Intro
I'm joined by ChaosOS. He's been working on the Draw Steel system for FoundryVTT since way back in 2024 and, with Metamorphic Studios, recently released officially licensed modules for Heroes, Monsters, The Delian Tomb and Road to Broadhurst, including official art. We talk about making Draw Steel work in Foundry, and how it positions itself versus the Codex.
I'm Jon de Nor and this is Goblin Points.
Interview
Jon de Nor: Welcome to Goblin Points, Joseph!
ChaosOS: Hello. Hi, I'm Joseph, I am the primary maintainer on the Draw Steel Foundry repository, as well as the co-lead of the various premium modules that are now available on the Foundry store, as well as the free Road to Broadhurst module.
Jon de Nor: Okay, we're going to have to start at the beginning, I think, because you've been working on the Draw Steel stuff for Foundry, and you've been doing that...how should I put it...through Metamorphic Studios?
ChaosOS: Yeah. So Metamorphic is probably the most prominent, consistent company for doing Foundry VTT premium content. I got involved with them when I started working on the Savage Worlds system. So I've been involved in the Foundry community basically since the beginning. I really got involved in 2021, and Foundry only launched in 2020. And so I have been through a lot of the ups and downs of Foundry development.
And so I was running a Savage Worlds/Dark Sun campaign a few years ago. I got involved in the Foundry development part of that. And then as I started contributing to the system, Metamorphic reached out to me because they were producing the Savage Worlds premium modules and were saying, "Hey, you know, you're doing all these great system contributions. Do you want to help us make these premium modules?" I said yes. And so I have had my hands in a lot of the packages on the Foundry VTT store that Metamorphic has produced.
And then separately, I had my eyes on Draw Steel from the very beginning. I've been a big fan of Matt Colville's YouTube channel. I was a big fan of all the Kickstarters, and...most importantly though, I have always been a very big fan of Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition, because that was what I was running prior to switching to Savage Worlds, actually. I only did a very brief stint with D&D 5e. I mean, I have a D&D 5e campaign, but it's never felt like my home game, my main game, or anything.
So it's very exciting when Draw Steel came around and was like, "Hey, you know, we're inspired by Fourth Edition" — you know, obviously the game has a bunch of very important differences from D&D 4e, but, you know, inspired by Fourth Edition. I really love Fourth Edition, and the changes they made to the formula to produce Draw Steel were things I was very interested in.
And so I knew from the beginning that I wanted to bring Draw Steel to Foundry, because Foundry for me has been my primary platform. I really love the platform. It has a lot of really great benefits. And so I was like, well, you know, I can, you know, I can just like, you know, one of the great things about Foundry, it's a very open development platform. I have the technical skills to bring it to the platform. I also pitched it to Metamorphic as a, "Hey, you know, we've already had this success with MCDM 5e projects, the class bundle, the Flee, Mortals bundle. They've very good, their licensing deals work out very well for everyone, everyone's very happy with this relationship. Why don't we do a system?"
And so I have been largely in charge of almost the entire product line. So I do the system. I have a co-lead, Zhell, who...people who are active in the MCDM Foundry Discord channels will be very familiar with. He's been the lead on every single 5e Metamorphic project that they've done. I have taken on more of a leadership position for the Draw Steel things, in part because Metamorphic continues to ship non-MCDM 5e products, and so Zhell and I, we talk a lot, we're very good at working together. But I've taken more of a leadership role with the Draw Steel products.
And so I started working on the system, and Zhell has been a very important contributor. He's the person who reviews everything I do. So every single time I do work, I file a pull request, which is, in software development terms, like a chunk of work. And he goes through, says, "Hey, you know, you know, small things to change, big things to change." Even just today, before I got on the podcast, we've been talking about, you know, some UI updates for using abilities. And so all of this has kind of culminated into, you know, working to produce all of this stuff for the platform because I think it's such a uniquely valuable and flexible platform that if you're running Draw Steel and any other TTRPG system, it's very fluid to switch in Foundry between those.
And so I think for anyone who is interested in using either the large community support for Foundry — you know, it's got a very large community that is not just the Draw Steel community — for anyone who's running multiple systems and wants just like one unified platform that everything runs off of, and also just like anyone who's just generally like, I've spent my time learning Foundry, I know its ins and outs, I know how it works. And that's especially where I fall, of like, I know Foundry. I know how it works. And there's a lot of benefits for me for not spending a bunch of time relearning a new platform. And so I've really been enjoying developing for it.
