Daggerheart vs Those Who Wander
Compare Daggerheart and Those Who Wander side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Daggerheart | Those Who Wander | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Narrative, Collaborative, Heroic, Roleplay-Heavy, Fiction-First, Theater of the Mind, Character Building, Drama, Beginner-Friendly, Character-Driven | Heroic, High-Fantasy, Character Building, Classless, Tactical, Worldbuilding, Vancian Casting, Crunchy |
| 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. | Roll d20 + ability bonus + proficiency bonus against a Difficulty Score. Abilities use direct modifiers (−1 to +5) instead of base scores, removing a calculation step from every roll. Character progression replaces classes and levels with a 20-step path: at each step you choose between two or more diverging features, and prerequisites gate later options. |
| Dice | 2d12 | d20 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | Darrington Press Community Gaming License (DPCGL) | Proprietary (free Essential Rules quickstart) |
| Cost | Free | $$ |
| Publisher | Darrington Press | Gnome Made Games |
| Year | 2025 | 2022 |
| 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 familiar with d20 fantasy who want deeper character customization, inclusive design covering any parentage pairing and accessibility for disabled characters, and long campaigns where each hero's 20-step path diverges from the rest of the party. |
| 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. | Parentage system inherits traits from any two birth parents across 15 peoples (dwarven, elven, human, halfling, avian, celestial, draconic, genie, gnoll, gnomish, goblin, kobold, infernal, orc, plus Complex Parentage) for hundreds of pairing combinations. Accessibility rules treat Blind and Deaf characters as mechanically viable heroes and integrate prosthetics and wheelchairs as part of the character. The 20-step branching progression replaces classes and levels: each step is a choice between two or more features that gate further specializations. Awakening heirlooms (weapons, armor, trinkets) gain new properties as characters take steps, growing in power and personality alongside their owner. |
| 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. | 477-page rulebook with substantial mechanical innovation in character creation requires significant reading before a first session. No adventures are included in the core rules: GMs must design their own scenarios or source from d20-compatible content. The steps system departs from familiar level/class structure, so players coming from d20 fantasy must learn a new progression model. No native rolled initiative: the storyteller chooses one of four ability-based turn-order methods at the start of each combat. |