Draw Steel vs When Sky & Sea Were Not Named

Compare Draw Steel and When Sky & Sea Were Not Named side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Draw Steel	When Sky & Sea Were Not Named
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Play Style	Tactical, Heroic, Cinematic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Attacks Always Hit, Lore-Heavy	Tactical, Theater of the Mind, Resource Management, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Base-Building, Exploration
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, 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.	Each hero has four action dice, one for each action type (Attack, Brace, Compel, Maneuver), with the die size set from d4 to d12 by the relevant attributes. To act, roll the matching die and read it against two thresholds. Against an obstacle, the Guide sets a failure threshold and a struggle threshold. Against a foe, the target's attribute is the failure threshold and its defense is the struggle threshold. Beating the higher number is a Success, beating only the lower is a Struggle that costs something, and beating neither is a Failure. Attacks deal damage equal to the roll minus the target's Guard and Armor, so one roll settles both the hit and its severity.
Dice	2d10	d4–d12
Complexity	High	High
Accessibility	High	Very High
Runnability	High	Medium
License	Draw Steel Creator License	All Rights Reserved
Cost	$$$	Free
Publisher	MCDM Productions	Purple People Games
Year	2025	2023
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 settling in for a multi-session campaign who want combat built on resource trade-offs, spellcasters that each play differently, and a Guide comfortable improvising rulings. The island-hopping rescue-and-rebuild structure rewards tables that enjoy both tactical fights and settlement-scale stakes.
Highlights	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.	Each of the four defenses both resists incoming actions and doubles as the resource a hero spends to power abilities, so every turn weighs guarding against acting. A hero rolls a different die size for each of the four action types, so strengths and weaknesses live in which die they pick up rather than in numeric modifiers. Invoking an Ideal after a roll spends Spirit for an advantage die the Guide sizes to how dramatic the moment is, linking vivid roleplay to a mechanical boost.
Considerations	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.	The three spellcasting callings each run a separate resource economy, creating a real skill gap between players who take a magical calling and those who do not. The Shinarian origin locks Agility at 0, which bars the Wanderer calling and leaves those heroes unable to evade, outflank, or hide effectively. Sizing invoked Ideal dice, setting challenge thresholds, and reading the Dreamshape table all rest on Guide judgment rather than fixed numbers, which favors improvisational Guides over those who want firm procedures.