Intro
I'll be honest: this one's for me. I really wanted an excuse to hang out and chat with Jay, so I've invited him to Goblin Points for just that. We talk about the Codex as a tool, Draw Steel as a system and what TTRPG systems bring to social encounters.
I'm Jon de Nor and this is Goblin Points.
Interview
Jon de Nor: Welcome to Goblin Points, Jay!
Jay: Hello, it's me, Jay, your GM! I use he/them!
Jon de Nor: Wow.
Jay: And this time, it's your show! (laughter)
Jon de Nor: (laughter) This is reminding me of watching your YouTube videos. Tell us a bit about yourself. and also how you ended up in the Draw Steel community.
Jay: Yeah, I mean, I have been a long-time tabletop RPG player. I got started back in 3.5, in my very first year of college. My cousin came up to me, he sat down next to me, he's like, "Hey, me and my friends are going to play Dungeons and Dragons tonight. You want to play?" And I said, "You can't talk about D&D in public!" (laughter) I was like, "What are you doing? We're in polite society! This is rule Alabama, they'll kill you for this!" (laughter)
But then I showed up to his D&D game, and he handed me the DMG and said, "Oh, by the way, do you want to DM?" And I was like, "What does that mean?" And he's like, "Don't worry. Any time a rule comes up, I'll just tell you what to do. And you just tell the story." And I'm like, "Okay!" (laughter)
Jon de Nor: Wow.
Jay: And that was my first experience with Dungeons and Dragons. I came in right at the tail end of Third Edition. And then Fourth Edition came out. I was the only guy in my group who liked it. I loved Fourth Edition. It took four hours to play a combat, but I liked combat, so it was fine. (laughter) And then, yeah, I've been playing D&D ever since. I was a big fan of Running the Game, which Matt Coalville did on YouTube, obviously. And so when I heard he was making an RPG, I got very excited. But I was always very, very picky with RPGs. So actually for a long time, I refused to know anything about Draw Steel. I was like, I'm going to hate it. I'm going to hate it. I'm going to hate it. I just know I'm going to hate it. I hate every RPG besides D&D for whatever weird reason.
And then it came out and it came out at a very fortuitous moment because I hated 5.5. So I was ready for a change in my life. And so when Draw Steel came out, it was like the perfect game for me. I was so excited.
Jon de Nor: What I know you from initially is your videos talking about the Codex. That's when I first became aware of you, and how much you love the Codex. (laughter)
Jay: I love the Codex more than anybody on God's green Earth. (laughter) If Codex has one fan left, I'm it. If Codex has no fans left, I died. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: What's your VTT journey been like, and what's made Codex the best experience that you've had?
Jay: Well, I always played on Roll20 originally because it was good enough. And then people would not shut up about Foundry. They badgered me into using Foundry. And so I got Foundry working, I paid $5 a month for a server so I could play Foundry online, and then I used it for like six months, had nonstop trouble with it, and had to ditch it almost immediately. And then I had to move everything back into Roll20
And I think like, there were two problems with Foundry that were really persistent. Number one is that it was really resource-intensive. So, I have a player who lived in South Africa at the time, and they had a very limited computer with very mediocre internet, and Foundry just destroyed their machine. And then the other thing that was a constant problem was Foundry had access issues, I guess because I was using that server-hosting site or whatever. I constantly had uptime issues. And if I wasn't in the game, my players couldn't be in the game, which also is annoying.
And so yeah, I got out of Foundry pretty quick, and then I eventually found out about Draw Steel. Really fell in love with it. They launched Codex in early beta. I got in during the beta, and I started trying it out with my players, and it's just so clever. It's so smart. I mean, everything about it works really well. It automates a lot of the sort of more challenging parts of things like keeping track of banes and edges. And I wouldn't trust the software to do that, usually, because when people say they're going to automate that kind of stuff, it's usually a total crapshoot whether or not it actually works or picks up the things that are going on.
But with Draw Steel, 80% of the time, I think it just does it. And then like the other 20%, I might have to finesse it a little bit. But finessing it is usually as easy as just like, unclicking the buttons and then just manually clicking the double edge button I want to actually apply to this roll. And sometimes we're wrong and it's right and we are just overriding it because we think it should work another way. But regardless, yeah, it just works. And I'm constantly impressed by it. I think it's one of the best pieces of VTT software that has ever come out with a TTRPG.
