Draw Steel Review: Perfect*

This video was originally published on YouTube. For links and references, please see that platform as this page only contains the transcript.

TL;DR

If you’re just looking for a TL;DR, here it is: Draw Steel is so good I started a YouTube channel and a podcast about it. That’s basically it. I didn’t say it’s perfect, but the game does what it set out to do really, really well.

If you want the longer version, though…

Intro

Hello, everyone!

A year and a half ago, Matt Colville’s MCDM crowdfunded a yet-untitled heroic fantasy TTRPG. Now that the game is finally out for backers, it’s time to answer the question: how good is Draw Steel?

First things first, it’s impossible to answer this in any meaningfully objective way; some people like some kinds of games, other people like other kinds of games. Period.

In the end, I can only give you my honest opinion on whether or not the game does what it says on the tin. And that’s exactly where we’re gonna start: the tin.

Book

Draw Steel is made up of two books: Heroes and Monsters. There’s no book for the GM, because all of the rules and advice are in the Heroes book; the goal here was to make it easy for any player to start running the game.

Since the physical books haven’t shipped yet, here’s what I thought of the PDFs: the art is truly breathtaking, the text is very precise but still evocative, and the layout is functional.

Some people might think it’s a little too functional, ending up kinda dry and stiff, but it didn’t bother me that much. According to the devs, the books are meant to be easy to use at the table, so their style resembles that of a game manual… Which is what they are.

What I want you to notice, though, is the little text right above ‘Draw Steel’: ‘Tactical Heroic Cinematic Fantasy’. And that’s how I’m gonna review the actual system: by assessing if they live up to each of these keywords.

System

At the core of Draw Steel is a very familiar setup: the main characters are heroes who have to fight bad guys in order to save the world. This will surprise literally zero people.

These heroes are also built pretty similarly to D20 characters: they have a background, an ancestry, a class, and a subclass. They even have scores and skills, which you add to your rolls; you know the deal, right?

But here’s where the similarities kind of end… The core mechanic of Draw Steel is called the Power Roll: you roll 2d10 and add the relevant modifiers; once you do that, you will not be checking if you meet or beat a DC.

Your result will instead fall into one of three tiers: 11 or lower, 12 to 16, or 17 or higher. Outside of combat, these usually work like Powered by the Apocalypse outcomes; Tier 1 being a failure, Tier 2 being a mixed success, and Tier 3 being a full success.

But in combat, all of your abilities that require a roll have a different effect for each tier. And you’ll notice that missing is never an option…

Controversial, I know, but hear me out! For starters, Draw Steel tracks Stamina instead of Hit Points, so even if you “miss” in the fiction, the enemy still had to spend some energy to avoid your attack.

Additionally, this means that monsters always hit as well! So combat in this game is always moving forward, there are no wasted tuns, there is never a situation where a players misses twice in a roll and has to spend a whole hour without playing the freaking game.

While we’re here, let’s talk about what combat looks like. First of all, it expects a grid; that’s almost non-negotiable because all of the distances are expressed in squares.

What the grid enables is a very dynamic and action-packed combat system. There is a lot of pushing and crashing into walls, no one stays put for more than a turn, and many abilities have cool effects that alter the battlefield.

On top of this grid are larger-than-life heroes who sport plenty of options; level 1 in this game is more like level 3 or even 5 in D20 fantasy. You always have multiple abilities at your disposal to use in different situations or to create cool combos with your party.

But the best thing about Draw Steel combat isn’t that you always hit or that even martial characters have cool options, no… It’s that you get more powerful as you adventure!

Everyone has free combat options that they can start using from turn one, but your strongest abilities spend your class’ Heroic Resource. This is something that you gain at the start of every turn and, more importantly, when you do stuff that agrees with your class.

The Fury, for example, gains more Ferocity when they take damage. The Troubadour, on the other hand, gains more Drama when three or more heroes combo together to use an ability each on the same turn.

What’s even cooler is that, for each combat won and for each challenge overcome, your hero gains a Victory. Each Victory allows you to start the next combat with one extra Heroic Resource, so you’ll be unlocking your most powerful stuff a little sooner.

You still have to rest at some point, of course, because your Stamina in still finite, but when you rest, your Victories go away. So you always want to push yourself as much as possible to take advantage of your Victories while you can.

This shift completely transforms your players, from people who keep whining “can we take a rest”, into actual heroes that keep pushing, keep fighting, keep going!

