I used to play tactical TTRPGs quite a bit in the past. Though, they’re not what I used to play back in the day. Shadowrun–while crunchy, isn’t really tactical in that same grid-based sense–and Vampire the Masquerade were my introduction to the hobby. But in 2017, I started with 5e, my first and only direct exposure to the D&D brand. We moved on to Lancer, tried Pathfinder, and there were a couple of other peeks into similar games in the d20 fantasy genre.

If I can be honest here–and I think I can–I was about to give up on the tactical fantasy RPG niche of the hobby for good. And that’s fine. I enjoyed my time with them, despite a lot of the frustration that comes with the genre in my experience. But interest in them started to fade in recently.

Then, Draw Steel released. And, damn, did it revitalized my love for tactical games. See, I didn’t follow the development of MCDM’s flagship heroic fantasy game all that closely at first. Seemed like just another one of those. But I was and am subscribed to their YouTube channel, so their development videos crossed my feed. Eventually, then, I did start to pay attention.

This isn’t a post to gush about how great Draw Steel is. I did that already. But here’s the thing: the intentionality of Draw Steel, the focus and commitment to make a better one of those games, shines throughout their open development, and has led to a truly great game. It brought me and my group back to the table proper.

More than that, it showed me that tactical games can be fun. That they can be designed from the ground up to avoid a lot of the frustration I felt in all these different forks and descendants of d20 fantasy. Which, in turn, got me back to looking at making my own game. Working on some sort of tactical RPG has been an interest for a while–making the game that I believe would be perfect for my group and myself. That’s the dream.

This is also got me to starting this blog recently. It got me wanting to reach out to the larger community of the hobby, engage more on socials, read more about other games and designers. I feel a lot more energized about the hobby, both personal and publicly. Which makes me want to create more, play more.