Steadily rising from the chaos of the early YouTube tabletop roleplaying scene, MCDM has become a force to reckon with when it comes to sleek, innovative, and downright fun roleplaying game products. When they announced their stand-alone roleplaying game on Backerkit, it hit the roleplaying scene like a mailed fist to the jaw, raising an eye-watering $4.6 million in crowdfunding. When MCDM announced playtest tables at GenCon in 2024, all of the available seats were sold out within the first hour of tickets going on sale.

Needless to say, when MCDM says that their new Draw Steel roleplaying game is going to focus on creating, in their words, a “tactical heroic cinematic fantasy”, players took notice.

There’s just one problem. The game is still in active development.

So how is a curious player looking to try out one of the most-anticipated roleplaying games of all time supposed to find a group to play it with?

One totally valid answer is to wait for the game to ship, but that’s not very heroic or cinematic. To make matters even more challenging, the current playtest packets don’t have digital integration tools for the current virtual tabletop (VTT) platforms like Roll20, Foundry, or Alchemy, so a lot of the obvious places you might think to look can seem surprisingly barren.

Lucky for you, there are still several places you can find a group to play Draw Steel right now from the comfort of your home. An intrepid adventurer like yourself can take part in the open playtest and provide direct feedback to the developers as you triumph over vile foes. Without further ado, here are the three best places to meet fellow adventurers and draw steel against your enemies.

3. Reddit 

Much like the fantastic worlds of villains and heroes described in the various MCDM products, Reddit is a place where you can find almost anything if you’re willing to look. Adventurers should take heart, though, because the long and storied presence of MCDM on Reddit has laid out a trail that can make it difficult to navigate for those who have yet to wander far from home. The oldest associated subreddit dedicated to MCDM founder Matt Colville is closing down - while there is plenty of archived content to sift through, the company recently decided that those adventures were best left in their backstory and have moved on, making it the wrong place to go seeking your Draw Steel game. All of that content has been transitioned over to the official MCDM subreddit, which now houses all the upcoming product announcements and community engagement for Draw Steel.

Experienced Reddit users in the roleplaying scene are likely aware of the LFG (looking for group) subreddit and its associated paid counterpart, LFG Premium. However, neither of those places are going to be as helpful in finding a Draw Steel game during its playtesting phase as the dedicated Draw Steel subreddit, where you can find people actively discussing the playtest, the latest news, and places to connect with other potential players. Keep in mind that even after subscribing to the MCDM and Draw Steel subreddits it still won’t be a simple quest to find a group - while the playtest packets are out on the street, finding a willing and able director for your cinematic fantasy is likely to take some more active searching. 

2. Discord

If you’re even a casual fan of MCDM or mildly curious about Draw Steel, there are few better digital keeps from which to start your expedition than the MCDM Discord server. The first and most obvious benefit is its size: with over 40,000 members there is something going on every day at virtually all hours. This sizable community has virtually everything you could want in a Discord server: integration with the latest livestream events, a very dedicated moderation crew on hand to keep things civil, dozens of channels by separate interests, links to the latest Patreon and videos… but you’re not here for that, are you? You’re on a quest! And that quest will lead you straight into the Draw Steel looking for group channel, where roughly 20 groups a month on average gather for recruitment at the nearest point of safety before venturing into the wilds to face implacable foes.

If you’re feeling especially brave you can also sign up for the Draw Steel playtest pool, where regular calls go out looking for volunteers (typically on evenings and weekends) to throw their adventurers at specific aspects of the game to provide direct feedback to the design team. Between those two channels and the hundreds of fans sharing rules advice, adventure ideas, and advice on how to run the game, the MCDM Discord is the place where you’ll want to be in order to know everything there is to possibly know about Draw Steel before it officially ships so that you’re ready to roll your dice on day one. 

And yet, if you still crave adventure, there is one more horizon to explore in your quest.

1. StartPlaying

You yearn for more heroism, more cinematic battles, more impossible fantasy landscapes. Where is a wandering hero to turn when there seems to be no map, no compass, and no one else to watch your back as you make camp for the night amidst the coming dark? 

Don’t give up hope, hero. Because the one place where you can go right now is Startplaying Games.

Startplaying Games is the one place you can go to find thousands and Game Masters and tens of thousands of players willing to set forth on adventure right now. Thanks to its huge cadre of dedicated professional Game Masters, there are plenty of them willing to take up the mantle of Director for your Draw Steel game to make sure you have everything you need to carve your legend across epic battles. 

After all, if you’re going to do something heroic, you want to make sure it makes a tale worth telling.

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Nate is a writer and game designer living in the D.C. area.