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.

 

[SteveC]

That's not how 5e works. In fact it goes to great lengths to ensure stopping for frequent rests is both trivial and successful barring fiat to simply deny rests as an option

I have to comment on that because I've found it to strongly not be the case. By default rests take an hour. Playing in two recent campaigns, if there's any sort of timeline you're on, that hour requires you to think if it's really worth it. Both of the games I've been playing in have had a lot of "rescue this person before something bad happens" and "get to the big bad before they do their thing." It's honestly been the players talking about if it's really worth it to stop. Now in both campaigns we were using the "second wind" option to spend healing surges, so that vastly reduced the need for some characters to take them. I think it also shifted focus to where short rest characters got a bit of the short end of the stick.

In MCDM, Matt commented that doing a rest is something you essentially can't do without being in a safe location, so I think you will see a lot more powering through things because you don't have an alternative. We'll have to see, of course.

 

[mamba]

People keep pointing out exactly how it makes Resting a weighty consideration even before getting into it explicitly excluding biological needs like sleeping at night and eating to meet your body's need for food.post 575 was pretty darned clear

So you are patting yourself on the back for how well you explained it in post 575 and call it 'people'?

From my understanding you are basically saying that the more victories today I already had, the better I am in the next combat. In that case the only consideration is how much more HP can I expend today, so instead of having to manage multiple resources, it got concentrated into one. Am I missing something?

 

[Distracted DM]

GAINING resources from encounters, I think, makes it more "heroic" and encourages "cinematic" play.
My 5e games frequently turn into "Can we afford to keep going? We're very low on spells etc." "Can we afford to stop and rest? We know they'll reinforce/the enslaved folk could be moved/the ritual completed."
Some days, traveling days, I also end up with single encounter days where the party goes nova on the hill giant that they ran into.
Attrition.
"Can we risk it? We've used all our cool stuff."

vs

iirc in the MCDM RPG while hit points are a resource that you lose, your features/powers etc. come online as you go through encounters- it encourages "let's keep going, can't stop!" because your characters are getting "spell slots" etc as they accrue victories.
"Can we risk it?" "Yeah, we're low on HP but we've unlocked our super cool abilities!"

 

[mamba]

GAINING resources from encounters, I think, makes it more "heroic" and encourages "cinematic" play.
My 5e games frequently turn into "Can we afford to keep going?

I am with you on the cinematic

I think they have some interesting ideas in general, so will see what this turns into

 

[tetrasodium]

So you are patting yourself on the back for how well you explained it in post 575 and call it 'people'?

Multiple posters have attempted to point ilout they you need to build up resources after a rest over the last few days the mcdm videos themselves make no secret of that design and have done so since well before the packet was released. Quite a few have tried to explain that resting and recovery as well Post 575 was because you kept making statements that describe d&d style resource recovery like this one...

From my understanding you are basically saying that the more victories today I already had, the better I am in the next combat. In that case the only consideration is how much more HP can I expend today, so instead of having to manage multiple resources, it got concentrated into one. Am I missing something?

.Even beyond that though Resting is not simply a matter of going to sleep at night to fulfill the biological need for sleep.

 

[mamba]

Quite a few have tried to explain that resting and recovery as well Post 575 was because you kept making statements that describe d&d style resource recovery like this one...

I am not aware of having described anything about how MCDM RPG works.

Are you referring to my short rest comment? That was me using the 5e equivalent term. I then used healing surges after that post to point out that only HP are affected.

Even beyond that though Resting is not simply a matter of going to sleep at night to fulfill the biological need for sleep.

yes, you need to be in ‘Rivendell’, good, takes care of the too easy resting

 

[Shardstone]

But to get a book and see the early playtest stuff I have to back both? It’s already a very expensive pledge level at about $70 for the hardcover (and that’s apparently a discount?)