And I think one of the things that is kind of interesting about it is that 4e had the promise of a VTT at launch that fell through. And so it's kind of interesting that a spiritual successor to Fourth Edition has an actually working VTT. And that's half of what makes it so fun to play. I think that it would be a lot slower to run Draw Steel without the, I don't think it would be less fun, but I think it would be slower. And so, yeah, I'm in favor of anything that makes the game a little more fast, a little more dynamic.
Jon de Nor: Do you give any credence to people that say, like, having the VTT be so, I would say competent, at the rules, that it's kind of removing the TTRPG part of the game?
Jay: I definitely have heard that opinion. I think that like, at the end of the day, the TTRPG part of the game is the parts that are happening moment to moment, mostly outside of combat, where you're engaging in the setting, in the world, in each other, and you're investing in the roleplay, in the scenes, in the back-and-forth of character interactions. Rolling dice when it's important, and then following along that throughline. I think that those are the most important moments. And the VTT kind of gets out of the way for all of that. It's not too intrusive on that front.
In combat, like, we're not playing a narrative RPG, we are playing a turn-based, tactical RPG. We want crunchy, systemic combat, and crunchy, systemic combat is complicated. And so having a tool that offloads some of that mental overhead and allows you to just be focusing on the turn-by-turn decision making...I think it doesn't take away, it adds, because now you...I've actually seen people be like, "Oh, I don't want to deal with this spell. It's going to make them do so many saving throws, and I don't want to have to bother with all that. Like, let's just do this one and hit this guy and be done." And you don't have to do that in this VTT because the VTT is going to handle all your saving throws, all your end-of-turn effects, all that stuff automatically. So you can just use the best ability that's the most interesting at any given moment. And you don't have to worry too much about it.
And I think also, for people who have difficulty remembering what's on their character sheet, it's nice to have that little bar at the bottom that they can click and see, "These are my actions. Okay. I can just pick one of these four things. Let's just quickly survey them and then get right into it." And so I've actually noticed players who have struggled with rules in 5e struggle a lot less in Codex. And it's not because they suddenly got better at reading, it's because the Codex is helping them so much. And I'm just...yeah, I think it's really sweet.
Jon de Nor: After falling in love with the Codex, you ended up making a few videos and recently, just last week, I think, when we record this, you made like, "One year of Playing Draw Steel in the Codex." What motivated you to kind of start making those videos?
Jay: You reminded me I had a YouTube channel, so... (laughter) No, I've actually been making YouTube channel videos for a while, on and off. I had a really, like, in-depth series I worked really hard on called Edition Tours, where I went through the various editions of the game with my friend Ailoth, and they drew...basically, I would be their GM and take them through character creation. They would create a character in each edition of the game, and we would go through the books together and make a character, and then we'd come back after the fact and we'd record our feelings about that character creation process.
And so we'd go over like, how did it go? What were the difficulties? What were the easy parts? Were there any parts of this character creation process that impressed you? Were there parts that really frustrated you? And yeah, we did basically every edition of D&D. And then I would do my, like, 8th-grade book report essay on that edition of D&D, where I would basically read off a bunch of facts and people who worked on that edition and tell the story of D*D through the various editions.
And, yeah, so I made that series, which I was very proud of, and I made a bunch of, really funny parody videos where I was sort of lightly jabbing at other D&D content creators, sort of making fun of the idea of making content around D&D, because I found it pretty funny. (laughter) Those did way better than the one I worked hard on. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: Oh, no!
Jay: Listen, it's just the way life goes. And yeah, every so often when...like, when 5.5 would come out, me and my friend Air would make videos about 5.5 because we had a lot of opinions about 5.5. And we were both very positive on it at first, until it came out. We would just talk through the changes they were proposing, and things we liked and didn't like. And then after it came out, we had a couple of videos about the final version and how we felt about it.
And that's kind of how my YouTube channel runs. I don't make content regularly. I make it when I have things to say. And so when Draw Steel came out, I made a bunch of videos about Draw Steel because I had a lot of gut reactions and thoughts and interesting things I was noting for the first time about the system. And so I made a bunch of videos about that. And when 5.5 came out, it's the same thing. And when 5e, I first started playing for a while, it was the same thing.
