Welcome to the open beta playtest for our new game, Daggerheart! Within this document, you’ll find the rough draft of a rulebook that should help you to get started. Some important things to keep in mind as you make your way through this manuscript:
- The game is still in active development. There are parts that are outright not written yet. There are sections that are only partially written and will continue to expand.
Think of this like an earlyaccess video game—you might stumble upon portions that are unpolished, broken, or in flux. This is a look into the development process and an opportunity for you to give us your feedback before the rules are finalized. This manuscript is a living document, not yet put into any semblance of layout so that we can implement as many of your notes as possible and build this game together.
- This rulebook has not gone through an editor yet. We have one onboard who will work alongside us during this process, but they will not have the opportunity to polish until the manuscript is finalized. This means you will very likely find errors and omissions. If you spot a typo or grammatical error, please do not report this—these issues will be resolved in editing.
However, if any information is confusing, missing, in an odd place, or doesn't seem to work as intended, please tell us! We want to fill those gaps and make the rulebook as user-friendly as possible.
- The balancing of adversaries is still in an exploratory phase. Up until this release, we’ve adjusted the combat system numerous times in an effort to make it as fast and cinematic as we can, while also making it feel familiar and fair. Combat will need significant playtesting to ensure we get the right balance on class power, leveling, adversaries, and beyond–we’d love your feedback when you feel like things aren’t working.
- The art is all subject to change. Some pieces are placeholders, others are closer to finalization, and some are simply not available yet. The domain cards all share one image per domain and all subclass cards within a class currently have the same art. Each will have their own custom art in the final release.
- We will release new updates periodically during the open beta playtest cycle. When we do, we’ll note the changes in the Change Log so that you can update anything in your current campaign that might need it.
- Even though we are in beta, you can stream your games. You can make DPGL-compliant content for the game. We only ask that you make it clear that your project is using the Daggerheart Playtest, as the game’s mechanics will continue to evolve and we don’t want confusion when the final game comes out. Just keep in mind you can’t publish and/or sell any Daggerheart-related products quite yet. This is because we don’t want your product to become unusable because of a change we made. Once the game is published, this restriction will no longer be in place.
- There were many inspirations for this game. We encourage you to also check them out if you like what we’re making here. For a list of touchstones and inspiration, see “Touchstones” in the Introduction.
(from the introduction of the document)