Jon de Nor: So it sounds like you said you've been developing or working on stuff for Foundry since 2021. Does that mean you...and you've been active with Metamorphic for a while, also. Does that mean you worked on some of the pre-Draw Steel stuff from MCDM like the...?
ChaosOS: Yeah, so, a really good example in terms of the — again, all within the Foundry ecosystem. But the class bundle, I actually had a free Talent module that didn't have any of the actual like rules content, you know, per MCDM's licensing rules or whatever. But just like the mechanics of like, hey, if you wanted to run a talent in Foundry in 2023, you were probably using my module because I was very excited by the Talent, I thought it was a really cool implementation, and so I made a module that let you play the Talent. You know, manage strain, adding powers into the D&D 5e system.
And so when Metamorphic snagged the license to produce the class bundle as like a whole thing, I was very, you know, it was like, "Hey, you know, I already have done a lot of the work here." And so I was able to bring that into this premium module in addition to all of the great data entry work, you know, the art, the journaling, the journal styling, all of those things that all of my coworkers at Metamorphic bring to the table with all these premium projects. And so I think the Talent is a really big one...
There's just a lot, you know, a lot of the Beastheart coding — basically anything where it's more advanced than things you could build with just the system, any kind of that coding aspect is stuff that I probably wrote and did. The demons in Flee, Mortals are another really good example of that. A bunch of the minion code in the Flee, Mortals module. So there's just a lot of...any of that kind of behind-the-scenes technical work, I probably had a hand in, if not wrote almost entirely by myself.
Jon de Nor: (laughter) So just for clarity, the class bundle is the Talent and the Beastheart and the Illrigger?
ChaosOS: And the Illrigger, yeah. So yeah. So it was, you know, the Foundry marketplace...one of the discussions I've had with people more senior than me at Metamorphic, who manage the business side, is that they're still trying to figure out what makes sense in terms of like, product sizes on the marketplace? And one of the...in part because it's also about like, how do Foundry modules work? How do these interdependencies work? You know, Foundry ultimately really encourages you to kind of bundle things a little bit bigger. You know, you don't really want to be doing things piecemeal. And so, for example, it made a lot more sense because of that to do like, okay, all three classes as just a class bundle together, rather than trying to parcel things out.
Same reason why it's Flee, Mortals and Where Evil Lives, is that, from a production standpoint, from a marketplace standpoint, it's a lot simpler to just have it as like, "It's the Flee, Mortals and Where Evil Lives bundle. We're not selling them separately."
Jon de Nor: Oh, I don't remember now...did you end up doing the same for the Heroes and Monsters book?
ChaosOS: The Heroes and Monsters books are currently separate modules. So the things available right now on Foundry are, there is the free Draw Steel system. And so that lets you just play Draw Steel. It's got everything that is open in the Creator's License added into it. The system recently went official. All that actually means in terms of material changes is, we've got a few select pieces of art for places where it's just the system using things. So the system now has a nice splash background on the setup screen. The compendium packs have some nice art to them that pulls from Draw Steel.
Overall, though, the system going official is mostly important in that there's now three items on the Foundry marketplace. So at Foundryvtt.store, you can find the Delian Tomb, Heroes book, and the Monsters book on the marketplace. At least when recording this, they're all currently in the carousel on the front page. I'm sure that if you are listening to this in a month, you know, the carousel will change, as the inexorable march of time.
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
ChaosOS: The Delian Tomb brings exactly what you would expect. It is the Delian Tomb adventure produced for Foundry, using the full capabilities of both the system and the core software. So it's got journals, it's got the map setup, it's got all the Delian Tomb-exclusive monsters like your, you know, your armored soulwights, your unique bosses, the various ruinborn that are in the adventure. And so all of that is built up. We do have fancy automations in the form of scene regions, which are a core Foundry feature that lets you have kind of automated triggers based off of tokens moving in and out of places.
So for stuff like the Mage Tower, or the trap, or just like any of those other kind of like regional effects, those are all built into the adventure. We've got the whole adventure text built up as journals, and so those will be very nice. You know, very easy to read through things, understand the adventure, run it out of the box. The reviews there have been very positive People really appreciate how much simpler it is to just run it out of the box, rather than having to build it themselves.
You know, MCDM does produce nice VTT maps, but there's a difference between having the map and then having the map annotated with all the tokens set up and all of those kinds of things. Plus also, currently, at least, MCDM has not added about a dozen stat blocks that are in the adventure into the Creator License, so they're not included in the system. So that would be stuff like the ruinborn. There's a bunch of oozes, and there's a bunch of other like one=off things that are exclusive to the adventure.
