This episode was originally published on YouTube and Spotify. This page only contains the transcript.

Intro

Hello everyone and welcome to the sixteenth episode of The Dice Society Podcast! My name is Caio and this is a show about MCDM’s Draw Steel TTRPG where I talk about its development, my playing experience, and first- and third-party content being made for the game.

Today our main topic is one I’ve wanted to cover for a long time: the Codex. With all of the recent news surrounding another famous VTT, I think it’s time to take a deep dive into Draw Steel’s own solution.

Then we’re going to talk about general news, including changes to the rules, new tracking sheets, and some dope art. Finally, to finish off the episode, we’re heading to the community corner, focusing on a new vampire class coming to BackerKit pretty soon!

Cool? Cool. Now let’s draw steel and get started!

Codex

As I mentioned in the last episode, development is now full steam ahead on the Draw Steel VTT, dubbed the Codex. Given the influx of new features, the announcement of some planned releases, and the start of alpha testing in earnest, I thought this was a great opportunity to catch you all up on the goings on of the Codex.

But, first things first: what is the Codex? To answer this question, let me read from Djordi’s Patreon post on the matter:

“The Codex is a custom VTT built in collaboration with the team at DMHub. It’s built on their existing software for d20 fantasy, but is being built out in a bespoke fashion to be a solution specifically for Draw Steel. You can check out their existing d20 fantasy software right now via direct download, but the Codex itself is distributed via Steam.

The current version of the Codex has a lot of cool features. Parallax technology that gives the illusion of height for maps with different elevations, tracking of forced movement, and falling. The Draw Steel rules are partially implemented, letting you track heroic resources, flanking, and a subset of abilities.”

If you can’t take a look at their existing d20 VTT right now, Foundry and Roll20 are great points of comparison. Like them, the Codex is a 2D tabletop where you can open maps and move tokens around; players roll dice from their character sheets, while directors control monsters and the environment. Nothing too out of the ordinary here.

The main difference between DMHub’s offering and other VTTs is the amount of automation it provides. Of couse you can use the Codex without any of its fancy features, but it does understand the rules of the game and can do a lot of stuff for you. Not everything is implemented yet, of course, but I was positively surprised by how much it already knows about the system.

For example, it has a nice interface that shows how much stamina a group of minions has and it knows how many minions should die when an attack does enough damage to the stamina pool. As Djordi said in his post, the VTT also has a pretty parallax effect that denotes a creature’s elevation very effectively. These features really take the load off of the director, allowing them to focus on narrative and tactics, instead of bookkeeping.

Are there bugs? Yes. Is there a lot of stuff left to implement? Of course. But I do think development is moving pretty quickly now that the Draw Steel core rules have settled down.

If you wanna see the Codex at work, I recommend watching a dope one-shot by Rise Heroes Rise called ‘Goblins Take Over The Codex!’. Besides getting to see the whole interface on Cameron’s screen, you can also see one of the devs helping us get acquainted with the VTT and make the most out of the features they had already implemented. Just remember that it’s been a few weeks since we played, so the Codex is actually much further along in development now.

So, say you’re sold and you want to take the Codex for a spin. How would one go about doing that? Well, much like MCDM, the DMHub team is going to do their testing in phases. First they are allowing a small group of testers try out the VTT through their Discord; you can already join the server and add your name to a waiting list to get a Steam key for the latest version of the software.

Then, in a few months, they plan on releasing a more polished version for MCDM patrons; this will only contain Echelon 1 characters and core combat at first. Finally, once the VTT has gone through testers and patrons, it should become available for backers. If you don’t like buggy software, I’d suggest waiting for either the Patron or the BackerKit release.

If you’re one of us crazy people who like testing stuff, though, there is a lot happening in the DMHub Discord already. There is a whole channel dedicated to dev updates, a general chat channel to talk about the VTT, and a form to give feedback after playing. Links to everything in the description.

The coolest thing going on right now on the Discord, in my opinion, is the Codex Marches; this is a West Marches campaign that is meant to stress test the Codex. According to the onboarding document:

“Directors will post ‘missions’ in the #notice-board channel which include a rough adventure outline, how many players, the level of play, etc and offer one or more session times which you can apply for. Players are also welcome to post ‘missions’ and gather a group of players who also want to participate in that mission.”

I’ve already gotten to participate in one of these missions, and it was super cool! There are people working on the setting and players are encouraged to write session reports. It’s a really dope idea and I hope more people get to participate.

To finish off this Codex segment, there’s the looming question of monetization. How much is it going to cost, will it be a monthly subscription, will it give you automatic access to the rules, and so on… We don’t have solid answers to any of those yet, but Djordi has given us a glimpse of some of the stuff they’re planning.

First of all, their intent is to have access to a product on the Codex be tied to the purchase of that product from MCDM; that means you wouldn’t have to buy the product twice to use it inside and outside of the VTT. This is already a huge relief, at least to me.

