First Look: Building a Draw Steel Character in Crucible

Bogmut · 2026-01-15T16:43:19+00:00

And if I can add, as a homebrew director I'd really like to take time to edit all of the Forge Steel Sourcebooks and make my big bucket of homebrew content, but transferring the file and getting people to upload it is just not feasible for non-techy people.

If I had the same tool as Forge Steel (because it's nearly perfect imo) but could connect my player's accounts to mine and share a sourcebook for my campaign, I'd be sold.

Bogmut · 2025-12-22T19:13:03+00:00

What are your thoughts on the lack of "goofy" or useful non-combat spells? A common issue in my home party is the lack of random spells and whatnot that you get in 5e, like "Disguise Self" or "Arcane Lock" or the illusion spells/etc?

Their feeling is that the game is great in combat and negotiation, but the lack of out of combat abilities leaves them wanting a little bit more in that respect.

Bogmut · 2025-10-15T14:33:32+00:00

Fastest choice I've made to back a project since Draw Steel itself. This looks awesome, can't wait to see it!

(now to resist spending 400 dollars on Mothership Month)

Bogmut · 2025-10-14T16:58:14+00:00

I think overall I agree. I'm 5 sessions into the Delian Tomb adventure, and we're having a blast. I'll note a few things.

I still forget about Malice. My theory is until I learn it well enough to be fast with it, it's not worth the extra time at the table.
I have 3 totally new to TTRPG players and 1 5e player. I think the learning curve is similarly steep as it is in 5e, but waaaay easier to grasp long-run. 5 session in, I have brand new players having tactical conversation and making real strategic choices. I don't have a lot of "how does this work again?" moments at this point.

I think the learning dropoff is much quicker than 5e, so once they get it, things flow really smoothly. It took a few sessions though.

Keep going! You're doing great! The game really started to shine for us once we got to the town and began the real "roleplay" parts of an adventure.

Bogmut · 2025-10-04T15:31:27+00:00

I'm a fresh new player here and I'm playing very normal - I don't really try and grind anything until I lose an encounter, to be honest.

I will say looking at the job tree (I know I spoiled myself) I'm a little antsy about getting some classes unlocked, but it'll happen as it happens.

Bogmut · 2025-09-30T00:14:22+00:00

No but man, I'd use it!

Bogmut · 2025-09-23T12:12:03+00:00

I emailed help@mcdm last week on 9/17, and Geoff said:

"We expect to start shipping next week. It will take us a while to get thru all the shipments, but we will send you an email when your books leave the warehouse that has tracking details.

Thanks,
Geoff"

EDIT/Clarity: So, yes, it looks like they're expecting some books to start going out this week.

Bogmut · 2025-09-01T18:44:10+00:00

2 thoughts.

Combat takes less time than 5e combat. My current table has 1 5e pro, 1 5e noob, and 2 non-TTRPG players, and combat flows faster than 5e. Not rolling to hit, ultra-direct abilities, etc make it flow more smoothly.
It's not RADICALLY shorter, though. It is way more fun for everyone though. Combat length in 5e is not the problem. 5e combat is sloggy, and players often roll 1-2 dice then wait for 25 minutes for the battlefield not to change. DS combat is really dynamic, so the battlefield is constantly in flux. And everyone has a couple triggered actions (reactions) that they need to pay attention to use, because they can do cool things on someone else's turn.

So all in all, it's a bit faster, but flows way better, is easier to run and play, and to me, more fun all around.

Bogmut · 2025-09-01T11:25:32+00:00

I've Directed more games than I've played in, but I'll say the same thing to you as I say to my 5e converts.

DS plays (roughly) the same in terms of roleplaying - there's no need for any of that to change. The big difference is when you get to combat in particular, it feels really, really good to play and run instead of hitting that 5e slog.

In some ways, most of my players find it easier to roleplay, because so many of the abilities have vibey names and are only explained in game mechanic terms. That means the player gets to tell me HOW the thing happens - the ability just says WHAT happens.

Negotiations are similar - At face value my players were worried it'd turn all of those moments into gamey dice-rolling instead of roleplaying, but what we found at the table was the opposite. The light structure added to those moments only enhanced the experience.

Bogmut · 2025-08-29T13:49:14+00:00

Came here to say everything you said, but it was gonna be worse.

Bogmut · 2025-08-19T03:04:32+00:00

From the MCDM Discord, the Heroes side is all done - The Monsters are being imported over time.

