Draw Steel: Fake variety helps no one

[SteveC]

Yes. They especially wanted each class to earn resources when they did something archetypical to the class. When the tactician is tacticiioning, they should gain their resource. One of the problems is that some classes ended up being useless with certain monster configurations, because their trigger condition never emerged. If I remember somewhat correctly, the balancing became a nightmare, especially on GMs having to balance and build encounters, so they dropped it.

I remember the same comments. I sometimes give suggestions to game designers (small, very indie), and one of my favorites is "kill your darlings." I am not in a position to find the quote and article with it, but it was a good piece of design advice. Heck, it may even have been written by Matt(!!) I am really waiting to see the final release, and I'm still excited about the game, but I think this ended up being something you have to do too much work at for too little reward. But am I a world-famous game designer? No, I'm not, so I will reserve serious judgment until I get a chance to see the final game and play it.

 

[JonDeNor]

Between the different resources and the different class names ... Draw Steel is giving me tryhard vibes. We're changing the names to make them different. I dunno, MTG designers always talk about resonance, using names that work with what you're trying to do, and this feels purposefully against that.

Honestly, some of the names feel a bit "different for different's sake". Some of them I feel is more justified: if they called the fury "barbarian", I think it'd give the wrong impression to players coming from D&D-adjecent games. The fury is kinda like a barbarian at first level, a little less at second level and not at all at fifth. Having the "familiar" names being so... loaded with meaning by D&D, makes it weird if you make something that's flavorfully (is that even a word?) and mechanicly different, but give it a familiar name.

They've also strived to not use the same word for different concepts, which is why you get "echelons" instead of "tiers of play". Tier is already used for power roll result outcomes. I like that, but that's a personal thing.