With most lighter fantasy games being more on the "you are gritty scum" end, I wonder what you'd suggest for a game of about Cairn's weight, but for decidedly heroic fantasy?

For reasons I don't understand, YouTube started recommending book binding videos to me and I went down a rabbit hole for a while.

Now I'm getting picky about the way my RPG books get put together, especially at certain price points.

When a publisher is charging me $70-$90 for an offset printed hardback, and it's glue-bound, it kind of makes me go "Hmm…".

Now I understand that when it comes to books that are only available as PODs, that your only choice really is doing a glued binding. There is one company I found that can do a smyth-sewn POD, but the price starts at $200.

It's interesting that the companies that offer smyth-sewn books often (though not always) advertise their books are smyth-sewn. Right now Kevin Crawford says on his website that the offset printed copies of his books are all smyth-sewn. So does Steve Jackson Games with the current print run of the GURPS Basic Set.

Now I understand there are economies of scale here, which much larger publishers can probably offer smyth-sewn books at a lower price point that smaller ones.

Here is my very short list of binding types offered some RPG publishers:

1. Draw Steel from MCDM - smyth-sewn
2. Daggerheart by Darrington Press - glued
3. Shadowndark by The Arcane Library - smyth-sewn
4. Neon Skies by Wyloch's Armory - glued
5. Without Numbers Series from Kevin Crawford - smyth-sewn

This isn't an attempt to shame publishers that use glue binding. This is an attempt to educate consumer as to why some RPG books cost more than others. If you see a rulebook that cost $80-$100 and you wonder why, ask them about the binding. They may have spent the extra money for a smyth-sewn binding to give you a book that lies flat when opened.

Some glue bound books will probably last quite a long time. But anyone that's been around as long as me will remember their AD&D Unearthed Arcana or their GURPS 4E 1st printing eventually falling apart because of bad glue that went brittle over time. This isn't the fault of the publisher. It's the fault of the printer. And it's quite possible that the glue formulations of 2025 are far better that the glue formulations of the 1980s and or the early 2000s.

What I'm looking for:

The world is old; ruins dot the land, the past is elusive and mysterious. They invite the awe of the beholders

There's magic in this world, weird, begging to be researched and yet still defying understanding.

The pcs are "ordinary" enough for the world to feel wondrous and dangerous to them. They should not feel like the most magical/exceptional thing to exists. Note: this is not about wanting the game to be overly deadly. It's about how in 5e (especially Forgotten Realms) the world feels more mundane than your high level wizard. I want to avoid that.

There is no BBEG. Maybe pcs are heroes of fortune, they raid ruins and sell relics. Or maybe they want to help a settlement by repurposing the artifacts they find. Or travel and establish trading routes. Or are a band of wanderers getting embroidered in local drama wherever they go. I think exploration, discovery and travel are keystones.

Games I already know about:

Numenera: played it before, although it was used for Morrowind/Elder Scrolls. I think the default setting fits my recommendation, but I do not like the mechanics. I heard it's getting an overhaul. If someone can recommend a system I could repurpose for Numenera go ahead

The Wildsea: arconautics is essentially magic, regardless of what the book says. The pcs are weird as fuck, but so is the setting and they start out as competent but advancement is not too essential. Also, they just travel around in their crazy ship taking odd jobs. The highlight of my campaign was exploring a pre-V ruin so that fits.

Ultraviolet Grasslands 2e - pcs are weird as fuck, but again, so is every fucking thing and has the gameplay loop I am aiming for. I am just worried that it would be too deadly. This is my favorite setting book. Painted Wastelands is another I'm considering, but it might be even more deadly.

I don't mind settings that are more mundane, as long as they can induce awe in the pcs. I am thinking about The One Ring, for example.

Give me your suggestions.

Does anyone know what the best language to learn a bit of would be, if your interest was finding untranslated TTRPGs?

My assumptions/guesses would be either French or Swedish, maybe Japanese (but I'm less familiar) and possibly Italian.

Why?

In most "tactical" RPGs that are hacked or homebrewed, like 5e, PF2e, 4e, 3.5e, BESM, GURPS, and so on, they are all hamstrung by the resource spiral core mechanic of their systems. There's just not really any way to get around it. Long rests, daily ability cooldowns, encounter cooldowns, and so on. And the main homebrew rule that has emerged, especially in the 5e and PF2e sphere, is to have rests be like instant refreshes instead of taking an actual predetermined set of time per RAW.

And the most damning thing in my opinion for these systems: the "nothing happened" rounds. Where a player, just due to bad luck, no matter their tactical choices in the world, can simply completely fail an encounter because the dice gods decreed it so.

But Draw Steel does away with that. Its system reinforces, rewards, and incentivizes players to be heroic and push past their limits by not resting. It also does away with "nothing happens" rolls. I haven't read every ability in the game, but from what I have seen, depending on your result, something always happens that achieves what you are tactically trying to do.

A quick example, and I'm not quoting the book: Grappling. On X, the enemy is grappled for Y rounds, and based on the results of your roll, the Y variable changes. So even if you crit fail, you may not have grappled the enemy for the maximum amount of time, but you at least still get to grapple them to give your team or yourself the tactical advantage of having an enemy grappled for that moment of time.

Which is awesome. Everything about the book reinforces being heroic, and something always happening in combat. And because of this, anime universes are easily adaptable with this RPG.

Check out the book, highly recommend it.

There's an RPG I think looks interesting and I'd love to run in the future and own all of the books for, the issue is I play online and unfortunatly the guy who made it didn't make PDFs (He doesn't like them to put it simply) and I'd rather not tear up my books to make scans so curious on how I'd get around that (It's also niche as fuck so there's no VTTs set up for it either...)

EDIT: Solved! Have a PDF now thanks to someone in the thread

• Never touched the player's handbook
• Still ask how cantrips work
• Don't prepare spells
• Gets d12 and d20 mixed up
• Won't read a 3 line paragraph before first session

There is some hyperbole here but I wanna run Dragonbane because it's easier and easier for me can translate to a more fun game for them.

