What gets me playing Draw Steel and not Pathfinder 2e?

[Thomas Shey]

From past examples, most of even WotC's official 4e modules are slogs of interesting combats. Paizo uses tiny maps inappropriate for tactical combat (consider Abomination Vaults' rooms that can't even house the monsters supposedly encountered in them.)
If the two biggest RPG companies' professional writers struggle to make interesting encounters, what hope does a time-strapped hobbyist GM have?

I think picking an AP that was specifically trying to capture an old-school megadungeon at least is probably a bad example. Age of Ashes, for all its issues, did not have tiny maps for the most part, and it was the first one out of the gate. AV suffered from a problem that, frankly, a lot of dungeon-centric adventures do (and have since the start of D&D).

 

[Neonchameleon]

From past examples, most of even WotC's official 4e modules are slogs of interesting combats. Paizo uses tiny maps inappropriate for tactical combat (consider Abomination Vaults' rooms that can't even house the monsters supposedly encountered in them.)
If the two biggest RPG companies' professional writers struggle to make interesting encounters, what hope does a time-strapped hobbyist GM have?

My question is going to be to reverse this. If I, as a 4e DM, could consistently design interesting tactical encounter maps in the middle of the session in less than a minute without it feeling contrived why couldn't WotC or Paizo.

And the answer is fairly simple IMO. I could do it in 4e but couldn't in 5e or PF1e because what constitutes an interesting map is different.

To illustrate let's take a simple scenario in 4e and 5.14. Four PCs (fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric) sitting round a campfire by a fast flowing river and eating dinner, armed. Four starving worgs decide to try their luck.

In 5.14 this is a boring scenario. The fire is there and might as well be a big X on a green screen set saying "Do not step here" while the river might as well be a wall - or a do not cross line And the fight proceeds almost exactly as it would on a featureless large room with one wall unless the wizard is packing one of a tiny handful of spells like Thunder wave or Gust of Wind

By contrast in 4e the fighter and wizard almost certainly have forced movement abilities (including at will ones like Tide of Iron and Thunderwave, especially if they know me as a DM) and the rogue probably does. The PCs start within five feet of the fire so the worgs are coming within ten feet of it. The PCs can kill the worgs faster if they can push them into the fire and more safely if they can push them into the river and force them to spend their turn swimming back to shore and getting out on the bank. And unlike 5e they have the ability to do this as part of normal attacks. And that taking out the worgs efficiently and safely means putting them into the fire or water that are only there because this scene happened here turns it into a decent and distinct tactical challenge.

I don't know how much forced movement is in PF2e - but from reports of collision damage I hear Draw Steel has overturned it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Our group calls that module The Abomination Closets.

There's a reason there's a term called "monster closets" in an (uncomplimentary) reference to certain common computer game design features.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't know how much forced movement is in PF2e - but from reports of collision damage I hear Draw Steel has overturned it.

There are a few things that can do it in PF2e, but the special attacks in the game tend to be more focused on imposing conditions or action denial than repositioning. Its one of the areas where it distinctly doesn't resemble D&D 4e.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Again, I really don't think so. Some are simply not intended for casual players. There's no reason that should be less true than with any other kind of game, just because its a cooperative game. That's not gatekeeping; its just having a design intent and sticking to it.

There are four reasons mass market things could be not intended to be accessible for casual players.

1. They physically can't be simplified without taking away core elements from non casuals
2. The target market is a very specific group
3. The designer lacked either the time or the skill to make it accessible
4. Deliberate gatekeeping

I am not advocating that the experiences of the other players at the table be downgraded. The existing classes can stay unchanged. This isn't GURPS or Champions where everyone is playing by the same rules. Instead it's Draw Steel where the pitch is that every class has a "different" resource. And e.g. "add the round number to your damage" would fit the premise.

The very specific group being targeted according to isn't " Those people who like tactical RPGs" but "people whose RPG group consists exclusively of those who enjoy tactical RPGs" rather than anything that's a friend group first who turn up to have fun with their friends. In an RPG group of four of whom three are tactical role players who would love Draw Steel and the t fourth is a friend of all of them I'm going to recommend either PF2e or even Daggerheart (which is not a tactical RPG but has enough to sink teeth into) or Dragonbane all because of the purity of design. (Valuing purity of design as an abstract good rather than necessary flaw when trying to deal with groups is one of my beefs with Ron Edwards; he considered it incoherent rather than flexible).

And for the record I can think of multiple groups including both my current group and my longest lasting home group where many of the players including me would have been suited to what Draw Steel does well but others would not. I can therefore only see this as bad design or deliberate gatekeeping.

 

[tetrasodium]

From past examples, most of even WotC's official 4e modules are slogs of interesting combats. Paizo uses tiny maps inappropriate for tactical combat (consider Abomination Vaults' rooms that can't even house the monsters supposedly encountered in them.)
If the two biggest RPG companies' professional writers struggle to make interesting encounters, what hope does a time-strapped hobbyist GM have?

Malice helps a lot, it's pretty much the director's unspoken "spice things up near quantum fueling resource" . Initiative is a bit different in ways I easily Allow gugantic dozen+ monster encounters too, there's a term not coming to mind but it's really easy to handle group(?)squad(?) based

 

[zakael19]

Malice helps a lot, it's pretty much the director's unspoken "spice things up near quantum fueling resource" . Initiative is a bit different in ways I easily Allow gugantic dozen+ monster encounters too, there's a term not coming to mind but it's really easy to handle group(?)squad(?) based

You have Groups of monsters on initiative activations, which I think are kinda set by monster type? I'm not entirely sure on that, I only have the quick start ruleset which is focused more on running the existing adventure.