Yeah, I'm not a consistent creator, but I make stuff when I have something I think is interesting to say, or when there's a compelling conversation to have with my good friend Air. Who also, by the way, when you invited me on the show, I told him and he's like, "Wow, I didn't get an invite?" I was like, "Ah, man, no shot! I barely got on, man!" (laughter) And my name's on the channel!
Jon de Nor: Oh, now I feel bad. I should...(laughter)
Jay: (laughter) No, it's okay. He needs to go down a peg or two. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
Jay: We got to keep him humble, keep him hungry. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: Now that you're an experienced Codex user, is there something you're missing in the Codex?
Jay: Oh, I've told them this, actually. I went into their Discord the other day and I was like, compliment sandwich. Really loving the Codex. But, monsters, man, monster statblocks have got to improve on the Codex. The way that they're laid out right now is the same as character sheets. And I think that is the wrong way to lay out a monster statblock. When I'm running six different monsters, especially kind of complicated Draw Steel monsters, I need to, at a glance, be able to tell, does this thing have a reaction? Does this thing have a passive effect, like an AoE effect that's constantly going on? Does this thing have, you know, riders to its abilities that I need to be aware of?
Right now, it's not super obvious. So, I've told them this, and they said, yes, we're we're going to do a full rework of the monster statblocks at some point. It's definitely on our radar. We're just trying to get other stuff implemented first. Like for right now, I think a lot of monsters aren't even fully implemented. Like they have a tier ranking of how implemented something is, gold, silver, bronze. And there's a lot of high-difficulty monsters that are still bronze. They're still getting the like low-level stuff fully sorted out. I think like literally last update, they finished the thorn dragon, which is a pretty important low-level monster. And it was really funny too, because they fully implemented the week after I used it in a combat. So am I cursed? I don't know. Are they watching me through my Codex account? Maybe. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: Do you get to play much Draw Steel? On the other side of the screen, as it were.
Jay: I don't think I...I have played a couple of playtests back when me and Air were first getting into it. He ran a couple of one-shots for it. Mainly he ran like combat, like battle rooms, one-shots, where he would just throw monsters at us over and over until we died, just to stress-test how much we could handle. But, like, other than that, no, I've never actually gotten the chance to play.
But that's not shocking. My playgroup tends to...I tend to be the one who introduces them to new things. And then after they've been introduced to it for a while, they will come back to me and run for me. Like right now, I'm playing in a campaign of 5e D&D, or 5.5 D&D, with a player from my playgroup I've played with for a long time, but that group has actually never even touched Draw Steel yet. Because that campaign has been running for a while, and so they've never had the chance to actually play Draw Steel.
So I suspect in the future a player will run it for me. But for now, I'm teaching them Draw Steel so that they can later...I'm raising my children so they can someday house me in my old age.
Jon de Nor: (laughter) You're actually one of the lucky ones, having a group with other GMs. And you kind of rotate who's running them?
Jay: So for the most part, I am the eternal GM. My name is YourGMJay, after all. I do not begrudge the eternal GM. People are like, "Oh, are you a forever GM?" And I'm like, "Yes! (Positive), okay, that's an enthusiastic yes!" I love being a GM. I'm a little bit of a control freak. So I love being the GM and I don't begrudge it at all. But I do kindly have some players who are very creative people, very entertaining people, very funny people who, you know, want to try their hands at running campaigns.
And so what we'll do is we'll get to the end of a campaign, and then I'll want a little time to build up the next campaign. So I'll say, hey, for the next 3 to 6 months, you want to run a mini campaign? Like, "mini", 3 to 6 months is not mini, but...3 to 6 months, you want to run a campaign, and then I'll take over after that? And they'll say, "Sure, yeah, yeah, that'd be great, I'd love to run for a little while." And so they will play, and sometimes, they even run in my own setting, which is crazy. (laughter) I'm living the dream over here.
Jon de Nor:(laughter) We talked a bit about this before we started recording, and I almost want to touch upon it again. If you were in charge of MCDM specifically, this patron asks, what products would you want to create for Draw Steel next?