And then the other two modules are the Heroes and Monsters books. They are produced as journals, and so you don't need to buy these modules if you want to have the actual rules stuff, right? So if you want to build a, you know, level 8 Stormwight Fury, you can just do that in the system. You don't need to buy anything for that. What the Heroes book and the Monsters book bring is they bring the journals very richly produced. So if you want to actually, like, read the Heroes book in Foundry, then we provide that as these modules
Jon de Nor: Aha!
ChaosOS: And then they also bring all of the actual art that is in. So the system, we have a bunch of generic icons that are based on roles for all of the monsters, and so all hexers share an icon. All of the defenders share an icon. And I think that, you know, I've like, I've been running Draw Steel for many months using that within Foundry. It works great. You know, honestly, sometimes it's really nice to just have some generic icons.
What the Monsters book especially brings is that Foundry has a fancy little feature called token mapping, which is, by installing the module we have a token mapping setup. So the monsters that are already in the core system compendiums can have the art from the module integrated into them. And so it really simplified the like data side of things, where...we could just, like, the system is responsible for making sure all the abilities are correctly configured. You know, the the kingfissure worm has the correct amount of stamina, has an Engulf ability, et cetera. And then the Monsters book can just directly say, and the kingfissure worm that is already in the system now has this like nice dynamic art token where the worm is popping up and breaking out of the frame.
That one is particularly notable because when our token guy was like cutting the art, he was like, "Okay, this is like pretty big. It's like popping out the frame. This is too much." And then we kept pushing like, "No, no, no, get as much worm in that token as you can." And so the actual worm itself is like twice as tall as the token base, which is quite a bit when the token — but, you know, I mean, it's the freaking kingfissure worm, right? It's like a 5-by-5 or something, you know? And so you've got this like, the art is popping out like a 10-by-5 little token. And so it's just like, you know, when that thing is on the field, your players will not miss it. And that has been...ggetting all of that integrated was very nice.
I'll just get out ahead all of the controversial bit. The Monsters book does not have art for every single monster in the book. We have done our absolute best, but unfortunately there are some monster categories that...there are some like really weird, unique monsters that MCDM made that did not get art in the book, and rather than...Metamorphic is not in the business of commissioning art. We are not MCDM. It is not our responsibility to, you know, like find an artist who can produce a token in the MCDM art style or whatever. And unfortunately, MCDM isn't Paizo. Paizo has an incredible library of monster art going back literal decades. So even if they don't have, you know, even if an adventure did not include art for a monster, it's probably a monster that they first printed in 2003 and got art then.
And so the Monsters book does not have art for every monster. I will say that Metamorphic is committed to backfilling art. And so as we start to produce more adventures, as MCDM starts to commission more art, if there's art for a monster that is not included in the monster book, but is in some future product that MCDM has produced, we will go back and add it to the Monsters book. And a really good example of that is, in a future update, we will have the war dogs from Fall of Blackbottom included as token art, because there — I mean, the Monsters book has like 25 unique war dogs or something, and it only has art for like 12 of them.
And so like there's some things you can do in terms of clever, like, "It's just the head, you don't see the weapons they have!" But very reasonably, people are like, "Well, but this war dog has like a weird psionic ability. Why is this not included?" It's like, well, it's not in the Monsters book, and it wasn't there when we when we were producing the book. But, you know, we can go to Fall of Blackbottom of these other adventures and we can start to pull things back. And so hopefully over time, you know, we'll be able to fill in things like the demons, the war dogs. There's like the angulotl tadpole that didn't get art. And so I definitely understand the frustration that there is not art for every monster in the book. But I can say that we are going to go back and backfill all of those.
Jon de Nor: That's nice. You mentioned that with the with the system that you can purchase the module, you get the full Heroes book and Monsters book, I assume, as part of the journal system in Foundry. Does that mean that you've gone through and basically converted the whole book to whatever format Foundry uses for their journals?
ChaosOS: Yeah. So ultimately like...so basically, Foundry's journals are primarily HTML. And we've actually been talking with the, you know, I think I'm allowed to say this, where, the Codex guys have actually come to us for help with producing some of these things, where...like, part of our licensing deal was that we would produce all of this content, we would do all this data entry into Foundry, and then the Codex could use it as a basis for what they're producing, because they also would rather be working with HTML, with JSON, with these formats, not with PDF. I have absolutely no shame in saying PDFs is frankly just a terrible format.
