Daggerheart vs The Black Hack
Compare Daggerheart and The Black Hack side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Daggerheart | The Black Hack | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Narrative, Collaborative, Heroic, Roleplay-Heavy, Fiction-First, Theater of the Mind, Character Building, Drama, Beginner-Friendly, Character-Driven | Rules-Light, Dungeon Crawl, Hackable, Beginner-Friendly |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | Players roll d20 under their attribute scores to succeed at actions. Advantage and Disadvantage (roll 2d20, pick best or worst) modify difficulty. Armour provides a pool of d6 Armour Dice that absorb damage. Consumable resources use a Usage Die chain (d20→d12→d10→d8→d6→d4→gone): roll 1–2 to downgrade. |
| Dice | 2d12 | d20 + d4–d12 |
| Complexity | Medium | Very Low |
| Accessibility | Very High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Medium |
| License | Darrington Press Community Gaming License (DPCGL) | The Black Hack Open Game License |
| Cost | $$$ | $ |
| Publisher | Darrington Press | Gold Piece Publications |
| Year | 2025 | 2018 |
| Best For | 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. | Groups wanting a fast, hackable OSR dungeon-crawling game with modern design sensibilities: roll under attributes, abstract distances, and usage dice that track resources without bookkeeping. |
| Highlights | 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. | Highly hackable: spawned an entire subgenre of 'X Hack' games, core rules fit in about 30 pages, Usage Die tracks resources without inventory math, armour-as-dice-pool adds a tactical layer, conversational writing style makes rules easy to learn |
| Considerations | 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. | Only 4 classes (Warrior, Thief, Cleric, Wizard) in the core, limited character customization beyond class and background, no setting included, light on GM guidance compared to larger games, may lack depth for long campaigns |