Jay: Oh, I'd love to see a bundle of perks. I think perks are one of the underutilized aspects of character creation right now. I'm a big fan of big fat feat lists. I love them, give me as many feats as possible. So I'm definitely in favor of getting more perks.
Obviously, monsters are always useful. They have released a lot of monsters since the game came out, thanks to the adventures they're running all have custom monsters in them. But yeah, I'd love to have more monsters to use. They're always helpful. I'd like medium-tier magic items as well. Some of the legendary stuff is a little intense to give away, I'm a little scared. But I'd love to have some medium-tier items. The equivalent of a +1 sword, right? Something I can give away fairly thoughtlessly without worrying too much about the destruction of my campaign happening because I gave it out. Just because I love to give out that stuff.
I recently had a player who uses growth potions. They've been brewing them between combats, and they use them in combat, and they're just devastating. They're so powerful, actually. And it's good that they made them, because they would have died without them. (laughter) I did not balance that encounter correctly. I gave them way too hard of a thorn dragon fight, but the giant growth potion allowed the Censor to have, like, 100 and something hit points at level 3, which allowed them to tank a lot of dragon damage, which was very good for the rest of the party.
So, yeah, I'd love to see more potions like that. And I think, like, items like those and potions and perks are great ways to give out-of-combat utility to players as well, in a game that doesn't have a ton of that on the character sheet. So, yeah, I'd love all those things.
Jon de Nor: Out-of-combat utility...I guess, perks, or like utility spells, as we probably would call them in D&D...do you feel do you feel that's lacking in Draw Steel as it is now?
Jay: It's tough because obviously they have to make all the abilities that you pick as you level up equivalent to other abilities that other classes get and that you get within that same class. So to give something that's purely out-of-combat utility, that would eat up one of your four combat options, would be really tricky. But I do feel that like, one of the most magical moments you can have in a game of Dungeons and Dragons, for example, is when a player thinks of a clever way to use a spell that maybe wasn't the intention of the spell when they made it. But like you enjoy, and they enjoy, and it makes you excited. Or even a spell that is intended to be used, but they just happen to have the perfect spell at the perfect moment, right?
So, a great example of that. I had a bunch of players who were backed up to a cliff's edge, and they were about to be like, attacked by a group of enemies and have to fight a battle on the edge of the cliff. And he's like, "Everybody, trust me, just jump off the cliff," and everybody's like, "Okay!" And then they jumped off the cliff, and then he cast feather fall, and it's like, "Oh, you actually had that spell? Oh my God, that's perfect, wonderful, thank you! You saved us from a combat!...Which we would have enjoyed doing. But whatever!"
But yeah, I think like having those abilities that can have that amazing out-of-combat utility are great. And I think like, perks are perfect place for that in the character sheet in Draw Steel. I think that's by design. A lot of the perks as they exist now are utility spells from D&D. Like there's a find familiar perk. There's a speak which plants perk — or, speak with objects perk. So there's a lot of, like, perks that already simulate that. And I think that, like, if we had more perks, it would feel less like there are fewer out-of-combat options for players.
And I think, like, you can do some of that with the abilities in the game. Like I've had a great one in a recent session where there was a locked door. And it was a pocket door. There was no lock on it. It was a sliding stone slab in a pocket, so they couldn't, like, easily pick it or crowbar it out. So they were like, "Oh, God, how do I get this door open?" And then they use Bones of the Earth, which creates pillars of stone out of the ground. And they just summoned it under the door. And so a pillar of earth came up under the door, smashed the door out of its socket, and then they just summoned it back down into the ground and walked through the hole they'd made.
And that was a great example of one of the abilities being used outside of combat. And I'd love if they'd give more options like that, abilities that are primarily designed for combat, but had some out-of-combat utility as well, would be kind of cool. Just because I feel like that's one of the things that you do kind of lose out on by not having a spell system.
Jon de Nor: I know that during the development of Draw Steel, they talked about maybe having magic items or treasures kind of fill that gap, of the "missing", in quotes, utility spells. Do you think that's something that's possible?
Jay: Oh, yeah. I meant, I think...I don't think they have done that yet, but I think that they could very easily do that in the future. I think that if you look at Crows, right, almost all of the character features are items that you find and can use. So they obviously have this in their minds where like a character is defined largely by what they wear, as much as what they get upon level-up. And Matt Colville's talked about this in a ton of videos and a ton of streams about how the old-school style of progression was less about leveling up and getting your next class feature, and more about finding that really cool sword in the dungeon that unlocks all these new abilities for your character.