I think I’m just gonna canxel at this point and pick it up at retail. I’m paying twice what I would for most crowdfunding campaigns for the same content and access. The extra to see playtest packs just feels like gouging at this point. Plus it leaves a bad taste when people who haven’t backed the project have better access than me. It’s a bit like when kickstarters hit retail before you get your reward—you wonder what the point of backing was?

Good luck to those backing it! It’s not for me, but YM(O)V! Clearly they’re doing exceedingly well, so I’m sure they won’t miss me.

You need to calm down and reasses the situation because you have no idea what's going on.

 

[Shardstone]

Sure, but that has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm saying, does it?

I have no objection to the Patrons getting the playtest material sooner, nor more of it.

I do object to them getting the books potentially cheaper than they're charging actual backers. That's senseless favouritism of a very unhelpful and I suspect thoughtless and ill-considered kind. Making it 5 months is insulting and weird.

I also feel like it's pretty dodgy that they told Patrons this, but didn't also put that information on the Backerkit so people could make up their minds accordingly. I haven't decided how I feel about this because it strikes me more as "Matt Colville is a thoughtless oaf who has forgotten he is running a Backerkit not just trying to win kudos from his Patrons" than evil plan, but it's certainly gross.

It's really not that serious. It's a "Thinks for supporting us before we ever made it to BackerKit."

 

[Shardstone]

I’ll talk about it where I want, thanks. Such as this thread about it on this discussion forum I’m a member of. You’re not telling all the other 500 people in this thread to take their posts elsewhere, are you?

And yea, I’ve cancelled my pledge. Partly due to stanning like this. Which isn’t even rheir fault, but hey.

It's hard to take this seriously.

 

[Velderan]

In MCDM, Matt commented that doing a rest is something you essentially can't do without being in a safe location, so I think you will see a lot more powering through things because you don't have an alternative. We'll have to see, of course.

iirc in the MCDM RPG while hit points are a resource that you lose, your features/powers etc. come online as you go through encounters- it encourages "let's keep going, can't stop!" because your characters are getting "spell slots" etc as they accrue victories.
"Can we risk it?" "Yeah, we're low on HP but we've unlocked our super cool abilities!"

In the playtest packet, the way it works is you earn victory points for each encounter you complete. This could be a combat encounter, a negotiation, or a trap/puzzle. The playtest adventure provides an example of each. The effect victory points have on you depends on your class, here's some examples from the pregens in the playtest packet:
Orc fury

• does extra damage equal to it's victory point total
• allowed to move an extra number of squares based on the number of victory points when they move.

Human Conduit

• adds their victory point total to any health recovered by an ally within 8 squares when they used one of their recoveries.
• If an ally within 8 squares makes a resistance roll, the result is increased by their victory point total.

High Elf Talent

• does extra damage equal to it's victory point total
• when they force move an enemy with a power, they move the enemy an extra number of squares based on their victory points

Wode Elf Shadow

• does extra damage equal to it's victory point total
• when they use their teleport maneuver, they move an extra number of squares equal to their victory points

Dwarf Tactician

• allies within 5 squares deal an extra point of damage per victory point
• allies within 5 squares of you move an extra number of squares based on your victory points.

By the end of the sample adventure, you can earn a total of 7 victory points. My group missed one (they snuck past an encounter instead of fighting), so in the last battle they had 5 points which really showed. The Orc Fury was able to move 12 squares instead of 7, dealing 2d6+11 damage per melee attack instead of 2d6+6. The High Elf Talent was able to use a telekinetic attack to shove enemies back 8 squares instead of 3. It got a bit nuts towards the end, but they had a lot of fun and the boss enemy had some good maneuvers and attacks to remain a threat despite their power level being higher. The extra power just helped them mop up the henchmen quicker and focus on the boss.

Resting, which takes 12 hours of not doing much of anything, converts those victory points into experience points and resets you back to 0. I wasn't tracking how many recoveries each player went through, but there were points they definitely needed to use them both in and out of combat. There were enough though that even in encounters where they took a lot of damage, they wanted to keep pressing on so the game's mechanics rewarded that behavior.