For the players among us, it seems like access to the Codex will be predicated on either being an MCDM patron or having purchased the Draw Steel rules. Their goal is to also offer ‘party packs’, with cheaper copies of the rules for multiple people.

This does sound a little expensive for players, who are used to… Not having to pay for anything. However, it seems like they will get access to all player options, even the ones they haven’t payed for! Djordi gives the following example: “When we release the Summoner you can get access immediately as a Patron, purchase the product to immediately get access on release, or wait until the next player option update to get it for free.”

The main through line here is that they don’t want the bad incentives that free-to-play stuff creates. If they offer you access to the Codex for free, who is paying for it? An added fee to every other book they make? Microtransactions inside the Codex? If you want a product that costs money to make and maintain, you have to pay for it somehow; I think it’s better to make that cost explicit rather than implicit.

Anyway, that’s all I had to say about the current state of the Codex. I’m super excited to see the VTT become more capable as time goes on because I play mostly online, but even if you don’t intend on using it, I highly suggest joining the DMHub Discord to take a look at what they’ve got going on over there; you might be surprised.

Intermission

Before we move on, you might wanna know that, after a year and change, you can finally become a member of The Dice Society on YouTube. For only a few bucks, you get early access to my videos and are mentioned at the end of every episode! This is a great way to support my work if you enjoy the podcast.

That’s it! Back to the show…

News

Now it’s time for the news! We start with a few updates on last month’s main topic: the two new classes coming after the core rules. The 1st level of the Summoner continues being playtested, with some kinks still needing ironing out. That doesn’t mean, however, that the devs aren’t thinking about the higher levels of the class; Willy even talked about how 6th level Summoners might be able to manifest parts of the environment from which they summon their minions.

As for the Beastheart, James shared that their current design has you choosing your companion independently from your subclass, and that your options will likely feature more basic animals and fewer monstrous creatures when compared to the 5e version of the class. But, speaking of subclasses, we also got a sneak peek of what they have in store for us… Currently they are working on four options, namely the Guardian (which is more tanky), the Prowler (which is more sneaky), the Punisher (which is more DPS-y), and the Skirmisher (which is more mobile-y). As usual, all names are temp.

Next, rules updates. Most are super tiny, just some tweaks here and there. The bigger ones are: hiding has become an opposed roll, hero tokens are now a reroll instead of an automatic success, and AoE damage on minions now gets clamped to the minions in the area only. How this last one’s gonna work at the table, I’m not sure… It sounds kinda hard to calculate on the go, but we’ll have to see once the books are out.

Now, on to quality of life updates. The first one was actually on my wishlist for some time: universal malice features. These are malice abilities that work for any monster, and they emulate surges, increasing potencies or damage. Since keeping track of ancestry-specific malice features can sometimes be a pain, I like knowing that now I have at least a couple of generic options at my fingertips.

The second one has me hyped. On a recent Patreon post, James shared the work-in-progress versions of some tracking sheets. These are form-fillable PDFs to help you keep track of important stuff at the table; we got one for negotiations, one for montage tests, one for regular encounters, and one for large encounters.

Honestly, I’m pretty impressed. I wasn’t the biggest fan of their character sheets, but these four tracking sheets are a ten out of ten in my book. I’m sure they are still gonna tweak something here and there, I just can’t imagine how these could be improved! Good freaking job, guys!

Anyway, last in the QoL department is Willy’s equations for monster scaling. If I understood it correctly, these are linear functions that output the expected damage for each type of monster per level. This can help you homebrew new monsters, or scale up and down an existing creature. If, by any chance, a recent release of a big RPG has left you wanting in terms of monster math, well… Draw Steel might just be the game for you.

Speaking of releases, there are some news about the products on MCDM’s pipeline. According to the devs, they have already had the warfare kickoff meeting, where they discussed how to adapt the 5e warfare for Draw Steel. And according to the production team, the dice they crowdfunded last year should either have already started, or be close to shipping.

Lastly, in what I felt was a little bit of a plot twist, Matt shared on Twitch that they are likely not having a single big crowdfunder at the end of this year. In order to allow each product to be the best version of itself, MCDM now wants to crowdfund them separately. I personally like this strategy because it means I won’t have to go over my credit card limit…

To finish off the news segment, we have some pretty cool art. If you’re a Patreon member, you should have gotten a big post with a bunch of new pieces, including both heroes and monsters. If you’re not a patron, however, Nia Kovalevski, the author of one of those pieces, has posted the 10th level Shadow on their Bluesky account. It’s worth a look, that’s all I’m gonna say. Link, as always, in this episode’s description.

Community

With the news out of the way, we can take a look at the community corner.