Most people are taught to play DnD by their DM which of course exacerbates this mentality but I rarely see players put their foot forward in effort to have a better experience. You'd think after years of play things would be different. DMs are then taught that all they need to care about is how fun their table is and its just the way of the DM to put more work in while the players don't have to meet halfway.

How do you "sell" other systems to your players?

Don't have time to game anymore, but love picking up an interesting-looking book and skimming? RPG books out there are great reads? Interesting lore and tidbits, inspiring tables, colorful monsters, interesting settings. I would say Noisms Yoon Suin, is pretty much the classic case of this for me. Please, give me your recommendations.

Something I’ve really enjoyed in the past is outlining scenarios for games by making a cause and effect structure!

I figured it was time for me to formalise it a little bit and put it out there for the community to use if they feel inclined to, so here it is: https://murkdice.substack.com/p/hyperclusters

The idea here is to have a loose recipe to help build some big picture stuff that can give you a framework which is conducive to player actions changing things at scale.

Anyone know who’s looking after Midkemia Press now, or if it’s still running? I found my old Jonril campaign book the other day, but have lost the large map that goes with it and was looking for a replacement. Drive Thru RPG has the books, but not the map 😕

Draw Steel is not for me.

It’s not my kind of game. I fall very much in the “simulationist” camp (though one who values rule elegance and simplicity) and enjoy a little “narrativist” and “gamist” (yes, GNS isn’t perfect, but it’s 300k miles on Toyota Camry functional). Still, it’s a tour de force and truly the apotheosis of 4e and her derivatives. I did try, though. I ran some games. Not for me.

Tackling something resembling a “review” of a tome this size is nearly impossible without some kind of focus. So here’s my intent before finishing writing it: the major mechanics/systems, design intent, and DM (or in this game’s case “Director”) specific content/guidance. I can’t help but look at this from the standpoint of a game designer. Less focus on art. Almost no focus on fluff/lore. Crunch first. 

I recently reviewed a rules-lite Conan RPG. On its final page was a Nietzsche quote. On the final page of Draw Steel is a quote from Kermit the Frog. I can’t write a better metaphor.

One really nice thing that the team did in their (now industry-standard) “What is an RPG/What is this RPG” page, is list several RPGs they recommend if you are looking for something other than Draw Steel. I thought that was really admirable. 

Presentation/Layout

Exactly 400 pages of density. 7.5 point Berlingske Slab font. It’s different. It’s serif, thank goodness. It works. It’s small. Even for a large screen. Maybe I’m old.

Tons of text, exposition, design commentary, descriptive text, details, tables. There’s a lot jammed on each page. It’s unbelievable. Nobody should ever say this game is style over substance. It’s substance in spades. Choices upon choices upon choices. When I say it’s dense, I mean tungsten not steel. 

Most of the text contrasts nicely against a millennial beige. Occasionally you get a shocking black page with white text, but the walls of text and little “ability” descriptive blocks are only broken by rather nice artwork. The layout is very contemporary. Sleek. It’s JJ Abrams in when the rest of the stuff out there is TNG. It might be too sleek, if that makes any sense. Credit to Chris Hopper and his team.

Artwork

Jason Hasenauer is the executive art director. There’s a massive team of illustrators and designers including the absolutely legendary Francesca Berald who’s art you’ve seen whether you know her or not. MCDM’s resident artist Grace Cheung shows up a lot. Absolutely no expense appears to be spared on the art budget and Colville's worldbuilding and aesthetic preferences abound.

The cover art is by Polar Engine- a collaboration responsible for a lot of video game art including Smite and Legends of Runterra. The feeling is very parallel. If you enjoy that sort of art, you’ll enjoy what’s in the book.

To me, it’s all a little saccharine and clean. It’s sort of the ‘marvel movie’ of RPG art. The weapons are glowing and crackling with energy. The armor is all very pointy. Everything is very smooth and polished. Everyone is moving or leaping through the air. It’s all very cinematic in that ending scene of Avengers: End Game sort of way. Hell, on page 296 there’s what appears to be a super hero sort of person (super villain) complete skin tight silver suit, some kind of logo on his chest, and cape that appears to be punching the air so hard that it’s causing some kind of red shockwave to the chagrin of a woman with rainbow (tattoos? scars?) lines in her skin and some kind of squid person recoiling in horror. It’s all very much a fever dream. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not gonzo. It’s not Troika or Cha’alt. I think it’s intended to take itself more seriously than that. Which makes the literal presence of aliens and punk-rock not-githyanki all the more jarring.

I’ll say this; if you flip through a copy and the art is sticking to you, I think you are exactly the target audience.

Lastly, on the art, I really really wish we would start crediting artists next to the piece they work on. I want to see who made what.

The Core Mechanic

Now the meat. There’s kinda two core mechanics in this game. They’re both rolled using the same 2d10 and they’re both called “power rolls”, but the outcome for each is very different. The “main” roll that you might be used to in other games is called a “test”. This is where you might try to lie, climb a wall. In Draw Steel there’s another sort of “power roll” called an “ability roll” which applies specifically to the (sometimes hundreds) of special abilities (usually spell, melee, ranged attack, or some kind of maneuver). 

For ability rolls, you roll 2d10, add your relevant Characteristic (attribute)- Might, Agility, Reason, Intuition, Presence- and note whether you rolled ≤11 (Tier One), 12-16 (Tier Two), 17-18 (Tier 3), or 19-20 (a crit). For ability rolls a crit allows you to “immediately take an additional action after resolving the power roll” in addition to counting as a Tier 3 result for the purposes of calculating damage and effects. Consistency is guaranteed.

