Intro

Hello, everyone!

Draw Steel is a pretty cool game, if I can say so myself, but it’s still medieval fantasy… A nice flavor of medieval fantasy, but medieval fantasy nonetheless.

What would happen, though, if you took the Draw Steel engine and put it on a different setting? Say… ’90s Tokyo?

Night Shift: Devil Division

You’ve probably already heard about it, but Night Shift: Devil Division is an upcoming TTRPG by Slightly Reckless Games that’s currently crowdfunding on BackerKit.

This will be, as far as I can tell, the first Powered by Draw Steel system and I couldn’t be more excited about it!

In Devil Division, you play as a “badass shonen anime character kicking the piss out of grotesque Devils and Monsters in 199X Tokyo.”

Let me be clear: this tactical, heroic, cinematic, ANIME! This alone would be enough to get me interested.

But also look. At. This. Art! No, seriously. Look at it! Look at it! This is crazy!

I know it sounds like it, but this video is not an ad. I’m not being payed to talk about Devil Division; I haven’t even gotten a free copy.

I was just really hyped for this new game and Sacha Lightfoot, the lead writer for the project, agreed to talk to me about some of the cool things they’re working on.

And there’s plenty of cool stuff!

The Devil Division system is still Draw Steel at its core, but with some interesting tweaks to make it more streamlined and, at the same time, better suited for a Jujutsu Kaisen-style game.

For example, instead of individually-named heroic resources, all classes gain Momentum. Each one does it in a different way, but the name is the same.

Also, they have consolidated hero tokens and surges, creating a single pool of what they’re calling Adrenaline.

But there are also bigger changes like, instead of a single renown track, Devil Division has two: clearance and signature.

Clearance being your reputation with the eponymous Division, the for sure good people that you’re working for.

While signature is your reward for getting closer to the devils that you’re supposed to be killing and capturing.

And, unlike renown, clearance and signature give you access to different kinds of cool stuff: better loadouts and pay, or access to Under Tokyo black markets and cursed items.

Other major additions are ascendant techniques and vault techniques.

The former being powerful, class-specific abilities that you must unlock before using.

And, when you do unlock one during combat, you can narrate a flashback explaining how you got it.

The latter, though, are probably my favorite thing about this game.

Because vault techniques are abilities that you can acquire by negotiating with the devils that you’ve detained and brought back to the Division.

Which transforms the past villains of your campaign into plot engines that just keep on giving.

At this point this is me just gushing! But there’s still more!

They’re also simplifying negotiations, replacing downtime projects with a less granular “on leave” mechanic, adding banter between rounds, and creating a chase system based on montages that uses a randomized deck of obstacles.

And, like, this is still not set in stone yet, but there could be up to 12 character classes? All with tactical guidance for players?

This is gonna be good, y’all.

Anyway, if you thought this sounds cool, make sure to check out Night Shift: Devil Division on BackerKit right now.

It’s gonna be over 600 pages and you don’t need the Draw Steel books to play it. The link is in the description.

See ya!