And I think that they could definitely do stuff like that, you know, a feather that turns into a pair of wings and lets you fly would offer a lot of flexibility for how characters can respond to certain situations. You know, a jug that shoots water out of the spout has famously done incredible things in D&D campaigns. People wodn't stop talking about what a rod that you click and it stays in place can accomplish. (laughter) So, you know, there's definitely the possibility for magic items to open up incredible avenues of like, character expression.
I don't necessarily know that they've already done that. I think that there's room for improvement there. So maybe if I was thinking about like one product that would really change the game, a big Book of magic items could be one suggestion. Magic items and perks. (laughter) I think those are the two things I would really want to see more of.
Jon de Nor: Player rewards. That's what's needed.
Jay: Yeah, yeah. Oh, titles are awesome too. I think that they have such a good thing with complications and titles. I think both of those are so cool and great ways to express character when you're making your character in Draw Steel. I don't think I've ever had a player who's read the complications list and walked away without saying, like, "Holy crap! Is it okay if I take these? Like, am I allowed to have this?!" And it's like, "Yeah, man, go for it!" (laughter) There's an infernal contract, and then a second one that's like, an infernal contract, but bad. (laughter) It's so funny.
Jon de Nor: (laughter) I really think the complications is...it was almost like, I'm not sure I should call it a sleeper hit, but it was one of the first thing that I saw people, like latch on to when they, look through the book is like, these complications are amazing.
Jay: Yeah. Because you don't expect such a really character-, narrative-focused thing to be in a tactical RPG, really, right? You kind of almost expect...it's almost like, it's like a system, it's like a mechanic that escaped from a narrative RPG and sneaked in here. (laughter) But I love it. And I think, like, Draw Steel actually sneakily has a ton of narrative options that you get to pick. I mean, I think perks are that. I think complications are that. I think the career paths are a lot more interesting than backgrounds were in 5e and continue to be in 5.5. I mean, don't even get me started on 5.5 backgrounds. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: Speaking of it being unexpected to have these almost narrative options in a tactical game, I remember seeing a lot of people talking about negotiations and how they were like malplaced in Draw Steel as a tactical game. And here are like these, this whole subsystem for social interaction. Have you had any chance to use negotiations? And, if so, how did you find them? (laughter)
Jay: Yeah, it's a good question. I think, like, I definitely had my doubts as well. I've always been kind of the opinion that social stuff is...the best thing an RPG can do with social stuff is to get out of the way. I always felt this about D&D, like, I was like, oh, the social rules in D&D are perfect because there are none, and I don't need them. I just want to be able to talk to my players and they talk back to me, and then we figure it out. And in a situation where chance comes or, like, where they're really trying to persuade somebody to do something they don't necessarily want to do, we put the dice in and we resolve that tension, and then we move forward.
And that's always been my feeling, but I like a negotiation in the very specific context of...I almost think about it like, it's the boss fight of social encounters. A negotiation is the boss fight of a social encounter. It is when a social moment has been built up in the campaign to such a level of importance that it needs to feel dramatic and epic and earned in order to fully pay off. And then you bring out the negotiation rules. And now, suddenly, there is that sense of like mechanical payoff to a social encounter.
And then it also really rewards those players who took a class like Troubadour, right, who gets a couple of special abilities that do key off of negotiations. And then you get, there are a couple of perks as well, that key off of negotiation. So you do want to have some of them in there, because if players are going to get abilities that key off of these mechanics, you ought to reward them and pay it off. But like, I really like it in that context of, like, the boss fight of social encounters.
I had a really good negotiation where the players were trying to convince a group of druids who were on the fence about helping them in a fight against another army, and they were basically of the opinion, like, if we just hang back in our forest, nobody's going to come bother us. If we get involved, we incentivize them to come hurt us. So like, you're going to really have to work hard to get us in this fight. And the players had a bunch of good arguments, and they appealed to their motivations, and they did everything right, and they managed to convince the druids to come help. And because of that, the whole shape and texture of the fight that they were in changed. Which is great! When you have those dramatic moments...I think it would become really annoying if you were to do it for every big social conversation. But I think as like, again, the boss fight of social encounters, I think it's awesome. And I think it's really effective.