But enough about combat. Can this game do anything else? Even the book states in the very first line of text: this is a game about fighting monsters. It does not shy away from telling you exactly what its selling point is.

However, this doesn’t mean that the game is only about combat. Can you role play and interact with NPCs? Of course, and there is even a specific system for important negotiations. Can you explore and run skill challenges? Yup, and they give you some nice rules to run montage scenes.

So yes, combat is the centerpiece of Draw Steel. Fights usually run as long as D&D’s, but I promise that you won’t be bending yourself over backwards trying to make it go faster because it is fun as hell!

And when you’re not in combat there are still plenty of mechanics and flavorful stuff that the characters can do. Speaking of which…

Vibe

Ok, moving on from mechanics. Let’s talk at least a little bit about the vibe of Draw Steel; what’s the flavor like, what’s its style?

Well, if you didn’t know, this game calls its GM the Director; and this probably tells you everything you need to know about the vibe.

Every combat ability comes with a nice dash of flavor text, contextualizing what each power is actually doing in the story. Let me just show you a couple of examples from the Tactician…

‘Parry’ says ‘Your quick reflexes cost an enemy the precision they seek.’ But ‘Hammer and Anvil’ has a quote: “Let’s not argue about who’s the hammer and who’s the anvil!”

This flavor-forward approach goes even harder when you consider that they got rid of a bunch of stuff that usually just gets in the way of a cool narrative. The game assumes you have the adventuring gear you need, gold is abstracted into levels of wealth, and equipment comes in kits that work kind of like loadouts.

Another example are the ancestries themselves, which get a teeny tiny text about their biology and morphology, but a huge chunk of fiction, allowing you to see the world of the game through those people’s eyes.

And what a world… Most of it is pretty standard medieval fantasy-land, with small villages that need to be saved from goblin bands and a few cosmopolitan cities where mage guilds can flourish.

But there are a bunch of little twists that keep you completely hooked. Like, even the lowly dwarves now have skins infused with stone and beards made out of crystals.

And check this out: Hakaan, which are like their half-giants, can get a trait called Doomsight. This one I have to read…

“Working with your Director, you can predetermine an encounter in which you will die. When that encounter begins […] you automatically obtain a tier 3 outcome on tests and ability rolls, and you don’t die no matter how low your Stamina falls. You then die immediately at the end of the encounter, and can’t be returned to life by any means.”

Is that dope enough for you?

Meh

Before I leave you with my final thoughts, let me just make it clear that Draw Steel isn’t perfect; there’s plenty of stuff to get annoyed with in these 800 pages.

For starters, I think the game is a little too hard on new players. First-level characters are so complex that the Delian Tomb adventure that they’re putting out comes with simplified pregens to help newcomers get started.

And it even grows a little in complexity as you play! There are systems on systems on systems here… They have crafting, research, titles, perks, complications, leveled magic items, magic trinkets, and the list kinda goes on!

With regards to combat, as much as I absolutely love it, there’s just a tad too much tracking for my little brain to do. Even after so many sessions I still catch myself forgetting about a condition or a trigger that my character has.

Which brings me to one of Matt’s prime directives for Draw Steel: ’no oatmeal’, meaning no bland, generic, mid stuff that no one hates, but no one loves either.

The game is opinionated by design, and this will turn some people off! Is that gonna be you? Well, only you can tell.

Verdict

So, having said all of this, what’s my verdict? Let’s quickly recap…

At the core of Draw Steel is a deep combat system with loads of interesting choices and a gameplay loop that reinforces the heroic nature of the characters.

Around this core is a substancial layer of flavor and mechanics that help your story flow without getting bogged down by gritty realism. And to top it all off, it has a world full of dragons and goblins ready to be slain.

If I did my job well, you’ll realize that what I said is that Draw Steel is a game of tactical, heroic, cinematic fantasy.

Is it a good game? 100%… If you like tactical, heroic, cinematic fantasy. You might not, and that’s totally fine! But it doesn’t mean that the game is bad, just that it’s not for you.

If you think it is for you, though, make sure to follow my humble channel for more Draw Steel content (one of which is coming out tomorrow). Also follow my friends Goblins Points for Draw Steel news and interviews, and Rise Heroes Rise! for all of your actual play needs.

In case you want to introduce your friends to Draw Steel, check out my video on the subject and take a look my recent adventure: You Meet in an Ambush. Links below.

That’s all for today. Thank you very much and goodbye.