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
ChaosOS: It is a very, very good format for reading, and it is a very, very bad format for basically anything else. And even for reading, it's mostly a good format in the sense that it's very good at keeping a consistent, page-like view. And so if you want something that is both like very readable digitally and then also will print nicely, PDF makes a ton of sense as a format. For digital products, where we have to do things like, you know, a journal, you can resize it, right, you can increase the height, you can decrease the width, you know, all of these kinds of things. HTML is just a better format. It's the reason why HTML is actually often the same things that e-readers want to be using.
So there's a lot of just like converting formats in a way that was pretty laborious. The other thing that is pretty laborious in producing these journals is a step we call linking, which is both the obvious of like, you know, replacing all of the PDF inter-page references with internal links for these journals, which are going to look different, right? You know, we've got, in a PDF everything is like a linear page count kind of thing. And with these journals it's like, well, we've kind of, we've divided the chapters up in kind of these logical groupings. Some of this is internal Foundry logic with how it organizes the journals versus the...like, different journals versus pages within a journal.
But it's also adding in all of the various pieces of rich text. So it's, you know, so linking to stat blocks, having little buttons that work for all the traps to request tests, including...especially in part one of The Delian Tomb, there's a bunch of macros that we wrote. So that way, you can do things like progressively reveal the abilities, links between the different parts of the adventure...and so it's just, there is a lot of work that goes into turning a PDF into a journal that is fully ready to run within Foundry.
Jon de Nor: Yeah, I've been looking at the stuff that's been published by the stuff that's been published on Steel Compendium, and I think that's in like an automated process where he runs like a parser through the PDF and tries to extract the text. But it's not perfect! (laughter)
ChaosOS: No, no. And I mean, I will say, one leg up that we have on Steel Compendium is that MCDM sent us the InDesign files that we already use. And so we, like we do have more ability to deeply and richly extract the original text and formatting, but it is still...I mean, I remember — so, in terms of like overall timeline, we didn't really get started on the actual text of the journals until late November 2025. What was is we were waiting for MCDM to finish up their errata, because it was clearly — there had been like this building errata doc, but then like, they hadn't actually finalized things.
And so until they were done with the errata, we didn't really want to get started because it'd feel really bad if we released these journals and there's a bunch of like issues that have already been added that we somehow missed in that process. And so it was just like we could massively reduce the amount of errors by just waiting a bit. And that actually, frankly, was the biggest delay on everything was just like, we didn't really start until November.
So it was like late November and like, I remember doing this on the flight to PAX Unplugged. Where I was just like, you know, I've got my laptop and I'm just like, all right, I've got the Heroes book. It was very funny, the last five months where people have been like, "Man, I really wish MCDM Foundry would produce something." And there was a lot of community members who were not really able to connect 2 and 2 with Metamorphic having produced the 5e modules already, and the fact that Zhell and I, who are listed at the top of the credits of the Metamorphic 5e products, being the people building this Draw Steel system and being like, "Wow, I just don't think it'll ever happen. They're working on the Codex."
And meanwhile, you know, I'm like, emailing with James, and he's like, yeah, we want — you know, direct quote from James, of like, "We want Draw Steel on every VTT there is. We want it on Foundry. We want FantasyGrounds. We want it on Roll20. We want it on Owlbear." You know, he's — MCDM has been incredibly supportive throughout this process. And it's very funny to see everyone assume that because the Codex was the thing they didn't want it on other VTTs. And it's like, well, they do!
And there's definitely a fine line I had to walk of both defending MCDM while also not revealing anything. And the line I took throughout this whole process was nothing has been announced. Anyone who...there's like a certain element of like, I don't know, like I think that sometimes the average community member is not the best at reading between the lines of like, I'm going to say things that are very exactly true, and...I actually have a tiny little bit of media training I did when I was an undergrad. I did some media work interviewing people at Blizzard, because I was involved in the Heroes of the Storm community back then.
So like, I do, especially in a public forum like the MCDM Discord, I'm going to pick my words very carefully. And so the line I went with was, "Nothing has been announced," because that is exactly true, even as I'm, you know, spending the day working on, you know, like fixing text in the Heroes and Monsters book, you know, to make sure it all, like, looks good, or like, figuring out the styles for something or whatever. And so it was a very funny day-and-night switch of working on something that I know is a fully done deal, it's just kind of a question of how fast I can get through it, and then everyone being like, "I don't know if this will ever happen!" I know the answer! You know? It's happening.