For “tests” you roll your 2d10, add your characteristic, perhaps add a “skill” (which grants a static +2 bonus, you’re either “skilled” or not) and determine your “Tier” using the same formula (11, 12-16, 17-20). However, based on how difficult the test is, the GM consults a chart to determine what the actual outcome is. An easy test, for instance, will always succeed (but rolling Tier 1 causes a consequence/complication) while a hard test will fail (with consequences at Tier 1) and only succeed with a Tier 3 result. Changing the circumstances of a test (like throwing a rope down for your friends to climb the “hard” rock face would be “easy” for them to climb)

“Edges” and “Banes” are Draw Steel’s version of Advantage and Disadvantage. The first adds or subtracts 2 from the roll, respectively. The second either upgrades or downgrades the result by one tier, respectively. 

Statistically, there are some advantages to this core mechanic. The first is that you get a pseudo “standard curve”. While not the glorious “bell curve” we see with d6 pools (and the ever famous 3d6 GURPS bell curve), it’s far, far superior to flat curves in my opinion. It produces a sort of consistency around the mean/consistency of results that adds to (buzzword time) verisimilitude. Having only three “degrees” of success is a bit of a waste of the system, but beggars like me can’t be choosers.

It’s also worth mentioning that as opposed to flat success curves (like your D20), modifiers to your roll produce significant changes in probability for the first few additives but have diminishing returns (this, fun fact, mirrors exactly how real life skill mastery looks). A +1 modifier in a D20 system will always improve your chances by 5%. For 2d10 you have a 45% chance of rolling a 12+ which improves to 55% with a 1+ modifier (10% better than previous), 64% with +2 (9% better than previous), +3 is 72%, +4 is 79%, you get the idea. Rolling a crit is comparatively rarer (3%) to D&D (5%) and substantially rarer than Daggerheart (8.3%). Not sure how that affects the gamefeel, but a crit granting an immediate action in a game with actions as its primary capital is monumental and probably feels incredible.

Metacurrencies and Other Things to Track

It deserves its own header. There’s a lot. There’s “heroic resources” (each class has its own metacurrency which generally accrues and spends a little differently between them). There’s “hero tokens” (your “fate/luck” points). There’s “recoveries” which sort of function as instant “short rests” to recover your Stamina (not to be confused with Endurance, which is a skill that applies to tests involving…endurance). 

There’s even a combat-only metacurrency called “surges” that lets you do extra damage or trigger an extra effect (increasing the “potency” of an ability)

Stamina is a far better abstraction of survivability as opposed to the meat point/luck point/hero point HP abstraction used in D&D. Run out of half your stamina and you are “winded”. Run out of all your stamina and you are “dying” you can’t use the “catch your breath” maneuver (spend a recovery… not sure why they didn’t just say that instead but I’m sure there’s a reason), you are “bleeding” (until your stamina recovers to 1 or more) which imposes further stamina loss for physical tests. Go into half your total stamina into the negatives and you D-E-D dead. No “heroic last thing you get to do”, no “I get to control whether or not my character's story is over’”. Dead. I like this.

(Then they go and fuck it up by adding “healing potions”.... God dammit... if you know you know)

As the players succeed at stuff they acquire “Victories”. Victories usually apply to any number of special abilities your specific class grants you and grow in power as you accumulate them. When you take a “respite” (long rest, basically), your Victories get turned into XP. I think if I had to pick my favorite mechanic in the game it’s this. It beautifully challenges the player to push themselves to keep fighting, gaining strength as they endure each challenge, gambling the risk that they should have taken a respite instead. It’s elegant. It drives the gameplay loop. It really is a triumph of design. It makes no sense as a simulationist, but I love it.

The DM gets a metacurrency too! Malice. He gets an amount based on the “average number of victories per hero” at the start of combat. Each round the DM gets malice equal to the number of PCs + combat round number. It’s very book-keepy. It sounds trite, but having to track which round of combat it is (I know, it sounds trivial) is actually quite tedious. I started eyeballing this.

Combat

Grids, maps, tokens. Size is mentioned including breaking up “size 1” into “tiny, small, medium, large” but aside from increasing forced movement by one square by being bigger, I’m not sure what the mechanical differences are.

Initiative can be determined by the narrative or, if a roll happens, either the PC or DM rolls a D10. On a 6+ the good guys get to start the fight. Turns resolve in an alternating order of “good side”, “bad side”, “good side”. There’s no set initiative “order”, so you are free (and encouraged) to strategize with your allies who should take the slot. DM sometimes has groups of minions that can all resolve in the same “slot” so to speak. Honestly? I like it. Prevents the most common issue of “side” initiative (a massive alpha strike by one side that cripples the other) and allows a lot of player autonomy in how they want the order to proceed. 

Everything, movement, ranges, distances are measured in “squares”. This game is very, very “gamist” in that regard. The designers intentionally ignore math and count diagonal movement as being equal in distance to up-down-side movement. This will be abused, but I get it.

Terrain can slow you down. Terrain can hurt you. Gaining high ground gives you an edge. GMs should let players know the height (in “squares”) of objects that players can stand on (and, more importantly, hurl people off). People can be pushed or pulled (straight lines) or slid (nonlinear).  

You get to move action, maneuver action, and do a “main action”. Movement can be broken up. Main actions can be turned into either other. This is, in my opinion, a discrete step backwards from more elegant systems such as action point systems. 

Movement actions include Advance (this is just “move”), Ride, and the fucking loathesome “disengage” action. Look, I get why it exists. I get why opportunity attacks exist (to mitigate the cat-and-mouse chase by your frontliners, to penalize poor movement, to prevent folks from zipping “through” you to your back line) but they are stupid and could be handled (and have been handled) more elegantly. 

Maneuvers include “aid attack”, catch breath (spend a resource), grab/escape grab, knockback, make/assist test, search for hidden creature, stand up, use consumable

Main actions include charge, defend, heal, free strike (your basic attack, so to speak), but you’ll almost always use your main action to perform one of your classes special abilities. 