Jon de Nor: That's so refreshing to hear. As someone who's...I have a love for the negotiation system. I don't think it's perfect, but I love the intentions behind it. How did your players find the negotiation system? Because I feel like often the players are just as...not rebellious, but, like, just as...they receive it just as poorly as a lot of Directors do, I feel.
Jay: I think when you come to a subsystem like that, I think players are like small animals. They get frightened easily. If you show fear, they'll show fear. So if you approach a system and you're like, "Oh, guys, there's these rules for negotiations, I was thinking maybe we could use them..." You're like, "Okay, guys, we're going to do a negotiation. Some of you have character abilities that rely off this. So, you know, be looking at those. Make sure you understand how they work. This is the objective of a negotiation. This is how you proceed in a negotiation. These are the tools at your disposal. Go." I think, like, yeah, players will get on board. My players certainly did. I don't know about yours, but my players got on board once I just approached them with it. And like, you know, you treat it like any other part of the game. This is a part of the game.
And especially because, again, I'm using it as the boss fight of social encounters, it felt appropriate to have its own system because it was such an important moment in the campaign that had been built up to across multiple sessions. Yeah, at that point, it felt suitably dramatic to have its own rules. And I've used it a couple times since then. Yeah, I'm not going to go through all the situations, but yeah, I've used it a couple of times and always it has worked pretty well. And my players at this point, like, they asked me, you know, "Hey, I got this feature that lets me do a thing in negotiations. When's the next negotiation, GM? Let me use my feature!" And so I'm like, "Okay, okay, don't worry. It's coming up."
Jon de Nor: Have you had any chance to look at, or interest, I guess, at looking at Crows?
Jay: I have looked at Crows. I personally I recently watched a Daði video, Mystic Arts, and they were talking about how they were always kind of turned off by the high lethality of these campaigns. And I feel basically the same way as what they said. High lethality of OSR games kind of has negative interest for me because I'm really invested in characters and big overarching stories and big epic fantasy. But Crows, I think, strikes a more interesting middle ground than a lot of these games. I think it is more survivable than a lot of these games. I think a lot of these games are literally like, one hit and you die. Whereas in Crows it's a little more like, two hits and you die, (laughter) so there's a chance to run.
No, but I think Crows definitely has more that interests me. Additionally, it's on the Codex, which is always a selling points for me. (laughter) But I think about campaigns like...sometimes, I'm thinking up a campaign idea and I'm like, "Wow, you know, Draw Steel does not suit this campaign idea. The characters in Draw Steel are too powerful to make sense for this kind of lower, grittier..." You know, I think basically every D&D campaign I had that started between level 1 and 3, I can't really do in, Draw Steel. Draw Steel starts at level 5, effectively. A level 1 character in Draw Steel is a level 5 D&D character, basically.
And so I find that there are times where I'm like, chafing against, like, you know, I don't want my heroes to be able to take out a crowd of twenty guys at level 1. That feels like they are already quite into the realm of superheroics. And so in those situations, I could see myself maybe starting with, like, a Crows campaign for a little while and then evolving into a Draw Steel campaign at a certain point where they cross a threshold and now suddenly they've gained these superheroic abilities. Or I could see myself...recently I had the idea of running a Gumshoe campaign, for, like, the opening arc of a campaign in Gumshoe, and then switching to Draw Steel after a certain event where they basically would have gained superpowers effectively.
But yeah, I definitely need a game for those moments when I want there to be lower heroics and lower stakes. I don't necessarily know that Crows is that game, because it is so intensely focused on the dungeon delve specifically. But I appreciate that they are offering something in that realm. And I am curious to see how it turns out. It might be one of those situations...I didn't believe I would like Draw Steel before I played it, either. So it might be one of those situations where I get in there and I play it, and I'm like, "Oh, this is actually the greatest thing I've ever played. And now it's my whole personality." (laughter)
Jon de Nor: (laughter) Part of the reason I bring up Crows in the first place is because it does away with basically any tests for social interaction, and it only explains in like a info box that if you really need to make a social test, just make it a Mind test. But try to avoid that, just let the roleplay handle all of the social interactions. And if there is like, negotiation or like a bartering situation that needs to happen, just do it as naturally as possible. And I was wondering, how does that feel to you, mentioning that you like D&D because it basically has no social rules?
