mcdm
patreon
Patreon Codex Playtest Q&A
🕑 Added 2025-11-11 01:24:44 +0000 UTCDraw Steel Codex - November Q&A
Hey, everyone! It’s Djordi giving you a heads up that Dael (¡lǝɐp ollǝH) will be live this Thursday November 13th at 4PM Pacific time here on the Patreon asking Djordi (hey that’s me!) and Denivarius (the lead at DMHub) questions about our upcoming Draw Steel Codex Playtest. If you are unfamiliar with the Codex, it’s the VTT (Virtual Table Top) that MCDM has been developing along with DMHub for the past two years. We think it’s ready for a wider test, so later this month we are running a playtest of the Delian Tomb, implemented in the Draw Steel Codex, for Patrons.
The stream will be posted here on Patreon. We’ll send out a post with the video right before we go live. Remember, if you miss the stream you’ll still be able to access the video later.
Post your questions about the Delian Tomb Playtest or the Codex itself in the comments below and Dael will choose the most artisanal ones to ask on air while we show off the Codex!
But, let’s catch ya’ll up on the basics of what we’re doing so you have context for the questions you ask!
When is the Playtest?
On Friday, November 28th – known colloquially in the United States as Black Friday – we’ll make a test version of the Codex available to all Patreon members. So after you catch up with the Stranger Things party for one last adventure on Wednesday, consume mass quantities of food on Thursday, you and your table can play the Delian Tomb in the Codex on Friday.
What is in the Playtest?
The Playtest will have a beta version of the Delian Tomb. And by beta we mean a largely content complete version of the Delian Tomb. Some tokens and art will be placeholder or missing, but you’ll have everything you need to run the adventure, including the pregens and the option to run with the Delian Tomb’s special starting character progression rules.
In video game development this experience would be referred to as a Vertical Slice.
Character Creation
We’ve updated our character creation system to allow you to create characters in the front end. All the core classes are implemented for Echelon 1 of play (Levels 1 - 3). You can also import characters in the Forge Steel format without using an external plug-in..
We’re working on an updated UI for the character creator that won’t be ready immediately, but will be implemented in the upcoming weeks.
The Journal
The Delian Tomb adventure will be fully imported using our journal technology:
You’ll see a demo of the journal in the Q&A, but I will say this is one of our favorite pieces of technology we built out for the Codex. It allows anyone (MCDM and DMHub developers as well as you the user) to create journal objects in our custom markdown language to help run an adventure, allowing you to display images, play sounds, place and remove monsters (scaled to your player party size), reveal secret doors, etc. It’s effectively your Director control console which makes running adventures a breeze and delivers on our goals of making the Director's job easier.
The journal also allows you to run and track montages and negotiations. We have plans for a more cinematic presentation of those mechanics that will be developed and integrated into the Codex after the New Year.
We think this will be transformative for the adventures we create and the ones the community creates for themselves. It’s straightforward to use, just slightly technical in using markdown markup, but way less of a technical hurdle than doing full lua scripting. But you can still do full lua scripting in the Codex if you want to take that on!
Tactical Combat
The Codex does an excellent job of helping you run tactical combat. You’ll see a demo of this during the livestream this week. The software handles tracking rounds, turns, movement, attacks of opportunity, and the joy of forced movement. It deals with height really well and maps that have verticality show off parallax effects that make the table experience immersive.
The final UX and UI for tactical combat is still being refined, and you’ll see a lot of changes as we finalize things over the next few months.
What is Still Alpha and/or Incomplete
The Delian Tomb Playtest will give you a largely complete experience of the Delian Tomb, but the core rules are largely in development and in alpha. By alpha we mean some elements are built out but others are very early version one or have not been implemented at all. To set expectations here is what the rest of the Codex is like:
Players can select any complication for their hero, but they are yet to be mechanically implemented if they have a mechanical impact
Hero options for Echelon 2 and above have not been implemented yet
Only some monsters for Echelon 1 have been implemented, beyond the ones required for the Delian Tomb
Treasures and Titles for the Delian Tomb are implemented, but other Echelon 1 Treasures and Titles are only partially implemented
Victory conditions for combat encounters are not implemented and need to be tracked manually
Progression is not automated yet and will need to be tracked manually
Playtest Access and Incremental Development
On Black Friday we will enable a new bot in the official MCDM Discord server (https://mcdm.gg/discord) that will allow you to request a key for your Patreon accounts and a playtest preview of the Party Pack for up to five players, so you can playtest with your group. Each Patreon member will therefore get one key for themselves and an additional five keys for their table.
