Episode 2025.1 Published on 5 January 2025

Draw Steel Is Content Complete, and What Comes After | December Roundup

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Intro

This is a shorter episode. It's weird, because in some ways not much new happened in December, but on the other hand, the biggest thing also happened in December: Draw Steel is content complete. All the rules, systems, mechanics and monsters that are supposed to be in the final game are in. Now it's time to polish.

I'm Jon de Nor and this is Goblin Points.

Draw Steel

Play Test Packets

Okay. First things first. Draw Steel is, to an extent, done. The Friday before christmas, MCDM dropped what's basically the whole game to patrons. If you are a patron you can now go to the MCDM Patreon and download everything that's going into the game.

This is still just a big, two-column document of text, with minimal styling. It's a very heavy read, but it's basically all there. What's next is editing, cleaning up language, clarifications, fix typos and laying everything out.

On the mechanical side of things, there's going to be more testing, and balancing of everything in there: hero abilities, treasures, titles, monsters, and their abilities, and probably more.

At the same time, they also dropped most of the game to backers. They got the same documents, but with levels 4-10 removed for each of the classes. Those levels haven't gone through enough testing for the team to feel comfortable to release them to backers yet. But apart from that, backers got the same documents as the patrons did.

This new version of the game includes loads of name changes. A lot of abilities and features, and even som monsters, have gotten new names. Matt has spent a significant amount of time going through most of it and making sure they feel... right™️.

Entirely new in these packets is the chapter on gods and religion in Orden, and the director's section. They also did a livestream Q&A about the gods and lore of Orden, which is available in an edited version on YouTube. You can find a link to that in the links section.

Vasloria Box Set

The next big thing on the Draw Steel calendar after the release of the core rules, will probably be the Vasloria Box Set. They haven't decided what's going into the box set yet, but we've heard a few of the ideas about it. Some of which I covered in the 2024 November episode.

The box set is going to be a setting guide to Vasloria. There's going to be guides and overviews of the seven nations, or territories in Valsoria. That'll include details about the geographic areas, but also the different factions and power centers that are active in Vasloria. The box set might also include new classes for the game; Summoner and Beastheart has been mentioned, but not in any certain terms. There might also be some new ancestries that show up. Rat people and faeries have been mentioned.

The rules for warfare that was previously in Kingdoms & Warfare is also a likely contender. Matt and James has said it's unlikely 5e products from MCDM is going to be ported directly to Draw Steel. Instead, bits and pieces of the systems published in those books will be included in new products, where they fit in. Matt has mentioned multiple times that he believes that the warfare and intrigue rules works better if there's a specific setting to go with it. It's easier to swap out the names of pre-built organizations and factions, than it is to invent them all from scratch.

The plan is for the team to start discussing the box set when they meet in person in January. From what I can gather, the plan from there is to spend the better part of the year developing the box set, until they launch a crowdfunder towards the end of the year. The crowdfunder sounds like it'll work as a pre-order, where it's mostly used to gauge how many want the physical release of the product. The final product will probably have a release date in 2026. At the earliest.

Draw Steel Adventures

But before the box set, Matt has mentioned that he wants MCDM to publish multiple adventures for Draw Steel in the first year after it's release. I assume they won't be "campaign books" as we've seen published by Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons & Dragons, where a single book takes the party through a whole campaign. Instead, I imagine these will be in the style that Matt talked about in his How Long Should Adventures Be? video. About 30 to 60 pages and might advance the heroes a level or two.

These adventures are meant to give potential new players something to play, if they decide to pick up Draw Steel. A core rule set is all well and good, but a dedicated adventure for that particular rule set makes it a lot easier to get started.

Mini Monday

This month's mini Mondays included a mini for everyone's favorite mycelial guy: Mot [mot noises].

And we also got a massive mini for Relg, Descender, Lord in Corpulent. It's a massive mini that makes an oxymoron of the term mini.

STL files for both minis are available to all patrons, and they can also be bought from Trenchworx, if 3D printing isn't your thing.

Djordice

MCDM posted an update to the Djordice crowdfunder campaign to show off some manufacturing samples of the dice. The are looking really good.

They also mentioned that they think the UK/EU shipping estimates might come down a bit, now that they're shipping from the Netherlands.

They estimate shipping to start early this year, with shipping and tax being figured out in Backerkit sometime in January.

Codex

There have been internal talks about how to price the VTT, but nothing substantial yet. They want to land on a price point that's fair, supports Draw Steel's growth, but also keeps development of the VTT funded.

Matt also mentioned that the VTT will likely be getting more love from the MCDM team this year. At the moment it's only Djordi kind of keeping an eye on development. Matt imagines there might be a person at MCDM working more or less full time on the VTT in the future.

The developers of Codex also released a video on YouTube, showing off the elevation tools they're currently working on. I really encourage you to take a look, because this is something that I think any other VTT has: a way to make a 2D image become 3D in such a simple way that you can literally do it on the fly, in the middle of an encounter. Again, check it out.

From the Community

As always, here are some highlights from the community.

Aeastus_RPG has published an adventure called The Curse this month. The adventure is for first level characters, and gives them a reason to adventure together. Aestus also published a video about the adventure with details, and tips and tricks on how to run the adventure on YouTube. In addition he also released a collection of games that can be played in taverns in your world.

AngelPlayer has also released an adventure, meant as a session zero adventure, where you create the heroes as you play through the adventure.

Zetesofos has made a conversion to Draw Steel for strongholds, followers and organizations, inspired by the rules published by MCDM for D&D.

strattonimbus has made an updated cheat sheet for the new play test packets, in the vein of the How to look cool while playing Draw Steel sheet from the previous backer packet.

On the audio-visual front Don't Shout Mimic, Look Out Behind You, and Rise Heroes Rise! have all published videos of actual plays of Draw Steel. And Don't Shout Mimic also published a video of them making a character.

The Dice Society also published a new episode in December. Episode thirteen has a look at complication and consumable items in the rules. I also have to thank The Dice Society for the acknowledgment of Goblin Points' one year anniversary.

Links to all of these in the link section.

From Around the Web

People outside our community has mostly talked about the Illrigger. Now that people have had a bit of time to read it and try it out, there's build guides and tips to be published. Links are in the links section.

Outro

This didn't turn out to be a very long episode. I think that in part speaks to the stability of Draw Steel. These episodes of Goblin Points have mostly been about Draw Steel, but now that it's stable, and less uncertainty around it, there's less news to report from month to month.

If you want to be featured on Goblin Points, or know of someone else who should be, leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify, or send me an e-mail on [email protected].

Links to the MCDM Discord server, the subreddits for MCDM and Draw Steel, the YouTube channels of Matt and MCDM, the complete link section, and this script is in the show notes. It's also on goblinpoints.com.

Next episode is on the 20th. This time I'm having a very special guest: The Dice Society! Their one year anniversary is coming up, and what better time to have them on. See you next time. Snakkes.

Links

Draw Steel

Djordice

Mini Monday

Codex

From MCDM

From the Community

Draw Steel Homebrew

Draw Steel Media

From Around the Web