But yeah, no, it was...yeah, PAX Unplugged also was a really great experience where I was like, we had like really started, gone into like producing these modules. And then I think it was like the Saturday evening, James invited me to playtest Crows, which was very cool. And so I got to hang out with him. I got to meet up with him in person for the first time, got to play Crows, which was really great. You know, it was really nice to have this weekend of like, wow, you know, we're really getting into this Draw Steel stuff, you know, we've really gone into production. And then also like actually meeting up with MCDM people and feeling like, oh wow, this is really getting somewhere, we're really building something.
Jon de Nor: I do receive some questions from my patrons when I interview people.
ChaosOS: Of course.
Jon de Nor: And one of the questions that was submitted was from Ananam, actually, who made the Vampire class. And he's been a regular Pathfinder 2 player, or rather GM, and used Foundry a lot for that. And he mentions it being, and I quote, "a huge pain in the ass to enter stuff into Foundry." So how is that process been for the Draw Steel stuff?
ChaosOS: So baseline, I would be remiss if I did not give enormous compliments to the dozen or so people who have done data entry work for the actual Draw Steel system. There is a lot of human volunteers who put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into actually putting together everything, you know, people who report bugs to the repository, all these things, you know. Yes, I may represent Metamorphic here, and Metamorphic obviously did produce these premium modules, but at the end of the day, this still is, you know, more than 50% a community effort. This system would not be possible without the massive amount of community hours that have gone into doing the data entry.
And so, well, I would say yes, absolutely, data entry can be a real big pain. Especially, you know, and I think this is one of the things that I'm very conscious of because I've done so much of this, is like, how do we build a system where the data entry is straightforward, intuitive, and is as little as you actually need to do to specify what you want? And that is not easy when it comes to tabletop role playing games, because quite simply, people like to do weird shit, you know?
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
ChaosOS: I think one of the things that has been kind of bedeviling Zhell and I for a couple of months is, how do we want to handle all of the various special fields on abilities like persistent and strained? Because it's one thing to say like, okay, this is like the ability template, right? And we implement the ability template that is at the start of the abilities chapter. But how do we build a flexible system that accounts for not only the core classes, but any future classes MCDM might produce, as well as any third-party classes?
You know, Zhell and I have spent more time producing third-party classes for Foundry in D&D 5e than, I think, anyone else. And so we are keenly aware of what it means to have a system that imposes limitations, how do we make things sufficiently flexible, et cetera. This is something we're really aware of and something we're really dedicated to getting right.
I actually spend a lot of time reading through all of the various third-party classes that people post, because every single time I'm trying to answer the question of, okay, so how would we do this on Foundry? Like, is this possible on Foundry? You know, is there a future where I'm making an assumption because this is how it works in the core classes, but this third-party class is doing something different? You know, we really want to make sure that things are both flexible but also not time-consuming, right? Because that's the big trade-off, right, is that people are like, "Well, can you add an option here? Can you add a toggle here?" or whatever.
It's like, yes, we can add infinite buttons, but the problem is not just a UI perspective, but also a like from a data entry perspective, like how do you make sure all the defaults are right? So that way, things are as seamless as possible. And that's, you know, frankly, that's an iterative process. Zhell and I, again, have a lot of experience because we've done so much on the 5e side of things. But Draw Steel is a new system, you know? We've got, you know, nine core classes to really work off of. The Summoner has already been a huge like, how the hell are we going to handle this?
I've actually been personally forced to confront that, because one of my players in my Friday game is playing a Summoner. And so right now my solution is a bunch of macros. And so I've actually been building API, I actually had already built some APIs into the system that macro users can use. I posted that into the MCDM Discord in the Foundry VTT macros thread, of just like, here are some macros to help your Summoners work. And that works as an individualized solution for my game, but once the Summoner enters the community license, like, how the hell is this going to work? How do we manage picking, you know, the fact that they don't really pick abilities, right, they just pick minions. And so, like, how does that work? How does that integrate into Call Forth, you know, all these things?
It's not easy. It's not straightforward. We want a solution that is both honest to how it is presented in the book, where you know, you have a single Call Forth ability that just very flexibly has a list of minions, but also a, like...great, so we've built this super flexible solution — how do we all, you know, how does this integrate, and then also, how are things extendable? It's a very hard problem and something that requires not just a lot of programming capabilities, but also a lot of like RPG design know-how, that Zhell and I bring to the table, of like, what are people trying to do and what are the exceptions?
