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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9691868" data-attributes="member: 18">They just put out the "Release Candidate" main book on the 24th.Rules-wise, it's crunchy so I can't do a detailed comparison with previous versions (esp. as I've been focused on Daggerheart lately), but I can say:A) The art is pretty fantastic and has a distinctive style/vibe in a way that a lot of recent TTRPGs haven't quite managed.B) The layout looks good and a lot of things make a lot more sense when laid out properly and not in some dodgy un-layed-out PDF.C) The classes and races are pretty strong and distinctive, and seem to be definitely leaning into a very specific setting, one which I think will be a bit marmite.There is some fairly wild stuff like one of the PC races weights 1000-2000lbs, and in case you thought that might be typo, dwarves who are similarly stony weigh 500-1000lbs. I'm not entirely sure what we're supposed to do with this - presumably neither can swim at all?Reading through the game it's a bizarre mix of extremely well-considered and thoughtful ideas and "What the hell?!". For example, the XP section is very sensible and has full explanation of how to speed up or slow down levelling, different ways to do levelling and so on. This seems both more-considered and more concise and straightforward than most RPGs, which tend to be kind of difficult or prescriptive about this. Great! On the flipside, the main mechanism of the game is "Power rolls" - i.e. rolls - and they give a result - a success we might say - with three gradations. What are those gradations called? Why, Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 of course! I'm serious. You're supposed to play this game for years into the future saying "I achieved Tier 2 on my Power Roll", like, constantly. Could anything be less evocative? Less cool? I don't know, this seems like a strong effort at being as boring as humanly possible! What do they actually mean? The book clearly explains they mean Weak, Normal and Powerful, essentially - so why aren't they called that or something evocative? Why on earth are they called Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3? Bloody hell.To be fair - the vast majority of Draw Steel! falls on the "Cool, well-considered, often surprisingly concise" side of things, but there is more "BUT WHY!?!" than you'd expect in an RPG as "big" as this.</blockquote>

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