Daggerheart is a brand new narrative-driven TTRPG from Darrington Press, and it is one of the most anticipated game releases of the year. That is hardly surprising, as Daggerheart features a slick design, cinematic fast-paced combat, tons of exciting character options, and a number of tools for gamemasters to run the game exactly the way they want. Lots to love there.

Daggerheart is also very visually appealing – not only because of the gorgeous art, but also because tactile interactions are baked into the mechanics: character sheets, cards for character options, tokens, and dice are all meant to be interacted with in play. This is an amazing touch, and it is sure to make playing Daggerheart around a table a very engaging experience.

But what about online play – what virtual tabletop (VTT) should you use? Should you even use one?

While it is tempting to answer these questions with the classic: “It depends” (which would be true), I will instead give you a brief overview of available options, their appeal, and  throw in my opinion towards the end.

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Important Context

Before we jump into the discussion, let me postulate an important assumption. Daggerheart is a narrative-first game that encourages improvisation and emergent collaborative storytelling. As such, Theater of the Mind (TotM) style of play is likely to occupy a large portion of any good Daggerheart game, no matter what other tools are used. It is absolutely viable to run Daggerheart using only Theater of the Mind. What we are trying to find out here is what virtual tools can be used to accompany and enhance that style of play – and how. Let’s keep that in mind for the rest of the read.

With that framing in place, we will start with some numbers – we like numbers, don’t we?

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What Do the Numbers Say

First, I went to search for open Daggerheart games on StartPlaying. This, of course, only shows games with available seats, so the number of results was limited – only 13 listed, mostly offered by the same few Gamemasters. Already here, the variety of options is apparent: among listed platforms are Roll20, Alchemy, Owlbear Rodeo, and Live Terrain with Minis.

Then, I decided to ask the lovely community in the Darrington Press Discord. The results here were also quite varied:

In this poll with 28 unique votes, Foundry Virtual Tabletop pulled slightly ahead, followed closely by Roll20, and quite a few people said they ran Daggerheart using purely Theater of the Mind. In addition to the options listed above, one person mentioned they run Daggerheart on Talespire (a 3D VTT) and one other person – Google Slides (amazing use of both the tool itself and one’s free will). Several people commented and reaffirmed our assumption about how most games utilize TotM play in conjunction with a VTT. 

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Why use a Virtual Tabletop for Online Daggerheart Play

So why use a virtual tabletop at all? Afterall, Daggerheart has not even been released at the time of writing, and as such, there is no official VTT support yet.

I would list three main reasons why one would want to use digital tools to aid them in online play:

• To help players with aphantasia (difficulty visualizing things mentally) by providing imagery and handouts. Imagination is a spectrum: some people have very vivid imaginations, while others struggle with their mind’s eye to varying degrees. Up to 4% of all people in the world are estimated to have aphantasia. Having a simple stock image of a forest they are travelling through can help these players get more immersed.
• To have one place for storing and keeping track of things. As mentioned earlier, Daggerheart has quite a few elements to keep track of in play: in addition to character sheets, there are ability tokens, various trackers and countdowns, and any custom additions.
• To use battlemaps or zone maps for combat. Combat in Daggerheart is so dynamic, cinematic, and versatile – the latter quality allows us to run combat encounters in our preferred style. While it can function without a map, you might want to be ready to provide some form of visual aid for your players, especially if they are coming from a more rigid combat system like D&D or Pathfinder that usually utilizes gridded battlemaps. At the minimum, I usually at least put tokens on the screen for my players to see how many enemies they are dealing with. You might want to use a traditional top-down battlemap, or you could adopt a combat zones / range bands map, such as ones used for Cypher System, Alien RPG, and other games that utilize ranges over strict measurements.

Note that the second point can be answered, at least, on the players’ side, by using Demiplane, a platform that provides official character tools and digital rules compendia for a variety of games, including Darrington Press’ Candela Obscura and Daggerheart.

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Our Top Three Picks

Now, let’s go over the most common Virtual Tabletop options. We are not aiming to list all of the VTT’s in existence, but rather focus on the select few that seem to be the most commonly used by Daggerheart gamemasters.

Roll20

Darrington Press have been partnered up with Demiplane for Daggerheart since Open Beta Playtest. Since then, Demiplane has been purchased by Roll20. When Daggerheart became available for digital pre-order, it was announced that there would be some form of integration between Demiplane and Roll20.

While it’s showing its age in some aspects, it remains one the most popular Virtual Tabletop platforms for online play. It is easy to get into, and it has had some facelifts recently, so between these factors and the Demiplane integration, Roll20 is poised to be one of the best options available to play Daggerheart online.

FoundryVTT

Foundry continues to rise in popularity due to the combination of robustness, customizability, and modern development sensibilities. This is my VTT of choice almost no matter what game system I run – that includes Daggerheart.

Example of my setup: animated scene by CzePeku, Daggerheart pause button, Fear Tracker, and a simple Duality Dice roll macro in Foundry.

There is just so much you can do in Foundry that you can’t do in other Virtual Tabletops. That is also its main downside, admittedly: it requires a slightly higher degree of technical competence from the gamemaster. 

While we have not had confirmation of official support for Daggerheart, the Foundry community is amazing and has created and maintained a lot of game systems over the years. With the amount of interest in the game, we can expect a community-developed implementation even if we do not get an official one.

Owlbear Rodeo

Free, straightforward, and user-friendly, Owlbear Rodeo is a great option if you want to get a light setup up and running very quickly. It offers a solid suite of base capabilities that should be enough for you to play a game of Daggerheart without the virtual tabletop getting in the way. It even supports animated images and maps! 

Unlikely to have anything like an official Daggerheart implementation, it should still be completely fine to use for the game.

Honorable Mention: Alchemy VTT

In my opinion, Alchemy has a lot of potential to be one of the best VTT’s for Daggerheart. If you haven’t heard of it, Alchemy is a Virtual Tabletop in development that promises to provide tools for a cinematic theater of the mind experience. It does also support battle map functionality. 

We have not heard anything official about a Daggerheart implementation as of now, but in theory – this could be a match made in heaven. 

Other Virtual Tabletops

There are many other options, of course, from Talespire to RoleVTT to Google Slides. As a recent puppy-dad, I unfortunately do not have the time to try and test each one of them. Luckily, StartPlaying has compiled a comprehensive list of the various Virtual Tabletops in this blogpost. 

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Conclusions

So, what Virtual Tabletop should you use for your Daggerheart game? 

As far as support for the game, Roll20 and, most likely, FoundryVTT seem to be your best options as of now. It remains to be seen which other Virtual Tabletops will provide support for Daggerheart.

As for everything else, the answer remains, after all of the above: it depends.

And before you get mad at me – it really does depend on your and your group’s playstyle and preferences. Use the Virtual Tabletop that helps you enjoy the game the most – or at least, does not get in the way of you enjoying the game. Even not using a virtual tabletop is completely fine.

If you do have a preference, StartPlaying’s search engine allows you to filter by platform, including Theater of the Mind.

 Thank you for reading. Have fun in your games, and may you always roll with Hope (or at least 54.17% of the time).

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Danil is a data engineer, a dog-dad, and a professional gamemaster from Norway, running a variety of games, including Daggerheart, over on StartPlaying.Game