or sequences of combat between each other. On the outside, it welcomes both players to explore the stage together, and engage in an action-oriented move shared between them.
However, what makes this grand is not just the potential for kick-ass moves, but the potential for delightful failure! … The odds of success are in the heroes advantage in many cases, but high risk doesn’t just mean high reward. It mean consequence as well. While this did not happen during the demos, the question came up in my mind multiple times. I’ve pondered some situations of a tag team failure which one might find in their games if the situation strikes right.
Hilarious Example
Imagine an acrobatic duo preparing a maneuver against a beast in a museum hall. They’ve been practicing for weeks, and now is the time for them to put their hard work into action. With all manner of eagerness and cockiness, one jumps on the shoulders of the other… when the one on the ground begins to lose balance. Panic ensues as the two-person formation begins running into vases, and knocking over displays while trying to regain footing. Unfortunately, the attempt ends up in both colliding with the wall, forcing a large tapestry to fall to the ground covering both of them.
Confronting them inside the university alchemist laboratory, the villain is about make off with the final unconscious victim needed for their bloody ritual at their keep in the mountains. Now may be the last time the party gets to stop them before they escape. A sorcerer begins to channel power into the arrow prepared by the ranger. The arrow flies, when the villain makes one hail-mary attempt to deflect the attack. The combined rolls of the PCs is not enough to overcome, as the arrow deflects, now firing and penetrating the cabinet filled with volatile components. The villain will escape, and the PCs have a new emergency to deal with.
Drastic Example
Granted, these are ideas off the top of my head as a GM. Players are not always amenable to exploring failure, so I imagine cases where these scene depictions are negotiated. Perhaps failed tag team rolls are still awesome in execution, but the adversary rises to the challenge to parry in a display of matched prowess. Some might even disagree with the notion of consequences, as the initiating player needs to spend precious Hope to pull off the maneuver.
That being said, I believe its a mistake to ignore consequence. … It is a mistake to view Hope tokens as pure benefit to the player. In the same way that Fear tokens are not there for the pure benefit of the GM but to add to the drama, Hope tokens should be seen in similar light when the situation is appropriate, and failure with stark consequences should be possible in the right moment. If big time failure wasn’t a possibility, why would the characters have to roll for it?
All that said, my main takeaway is that this has the potential for some challenging moments at the table, and GMs should discuss with their players how they want to navigate these situations beforehand. Understand what level of consequence the table is comfortable with. There is narrative power in executing moments which create a specific feeling at the table, as long as it adds to the experience and the table is ready for it.
This is nothing! … If you think 20 hours of GMing is a lot, try waiting more than 20 hours for your food bowl to get replenished. I swear I can just barely see the bottom of the bowl! … Its quite terrible!
It must be all of that time spent on that weekly newsletter called Dungeon Delve; a roundup of news, bundles, blog posts, and more. Have you tried to eat digital content before? It tastes like static!
Hoomans are ridiculous! Take it from a wise wizard such as myself!
Reach out and tell us your thoughts. … Go ahead! Ping my brain!
- Leave a comment down below!
- Reach out to me via the CW Contact Me page.
- Share on social media and poke @chaoticanwriter.
- 7 New TTRPG Experiences from GameHole Con 2025 - October 30, 2025
- Daggerheart Rewind: 7 Takeaways from Running 20 Demos in 20 Hours - August 17, 2025
- July 2025’s RPG Blog Carnival – The Roundup! - July 30, 2025