You know, how, from a UI perspective — if something is weird, right, does that mean that it stone-cold is not possible? Or does that mean that it just requires a little bit more manual adjustment on the job of the end user? You know, Foundry obviously gets a lot of praise for its automation. But at the same time, you know, there is, you know, with a complex system like Draw Steel, there are so many edge cases, we want to make sure that, like, even if we can't automate it to the fullest extent we would love, at least make sure it is easy for you to then go that last mile.
Jon de Nor: And speaking of automation...because the Codex, which is kind of the — I don't know if it's the elephant in the room, but it is looming in the room at least (laughter) — is targeting a very high level of automation when it comes to the abilities and the effects that they impose onto targets and whatever in the game. Okay, it's a two-part question, I guess; how far have you taken automation up until now? And also how far are you thinking of taking it?
ChaosOS: Yeah. So with my poking around the Codex, I simply think that the Codex goes further, in terms of automation, than I would like to go, even if I had infinite time. And then I also think, just like very practically speaking, the Codex is a full team of full-time developers. This is something, you know, the Draw Steel system is something that I am only working on in a part-time capacity. And so, you know, Zhell and I together probably put in, I want to say, like, 30 hours a week, on a good week, into the Codex. And, you know, the Codex team is, you know, was like 5 or 6 full-time developers who were putting in at least 40 hours a week. And honestly, these guys are like pretty dedicated. And so I'm pretty sure they're putting in moore than 40 hours a week.
So some of it is a like practical constraint of like, you know, we are...you know, we're not subsidized by MCDM. You know, we are not...we have to put together what we can find in our free time, as well as what we can justify as part of producing these, you know, Foundry Marketplace modules. You know, the Foundry Marketplace modules have done well for themselves, we're going to keep producing them...the amount of time that we can take per module to put back into the system is limited. Especially with also...Zhell and I are also in charge of producing modules for other companies besides MCDM. We've got like, anyone who's a fan of Ghostfire for D&D 5e has seen Zhell's work all over the place. You know, we've got a bunch of those Grim Hollow modules coming through the pipeline, amongst other things.
And so we don't have as much time in a average week as the Codex team. And also we don't have full control over our platform. And so the upside of that is that there is a, you know, fairly large team of full-time developers working on Foundry, the core software. And so that's really beneficial for us in terms of, like, we benefit from all of the development work they do. You know, there is a lot of platform-level work that the core software team does. And one of the topics we'll get into, I'm sure, is Foundry version 14, which is coming out next month. That will bring a lot to both Draw Steel directly as well as just like the general Foundry experience.
And so that's the big upside, is we have, even though Zhell and I do not have even a full workweek every week into the Foundry system, there is a team of full-time developers working on the core software. But at the same time, that also means that not all of the decisions the core software makes are purely focused on Draw Steel. And so, you know, we have to be a little bit leaner, we have to be more strategic. You know, we can't just throw more man hours at everything. And also our ability to work with MCDM directly to commission assets, like, we're not in that level of the pipeline. You know, we are at the end, MCDM has produced something, and so then we'll produce something based off of like MCDM's final product.
You know, I'm a patron, so like, I'll throw in my 2 cents of feedback or whatever. But like that is obviously a fully different level than the level of integration the Codex dev team has. And so I think MCDM is making a really big bet on the Codex, right? The downside of the Codex is MCDM is very financially exposed on it, and is very, you know, they're putting a lot of money in and they hopefully will get this amount of money they need out of it. And so I think that, you know, they've made a very big bet. I hope it works out. And by contrast, I think we're doing something that is more guaranteed to be sustainable.
Like, you know, the Foundry module is just never, ever going to go anywhere. Like we're going to keep producing it. Even if my availability for the Foundry module goes down, I actually think we're in a really good spot for it. We've been implementing a lot of features. You know, there's some things we're ahead of the Codex team on, there's some things we're behind the Codex team on. And so I think we're doing overall a pretty good job of matching them. You know, we'll see where it all pans out in a couple of years. See, has the Codex been able to maintain its piece of development? Can they continue to sustain they, you know, full team of developers? I hope so. You know, that'd be really great if MCDM reached that level of success, that they can maintain a full team of software developers.