Your playtest keys will work until we officially go into Steam Early Access, which is targeted for the second half of 2026. While we are testing you will continue to get updates as we implement more echelons of play, build out the bestiary of monsters, and continue to improve and refine the feature set and experience of the Codex. You’ll also get previews of new adventures, player options, and classes as we implement them.
Steam Early Access, Pricing, and Release
Our plan is to release the Codex to Steam Early Access in 2026. We’ll update you on when you can wishlist the Codex on Steam. Stay tuned!
We are building out the Codex to be the premium experience, so it will not be free. Draw Steel has an open license and there are already several free options for y’all to play Draw Steel online.. WWe want to make a complete experience and do not want to be in a world where free access is subsidized by gacha style mechanics.
But good news everyone!
Many, if not most of you, have already purchased a key to the Codex. Every PDF purchase of the Draw Steel rules, which is every purchase of the Draw Steel rules, will allow you to redeem a key for the Codex once it is released. Our PDF tier is now our digital tier, giving you all the digital options in one convenient package!
Our normal Patreon membership rules apply as well. So any PDF copies you are given based on your length of membership in the Patreon will also give you the Codex key for that product, once the Codex version is complete. As the core rules are completed we are targeting closing the window between PDF and Codex releases of our products, with the eventual goal being day-and-date release of everything.
I know I personally have been frustrated with companies that make your double or triple dip to get your books and pdfs and VTT access. This is why it’s been important to me, and to MCDM and DMHub in general, to make sure that you only have to buy the rules once.
What About My Players?
Your players will need their own Codex keys in addition to you. Again, as a premium product we feel like the experience will justify the price and that price will help cover development and allow us to continue creating new content and experiences for everyone.
Also, philosophically, we don’t want to do a separate product for players vs Directors. One of our mantras for MCDM is MAKE MORE DIRECTORS to help mitigate the challenge of The Forever DM.
But to mitigate the cost of kitting out your party with keys, we will offer The Party Pack.
The Party Pack
You’ll be able to purchase a Codex Party pack either directly from MCDM or through Steam. This will give you a five pack of keys for you and/or your players to distribute to each other. Final pricing is TBD, but will be highly discounted from each of you buying the digital tier individually. Think of the ballpark of treating each of your players to dinner.
As part of the Codex Playtest, Patreon members will get a test version of the Party Pack to allow them to play with up to five players.
Patreon Content
Willy shared with y’all Three Draw Steel Encounters a couple of weeks ago. When the Codex Playtest launches on Black Friday you will be able to download a Codex version of those encounters as a module. We’ll continue to develop Codex versions of our Patreon content through the playtest phase and after release.
The Delian Tomb
Once the Codex is released to Steam Early Access, every copy of the Codex will include the Delian Tomb. It’s the best first time experience for the Codex and is integral to the Codex. Those of you who have already purchased the Delian Tomb will automatically get a key for an enhanced surprise that we are planning to develop for our Marketplace. What is that enhanced surprise?
But we can talk a little bit about the Marketplace.
The Marketplace
We’re still finalizing how things work, but the Codex will have a method to not only distribute free modules, but also paid content developed by the community or MCDM directly. We’re not ready to share all the details for this, but the goal is to help build a vibrant community. We’ve seen all the various cool efforts and want to make sure we share with you the best practices for how to implement that content for your efforts.
We not only want to make it easy for us to release content on the Codex day-and-date, but we also want to remove as many hurdles as possible to make it easy for you to release your content day-and-date for the Codex.
Good Luck, Have Fun!
We’re really looking forward to the Q&A with Dael, showing you all progress on the Codex, and answering your questions. But we’re most excited for you all to experience the Codex for yourselves!
Comments
Ian Panth
Great question. As a DM for 5e, I run one-shots and short adventures on Startplaying and I hope to be able to offer Draw Steel.
Ian Panth
Matt's Running the Game videos started me on my DM journey when I wanted to introduce my wife and sons to D&D. I am now a professional DM. I am excited about using Codex because I'm excited about Draw Steel. But I do have an eye toward adding this to my professional repetoire. My question is similar to Finn Stokes's question. If I run short adventures, one-shots or west marches style with changing players, then how is the license-per-player model going to work?
Finn Stokes
How is the license-per-player model going to interact with those that don't run games for a consistent group of players? (paid Directors, people who put up lfg post to find players etc)
Realm Referee
What might customization of stats and mini images be like? I’m thinking of three use cases: changing existing monsters, creating a new monster whole cloth, or just using an existing monster as a starting point.
