What is in a Name?

There is apparently a game called Draw Steel that came out this year. Or maybe it was last year? I don't know. All I know is that it is a new table top role playing game that came out recently.

Well that isn't all I know. From what little I have heard, it sounds like the mechanics draw their roots from the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, which was a god damn awesome game. Also, what I heard sounded a bit like the Savage Worlds RPG.

All that said, this isn't a review of Draw Steel. This my friends, is a design exercise based on the name. Cause honestly, it is a great name. It's evocative and immediately draws images of flashing steel to my mind...

Which is the point and why I wanted to do this little exercise. It is a variation of branding exercises I have done in the past for my day job. In this case, I am going to broadly design a game, which is kind of a branding exercise in of itself, based on nothing but the name...

1: The Duellists

The first thing that comes to mind for me is the film The Duellists. Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine facing off against each other over the years during the Napoleonic era. I love this movie, and I love the idea of a matter of honor that must be resolved no matter how much time has taken place....

So the game has to be about two people and the issue that has come between them. But in that movie, the slight is almost incidental to the hatred. As the movie goes on, you kinda forget what the original issue was. There are also all these other people that get pulled into the feud, so while the game will be about two people, I don't think you play those two people.

Instead, you play their comrades in arms. Ok. Characters are soldiers. Napoleonic era soldiers forced into a relationship with one another because their friends are in a feud with one another that brings them together every few years in fits of violence.

2: Historical Fiction

I have been playing a lot of GMT's Napoleonics lately, so want to keep the setting. Let's say that the feud begins when our two young officers, Claude and Jean, crossing paths at the Battle of Marengo and their final fight would be after Napoleon's exile to St. Helena as old men. Figure something like six to ten different encounters across those long years until their final duel as old men.

Here I would steal the Moment's construct from Miseries & Misfortunes. A Moment is basically a point in history described with some detail and events and opportunities for a Game Master to hook into. In this case, I would write up a bunch of key ones for the years between 1800 and 1815 for the group to maybe select or randomly draw each time...

Either way, the idea is that the encounters that the players would be engaging in would be one of tense temporary truce as they are forced together to deal with some issue important to the good of the Empire and the Emperor while balancing their friends desire to try and kill each other in an illegal duel. The issue could be on the field of battle, behind enemy lines, at court, or just about anywhere.

3: Dueling

I don't know what the exact mechanic will be, but dueling needs to feel like dueling. I used to study 17th century Italian rapier. I also wrote and designed a card mechanic to try and capture the feel of it. I think it came close to the waiting, watching, anticipating each other's move, the subtle shifts, and the sudden flurry of activity.

Fencing is really damn fast once you cross and ends fast too. Though, as our instructor always said, most people don't die right away, so stay on your guard even if you strike a deadly hit.

That said, dueling would have to have its own mechanic to capture the unique nature of that kind of combat.

4: Words and Other Stuff

I love the Duel of Wits and Torchbearer conflict resolution for things like convincing or tricking someone into doing something they don't want to do. The game would definitely need to have something like that. Probably unified with other conflicts to keep things simple since dueling would be complex.

Maybe simple versus test type activities...

5: Loyalty and Friendship

There has to be something measuring the loyalty the character's maintain to their guy that is in tension with the friendship they have with the other guy's guys. If the "party" is basically made up of these folks tossed together, who have loyalty to friends who want to kill each other, it has to impact the things they want to do. They need to be in opposition to one another.

Maybe you wager them? Increasing one grants a benefit at the cost of another? There is something there at the edge of my mind that isn't hitting on all cylinders.

6: Epilogues and Death

These guys have to have death be a real thing. If they die, new guys have to come in to replace them in the circle of trust, which probable resets the loyalty/friendship dynamic and fucks up the world a bit for the survivors. I am also interested in what happens if someone walks away. Maybe there is a measure that makes them throw up their hands and leaves the madness?

Also at the end of the game, after the final duel, who wins? What happens to the survivors? What do they go on to do? A lot happens in France after Napoleon's exile and depending on the age of the characters, they could have interesting parts to play.

So that is where I would have made up if someone said to me, "Tell me about the game you designed called Draw Steel."

I have no idea if the actual game is any good. It might be. Based on the generic fantasy cover, it doesn't look like my kinda thing. I like my fantasy weird and different.

Last, But Not Least

I have a couple of new developments as the summer wraps up and the school year begins.

1. Issue two of this year's volume of Yggdrasil MGZ is off to the printer this week! I will post up a preview of what is in it next week but very excited to get it into my grubby little hands.
2. The final part of Testament is also off to the printer this week! This time I am trying a different process, working with my local printer first.
3. I am going to be manning a booth at RockCon this November in Rockford, IL. I have never been and looking forward to being a part of a local convention! I will be there with books, magazines, and even copies of the Torchbearer RPG core set.

Volume 2, Issue 1

A new year, so a new volume of Yggdrasil MGZ and it is huge! Sixty four pages of adventure for both the Torchbearer RPG and Basic/Expert Dungeons and Dragons!

And this issue is only the first part in a trilogy of adventures deep in the Sanctum of the Serpent Vaults, the last echo of a civilization cursed to desolation. In this issue you will get a vast adventure that includes:

• A sprawling urban crawl that shifts and changes every time you enter the city.
• The Dream Way, a dungeon that embraces the randomness of the Shifting City.
• A novel faction system that is centered on the adventurer's actions.
• A host of monsters for your party to face.
• Guidelines on how to use adventures for both D&D and Torchbearer.

Buy Now!