The other thing about Foundry is that Foundry has always been a much more of a like DIY-type model. You know, the Codex I think is...you know, the Codex, it's on Steam, right? They do have modding support that they've already demonstrated. But I do think it is demonstrably less powerful than what you can do on Foundry. They're providing a — it's also, you know, and also the reusability aspect, right? You know, we already have a, you know, Foundry has a very large community of asset creators who have built things bespoke for Foundry, fully integrated, using Foundry's existing capabilities. Those are going to take a big step up with v14, with the core software adding scene levels as a way to do kind of multi-level maps. And so there's a lot of, like, broader community support for Foundry that people can tap into. And, you know, if the Codex is successful, hopefully all of that will get brought over there.
Jon de Nor: Is there any part of the Draw Steel system that felt good to get in, like an automation or something?
ChaosOS: Yeah, I think minions were actually completely serendipitous. So I started working on the Draw Steel system off of one of the very early backer packets in 2024. And so then the Foundry version was version 12, and frankly, I really had no idea how minions worked. I mean, like, in Foundry, right? Like MCDM basically landed on how minions worked pretty early for Draw Steel. There was one big change with the way area abilities interact with them, but that wasn't like super fundamental. And so I had absolutely no idea how they were going to work. And then a late-breaking change version 13 brought — or they added into version 13 — was this idea of combatant groups. And so basically just this additional chunk of data to group combatants in the combat tracker, that ended up being perfect for minion squads, because I was just like, I don't...
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
ChaosOS: Like I think it was a really practical example of how, without access to the back-end code of Foundry, I didn't really have a good way to structure that, like, these five tokens are sharing a health pool, because that's just like not otherwise how Foundry works. And so there's been a serendipity in that they had added combatant groups, I think, for D&D 5e was the original proposal. And then, like D&D 5e a year later, has still not actually leveraged them at all, which I think is like...
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
ChaosOS: There's some very funny things of Foundry development where D&D 5e obviously drives a huge chunk of their development process. It is a massively popular system, and they have the license to the premium content for it. And so they very understandably, like, have D&D 5e like, you know, the lead developers on the D&D 5e system, several of them are also core software developers. And so there's a lot of high-level awareness of what D&D 5e needs, and so therefore, what should the core software prioritize.
And you know, I'll be honest, I think with the core software, it has been interesting to see them learn, especially as against the premium content of like, what do people actually need? Like, I know at Metamorphic, we've had a number of things that we had been asking the core software team to prioritize for years, and then they got this Wizards of the Coast license, and then all of a sudden it shot to the top of their priority list, because they realized how important it was when producing premium content.
In software development, the term for that is "eating your own dog food". A very common process in software development is, you build something, and you ship it off to customers, and if you are not your own customer, then your personal connection to little grievances is...it's very easy to dismiss a complaint as, "Well, you know, why don't they just use this workaround or whatever?" Because the thing is, like, if you're not your own user, you don't have the kind of perspective of like how common is something. Like, is someone who's griping about something representative, or is this just like one person who's like very idiosyncratic, and so their gripe is unusual?
And so when you actually use your own stuff, you are much more likely to feel the same things the community's feeling and figure out, okay, what are actually these small annoyances that add up and how do I prioritize them? Because that's the other thing, is that like, fixing small UI issues is something that doesn't look very sexy on a quarterly report or anything, you know. The things that are hard to quantify when you're trying to justify to your boss how you're spending your time. And there's been a lot of like, the core software has spent a lot of time learning how we at Metamorphic have been feeling in terms of what's important with producing premium content. What are things that we just kept having to re-implement because the core software didn't do it? You know, all these kinds of things.
It has been really instructive to have like, D&D 5e get this kind of first-class experience and then in Draw Steel, like...a lot of those things, to try and tie it back to Draw Steel development, are not, per se, just for D&D 5e. You know, Draw Steel is also a game that is generally played on a grid. It's a fantasy system. You know, it has all of these concepts. And so even though there's a lot of like obviously really big, important rules differences between the two systems, from a VTT perspective, they share a lot of common interests. And so it has...there have been a number of times where I'll see some of the core Foundry team be like, "Hey, you know, like we're going to do this thing for D&D 5e because we're producing XYZ module," and I'll be able to chime in and say, "Hey, also, you know, Draw Steel would really benefit from this because we have XYZ needs."
Jon de Nor: One thing that was like the focus of the development of Draw Steel was making the game more fun to run. Would you say that there are parts of the Draw Steel system for Foundry that makes it more fun to run as a Director?
ChaosOS: Yeah. I think the...I mean, like, the minions I think are a really good example of something where I can very...like, VTTs handle "putting a lot of shit on the board" way better than in-person play. You know, I have run Draw Steel in-person, I think Draw Steel runs great in-person. Minions in-person can be a huge amount of just, there is just so much stuff on the board. You're forced to make decisions of things like, do I have enough minis for these? What am I using as replacement minis because I don't have a big mini collection? Et cetera.