Given our main topic today, I suggest we start with Codex-related stuff. The main one is a centralized source for video tutorials, by That Italian Guy; the goal of this Google Sheet is to store links to YouTube tutorials about the Codex. It’s a great place to start if you have never used DMHub’s VTT before.

Also worth mentioning are Vex’s crash course on how to direct a game in the Codex, and thc1967’s Forge Steel Character Importer.

But don’t think the community has forgotten about other VTTs! ChaosOS has recently implemented an unofficial Draw Steel system for Foundry, and AmbyNavy has made a whole video tutorial for how to run Draw Steel in Foundry using a few nifty modules.

Moving on from VTT land into YouTube land, we have a great actual play by Rise Heroes Rise called Death to Ajax! This was a level 10 one-shot against the Iron Saint with plenty of epic moments; the highlight of the battle, though, has got to be the now famous record-holding moment when one of the players pushes Ajax a total of 27 squares. Go watch for yourself, it’s something to behold.

Another video you might want to check out is my tutorial on how to introduce Draw Steel to your friends. It explains my ten suggested steps for running an introductory one-shot for players that haven’t got a clue of how to play Draw Steel. I also introduce my super compact pregen character sheets, which you can also get in this episode’s description.

As usual, we also have some cool interviews to highlight. Jon de Nor had a great chat with one of the authors of The Great Thaw of Gryzmithrak Spire, the crowdfunder I featured in the last episode. It’s super cool to hear them talk about other projects and game systems, definitely worth a listen.

Another interview you should watch is Aestus_RPG’s conversation with James Introcaso about his career. It’s full of great advice and it gave me a lot of perspective into the industry. If you want to get into game design for real, this should be mandatory viewing, I’m serious.

And, if you’re looking for player options, we got those too. Tamwin5 has come out with a banger of an ancestry: the Goblin Band. This is a super cool concept where you play as 5 small goblins that can spread out; really top-notch stuff. We also got a vampire ancestry from Sam McGurran. It works kinda like a revenant, but, you know, who drinks blood; Sam even made some fiction to accompany his creation, just like the ancestries in the Heroes book.

However, if we’re going to talk about vampires, we have to slow down a bit and take a closer look at the new vampire class that Triglav Games will be taking to BackerKit on April 2nd. Ananam, head of Triglav, shared a preview of this class with me and I’m happy to report that it’s pretty dope. And the art they showed me was like, insanely cool.

If you navigate over to their BackerKit landing page, you’ll see that Goblin Points, Heart Of Arcana, Rise Heroes Rise, and yours truly have already said some nice things about what we’ve seen. Here’s my take (ahem):

This class is dripping with flavor. Every feature and ability reinforces the dual nature of the Vampire: a relentless predator who’s nonetheless a slave to their own thirst. Mechanics-wise, the class offers a great push and pull, with plenty of interesting combinations and tactical options. Truly a great addition to the core classes!

I won’t go into design details because these might change before the crowdfunder goes live, but, as you can probably guess from my quote, this class’ heroic resource has both benefits and drawbacks as you accumulate it. At least to me, this represents really well what I called the ‘dual nature of the vampire’.

Since I only got to see the early levels of the class, I made sure to ask Ananam if they had any plans for the higher echelons of the game. Here is their response, with some details removed as to not spoil anything major:

“Our plan right now is to have two flashy things. One of them is, probably around lvl 6, [the] ability to transform into some monstrous huge form. There will be forms unlocked per [subclass], and we are thinking [one of them] should be able to transform into a wolf […] or maybe a viper, [another] maybe into some huge shadow spider, this kind of stuff. Maybe all vampire will be able to transform into [a] monstrous bat too, will see!

Second flashy thing is to expand upon [subclasses]. We are thinking start of tier 3, so lvl 7, you just get access to [a] third subclass option and can grab its earlier features. Kind of an Awakening in their bloodline. And for [the] capstone ability at lvl 10 we were thinking maybe ‘Master of Bloodlines’ […] You are basically master of ALL blood legacies.”

So, if this kind of stuff excites you, make sure to opt in to get notified when the campaign launches. Best of luck to Triglav Games and may your crowdfunder be very successful!

And, to finish off this community segment, let’s just take a quick look into three miscellaneous creations:

Character Sheets but not for Ants, is a character sheet template by Gub that has a larger font size.
Next, with its latest update, Forge Steel now includes all monsters from the second backer packet. Go check it out!
And, last but not least, Certified Ajax Puncher has some nice themed music playlists that you can use in your Draw Steel games.

As usual, you can find links to every single community creation mentioned here in this episode’s description.

Outro

And that’s it for today, folks. I hope you guys enjoyed the episode!

Make sure to check out this episode’s description for links to all of my socials, The Dice Society’s mailing list, and a full transcript of this episode. I’ll also leave some links there to James’, Matt’s, and MCDM’s accounts so you can follow them too.

See you all next time, thank you very much, and goodbye!

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