FWIW, after the very first encounter the pre-designed DS! rooms have lots of interactive terrain; or if they don't they have alternative win conditions besides "kill em all." Lots of stuff set up for doing forced movement into terrain for both enemies and PCs alike; or other tactical advantages.

 

[zakael19]

I can therefore only see this as bad design or deliberate gatekeeping.

They've kept all the classes operating under the same base conditions for balance purposes. Everybody has resource gain + spend abilities that do stuff. I do think some are more straightforward than others (eg: the Censor has really simple alternative resource gain, either when you hit your Mark or when your Mark does certain things within Range).

But at the end of the day, a good way to see if somebody is going to vibe with DS! or not is simply if they can comprehend and remember how the abilities work with their keywords and such. If they can't after running through the slow rollout of (pretty robust) L1 abilities as presented encounter by encounter in the Delian Tomb adventure, it's not the game for them.

And I think that's good. Lancer is good because it has a vision of tactical combat it executes on, along with dripping flavor. It's hugely popular among the people who like it, and not amongst those who don't.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There are four reasons mass market things could be not intended to be accessible for casual players.

1. They physically can't be simplified without taking away core elements from non casuals
2. The target market is a very specific group
3. The designer lacked either the time or the skill to make it accessible
4. Deliberate gatekeeping

I am not advocating that the experiences of the other players at the table be downgraded. The existing classes can stay unchanged. This isn't GURPS or Champions where everyone is playing by the same rules. Instead it's Draw Steel where the pitch is that every class has a "different" resource. And e.g. "add the round number to your damage" would fit the premise.

The very specific group being targeted according to isn't " Those people who like tactical RPGs" but "people whose RPG group consists exclusively of those who enjoy tactical RPGs" rather than anything that's a friend group first who turn up to have fun with their friends. In an RPG group of four of whom three are tactical role players who would love Draw Steel and the t fourth is a friend of all of them I'm going to recommend either PF2e or even Daggerheart (which is not a tactical RPG but has enough to sink teeth into) or Dragonbane all because of the purity of design. (Valuing purity of design as an abstract good rather than necessary flaw when trying to deal with groups is one of my beefs with Ron Edwards; he considered it incoherent rather than flexible).

And for the record I can think of multiple groups including both my current group and my longest lasting home group where many of the players including me would have been suited to what Draw Steel does well but others would not. I can therefore only see this as bad design or deliberate gatekeeping.

But then, you have to remember not everyone thinks you can actually fish in both ponds and do justice to either. I'm one of them. I've played plenty of games that did fish in both ponds, and my opinion was that they were more deceptive about one end or the other, whether deliberately or not. And no, I don't think being a class system helps meaningfully here, because its about basic systemic design.

 

[Enrahim]

Most failed in Paragon tier. Some were better than others and yes they were very much not achieving a 100% success rate (I don't think I ever saw an Essentials Cleric in play). But seem were good

This doesn't mean you shouldn't broaden things as far as practical.

I've yet to see one of those things. But any class based RPG should have options for casual players.

There are four reasons mass market things could be not intended to be accessible for casual players.

1. They physically can't be simplified without taking away core elements from non casuals
2. The target market is a very specific group
3. The designer lacked either the time or the skill to make it accessible
4. Deliberate gatekeeping

I am not advocating that the experiences of the other players at the table be downgraded. The existing classes can stay unchanged. This isn't GURPS or Champions where everyone is playing by the same rules. Instead it's Draw Steel where the pitch is that every class has a "different" resource. And e.g. "add the round number to your damage" would fit the premise.

The very specific group being targeted according to isn't " Those people who like tactical RPGs" but "people whose RPG group consists exclusively of those who enjoy tactical RPGs" rather than anything that's a friend group first who turn up to have fun with their friends. In an RPG group of four of whom three are tactical role players who would love Draw Steel and the t fourth is a friend of all of them I'm going to recommend either PF2e or even Daggerheart (which is not a tactical RPG but has enough to sink teeth into) or Dragonbane all because of the purity of design. (Valuing purity of design as an abstract good rather than necessary flaw when trying to deal with groups is one of my beefs with Ron Edwards; he considered it incoherent rather than flexible).

And for the record I can think of multiple groups including both my current group and my longest lasting home group where many of the players including me would have been suited to what Draw Steel does well but others would not. I can therefore only see this as bad design or deliberate gatekeeping.

I want to point out that Draw Steel actually has an obvious causal tag along option implemented - just not advertised as such: Retainers.

If you really just want to tag along without putting in the effort this also seem like the perfect thematic fit?

The board game Oathsworn has a similar concept going, and actively advertises it for players to play.

That said, I really would advice against grabbing for this option before the player in question has actually tried to play a proper hero. The streamlining they have done I think make the game extremely simpler to play than 5ed spellcasters or even 4ed PHB classes. Claiming that "causals" wouldn't be able to play it before seeing them in action I think is drawing hastened conclusions.

Indeed I would argue all classes are causal friendly in that they all have a reasonably effective fixed ability they could spam every round. One of the challenges with vancian spellcasters is that you can't just spam the same thing as you run out of them. 4ed had the same issue with regard to the "good stuff".