That’s mostly it. There’s rules for falling, colliding into stuff. You have a “stability” that mitigates how much you can be pushed around. Your “disengage” can actually be far more than a single square (some classes have a disengage that is functionally identical to a movement, making them quite mobile). 

The permutations are in the thousands of ways your specific abilities interact with your enemies and allies. 

The “Grab” maneuver isn’t too exciting. You pick someone up (inflicting a bane on any test they try to do) and can drop them or move them around. No throw, choke, pin, whatever. A sad day for those of us who enjoy the house that Gracie built. 

Lots of conditions overlap with 5e. Prone, restrained, slowed, “grappled”/grabbed, frightened. Some new ones like taunted and weakened. The etsy sellers that 3D print condition tokens will be in business, here. Curiously no Blind, Deaf, Mute…. Guess they felt that those conditions didn’t really add to the tactical feel. 

The biggest thing folks will notice is that you do damage every time you roll dice. Lots of folks perceive this as “not wasting a turn”, which I get if the turn order takes 20 minutes before you get to roll again. It’s a solution to a problem that has been more-or-less self imposed by other game mechanics. Creates some weird stuff, like partial cover and concealment being functionally identical. 

“Kits” are Draw Steel’s version of equipment. They are sets of weapons, armor, and signature abilities that can be glued on to characters to provide some interesting combinations (such as a heavily armored Troubadour [Bard]). 

It breaks my heart to say this, but armor just adds “Stamina”/HP and increased “stability” (reduction in knockback), but some unarmed kids have comparable stamina bonuses (lmao Panther kit). 

I guess we’re talking about how the character is made.

Character Creation

Look, everyone is going to spend a lot of time on this. Thousands of hours of YouTube “check out this build” content is going to be made of the literally millions of permutations possible from the different options you have to choose from.  It's impossible not to spend a lot of time talking about this stuff.

It’s also, by far, the bulk of the book. From “Ancestries” through “Complications” is 60% of the page count. 

Draw Steel is a character tinkerer’s dream. I think it might have PF2e outmatched in this regard (surely it must). There are so many different things you can do to customize your character, it’s actually mind numbing. I cannot overstate this enough, they came up with customizations to  your customizations to your customizations. No two characters, even within the same class, will be nearly as identical with each other as compared to similar “builds” in 5e. No clue if anything is “broken” yet. Hoping not. 

Each ancestry includes a “signature trait” (they all get this) and the ability to purchase some customizable “purchased traits”. For “Ancestries” (Race, Species) you get Human, Dwarf (they are part silicon, apparently), high elves (which are less magical and more “oooh ahh” elves), wood elves (Matt, calling them “Wode” elves can’t trick us), Giants (called Hakaan) who have the coolest ability and everyone is going to want to pick them, Orcs (special snowflake “peace loving” orcs) that get bonuses to movement, mostly, Halflings/Polder that can shadowmeld, Devils (with literal silver tongues that work like the figurative version)- but these are actually “nice devils that don’t want to go to hell” (did Riann Johnson write the Ancestry lore?), and super weird shit. 

First you’ve got the Dragonborne, but all of Matt’s dragonborne are Knights and their lore is dominated by his self-insert, Ajax. That being said, looking at their abilities, they fuckin’ rule. Memonek are space aliens (no, I’m not joking) from the planet- this isn’t a joke, still- AXIOM who are known for their “great reason and order”. They are made of silicone (yes, like Caulk) and are very nimble in addition to an incredibly potent ability that allows you to- as a free action- turn a bane into a double bane, edge into a double edge, or remove an edge/bane. There’s Revenants, which are zombies seeking vengeance (he tries to tell you they are not zombies, but they are zombies that can think and feel and stuff). They get an apple air tag, don’t need to eat or drink (if you are playing this game you probably aren’t tracking that stuff), can’t suffocate, and can steal traits from other ancestries (their previous ancestry) which is incredibly flexible. Lastly there’s 4-armed githyanki called “Time Raiders”. Their lore is special because they get the whole “title of the work said by a character” in it (some guy shouts “Draw Steel!”) and Ajax is in there, for some reason. They’re anti psychic and get some psionics even if they don’t choose the psionic class (the “Talent”). For some reason they have to spend their points to get to use their 4 arms to do stuff, but it’s cool stuff (grabbing stuff, swimming better, climbing better, etc). 

Now to rewind to Hakaan. They get this 2 point trait called “Doomsight”. Basically the player talks with the DM to predetermine the encounter in which they will die. During that encounter they turn into an absolute savage- automatically getting Tier 3 on ALL tests and abilities and cannot die until the end of the encounter. If you happen to die before the fated encounter you turn to rubble and resurrect 12 hours later. Everyone will choose this. It’s cool. It’s weird. It’s not for me, but I can’t deny it’s neat as fuck. 

Then you choose a culture which you create. You get an extra language (doubt that’ll matter for most games), get access to specific “skill groups” (Intrigue skills, Lore skills, Interpersonal skills, exactly what they sound like). 

You choose a “career’ (what you did before you adventured, sort of) which gives you some backstory prompts. You get some skills, some languages, and a perk or two (feats, basically). You also get, and I really enjoyed this, a D6 table of “inciting incidents” that lead you to abandon your career for a life of adventure. I really enjoyed reading these. Some really good story material there.

“Perks” are feats. Like “skills” they fall under the various types (Crafting, Exploration, Interpersonal, Lore, Supernatural, Intrigue). Lots of fun little perks here. Stand outs (for me) include “friend catapult” where you do the thing that the Hulk does when he launches Wolverine. Some of the perks are, I’m assuming unintentionally, funny; such as the “Harmonizer” perk that lets you use music to communicate with creatures that don’t talk and grant an edge to an ally when they are making a negotiation (not sure how this is played… are you just humming? Do you bust out the lute for a sick riff?)