Jay: Well, I still am a strong believer in letting the dice tell the story, so I think that there would be...I think I would have a little bit of difficulty with that. I know that in a system like Gumshoe, you have basically your investigation skills and then your general skills. And your investigation skills, you don't actually roll those. If you have an investigation skill that's relevant to a check, you just get the clue. So for example, if you come across a set of bones and you're an archaeologist, you just get the clue, because you are the person who knows about bones, ancient dinosaur bones. And so you just get the clue.
And it's similar, like, if you're a medicine, you know, a doctor, right? You have an investigation skill for medicine. Then if you come across a crime scene where you want to see, like, cause of death, you just get that clue, because you have the proficiency in it. And if you don't have the proficiency, you don't get the clue. So it's all about basically what kind of character you made, and that determines whether or not you get information.
So I really like no-roll systems that just get out of your way in roleplay situations, especially social ones, to an extent. But I would worry with the way that Crows is currently set up, that there would be a lot of like...I mean, Crows wants to be in the dungeon, fighting monsters. It doesn't want to be your general-purpose RPG. It has set its intentions very clearly. And for that reason...I'm not a person who likes to run long dungeons for my whole campaign. I like to run in a town and have NPCs and have political intrigue going on, and I want to have all that stuff kind of happening. And so for that, I want social checks.
But I think you could definitely do something along the lines of using Gumshoe's example. If you have the background of an alchemist, then if there's anything you come across that alchemy would solve, just give them that information. If you have the background of a witch, if you come across anything like magical, then just give them that information. And that could be a solution for it as well.
But that gets into the realm of homebrew. It's not core in the system, as the system currently exists. Like I think I would chafe against it a little bit. I might end up introducing a fourth stat. (laughter) I don't know, but yeah, I would just use a different system than Crows for my low-level stuff. But we'll see. Who knows? Maybe I'll get in there and I'll be like, "Oh, actually, this makes complete sense, I was wrong! I have to go record another podcast! Someone get Jon de Nor on the phone!" (laughter)
Jon de Nor: (laughter) I think, at least for me — I've only played the new Crows rules once, last Thursday, and we ended up in a situation where one of the players wanted to barter and negotiate a better price while selling some of the gear that they had acquired. And in the village rules, it basically says that, well, at a given prosperity, the village merchants are only willing to buy the stuff you want to sell for a certain percentage of its original value. The...(laughter) the negotiation tactic was so inspired that I decided that actually, this would actually work. And I just ended up, like, bumping the percentage by one tier, because it's in like a ladder system.
Jay: I think that's very in the spirit of an OSR game ,though.
Jon de Nor: Yeah. And it felt like...because the village part is very, like, heavily mechanical, like it's all just numbersm, and it's all spreadsheets, basically, with the town, which I find interesting.
Jay: That's fascinating for you to say, because first of all, how could you say something so controversial, yet so true, but also — (laughter)
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
Jay: — it's fascinating for you to say that because I feel like what they are going for with the village is so narrative RPG. But the manifestation of it is so mechanical. RPG. (laughter) And that's fascinating. The tension that MCDM constantly feels between mechanics and narrative, right? Like I think that MCDM is a crunchy company. They are a crunchy game company, and so they cannot help themselves a little bit crunching it up, even in the narrative sector of their game.
And also like, basically their...the village is your upgrade hub for your, roguelike RPG, right? It's where you come back and when your character dies, they get to start in a slightly better position than the character before them because you upgraded the town, and therefore they get a few things off of that town being better. And so in that sense, it is there to serve a very mechanical purpose. It is your meta progression in the roguelike RPG of the dungeon, right?
Jon de Nor: Yeah.
Jay: Which is cool because old OSR games didn't have a meta progression. You just started over every time. You're back to level 1, and there you go. And then some GMs would be like, actually screw that, you start at the same level as the lowest-level member of the party, and then that'll make everything a little bit more balanced. But that's not even in the spirit of old OSR. I won't allow it in my house.
