MCDM's New Tactical TTRPG Hits $1M Crowdfunding On First Day!

Matt Colville's MCDM is no stranger to crowdfunding, with three million dollar Kickstarters already under its belt. With the launch of The MCDM RPG, that makes four!

This new game is not a D&D variant or a supplement for D&D, which is what MCDM has focussed on so far. This is an all-new game which concentrates on tactical play, with a fulfilment goal of July 2025. It comes in two books--a 400-page 'Heroes' book and a 'Monsters' book which is an adaption of the existing Flee, Mortals!

The MCDM RPG

Whether you’re a group of local heroes sent to investigate mysterious goings-on in the nearby haunted wood, or famous mercenaries plotting and scheming in the big city, the MCDM RPG makes building adventures and fighting monsters fun.

www.backerkit.com

The game takes aim at traditional d20 fantasy gaming, referring to the burden of 'sacred cows from the 1970s', but point out that it's not a dungeon crawling or exploration game--its core activity is fighting monsters. The system is geared towards tactical combat--you roll 2d6, add an attribute, and do that damage; there's no separate attack roll.

At $40 for the base Heroes PDF and $70 for the hardcover (though there are discounts for both books if you buy them together), it's not a cheap buy-in, but with over 4,000 backers already that's not deterring anybody!

Even more ambitiously, one of the stretch goals is a Virtual Tabletop (VTT). There's already a working prototype of it.

 

[Zaukrie]

They just released a patreon update from James saying the first patreon playtest packet will be released on December 26th at 2pm eastern and it will focus on combat and a bit of negotiation. He stressed this is still early and rough, so I guess we’ll see. He said it’s fine to discuss with non-patrons so I’ll try to describe what’s in the packet after it’s released.

Hoping we see second level!

Still haven't backed, my players aren't interested..... So far

 

[Aldarc]

New video from James Introcaso on character death:

 

[The Soloist]

9 days left. Time for predictions before the final rush. I say 5 million for the final tally.

 

[Aldarc]

9 days left. Time for predictions before the final rush. I say 5 million for the final tally.

3.8 Million. Probably more of a backwards "J" shape.

 

[BryonD]

The reactions I've seen are mixed and the negative side is far more pronounced. A lot of people are dumbfounded that this isn't 5E, shocked that it doesn't work exactly like 5E, people rehashing the edition wars due to part of this game's inspiration being 4E, etc. The other bits are complaints about MCDM, Matt personally, and issues with previous Kickstarters. The last one is fair to bring up, but read more as mean-spirited sniping more than anything.

Just 1 opinion here. I'm very glad it isn't just 5E warmed over. I still find 4E just as anti-appealing as I ever did. I see a ton of 4E foundations here.
And just about every one of them shows thoughtfulness to make the game adaptable in ways that 4E sorely lacked. I've seen numerous elements that gave me pause. But almost every time I've read on to find lessons learned and solutions applied.

I assume everything is another fantasy heartbreaker until proven otherwise. Ask again in 30 months. But he may very well get some of my money in the interim either way. I applaud the thoughtful evolution that is playing out.

 

[Distracted DM]

New video from James Introcaso on character death:

I'm a fan of these design videos- theyre inspirational in a way that Colville's Running the Game series was when it was in its early days, which was a big factor in pushing me from having TTRPGs as a hobby, to a passion, and now even a source of income. These videos make me want to try incorporating stuff like Heroic Deaths in my a5e & 5e games.

I haven't followed Colville closely for years (the subreddit etc. got pretty echo chamber-ey, he talked about the cult of personality thing being "weird" a few times) BUT from a relatively neutral standpoint I wish them success and hope that they put out something that I'll want to run.

It definitely competes with 13th Age for me as far as a purely heroic fantasy game goes- but their design direction is definitely more cinematic what with gaining resources from combat etc.

 

[mamba]

3.8 Million. Probably more of a backwards "J" shape.

probably not too far off, I have been expecting them to land between 4 and 5M from day one (when they reached 1.5M or so that fast)

9 days, so about 1M more, or about 4.6M total

 

[SteveC]

I saw there is a packet that went out to patreon members. It supposedly has pre-gens, and adventure and basic rules. I know we must have someone who backed the patreon, so spill the beans, please!

 

[darjr]

I saw there is a packet that went out to patreon members. It supposedly has pre-gens, and adventure and basic rules. I know we must have someone who backed the patreon, so spill the beans, please!

I made a thread about it and tetrasodium posted some thoughts. I still haven’t had a chance to read it.

I've only partially read through it, things are spread across a few different PDFs(plus family still sorta in town). The tactical terminology is interesting. Forced movement being broken into explicitly defined push pull slide & toss will make life so much easier for me as a GM not needing to deal with shenanigans that I sometimes☆ see with 5e's push/pull abilities trying to mix one of the others. On a personal setup note I think they will make good use of the touch features on my tabletop display/vtt setup

The (class specific?) character sheets are pretty darned clean & easy to grok even with them including class specific power source & mechanics of various powers. Having class specific sheets instead of one monolithic sheet every class tries to pour & squeeze itself into might be nice, but I'm not sure if they are class specific or built for the needs of WiP pending a later consolidation & think that could be either way.

Skills are fairly straightforward with a much appreciated trio of fill in he blank boxes for craft & knowledge skills.

Healing (recoveries) are pretty cool where PCs have a number per rest & they heal their fixed value, but it's a snapshot of the level 1 PC not a chart/description on the math to how it scales. Some classes have ways of getting them back during the adventuring day & others seem to have them tied more to resting.

I was initially uncertain when a recent video talked about how resting took minimum 12 hours but it's written so that meeting regular biological needs for sleep/food/etc are kinda shunted behind the curtain in a way where they don't count even if resting involves a lot of it. The way that a lot of PC skills/powers/resources are somehow modified for victories in their own ways stacked against actually taking a rest causing victories to convert to experience seems like it will setup a nice bit of internal conflict & discussion between players themselves on if they actually want to stop for a rest if they they think they could vrs how confident they are continuing on without it. That makes for a nice change of pace for "directors" used to the GM frequently being the one trying to come up with reasons why they party can't or shouldn't rest.

PC's have a pretty large buffer into negative HP but just dropping to zero hp feels like it brings some serious consequences on the adventuring day that would make just being low on HP an edge of the seat nail biter


☆ok pretty darned often

 

[Velderan]

I saw there is a packet that went out to patreon members. It supposedly has pre-gens, and adventure and basic rules. I know we must have someone who backed the patreon, so spill the beans, please!

I read half of it last night, going through the rest this afternoon. I'm potentially running the sample adventure for some of my PF2e group tomorrow night so if that happens, I'll definitely post some thoughts of how it plays so far.