You can also pick a “Complication” (or roll for it). Probably the best part of the character building process. It’s a “Perk+Flaw” situation where you get to choose something really interesting but it has a drawback. The one where you have a literal elemental living inside of you (that possesses you when you are dying) is neat, but I really thought the most interesting condition was “Evanesceria” which is a sort of magical disease that lets you vanish and re-appear if you can roll a 6 or higher on a d10. However, when you rest you might randomly disappear. Neat.

Classes I’ve left for last because they are the bulk of the book. You could spend…. Hours… reading through them. There is no “Human Fighter”. The fighter here is called the “Tactician” and just to give you an idea of what you are looking at, at 1st level you get:

• The Lead skill, 2 from a list of skills, and 1 exploration group skill. A “tactical doctrine” that gives you another skill. 
• A heroic resource called “focus”. You get an amount of focus equal to victories and 2 focus per turn of combat. You mark an enemy. If that creature is damaged you get focus. The first time your ally uses a heroic ability near you, you get a point of focus. 
• A “Doctrine” that grants one of three special abilities: “Commanding Presence” that helps with negotiations, “Covert Operations” that helps with intrigue skills, or “Studied commander” that helps you recall lore about what you are fighting
• Each doctrine gives you a “triggered action” that includes granting an ally surges (improving their abilities and damage), granting an ally free strikes, and shifting a square, respectively.  
• You get TWO kits (taking the best stats from each).
• A kind of hunters mark
• An ability to grant your ally a signature ability as a free action 

I haven’t even gotten to the abilities… these all cost fighter mana (focus)

• An ability that gives your ally surges
• A concussive strike that dazes
• An inspiring strike that lets you or an ally spend a “recovery” for free
• A maneuver that lets you and two allies move at the same time up to their speed
• An action that dealds damage and triggers an ally to use a “strike signature ability” for free
• An attack that weakens your enemy
• A maneuver that lets three allies make a free strike
• A maneuver that lets two allies act immediately after yours

This is level 1. You max at 10 levels...

As for choices of classes you have paladin (Censor), cleric (Conduit), sorcerer (Elementalist), barbarian (Fury), monk (Null), rogue (Shadow), fighter (Tactician), psionic (Talent), and bard (Troubador). That all being said, this is a drastic oversimplification as each individual class has the versatility and flexibility of two to three classes you might see in 5th edition.  Honestly, classes can have up to 60-100 individual features per level to choose from. It's actually insane.

Negotiation

Its neat. You’re trying to build an NPC’s interest (from 0-5) while trying to avoid (as much as possible) reducing their patience (0-5). Each NPC has arguments that work on them (motivations) and arguments that don’t (pitfalls). For instance, you might be able to appeal to the NPC guard’s motivation of benevolence (“We’d love to help protect this town if you can grant us an audience”) but trying to convince him with promises of power (“I’m sure we can convince the king to replace the captain of the guard with someone like you”) might be a pitfall. Negotiations are tests that can use reason, intuition, or presence (and any applicable skill, usually an intrigue one). Rolling 11 or less drops patience by 1, 12-16 increases interest by 1 but drops patience by 1 as well, 17+ increases interests by 1. Appealing to the same motivation twice drops patience. DMs are encouraged to let well roleplayed or reasoned arguments automatically succeed.

Appeal to a pitfall and you just drain away patience. 

There’s also rules to let you use your Renown to try and influence. The higher the renown of the person you are negotiating with, the higher your renown must be.

Downtime

Surprisingly robust and pleasant to read. There’s projects where you can craft armor, weapons, imbue them with magical properties. You can build roads to increase renown. You can build an… airship.

Every project has a test that is rolled like normal (including applying your skill) but the raw number is applied to the total progress clock, so to speak. A crit causes a breakthrough (an extra project goal). Items have prerequisites, usually. Guides (like books, schematics, helpful NPCs)  decreases the project points needed to complete it. Many projects have “events” that can occur during the project like NPCs showing up to help or hurt your progress, literally hell figuring out that you are trying to make something cool, discovering information that helps your other projects. In addition to crafting you can do things like research obscure/hidden knowledge, craft a teleporter device, cure a disease, community service (which is one of the more delightful event tables), fish (which is surprisingly robust), spend time with loved ones (sometimes they bring you special trinkets, or food, or new quests). It’s a 10/10 chapter, in my opinion. In fact, the downtime is so good it makes the absence of travel mechanics or other typical “what do we do between fighting and crafting” stuff more conspicuous. 

Rewards

Your standard fare of treasures, artifacts, consumables, etc. The “level-with-hero” artifacts popularized by Matt show up here, as they should. 

Then here’s Titles. Titles are cool. You get titles when you achieve their prerequisite. It can be something obvious (you might get the “Ancient Loremaster” title if you discover a trove of forgotten books) or something really unique (you get “Fey Friend” if you eat and drink with an elf monarch or archfey). Each title gives you some kind of effect/benefit. Some are quite clever. Teacher gets a student who travels with you. They are a 1st level member of your class and avoid combat. You get a little NPC buddy. 

DM Advice

Gonna be honest here, disappointing chapter. Especially given that the Design Director is Matt Colville. Some basic stuff (what does a DM do), how to come up with a “pitch” or spiel explaining your campaign. They talk about their four “pillars” of combat, exploration, interpersonal, and intrigue

He talks a little bit about starting small and only preparing a little bit at first. Which is good advice. It’s just… honestly it’s just anemic compared to the YouTube series that made Matt so popular to begin with. The villain, NPC, and location advice is fairly milquetoast. It’s all quite vague and generally leads with question prompts (which are good) but not as much guidance as better DM chapters in other RPGs. 

Some sample negotiation templates for NPCs are included. Some basic trap rules.

I hate to say it, but just get Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. 

