Mail Room: Draw Steel

I got my Draw Steel hardcovers today. This looks interesting, but wow, it is a lot of rules. I expected this to be a little lighter, but there is a lot packed on each page to digest. For a game with such a simple mechanic, I expected the system to be less dense.

The art is good quality, but a bit too modern-fantasy for my tastes, and it has way too many smiling or smirking people in situations where they should be fearing for their lives. I want that seriousness to the art! Happy people killing things either looks flippant or psychotic, and neither is good.

The races are all over the place and odd. It is good to see them try to break the standard mold, but some of their choices feel like strange ones better suited for a science-fiction game.

This game competes with Nimble 5e, and Nimble is far easier to grasp and play. I could get a group of people new to the system to try Nimble, just like I could Shadowdark. Draw Steel is on a Pathfinder 2 level of commitment and buy-in, and desperately needs a starter set.

Thank you for the evil-looking eye-tyrant like floating eyeball monster on the cover of the monster book. Wow, that became topical overnight, serving as a warning about making monsters too cute or humanizing them. Keep the monsters as monsters; otherwise, those in charge are poor shepherds of the game, and we will have no classic monsters left to fight. I don't get what this whole saccharine cuteness overload is with D&D these days; it sucks, and most old-school players barf at the sight of the infantile cartoonification of D&D. Looking at D&D art these days feels like watching Muppet Babies or the Care Bears cartoon. At least Draw Steel keeps things relatively consistent and follows a solid theme.

A good-looking game, and this and Daggerheart are taking people away from 5E, along with the usual suspects: DCC, OSE, First Edition, Shadowdark, and a few other hot games out there.