Hooked on Crafting: Quest Hooks for Draw Steel
This video was originally published on YouTube. For links and references, please see that platform as this page only contains the transcript.
Hooked on Crafting
Hello, everyone. I’m making a thing! And I need your help to finish it…
Draw Steel has a pretty cool crafting system. Most treasures and projects in the game can be crafted by the heroes themselves during downtime! To get started, they just need an instruction manual and an item prerequisite.
Since these prerequisites are all detailed in the Heroes Book, the players are expected to get curious and ask you stuff like…
‘I really wanna craft a Black Ash Dart, where would one find three vials of black ash?’
Sometimes it’s reasonable for crafting prerequisites like this to just show up in the next adventure! But, other times, you might want to make finding them an adventure onto itself…
This is where my upcoming supplement for Draw Steel comes in: Hooked on Crafting.
This bad boy right here will give you a punchy quest hook and a suggested mechanic for every single crafting prerequisite in Draw Steel! For example, here’s the entry for a vial of black ash:
Stealing from the Imperial University in Capital and from the best thieves in Orden at the same time is out of the question—it is much safer to talk directly to Professor Talia Greco, the person responsible for the University’s supply of black ash. She’s open to negotiating and, luckily, she’s not above being bribed.
You can use this as inspiration for a side quest, weave it into a running campaign, or even share it as a little piece of world-building! The hooks are meant to be light on mechanics, and heavy on flavor.
Then comes a mechanical bit. This can be a negotiation, a montage, a combat, a test, or even a monster! These are meant to be flexible and broadly applicable, so you can deploy them whenever they’re needed.
I have already written a bunch of these, but there are about 200 craftables in total, so this is where I ask for your financial help…
If this product sounds useful to you, I have set up a crowdfunding campaign on itch.io to help me get Hooked on Crafting through the finish line.
The campaign will be running until December 17th and, if you back during this period, you’ll pay only ten bucks and receive the finished PDF around Q3 2026.
If you’re already sold, head to thedicesociety.itch.io/hooked-on-crafting to see a product preview and back the project! But, if you need a little more information, let’s do a quick FAQ.
FAQ
Ok, now I’m gonna try to answer the questions I would be having if I had just heard this pitch. Starting with…
Who the f- are you?
My name is Caio, but most people know me as The Dice Society. I’ve been making Draw Steel content for almost two years now, since the beginning of MCDM’s BackerKit campaign.
I host a podcast covering news, make YouTube videos teaching people how to play, and sometimes also write supplements like this.
My first Draw Steel adventure, You Meet in an Ambush, has been very well received with 700 downloads, so I do know a thing or two about the game. I hope you trust me!
What do you need my money for?
First and foremost, this is not an “all or nothing” campaign. I’ll still make the product if we don’t reach the funding goal, but it will be much more bare-bones.
If we do reach the goal of 1000 dollars, though, you’re helping me afford an editor, more art, and some cool collaborations from other Draw Steel creators.
In case we surpass this goal, then you get more art! More collaborators! Better layout! Original monsters! The sky is the limit.
How does a crowdfunder work on itch.io?
Since Kickstarter and BackerKit don’t work in my country, I decided to crowdfund Hooked on Crafting through itch.io.
In practice, an itchfunder is a sale of a product that’s still in development. If you back the campaign right now, you’ll be paying a discounted price in exchange for waiting a few months until the finished product is available.
Once the PDF is done, I’ll just update the product page and you should get an email with a download link. Super simple!
Will there be a physical version?
Nope.
Do you use or are going to use AI in this project?
Nope.
I have a different question!
If you have any further questions that haven’t made it into this video, please post a comment on the itch.io page. I’ll do my best to help you in a timely fashion.
Is this video over?
Yes!