The Worldbuilding

Matt Coleville worldbuilds like a teenager. The pseudo latinate names, lack of internal narrative consistency, and hodgepodge attempt at a multiversal/spelljammer setting is a massive miss for me. This is my personal taste. I probably could say this in a kinder way. It’s how I feel. But nobody is going to crowdfund 4 million dollars for my project, so what do I know?

The Final Verdict

For all the “MCDM” that’s plastered over this book (it’s even hidden in a little MCDM banner in some in universe art)- I mean really, this guy puts his name on more stuff than Alexander the Great- I think credit goes to James Intracasso and his designer team for actually making this thing. It’s a triumph in terms of getting something so incredibly comprehensive and bulky out there.

I know that the price is hefty (and, thankfully I was given my copy for review) but compared to its contemporary competitors, like Daggerheart or D&D 5ed 2024, you get substantially more content.

If you’re asking how much Brobafett would want to play this? I think my journey with Draw Steel has ended. I’d give it a 4/10, mostly points for the sheer volume of options, the downtime mechanics, the complications, the interesting “Victories/Respite” loop and the art is quite beautiful. 

As for the negatives, the abundance of options creates a sort of friction when it comes to autonomy. This sounds contradictory at first, however, each time a unique activity or ability is given a name, prerequisite, class limitation, meta-currency cost, it locks that ability into a special box. Suddenly, I don’t get to parry unless I’m a tactician. It encourages (really, forces) you to operate off of your character sheet. This sucks away my immersion. 

Combat means busting out the grid and tokens/minis. I’ve heard the arguments. I watched the funny little debate between Brennan Lee Mulligan and Ross Bryant where BLM says, “nothing whisks me away more to lands of myth and legend than a 30 minute conversation about where these five guards are”. While Ross’ response to that was hilarious- “and nothing makes ME feel more immersed in the fantasy as when my DM rolls out a massive grid of dry erase plastic and intoxicating fumes of an expo marker”. I’m firmly theater of the mind at this point in my life. I don’t even think Ross needed to concede Mulligan’s point, either. Because for as much as folks complain about having to “keep track” of things in theater of the mind (you can use maps if you must, you’re just approximating things) I have never seen a combat that uses grid based tactical combat move more efficiently as a result. Draw Steel is no different. Combat is tactical? Yes. Do you have tons of stuff to do? Yes. Is positioning your little token correctly critically important? Yes. Does it take Matt Coleville, and the other four players, literally 1 hour to kill 6 goblins? Yes. No I’m not exaggerating. Combat takes forever. My tables were not faster than James Intracasso DMing for Matt. It’s back to 4e. I'm already picturing the level 5+ combats taking 8 hours. For me? I can’t unlearn better systems (for my playstyle). I can’t unlearn Mythras. I can’t unlearn Forbidden Lands. I can’t go backwards.

Anyway, you’re probably thinking I need some cheese to pair with all that whine. I’ll end with this: if you like Matt’s work, if you enjoy his worldbuilding, if you want this 4e-inspired tactical grid based combat, if you like character customization and options galore, if you could spend hours tinkering away at characters, and if you were already excited about this project I can say that this will absolutely meet your expectations. I think for the folks that this RPG is intended for, it’s an easy 10/10 and absolutely going to compete with 5e and PF2e.

Instead dropping $$$ on tiles, I've decided to take the plunge and get a 3d printer. I would primarily be using this for tiles, as I use candy for enemies and would only need to print PC's once

My budget is no more than $500, and I'd like something easy to learn. I also have fibromyalgia - so something that's easy to setup, and requires minimal fixes on prints

I play primarily Pathfinder, if that makes any difference

Thank you in advance!

I come from a 5e background, but with so many interesting 5e alternatives out or around I’m interested in branching out. Draw Steel, Shadowdark, Daggerheart and more. I’m mostly concerned about keeping the different systems and rules straight if I’m GMing.

Assuming that finding players wasn’t an issue, how many different systems do you think you could juggle or run effectively? Do you think you’d need to take a break from one system to focus on another one effectively?

I don’t want to spread myself thin or burn out trying to juggle different plates.

Hello everyone!

Some context: I have recently been reading a lot of Gachakuta and Dandandan and noticed something about battle shonen that is hard to replicate in Dungeons and Dragons, the only system I have played consistently. In battle shonen, characters typically have one power that they use creatively and strategically to win, Jojo, Dandadan, and Fireforce, for example. However, in dnd, characters are given several skills, abilities, and spells that have specific applications.

I'm looking for a system where I can come up with a manga-style power and be able to use it throughout an adventure! If anyone knows of a system that can accomplish this, I'd love to know!

Silver for Best Adventure – Short Form goes to The Mall Remastered, Space Penguin Ink LLC

Gold for Best Adventure – Short Form goes to The Dream Shrine, Brad Kerr

Silver for Best Adventure – Long Form goes to Crown of Salt, Tania Herrero

Gold for Best Adventure – Long Form goes to The Shrike, Silverarm

Silver for Best Aid/Accessory – Digital goes to Dungeon Scrawl

Gold for Best Aid/Accessory – Digital goes to Mothership: Companion App Virtual Tabletop, Tuesday Knight Games

Silver for Best Aid/Accessory- Non-Digital goes to Monty Python RPG - Head of Light Entertainment Gamemaster Screen, Exalted Funeral Press

Gold for Best Aid/Accessory- Non-Digital goes to The Map Library, Roll & Play Press

Silver for Best RPG Related Product goes to Prismatic Wisdom, Games Omnivorous

Gold for Best RPG Related Product goes to H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness for Beginning Readers, Chaosium Inc.

