#Compact Steel

31 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

patent roost
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See: https://eldamo.org/rpg/compact-steel/

Hi folks, I've been working through the Draw Steel rules, and while I like them a lot I sometimes think that the representation of particular abilities can be rather verbose. This is probably ideal for people learning the game and for people who are aiming for card-based play, but I prefer to have written character sheets. I would prefer if all the information for (most) starting characters fits on a single page.

This is an experiment I am calling “Compact Steel” to produce a more “compact” iteration of the Draw Steel rule set. For example, in the base Draw Steel rules, the “Halt Miscreant!” ability appears more or less as follows:

Halt Miscreant!
You infuse your weapon with holy magic that makes it difficult for your foe to get away.
Melee, Strike, Weapon; Main action
Melee 1; One creature or object
Power Roll + Might:
≤11: 2 + M holy damage; P < WEAK, slowed (save ends)
12-16: 5 + M holy damage; P < AVERAGE, slowed (save ends)
17+: 7 + M holy damage; P < STRONG, slowed (save ends)

In this “compact” iteration of the rules, I represent this ability as:

Halt Miscreant! Melee 1 (Strike, Weapon).
Roll + M: {2/5/7} + M holy damage; P < POT, slowed (save ends).

In essence, the {2/5/7} syntax represents the tier 1/tier 2/tier 3 results on a single line, while POT represents WEAK/AVERAGE/STRONG potencies.

To get a general idea of what I am aiming for, you might look at the sample characters:

For a fuller explanation of the compact syntax, see:

I have no idea if this approach is of general interest or is something that appeals only to my particular sense of efficiency, but I'd be interested to know what people think.

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Note that all the “Compact Steel” content it generated via programatic process of the Steel Compendium data sets, and I appreciate all Xentis's work, without which a project like mine wouldn't be possible.

unreal estuary
solar beacon
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I like just how compact it is! Makes it easier for me and my dyslexia to read through the ability. I often shorten abilities so they look kinda like this

patent roost
unreal estuary
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That's what I figured (as it seemed straightforward enough). The phrase just sent up some flags since "programatic process" seems like a way someone might try to skirt around saying AI. Carry on

dim stump
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Ah, you Shadowdark'd it! Neat!

sand plinth
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I love this honestly for being a director! Looking at a glance across multiple creatures and abilities they might have

patent roost
knotty wyvern
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This will be great for writing stat blocks!

cosmic holly
patent roost
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Yes, that’s one of the ideas. I think monsters for most simple encounters can fit on a single page, and most complex encounters won’t go more than 2 pages unless you do something weird like have 2 leaders.

Here is my proof-of-concept for monster encounters: https://eldamo.org/rpg/compact-steel/cs-sample-encounters.pdf

plain flicker
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I love this so much! I've been noodling with a compact representation of abilities for a while now, and even made a mockup of what they might look like in the style of the book 😄 I'm so glad someone went through with this! Thank you so much for sharing your version mcdmheart

Screenshot_2025-09-17_at_20.01.01.png
patent roost
# plain flicker I love this so much! I've been noodling with a compact representation of abiliti...

I’m glad you like it. It looks like you were thinking along the same lines. I have Hamstring Shot as:

Hamstring Shot (Sig.): Ranged 10 (Strike, Weapon), creature only.
Roll + [MA]; {3/5/7} + [MA] damage; A < POT, slowed (save ends).

I wanted to go with “no icon” representation to make it easier to (for example) copy statblocks into a Word document for game prep. It doesn’t look as nice, but it is easier to manage.

solar beacon
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I'll be using this for sure, the more I look at it the more sighs of relief I let out lol

graceful river
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I'm curious how you handle abilities which do different things by result tier. Do you default to the original format or do you have some other way of compacting them?

toxic gorge
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Nice! This looks super awesome! Im so glad Steel Compendium was helpful for you. Gotta give you a shout out as well for submitting corrections for it mcdmheart

Love it!

pseudo trout
icy hazel
pseudo trout
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Oh, they’re the one who posted their version just above. I was just comparing to that

pseudo trout
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You’d have to ask them if they’ve got more

icy hazel
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Ohhhhh

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I do like that layout. But I guess, would it be more for players/directors who are well versed in Draw Steel rules?

patent roost
# graceful river I'm curious how you handle abilities which do different things by result tier. D...

If you want to know the full details, you can look at this section of the Compact Steel documentation:

But “read the documentation” is not a satisfying answer, so I will give you an example here as well.

For genuinely complicated abilities, I found it more efficient to use a separate list item for each tier result. But I still tried to compact the “common” elements across tiers to simplify reading:

«5» The Gods Command You Obey: Ranged 10 (Magic, Strike), creature only.
Roll + I; {4/7/11} + I holy damage; P < POT, before taking damage, the target:

  • ≤11: Makes a free strike against a target you choose.
  • 12-16: Uses an ability of your choice and you choose any targets for that ability.
  • 17+: Shifts up to their speed to a location you choose, uses an ability of your choice, and you choose any targets for that ability.
graceful river
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Looks great; thanks!

patent roost
# pseudo trout Dang, I really like your shorthand, but looking at the example encounter sheets ...

The sample character and encounter sheets are proof of concepts to see how much I can fit on a single page in the compact format. I'm not a visual designer, so I spent almost no effort on making them look nice.

Both samples are hand-edited, not produced by code. I'm nowhere near the point of producing any kind of automated character sheet (or encounter sheet) creator.

Having said that ... I do have an XML data set underlying all of the compact forms. In theory, someone who is more skilled than me at visual design could take the XML data and produce “pretty PDF” output with better icons.

I'm not yet ready to share the raw XML, because I'm still playing around with the exact data elements and file organization. But if someone was interested I'd be happy to share the raw XML data in its “beta” form, with the cavaet that I can't make any promises that the data elements are stable yet.

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(Another of the goals of the Compact Steel document is to be “cut-and-paste” friendly, which means I need to keep icons and special formatting to a minimum. But one of the advantages of Draw Steel’s friendly licensing and data sets like Steel Compendium means we as a community can experiment with a variety of formats, and even use more than one to suit our own tastes.)

pseudo trout
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Ooooh, I misunderstood some earlier comments then. I thought you had written a code that converted an official DS input into your Compact output.

Gotcha! I definitely get wanting it to be Copy-Paste friendly, I’d just need it to be more visually appealing to want to use it myself. That being said, I’ll definitely be following along with interest!

patent roost
glossy lily
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this is just what I was looking for as a director! much easier to parse on the fly and printer friendly! you've saved me a load of toner and paper for my session tomorrow