And so that is something I think that a VTT does a lot to help. Obviously does something that Codex also does, you know, I think a lot of these things that are going to be things that are like very also benefits of the Codex. But I think like minions on a VTT just feel really good because it allows me to have like a large map that still like feels like there's a lot going on. You know, in D&D, very classic, especially Fifth Edition, it has a lot of problems where it's like you've got one big monster that just kind of gets stuck, and Draw Steel does a much better job of avoiding that problem. Some of that also is, of course, like Draw Steel's solo designs.
But also like, Draw Steel recognizes that most fights should not be solo fights. And I think the Challenge Rating system does not do that. I think that, you know, the Challenge Rating system really encourages you to just be like, oh, you know, you just pick one monster that is of the appropriate Challenge Rating for your party, and then like, that's the whole encounter. And I think Draw Steel's encounter-building rules do so much better at encouraging you to do other things.
The other thing is that I think that the base movement and ability use rules in Draw Steel do a much better job of encouraging interesting combat. And so two Fridays ago, I ran a combat where I had a bunch of lizardfolk in this swampy terrain against my party. And what I did is that like, a lot of the map was this kind of river, and so I was like, okay, this is low water, it is difficult terrain if you don't have a swim speed. And so my players had to engage with the jump rules, where it's like, okay, some of our characters have good Agility or Might. They can jump, and that allows them to get over some of this difficult terrain without movement penalty.
But at the same time, you know, we had a couple characters in the party who were Elementalists or Summoners, who did not have very good Might and Agility skills. And so they had to figure out, like, what of my abilities let me actually move around the battlefield to get where I need to be? And I think that, you know, the Foundry system has full support for marking areas as difficult terrain. And so it felt really good to be able to like, have that level of integration on the map where, you know, my players are having to make important, particular decisions about their movement and about their ability ranges in order to engage successfully.
Especially with...and like, part of what was interesting about the combat was that the ranged lizardfolk were out ranging by Summoner and Elementalist, and so the Summoner and Elementalist had to advance through the water if they wanted to engage with the backline. And so there's I think just like the base...I think D&D 5e ultimately just has a big problem where on a design level, it doesn't want you to ever have to think about positioning, and so it makes it so trivial to get where you need to be to attack without penalties, whatever. And I think Draw Steel's design on a very base level forces you to engage with that level of tactics.
Now, you know, the downside that many people would note is that that means you spend, the whole party spends a lot more time talking about each turn of combat, while in D&D 5e, you know, the fighter can roll up and say, I attack it twice, roll some dice, and then be done with their turn in 60s. But I think that people are having more fun engaging with Draw Steel. You need the right group, you need the right group. But I think people have more fun engaging with Draw Steel on that deeper level than the D&D 5e, "I'm going to roll around, I don't have to make any decisions, nothing is ever going to meaningfully impede my actions, and so I'm just going to like, take my turn and then check out for twenty minutes."
Jon de Nor: We're closing in on the hour already. And I always ask my guests to bring some kind of recommendation for the listeners. It could be anything that you want them to check out, or...
ChaosOS: Yeah! Broadly speaking, Naomi Novik as an author has been really important to me in terms of how I think about fantasy, I think she's made so many things...in particular, I want to recommend her book Uprooted. I think Uprooted is just an incredible story, you know? It's very Polish in terms of like the perspective on fantasy, but I think that it does some really neat things in terms of who the antagonists are, how magic works, and is just generally a really inspiring piece of fantasy literature.
Jon de Nor: Thank you so much for coming on, Joseph. It's it's been really fun to hear about the system.
ChaosOS: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I think I think Foundry has a really bright future ahead of it.
Outro
Thank you so much for coming on Joseph. I've been, and still am, a regular user of Foundry since the start of the pandemic. And while I personally prefer the Codex, I think it's fantastic to see Draw Steel supported on other VTTs. It's no secret that Codex is not for everyone, and I think a lot of directors would prefer to stick with Foundry if they're already very comfortable with it.
I want to thank Ananam, Antan Karmola, and FoxTrick for submitting questions for ChaosOS.
If you want to be featured on Goblin Points, or know of someone else who should be, leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify, or send me an e-mail on tips@goblinpoints.com.
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Next episode is on the 5th. That's the news episode covering everything Draw Steel and Crows in April.
See you next time. Snakkes.