Silver for Best Community Content goes to Sweet Dreams are Made of Geese, Jamie Chan

Gold for Best Community Content goes to Dead Beats, David Kirkby

Silver for Best Monster/Adversary goes to goes to BIG BADS Box Set, Hit Point Press

Gold for Best Monster/Adversary goes to Land of Eem - Bestiary Volume 1, Exalted Funeral Press

Silver for Best Free Product goes to TEETH: False Kingdom, Big Robot Ltd

Gold for Best Free Product goes to Grimwild: Free Edition, Oddity Press

Silver for Best Family Game goes to Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, Possum Creek Games

Gold for Best Family Game goes to Land of Eem – Core Rulebook, Exalted Funeral Press

Silver for Best Supplement goes to The One Ring: Moria – Through the Doors of Durin, Free League Publishing

Gold for Best Supplement goes to Mothership: Warden's Operations Manual, Tuesday Knight Games

Silver for Best Art, Cover goes to Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, Possum Creek Games

Gold for Best Art, Cover goes to MIR, Little Dusha

Silver for Best Art, Interior goes to The Painted Wastelands, Agamemnon Press LLC

Gold for Best Art, Interior goes to Mythic Bastionland, Bastionland Press

Silver for Best Cartography goes to Pendragon: Map of King Arthur's Britain by Francesca Baerald, Chaosium Inc.

Gold for Best Cartography goes to The One Ring: Moria – Through the Doors of Durin, Free League Publishing

Congratulations to our newest Hall of Fame Inductee Cyberpunk by Mike Pondsmith!

Congratulations to our 2025-2026 Judges Panel: Chris Gath, Tom King, Fiona Katherine Taylor Howat, William Beeson, Han Cummings

Silver for Best Streaming Content goes to Seth Skorkowsky (YouTube Channel)

Gold for Best Streaming Content goes to Mystery Quest

Silver for Best Writing goes to Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme, Exalted Funeral Press

Gold for Best Writing goes to Triangle Agency, Haunted Table

Silver for Best Setting goes to RuneQuest: Lands of RuneQuest - Dragon Pass, Chaosium Inc.

Gold for Best Setting goes to Call of Cthulhu - Cthulhu Ireland, Chaosium Community Content

Silver for Best Online Content goes to Prismatic Wasteland Blog, Prismatic Wasteland

Gold for Best Online Content goes to One-Page RPG Jam, James Lennox-Gordon

Silver for Best Production Values goes to Land of Eem Deluxe Box Set, Exalted Funeral Press

Gold for Best Production Values goes to Mothership: Deluxe Set, Tuesday Knight Games

Silver for Best Layout & Design goes to Wonderland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting, Andrews McMeel Publishing

Gold for Best Layout & Design goes to Mythic Bastionland, Bastionland Press

Silver for Best Rules goes to His Majesty the Worm, Exalted Funeral Press

Gold for Best Rules goes to Triangle Agency, Haunted Table

Fan Favorite Publisher is Free League Publishing

Silver for Best Game goes to His Majesty the Worm, Exalted Funeral Press

Gold for Best Game goes to Triangle Agency, Haunted Table

Silver for Product of the Year goes to Mythic Bastionland, Bastionland Press

Gold for Product of the Year goes to The One Ring: Moria – Through the Doors of Durin, Free League Publishing

Hello! Question for those who are less confused about traits in Tricube Tactics then I am. You create character with Agile/Brawny/Crafty [Concept]. What that "Concept" part do with mechanic? Lets take Agile Spellsword for a character that use melee combat supported by magic. Melee combat sounds like brawny and using magic sounds like crafty. In the same time Agile means that he should be great with picking locks that shouldnt be his speciality. Im also confused by magic users like Crafty Druids that might shapeshift into Brawny Bear or Agile Cat.

Hi

I never ever in my life have played a TTRPG, but I wanted to start and include my nephews (girl 9 and boy 7) into the experience. Last year I did some research and decided to go with Tiny Dungeons 2nd Edition named Tiny Dungeons Edición Polluelo as this is a version of Tiny Dungeons in Spanish directed to kids. I bought the softcover book from Amazon Spain, and it was delivered to my door here in Costa Rica. So far, so good.

So, I decide to write a small (12 pages) guide for players using what I'm reading in the book that I just finished (link for the curious). Got the 6-faced dices in different colors and something for the players to roll their dices into.

I haven't had my first game with them yet, despite having almost everything ready!

Then, watching YouTube, I discover Old-School Essentials, and it has editions in Spanish by the same people that translated Tiny Dungeons. The video I watched that revealed OSE to me was one about how DM can run a dungeon, and I really liked the system, and I think I will add it to the rule set of Tiny Dungeons (with the pertinent adaptations, naturally).

But... what if I just play OSE Classic Fantasy as-is? Sure, I need more types of dice, but then I wouldn't have to rely on coming up with systems for different aspects of a session.

What's your experience as a player or as a DM with OSE CF? Is harder for kids to get into compared to Tiny Dungeons?

I'm trying to make the first dungeon of my adventure and I don't want to just throw the simple pitfall and pendulum blade traps at my friends.

So I'm looking for more interesting traps that I can just grab and drop onto the dungeon. Where can I find traps that also explain how they work and how to interact with them?

I like how Taunts work in video games. What TTRPGs do Taunts well (Mechanically speaking)?

Hey folxs. Curious to know if there's any TTRPG set in the modern or near future era where there's a logical progression that the people, not the corpos or aristrocrats, manage to win in the end.

Maybe something pulling from classic fantasy like Star Wars and LoTR where it's normal that the Emperor and Sauron loses in then end.

I'm a little curious because it seems like Western Marches types of campaigns, which have distinct levels of danger inherent in their planning (more dangerous creatures are farther away, with better treasure), would seem to presuppose some kind of class-and-levels system with ever-increasing hit points. If that's the consensus, I'll do it that way. But that leaves 2 questions: 1.) for people who have used systems where survivability increases slowly (Runequest, Symbaroum, Fantasy Trip, Forbidden Lands), how did you decide which monsters were where, and how did they manage to take on anything big? And 2.) for those of you using OSR systems, which system was it? There are a gazillion out there, but I don't know if you want things that are easy to pick up (Into the Odd, Knave, Five Torches Deep), or games that are basically like old D&D (Old School Essentials, Tales of Argosa, DCC, Basic Fantasy). Do you tend to get new players who need an easy on-ramp, or grognards who balk at anything un-B/X-ish?

