Cairn 1st Edition vs Draw Steel
Compare Cairn 1st Edition and Draw Steel side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Cairn 1st Edition | Draw Steel | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Rules-Light, Classless, Deadly, Attacks Always Hit, Open Source, Hackable, Random Character Creation, Inventory Management, Beginner-Friendly, Dark Fantasy, Fiction-First, Sandbox | Tactical, Heroic, Cinematic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Attacks Always Hit, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d20 equal to or under STR, DEX, or WIL to pass a save; 1 always succeeds and 20 always fails. Attacks always hit: the attacker rolls a damage die, subtracts the target's Armor, and applies the remainder to Hit Protection. When HP reaches 0, damage spills into STR and triggers a critical damage save; reaching 0 STR means death. Characters have 10 inventory slots, two for hands, with bulky items occupying two slots. Fatigue from spellcasting or deprivation fills slots like gear. Spells are cast by holding a Spellbook in both hands and reading aloud, adding one Fatigue per cast. | Power Roll: roll 2d10 + characteristic and check which tier the result falls into: Tier 1 (11 or less), Tier 2 (12–16), or Tier 3 (17+). Every ability describes three outcomes by tier, so rolls always produce an effect, with no whiffed turns. Edges and banes (+2/−2, or tier shift at double) modify rolls situationally. Each class builds a unique heroic resource during combat, unlocking increasingly powerful abilities as momentum builds. Victories earned from combat and noncombat challenges accumulate across encounters and convert to XP during respites. |
| Dice | d20, d4–d12 | 2d10 |
| Complexity | Very Low | High |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | High | High |
| License | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Draw Steel Creator License |
| Cost | Free / $ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Yochai Gal | MCDM Productions |
| Year | 2020 | 2025 |
| Best For | Groups who want a free 24-page toolkit for fae-haunted woodland adventure where character creation takes minutes, equipment defines the character, and any fight can kill you. Especially well suited to one-shots, hacking into custom settings, and learning rules-light fantasy. | Groups who want deeply tactical, cinematic combat where every ability matters and no turn is wasted. Ideal for players who love build variety and dramatic, heroic battles. |
| Highlights | Entire game fits in 24 pages, released under CC BY-SA 4.0 with full rights to remix and republish commercially, the ten-slot inventory unifies equipment and Fatigue into one resource, character generation rolls on d20 tables for names, traits, backgrounds, and starting gear plus a d100 spellbook table, a Scars table produces lasting consequences when HP is reduced to exactly 0 | Power Rolls resolve to one of three tiers, so every roll produces an effect and a turn is never wasted. Each of the nine classes builds a unique heroic resource during a fight, unlocking stronger abilities as momentum grows. A negotiation subsystem tracks an NPC's interest and patience, giving social scenes a structured back-and-forth like combat. |
| Considerations | Almost no setting detail beyond a vague mysterious Wood, only five creatures in the core bestiary, no structured procedures for exploration turns or dungeon rounds (added later in 2nd Edition), classless design offers no character build mechanics for players who enjoy optimization | Heroes start with many abilities and options even at level 1, creating a steeper initial learning curve. Each combat turn juggles heroic resources, conditions, and edges and banes at once, so play carries real tracking overhead. The system targets heroic tactical fantasy specifically, so it provides no rules for dungeon crawling, hexcrawl exploration, or survival play. |