Draw Steel - Starter guide
What is Draw Steel?
Round three. In most fantasy games that is the point where the heroes get tired, their best spells are spent and the game master hopes the fight ends soon. In Draw Steel, round three is where it starts. Every round the heroes build power, and the blows they could not land in round one, they land in round three. The fight gets bigger the longer it lasts.
Draw Steel is the fantasy game from MCDM, Matt Colville's studio, with James Introcaso as lead designer. MCDM spent years making supplements for Dungeons & Dragons, such as Flee, Mortals!, and then decided to build its own game, designed from the ground up for what they loved most: tactical, heroic, cinematic combat. The crowdfunding ran in early 2024; the game appeared in 2025 in two core books, Heroes and Monsters. Netherbook sells the Limited Edition of those two books.
How does the system work?
The core is the Power Roll: two ten-sided dice plus a characteristic. Eleven or lower is tier one, twelve to sixteen is tier two, seventeen or higher is tier three. Every ability describes what happens at each tier, and tier one is never nothing. There are no misses in Draw Steel; an attack always deals damage, just more or less. You never need to know your opponent's armour class either, because the roll is the damage.
The second hallmark is the heroic resource. Every class has its own fuel (the Fury gathers Ferocity, the Shadow Insight, the Talent Clarity) that grows at the start of each turn and grows faster when you do what your class was made for. Your strongest abilities cost a lot of that fuel, so you open small and finish big.
The third hallmark is the arc across the day. Every won fight and every overcome challenge earns a Victory, and Victories give you a head start on your heroic resource in the next fight. Resting converts your Victories into experience but takes the head start away. Draw Steel rewards pushing on, until your Recoveries run out and you have to stop.
Outside combat there are two systems of its own: negotiations, where you win over a character by playing to their motivations and weaknesses, and montage tests, where the group tackles a series of obstacles with its own ingenuity. The game master is called the Director and has a resource of their own, Malice, to let monsters cut loose at the right moment.
You build a hero from five layers: ancestry, culture, career, class and kit. Nine classes, from the Censor to the Troubadour, each with its own way of winning. The game runs from level 1 to 10.
What do you need to start?
The two core books: Heroes, with all the rules, the character options and everything the Director needs, and Monsters, with hundreds of opponents, terrain objects and the Malice rules. The Limited Edition Netherbook sells is exactly that, in a leather-effect binding with foil stamping and a gold slipcase; the contents match the standard hardcovers.
Beyond that: two ten-sided dice per player, a gridded map or battle mat, and something to represent heroes and monsters on the table. Draw Steel is designed for a grid; without one you lose half the game. A free quickstart and a character builder exist through the community, but the books are complete.
Who is this game for?
Groups who love combat and want every turn to matter. Game masters who are tired of opponents that are nothing but hit points. Tables who know Dungeons & Dragons and want to keep the tactical part but lose the misses, the arithmetic and the slow drain of strength. And five players: the game is balanced for that, though you can play with fewer.
It is not for tables that would rather skip the fight. Draw Steel does negotiation and montage well, but its heart beats on the grid. Nor is it a light game: the books are thick, the options are many, and building a first hero takes an evening. If you want an easy way in, look at Daggerheart or Dragonbane; if you start here, you start something big.
How does it compare to other systems?
Compared to Dungeons & Dragons 5e, Draw Steel is built on opposite assumptions. D&D has hit points, armour class and a d20 that can miss; Draw Steel has damage that always lands, power that climbs and a Director who plays with Malice. Anyone coming from D&D will recognise classes, levels and the grid, and little else.
Compared to Daggerheart, the other big game to appear after D&D, Draw Steel picks the other side. Daggerheart pulls combat toward the story, with Hope and Fear and no grid; Draw Steel pulls the story toward combat, with tiers and positions. Both are heroic, but one is a conversation and the other is a battle.
Compared to Shadowdark, the new old school, Draw Steel is the opposite reaction to the same fatigue. Shadowdark makes heroes fragile and fights short; Draw Steel makes heroes strong and fights long. If you want danger, go one way; if you want power, go the other.
Where do you start?
In Heroes, read the chapter on the Power Roll and the turn first, not the classes. Then let each player pick one class on the first line of its description; the building comes after, and can happen together at the table.
Play your first fight with one pre-made hero per player and three or four monsters from the Monsters book, on a small map. Do not stop after round two. Round three is where the game shows you what it is.
If you want to know whether you or your table are ready for it, read our guide to your first time as game master as well: the Director's chair asks more preparation than an average session.
Recommended products at Netherbook
The Draw Steel Limited Edition holds Heroes and Monsters, everything you need for the complete game.
If you want the same heroic feel with a lighter way in, the Daggerheart Core Set is the neighbour; if you want a tight tactical setup in a smaller box, the Dragonbane Core Set is a good first step. For the opposite direction, fragile heroes and short fights, there is Shadowdark.