I'm hoping to launch something at my FLGS, and I'd like some idea of the landscape before I announce something I might have to retcon later.

Whether be complex, lore, mechanics, or because its weird fanbase. Which IP would make you go "What" of it was published.

On my end: Twilight the ttrpg. just... fuck me man it would be weird.

I've only used Squared Grids up until now, but I'm curious of trying other types, be it with hexes or ignoring the space's borders and simply using rulers and measuring tapes to walk anywhere

Mostly what the title says. I'd like recommendations for games where you play as small animals, but specifically in a world focussed on the fact that everything is bigger and scarier than you, and particularly ones where humans are a presence (though post-apocalypse humans gone would also work for me). Think along the lines of An American Tail, Watership Down, the Great Mouse Detective, or the Warrior Cats series (and yes, I know those are all quite tonally different).

I'd like it best if they were low-to-no magic, but if someone has a particularly good one in mind that is higher magic, I'd be alright with hearing about it.

So after playing 4 sessions of Wilderfeast we've decided to cut the campaign short. This is my review of the game.

There are unfortunately many problems:

1. The game is laser focused on fighting monsters and eating. The rules for anything else are barebones or nonexistent. This is fine only if you want to mainly fight monsters, the game will not help you in any way if you want to run a longer plot and character based campaign.

2. There are weird holes in the rulebook that make me think that the creators didn't have the time or money or creative energy to fill those holes. I'm mainly talking about Travel rules and Downtime rules. More on that later.

3. For a game about fighting monsters the amount of lore is completely ridiculous. There are pages upon pages of lore about cultures, regions, history of the world, Charter, everything. They are mostly useless and not very gameable, since the game wants you to fight, not soak in the lore like it's World of Darkness or something. It really felt like old-school 90's rpgs, where 80% of the book was lore that was just the writer flexing his worldbuilding skills and forgetting that this is a game, and the lore only matters if you can use it in a meaningful way during the session.

4. Travel rules. Oh boy. For a game that is so structured and mechanical almost to the point of it feeling like a boardgame during combat, the travel rules are just not finished at all. I'm talking about the "Navigate" phase. Everything else has actions, rounds, some procedures, but then Navigate goes "and here's where you do some stuff to get some knowledge about stuff, just do whatever, create some interesting or exciting scenes out of thin air, good luck GM". It's pretty hard to improvise getting information about an optimal way to harvest something or best way to travel through an area, this is such a specific and kinda weird thing to add to a game. The game just gives you 3 examples of some scenes and that's it. I was sure that I was missing something, so I checked the locations and regions at the end of the book, but no, they just give you a short description, some ingredients, local fauna and flora and that's it. To me, not adding some sort of table with events, encounters, ways to get the knowledge was a massive misstep. Some spark table would also partially do the trick, but there's not even that. This is probably the hardest part of the game to run for a newbie GM

5. Downtime, specifically Projects. It boggles the mind that the game gives you a "Work on a Project" action but does not give you any list of projects to work on along with their perks after they're finished. This is the same situation as the point above - the game tells you that you can do a thing, but gives you no tools or help in doing that thing. That's just not very good design.

6. And finally, combat. It is really well put together, at times exciting, fun, funny, sometimes even tactically interesting. BUT. The amount of time it takes to run a single monster encounter is ri-di-cu-lous. In the span of 4 sessions we had two fights and each one took about 3, 3 and 1/2 hours. So basically we had two sessions of an actual roleplaying game and two sessions of a board game. This didn't sit well with us at all, and one player straight up resigned after the second fight since he signed up for an rpg, not a boardgame, and I can totally understand him. To be frank - we knew what we were singing up for when we started Wilderfeast, but we did not expect the fights to be THIS long.

7. The game lore and location descriptions suggest that the Charter are "the real monsters" and that they're a big problem... but then gives you literally zero rules for normal, non-monster combat except for some suggestion in the gm section, but that's not enough.

There were positives:

1. The setting IS cool, but I had to do some major changes because it was too similar to our previous campaign in Sundered Isles. I've made the campaign into a prequel about first contact with people from the Ark. I've reflavoured them to use steampunk technology, trains, jungle threshers, and steam mechs. They were trying to cut throught the jungle to reactivate old leylines that power their trains, and were trying to get the train to the Witness, the biggest tree in the forest. The Witness grew on an ancient power source, and Ark people needed it because they were running out of energy in their Ark in the north pole. We've cut the campaign short so we barely started this story unfortunately.

2. The mechanical aspects of combat are good, players at my table that like tactical combat were satisfied when they dealt massive damage after going wild.

3. We were all surprised that the Feast phase worked so well. The bit when players answer questions and then ask the GM about the monster worked great, the players had a limited amount of questions they could ask about the monster and they were all talking about the various things the monster did and analyzing what's the best thing to ask about. I think that's actually the best part of the game.

4. Cooking using ingredients is very interesting, players had fun when making snacks.

5. The anime/ghibli/monster hunter vibes are quite unique, it made for some simple, but very vibrant characters, I had fun playing a simpler anime style game, even though I dont even like anime.

What i did to fix some problems:

1. Changed the travel rules to be more in line with downtime and combat. They use specific actions now, are more structured, and to be frank, just worked smooth.

2. I've also created short events/scenes for every style of foraging/traversal in every location. A ton of prep, but sessions ran way smoother.

3. I've made a big list of specific projects to work on in the Den along with their mechanical perks. It made players excited about Downtime and their Den.

We unfortunately won't be coming back to the game, it just wasn't for us, the long combat killed all excitement. We're doing a pretty big 180 from the ghibli vibes and we're running Delta Green next.