Jon de Nor: (laughter)
Jay: Yeah, no, I like the meta progression currency. I think like Daði said it in their video, that it was like, it was nice to know that your character mattered. Like that they meant something in the long run, right? The character is buried in the cemetery of this town, and you can go and pray at that cemetery and gain a blessing from that character who's dead, right? Like that gives you a sense of continuity and that everything you're doing is relevant, that I think in Shadowdark, you don't get, when you just die on turn two for no reason, because your ally decided that instead of walling a hallway, they'd go out into the middle of a room, get completely surrounded by skeletons, and get beaten to death. But then they escaped, and you died trying to save them, because Saving Private Ryan rules apply, apparently?! (laughter) I'm not bitter, you're bitter! (definitely not bitter laughter)
Jon de Nor: (laughter) I always ask my guests to bring some kind of recommendation when they come on. You said you'd bring something, so now I'm very curious. What have you brought as a recommendation to our listeners?
Jay: So I think one of the greatest resources that a GM can have at their disposal is a good supply of tokens and a good supply of maps. And so I think the greatest solution to both of those problems is 2-Minute Tabletop and 2-Minute Tools, which is a subsidiary thing that they run.
Jon de Nor: Okay.
Jay: 2-Minute Tabletop is a great...they provide their maps free of charge on their website. You can just go in and download them. It's like pay what you want, but you can pay zero if you want. Obviously, you should give them a dollar, they deserve it. But they also have tokens, and a full token editor, too. And you can customize the colors of your tokens, which is how I got a green chicken in the middle of my session last week, uploaded it without my GM's knowledge, and then dropped it on to the battlemap. You, too can surprise your GM with a green chicken if you use 2-Minute Tools!
No, I just think it's awesome because, like, the ability to color-edit the tokens means that, for Draw Steel specifically, you can create groups of different colors to make them a little visually distinct. It's really nice. So I gave all my goblins of one group a red hat and all my goblins of another group a blue hat and all my goblins of the third set a green hat. And then it was easy to tell them apart when I was running them in combat. And yeah, I use the token editor and the color editor all the time. Sometimes the token will not be quite right for what you want it to be, but you can go in and color-edit it until it's good enough. Yeah, I use 2-Minute Tools all the time. 2-Minute Tabletop all the time. They're one of my favorite providers of tokens and battlemaps.
I know everybody's caught on Cze and Peku lately, but, you know, I'm here for the OGs who were here before D&D was cool, okay? 2-Minute Tabletop had me when nobody had me. (laughter) Like, Chessex, you know? Chessex was making dice for us back before it was cool and profitable to make dice. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: It has been really fun to have you on, Jay.
Jay: (laughter) Thank you very much. I love yappin'. Listen, you give me an excuse to talk for an hour, I'll happily take it. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: We almost had to...I had to remind myself to start recording at some point because we...(laughter)
Jay: Yeah, we had a great conversation! I had some very hot takes about Daggerheart! Tune into my aftershow podcast for that. (laughter)
Jon de Nor: (laughter) But thank you so much for coming on. It has been really fun.
Jay: Absolutely. Happy to be here.
Outro
Thank you so much for coming on Jay. Jay has the kind of personality that always perks me up. They bring extra energy into the room and suffuse the room and the people there with it, lifting everyone's spirit.
I want to thank Faan and FoxTrick for submitting questions for Jay.
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.
Links to everything, including this script can be found in the show notes, and on goblinpoints.com.
You can support my work by becoming a Patreon member. Paying members get to submit questions to my upcoming guests here on Goblin Points. You also get access to premium features on Stawl. Stawl is a digital toolset for playing and running Draw Steel: digital hero sheets, encounter builder, monster look up, the complete rules text, and more. Such as the Stawl Supplement Index, a comprehensive list of supplements being published for Draw Steel, in one convenient place! Visit Stawl.app. S-T-A-W-L-dot-app.
Next episode is on the 25th. I'm talking with Auestus and Ryan (4D Pixels) about the upcoming crowdfunder by Headwind Studios.
Also! Remember to visit JonDeNor.com/lunar-umbra to get your set of the power roll dice set I'm crowdfunding. When this episode drops, there's still a few days left. Visit JonDeNor.com to find the link.
See you next time. Snakkes.
Links
00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:42 - Interview 00:43:25 - Outro