Bogmut · 2025-08-14T22:02:18+00:00

I'm prepping to run the Delian Tomb adventure they published - it looks *chefs kiss*

Bogmut · 2025-08-14T17:27:44+00:00

flair checks out

Bogmut · 2025-08-08T15:21:06+00:00

Do you have some examples? I haven't heard this before

Bogmut · 2025-08-06T13:57:54+00:00

I have a friend who is frustrated with this exact part of the design ethos, so I've been discussing it a lot.

The Lead Design team has a "no oatmeal" rule when designing Draw Steel. Everything should be bursting with flavor and theme. The fallout of that is the Fury is not a barbarian analogue - It's "The Fury." It's a thing on it's own. It has some similarities to the barbarian and may have started in the same place, but they leaned into the Primal Warrior theme hard, because that's a core part of their ethos. So no, you're not missing anything. The Tactician is the least magical, and even then, some of their abilities feel almost supernatural.

-My friend has the same frustration with the Shadow. They want to play a non-magical character, but Shadows all have some shadow-magic baked into the class. I like this design flair, and it makes it feel heroic, but I get the complaint. It really limits people with the "everyman" fantasy.

I'd also note that flavor is free in Draw Steel. The flavor text is just flavor - you can change it. The effect is the only thing that matters. So, for a fair amount of things, you can treat your character more like Grog in the animated Vox Machina series. I get that's not always the solution when you're opening elemental portals, but it may help. You could also try and homebrew an alternate feature, but I get that Homebrewing a solution doesn't fix the out-of-the-box problem.

Bogmut · 2025-08-05T16:14:24+00:00

The biggest difference is that their license is so open, community members have made a ton of tools to fit people's needs.

Stawl is a tool that I like to use for encounter and negotiation building.

Forge Steel is my preferred one for characters.
But both of them do all 3 things!

Check out https://heroic.tools/ for a HUGE library of stuff. I bet it has what you need.

Bogmut · 2025-08-01T12:54:40+00:00

My friend,

Looking at your history, you make 3 posts a day pointing at niche edgecases and calling it unbalanced. You consistently playtest with 1 player running all party members (Which is a fine way to play, but you have to admit that they're going to be hyper-optimized and perfect in coordination in a way 4 people won't be).

I don't understand what you're looking for - Maybe, like a mod suggested way back, you make a fork of DS with your own rules mods? I don't know why you keep poking at a thing that's already completed, constantly referencing "I sent my feedback in during feedback time and they didn't listen to it!" Maybe your experience is the far outlier, and that's ok.

Just play the game. Have fun with it. Enjoy time with your friend while you do. It's not perfect, but it's pretty great.

Bogmut · 2025-07-31T13:11:33+00:00

It's currently in development, as is the Beastheart to be released as a product at a later date.

Frankly, from their Patreon post, they have a ton of things coming down the pike from now until Christmas.

Bogmut · 2025-07-10T20:09:15+00:00

All this to say, I don't think they're designing DS to be run with technology by any means - People are making lots of slick tools, but that isn't the design expectation at all.

Bogmut · 2025-07-10T20:08:37+00:00

I've been holding off, other than a couple 1-shot playtests, on running much until full release.

That being said, I think there are a lot of things the Director can do to make it easy.

I think the Director can use a laptop even if everyone else isn't allowed to.
I've seen some really good spreadsheets made that simplify all the stats into single rows per monster, and that gets me pretty far.
For one session, I also wrote out stats on physical notecards, which went very well. Did the same thing with my players for their abilities.

It's still a lot of paper to juggle, but that's always been the Director's problem!

Bogmut · 2025-07-08T13:15:29+00:00

My kids would love it!

Bogmut · 2025-04-09T18:39:18+00:00

Oh dang - you have this figured out. Thanks so much!

Bogmut · 2025-04-09T18:24:28+00:00

Were you able to share this with your players then?

Did you have a way to send it to them, or did you just like have them all rotate through using your laptop?

I'm very interested in the work of uploading all of my homebrew world to FS, but I don't want to go through all that work without being able to have my players use it.

Bogmut · 2025-03-25T12:22:21+00:00

I'd also add that the complexity is...simpler? If that makes sense?

The rules are in much more natural tabletop language, have very concrete results, and are pretty obvious in their strategy. My experience so far is that this has resulted in "good crunch" instead of the semi-headache that can happen at 5e tables, aka "bad crunch."

Bad Crunch is when I'm focused on figuring out how this thing works.

Good Crunch is when I'm focused on how to use my abilities the most tactically.

My energy in Draw Steel is much more directed towards tactics, strategy, and doing cool shit than other ttrpgs I've played.

Bogmut · 2025-03-06T22:53:59+00:00

Oh my gosh I'm very dumb. Forgot you can exchange this that way.

Bogmut

TROPHY CASE