Daggers and Hearts in Space: Adapting Critical Role's New Game System for Sci-Fi Games

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Adapting popular rule sets to other genres is a common tool among game designers. The number of Mork Borg clones that are not dark fantasy is a great example of this. Daggerheart is still one of the newer systems, but its open game system and popularity has inspired two different projects to try and do sci-fi this way. One is The New Unknown, a new rulebook written with the help of Daggerheart writers that’s crowdfunding today. The other is Rigamaroll, a professional actual-play that runs two parallel stories using the Daggerheart ruleset, including one set in a sci-fi setting and mechanics.

Interview with EuryDice about The New Unknown and Doing Daggerheart in Space

The New Unknown is a new book published by new TTRPG publisher EuryDice, who describe themselves as 3 friends making Daggerheart content. The book is a full sci-fi book that provides classes, ancestries, communities and all the tools required to make a character in Daggerheart, but in a sci-fi setting. It’s a rather large project to pursue, but the team has acquired the assistance of writers from Daggerheart to assist.

TTRPG Insider spoke with Chris (one-third of EuryDice) about the project and what they’re doing with it.

What's the story of this project? Where did it come from?

EuryDice: This project started as what we called “just a small sci-fi conversion, nothing fancy”. That was over a year ago. Alexander (also known as Tenawa, one of the Mods on the Daggerheart Sub-Reddit) came up with the idea and gathered two close friends, Flo and Chris, for a creative collaboration. We are all connected by the passion for TTRPGs as players and also creators - Alexander has been publishing homebrew content for Daggerheart for over two years now, Flo is studying Game Design and Chris is a storyteller with a Diploma in Screenwriting. So when we got together the once thought to be small conversion grew into something much bigger with its own identity and after a successful announcement on Reddit we somehow overnight built a Community, that is now over 450 Patreon strong and very active. With that kind of backing the project became what it now is: a fully Daggerheart compatible sci-fi Core Rulebook called “The New Unknown” (TNU).

Why use Daggerheart to make a sci-fi supplement? I know some creators have made their own sci-fi APs using Daggerheart so far, but this is the first supplement I've seen. It appears like you've recoded the game's mechanics to fit the Daggerheart style in the same way that games like Everyday Heroes use basic d20 mechanics to tell their distinct storytelling styles

EuryDice: Alexander was the first one to come in contact with the Daggerheart system, he fell in love with its narrative-focused mechanics and quickly “infected” the rest of us. We feel like Daggerheart perfectly supports heroic stories and explorative campaigns like we envisioned for “The New Unknown”. It’s not too rule-heavy, and especially with the Domain and Class cards, very beginner-friendly. Through the Duality dice, it also gives the Players a chance to directly influence their fate, which feels fair to them and allows the gamemaster a more collaborative approach than other systems. We wanted to incorporate all these things to transport some of the spirit that makes Daggerheart such a great system into space.

Was there any collaboration with Darrington Press, or were these just projects that also involved Daggerheart writers?

EuryDice: No, there is no collaboration with Darrington Press. We’re not affiliated with them in any way, other than using the Daggerheart compatible brand. BUT we were lucky enough to be supported by some of the creatives who worked on the original Daggerheart corebook (which was a rather fanboy- and fangirl-ish moment for us, to be honest). Chris Davidson will create some of the Adversaries for TNU, together with Alan Tucker, he also acted as an advisor for our Kickstarter campaign, and Carlos Cisco did a very lovely Interview with us for the Daggerheart Dispatch. They were all super supportive, nice and open to talk to us and we honestly can’t thank them enough!

Why play this game over other sci-fi games?

EuryDice: There’s more than one reason for sure. One being: if you like the Daggerheart system, core rules and overall flair, you can find these in a space setting playing TNU. But as it is not just the sci-fi conversion that we originally intended, there is much, much more. We’ve built our own ruleset for spaceship building and space combat, new card mechanics, and four unique Campaign Frames that introduce Players to a variety of exciting settings ranging from sweeping space opera and upbeat exploration to gritty, dark, and stylish cyberpunk. All of these are tightly interwoven with the Classes, Communities, and Equipment that we created for the book. We have around the same scope as the Daggerheart Corebook.

What's something you're most excited about within this book?

Eury Dice: We truly hope this book can be a beginning. We already have a lot of ideas, what we want to add, how we want to continue with the stories and the world building. Our community helps us to come up with even more. But we also want TNU to be a playground for other creatives and homebrewers. We’d love to inspire other storytellers and hope we can give back a little to the community that so wholeheartedly welcomed us during our development process.

You can check out THE NEW UNKNOWN on Kickstarter here.

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Rigamaroll Explores He-Man-esque Adventure in Limited Run Daggerheart Campaign

The other project that has attempted to explore what a science fiction story with Daggerheart looks like is Rigamaroll, an AP launched earlier this year by United eSports founder Felix Lahaye¹ and a team of other creators.

“We wanted to do a blending of genres,” Lahaye told TTRPG Insider. “Half the team is sci-fi and half the team is fantasy. We wanted to do a genre-blending show and were tinkering with Daggerheart as a system. So we decided to pivot to this?”

The show involves a notable amount of production and involves several VAs and actors from Hollywood, including Matt Lowe (Blood of Zeus, Brooklyn 99, Arcane), Joe Zieja (Marvel Rivals, Fire Emblem, Genshin Impact), Crystal Lee (Bratz, Genshin, Barbie), as well as Samuel Forbes, Sam Van Helsing, Janlle Kester, and Colin Search. Nearly all the players are lifelong TTRPG fans, according to Lahaye, although this is the first time many of them have played together.

The story focuses on the land of Synthara, the setting where two separate parties (one fantasy and sci-fi) end up on separate journeys whose actions may impact the other.

The goal was to create a coherent world with the vibes of He-Man or ThunderCats, but lean into the distinct blend of sci-fi and fantasy that both popular 80s cartoons initially explored, including custom rules and classes for the sci-fi part of the game.

The show is a single season with 12 episodes so far with a slowly growing audience on YouTube so far. The AP has received some hype from Darrington Press, who has gone out of their way to promote the various Daggerheart APs that have appeared on the market (such as Dodoborne, who we interviewed last year.)

It remains to be seen if additional seasons will be made, although Lahaye was hopeful about the show’s future.

You can check out Rigamaroll here.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to [email protected].

1  The project is separate from United eSports, which is a nerd/geek-oriented marketing agency with a long history in the gaming community