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Today's the day, TTRPG fans! After months of waiting, Darrington Press's Daggerheart is finally out at a game store near you. The tabletop game, co-created with Critical Role's Matt Mercer, has been eagerly anticipated since it's annoucnement, and now it's actually available to play. As you might imagine, the gang over at the r/Daggerheart subreddit (of which yours truly is a member) are popping off, with images of their brand new deluxe editions and conversations over what they're most excited to play. But those redditors' involvement goes beyond just release day revelries - according to the people who crafted Daggerheart, the Reddit commmunity was vital in creating the game.

Ahead of the big day, Popverse sat down with Daggerheart developers Rowan Hall and Spenser Starke, who you may remember from Popverse's coverage of the Daggerheart panel at PAX East 2024. Asked about how the fanbase factored into the creation of the game, Hall & Starke had much to say.

"Just from a designer perspective," began Hall, "I feel very lucky to have the Reddit community. They they built it. It's all incredibly kind people who are very thoughtful teaching each other different tips and tricks on TTRPGs. It's also nice to see what people are enthusiastic about. I think when we were doing the open beta [of the game], we had 150K people show up and play test and help us. We never could have made a game at this scale without so many people playing, and then updating the rules, and then playing again, and telling us what they thought. Folks on Reddit made a particular effort to give us really deep insights from their own table, and go above and beyond and design and work on fixes. It was all incredibly thoughtful."

Stark agrees, saying that crucial to a game's success is how information is conveyed from designer to GM to player.

"How am I conveying these rules?" Stark says the designers must ask, "How we conveying the rules to the GM? What's the conversation that we have with the GM via the rules, or with the players via the rules? What is coming? What is the conversation from the rules to the to the players? [...] Having a community means that you are building the lifeforce of the game. We're really lucky that Reddit is one of those places that exists on the internet, that allows people to come together and share ideas and thoughts and help each other. For me, a game is nothing unless there's people playing."

And even beyond release day, the designers agree, there's a huge part that the Daggerheart reddit and communities like it will play, as the game continues to expand.

"I feel very lucky," concludes Hall, "that we work in an art form where the 'final product' is never finished. [...]  Every time someone picks up a TTRPG and interprets it differently - adds their own rules or tweaks rules or makes new lore - the game changes. It allows it to change between different people and it continues to be this conversation that's ebbing and flowing between the designers and the GMs and the players. It reinforces the idea that there is no right or wrong way to enjoy a game."

Daggerheart is available now.

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