Draw Steel vs Those Who Wander

Compare Draw Steel and Those Who Wander side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Draw Steel	Those Who Wander
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Play Style	Tactical, Heroic, Combat-Heavy, Cinematic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Grid-Based, Attacks Always Hit, Lore-Heavy	Heroic, High-Fantasy, Character Building, Classless, Tactical, Worldbuilding, Vancian Casting, Crunchy
Core Mechanic	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 — there are 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.	Roll d20 + ability bonus + proficiency bonus against a Difficulty Score. Abilities use direct modifiers (−1 to +5) instead of base scores, removing a calculation step from every roll. Character progression replaces classes and levels with a 20-step path: at each step you choose between two or more diverging features, and prerequisites gate later options.
Dice	2d10	d20
Complexity	High	Medium
Accessibility	High	High
Runnability	High	Low
License	Draw Steel Creator License	Proprietary (free Essential Rules quickstart)
Cost	$$$	$$
Publisher	MCDM Productions	Gnome Made Games
Year	2025	2022
Best For	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.	Groups familiar with d20 fantasy who want deeper character customization, inclusive design covering any parentage pairing and accessibility for disabled characters, and long campaigns where each hero's 20-step path diverges from the rest of the party.
Highlights	Every turn offers multiple meaningful choices with no wasted turns thanks to tiered outcomes, nine classes each with a unique heroic resource and distinct tactical identity, forced movement and positioning are central to combat tactics, full negotiation subsystem with NPC interest and patience tracking for structured social encounters	Parentage system inherits traits from any two birth parents across 15 peoples (dwarven, elven, human, halfling, avian, celestial, draconic, genie, gnoll, gnomish, goblin, kobold, infernal, orc, plus Complex Parentage) for hundreds of pairing combinations. Accessibility rules treat Blind and Deaf characters as mechanically viable heroes and integrate prosthetics and wheelchairs as part of the character. The 20-step branching progression replaces classes and levels — each step is a choice between two or more features that gate further specializations. Awakening heirlooms (weapons, armor, trinkets) gain new properties as characters take steps, growing in power and personality alongside their owner.
Considerations	Heroes start with many abilities and options even at level 1, creating a steeper initial learning curve. Significant tracking overhead during combat with heroic resources, victories, conditions, edges, and banes. Explicitly designed for heroic tactical fantasy — the rules do not support dungeon crawling, hex exploration, or survival gameplay	477-page rulebook with substantial mechanical innovation in character creation requires significant reading before a first session. No adventures are included in the core rules — GMs must design their own scenarios or source from d20-compatible content. The steps system departs from familiar level/class structure, so players coming from d20 fantasy must learn a new progression model. No native rolled initiative — the storyteller chooses one of four ability-based turn-order methods at the start of each combat.