Draw Steel General Thread [+]

[zakael19]

We did a one-shot to test it out tonight, using the Codex VTT,

How'd you find that?

I think the biggest non-technical issue I had is that it felt very "gamey." I'm so accustomed to running games with 5e/A5E in a continuous way, that jumping from vignette to vignette is jarring.

That's fascinating, I was expecting you to go with the design or combat here and not scene framing! To me, the "continuous way" is far more gamey then scene framing techniques that narrative games have been emphasizing for a while; continuous style play is a very D&D-ism thing (probably arising from dungeon play?), whereas distinct scenes with a frame/conflict/resolution are what you see in media like novels and movies.

So, how are your games going? How many sessions have you had?

Just 3 so far, but after two of the Tomb we're giving a whole from-scratch campaign a shot. People have been really enthusiastic about character building (definitely hits some of the PF2e style notes there and I hear from the players that the Forge Steel tool is really good), the Complications are a heck of a lot of fun.

How easily are folks picking it up?

It's got a fair bit of keywords but thankfully the book and quick references have let us work through most things quickly as we go. Some of the phrasing is clumsier than 4e which can trip up a bit. Generally pretty easy though, the math is so flat and simple with that 2d10+(limited modifiers).

 

[Distracted DM]

How'd you find that?

The automated stuff definitely made the rules easier to handle, but the UI was very rough in a lot of places. I had a harder time figuring things out with it than I did Foundry, R20, Owlbear Rodeo, etc. It kind of reminded me of my experience with old Fantasy Grounds (which I bounced off of).
On the other hand there was a bug with the character importer from Forge Steel (website for character generation) into Codex, but when I hopped on the Discord to report it, someone fixed it and sent the update almost immediately- so that was nice

One of my players is in the business of designing platforms, so he is "very unforgiving of poor UI." But it's very early days for Codex, I'm a lot more understanding
If possible I'm probably going to try Foundry out with it instead.. I think the combination of using a new ruleset AND a new VTT made for a poor experience.

 

[Zaukrie]

The automated stuff definitely made the rules easier to handle, but the UI was very rough in a lot of places. I had a harder time figuring things out with it than I did Foundry, R20, Owlbear Rodeo, etc. It kind of reminded me of my experience with old Fantasy Grounds (which I bounced off of).
On the other hand there was a bug with the character importer from Forge Steel (website for character generation) into Codex, but when I hopped on the Discord to report it, someone fixed it and sent the update almost immediately- so that was nice

One of my players is in the business of designing platforms, so he is "very unforgiving of poor UI." But it's very early days for Codex, I'm a lot more understanding
If possible I'm probably going to try Foundry out with it instead.. I think the combination of using a new ruleset AND a new VTT made for a poor experience.

The core tool for codex isn't that young... The UI turned me off before DS was even announced. That said, I'll likely check it out, given my mild interest in DS.n

 

[zakael19]

The automated stuff definitely made the rules easier to handle, but the UI was very rough in a lot of places. I had a harder time figuring things out with it than I did Foundry, R20, Owlbear Rodeo, etc. It kind of reminded me of my experience with old Fantasy Grounds (which I bounced off of).
On the other hand there was a bug with the character importer from Forge Steel (website for character generation) into Codex, but when I hopped on the Discord to report it, someone fixed it and sent the update almost immediately- so that was nice

One of my players is in the business of designing platforms, so he is "very unforgiving of poor UI." But it's very early days for Codex, I'm a lot more understanding
If possible I'm probably going to try Foundry out with it instead.. I think the combination of using a new ruleset AND a new VTT made for a poor experience.

Guess I'll just keep using Owlbear Rodeo for now then!

 

[Thomas Shey]

We did a one-shot to test it out tonight, using the Codex VTT, I ran the "Road to Broadhurst" 'conventure,' as they call it. I think the biggest non-technical issue I had is that it felt very "gamey." I'm so accustomed to running games with 5e/A5E in a continuous way, that jumping from vignette to vignette is jarring. It's definitely a mindset thing, though- 'cuz on the other hand, I really liked how the combat worked! It's also the case that I've been running 5e for so long now that going to something else similar-yet-different is very uncomfortable, for multiple reasons

One of the hardest things to do sometimes in gaming is transitioning from one game to another that is very similar but different in fundamental ways. It can throw you off worse than going to something radically different.