Age of Adventure RPG vs Daggerheart

Compare Age of Adventure RPG and Daggerheart side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Age of Adventure RPG	Daggerheart
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Play Style	Rules-Light, Classic Fantasy, Heroic, Player-Only Rolls, Roll to Cast, Low-Prep, Random Tables, Open Source	Narrative, Collaborative, Heroic, Roleplay-Heavy, Fiction-First, Theater of the Mind, Character Building, Drama, Beginner-Friendly, Character-Driven
Core Mechanic	Each Hero picks a single Proficiency number from 2 to 5. MIGHT actions (physical, martial) count d6 results equal to or under that number as Successes; MIND actions (mental, complex) count results equal to or over it. Roll 1d6 by default and add bonus dice for being Skilled, Prepared, Helped, or carrying the right Item. Rolling the Proficiency number exactly on a successful check earns a Hero Point, spendable for extra dice, rerolls, +1 damage, or a true in-world answer from the GM. Only players ever roll: enemy attacks resolve as automatic player Reaction Checks against the same Proficiency, with Block (1 less damage) or Dodge (no damage) chosen by the defender.	Roll 2d12 Duality Dice (Hope + Fear) and add modifiers vs. difficulty. Which die rolls higher determines whether the moment swings toward the players (Hope) or the GM gains Fear tokens to spend on complications. In combat, adversary attacks roll d20 + modifier against target's Evasion.
Dice	d6 dice pool	2d12
Complexity	Low	Medium
Accessibility	High	Very High
Runnability	Medium	Very High
License	CC BY 4.0	Darrington Press Community Gaming License (DPCGL)
Cost	Free / $	$$$
Publisher	Adrian Young Games	Darrington Press
Year	2025	2025
Best For	Groups who want a complete heroic fantasy game they can start playing the same night: everything from character creation to campaign play fits in a twelve-page zine, with classic fantasy races and class archetypes already built in.	Groups who want heroic fantasy with emotionally driven storytelling, where every roll shifts momentum between hope and fear. Great for Critical Role fans and narrative-focused tables.
Highlights	A single Proficiency number from 2 to 5 defines a character's physical-versus-mental lean in one decision, so building a Hero is a thirty-second commitment rather than a stat-by-stat exercise: high favors MIGHT (roll under), low favors MIND (roll over). Only players roll dice, even on defense: every enemy attack triggers an automatic Reaction Check from the targeted Hero, so the GM is free to narrate threats while every die at the table belongs to a player. Encounter Levels are calculated as Size × Actions × Challenge plus armor and shield bonuses, then summed across the party, giving the GM an at-a-glance balance number to scale opposition without writing statblocks.	Every action roll uses 2d12 Duality Dice, and whether Hope or Fear lands higher hands momentum to the player or the GM. Combat runs fiction-first with no fixed initiative, so the spotlight passes by the action rather than a turn order. Characters equip abilities as domain cards drawn from two domains, building a loadout the player can swap between.
Considerations	Magic is limited to six Arcane and six Holy spells that Wizards and Clerics know in full from creation, with no spell progression, new spells, or list customization across a campaign. Damage caps at 2 points per hit and Stamina maxes at the Proficiency number plus armor, so combats resolve in a few rounds without granular HP attrition or extended tactical play. Character advancement between adventures is limited to gold rewards and a +1 starting Hero Points carryover: there are no levels, experience tracks, or stat increases that meaningfully change a Hero over the course of a campaign.	The domain-card system runs best with printed cards, though it can be played from the character sheet alone. Players and the GM use asymmetric rules, so each side has its own procedures to learn. Mechanics are tied to the game's own setting and ancestries, which takes work to reskin for another world.