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: Draw Steel

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.

 

[darjr]

Oh dear, that sounds a tad unfortunate, if you're managing to confuse people who already know PtbA you've probably gone wrong somewhere!

Yeah I noticed that. I avoided signing up for any myself as I don't know if I'd have the time.

I remember we had some interesting figures from GenCon signups a while back. There's a vanishingly small possibility I might even make it to GenCon this year (which would be for the first time).

Ope!

Meant that it’s easier if you already know PBTA. I’ve edited my original post.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I taught 4 new players 5E D&D and we've played for years but I swear to Lolth none of them could keep it all straight even with character sheets in front of them. Shadowdark... simple. Never forgot a special power or rule. Bliss from a DM perspective and IMO as a player as well.

I feel like this varies so wildly based on the players, the DM, how they're taught and so on (not intended as a critique, too many variables for that to be remotely fair).

I've introduced new-to-RPGs players to 4E before and seen them have absolutely no problems engaging with it and playing properly. I've also introduced experienced RPG players to certain relatively simple RPGs (including Dungeon World) and seen them basically go "BWUH!?!?!" (I was delighted one of them brought up Amber Diceless highly positively at a recent session at least!).

I think 5E does have a real problem here in that it does not present the rules well, the rules are not as consistent in how they function or are applied as they could be - they're not even as consistent as 4E was - and further a smaller number of rules are actively counter-intuitive in ways that are very hard to engage with (surprise and stealth are just trashfires imho). Going from 4E and DW to 5E, I saw players get distinctly worse at the rules. 2024 can fix and I suspect will fix the presentation, last I saw it was also simplifying stealth in a way that would make it more OP but less counterintuitive. However some seem to becoming even less consistent.

4E was actually particularly interesting for me, because I have two players who largely matched your description - i.e. couldn't keep 2E or 3E straight, even with character sheets in front of them, and generally struggled with rules in a lot of RPGs. In 4E, they both transformed from being inept with rules and never having done any charop in their life (indeed one consistently produced accidentally anti-optimized PCs in 3.XE/PF), to be actual badasses, both of them with better-optimized PCs than the guy who has consistently been a "power gamer" since the early 1990s. It was a bizarre and slightly uncanny experience, like seeing Clark Kent transforming into Superman or something. They then got better at the rules than I was. I eventually checked to see if they were just getting builds out of a guide or something, but it appears not (and they did have some maloptimizations).

Part if this, I know, was that the rules were accessible to them online via the DDI, where in previous editions they could only access them in-person or via emailed PDFs which were rapidly lost/forgotten. But another part of it, I'm fairly certain, was the way the rules were designed made hugely more sense to them, and that caused them to engage more.

 

[darjr]

One thing about the Shadowdark license that I’m not sure Matt talked about is that Shadowdark is a D&D derivative, so the D&D 5.1 SRD CC does a lot of heavy lifting for any potential Shadowdark 3pp creator. That won’t be as true for the MCDM RPG.

 

[Staffan]

Yeah though one thing I know from running PtbA is that it's not non-gamers who have a problem with it, it's not people new to RPGs who have a problem with it, it's solely people who are familiar with TT RPGs, often quite experienced D&D players, who just can't wrap their head around even Dungeon World. My main group managed it easily enough but others have struggled. So that might be a wash overall in terms of how many are playing it.

Good point. In that case, it could just be that the people playing it are not in places online where we are made aware of them.

Hell some Kickstarters or similar are just like "ordering windows" - c.f. the Gloomhaven one that made $5m+. Whilst there was technically a small new product available, given the average order was $146 and that product only cost $15, certainly the majority of orders must necessarily have included Gloomhaven or Frosthaven proper and relatively few must have been just the actual new product.

The recent Gloomhaven kickstarter had quite a lot of new product in it. I think the only non-new product was the 2nd printing of Frosthaven (as well as some accessories, like storage solutions and the like). Other than that, it had:

• Buttons & Bugs (the $15 game mentioned).
• Gloomhaven 2nd ed.
• Miniatures for Gloomhaven, Frosthaven, Jaws of the Lion, and Forgotten Circles.
• Gloomhaven RPG.

 

[Velderan]

Whilst this is obvious a truism, there's a real "have your cake and eat it" element here. A lot of Kickstarters do very much treat the whole process as if it's just a long-distance order - often the product is essentially finished or close to it, and you can order a ton of already-created stuff from the same company as "add-ons". Hell some Kickstarters or similar are just like "ordering windows" - c.f. the Gloomhaven one that made $5m+. Whilst there was technically a small new product available, given the average order was $146 and that product only cost $15, certainly the majority of orders must necessarily have included Gloomhaven or Frosthaven proper and relatively few must have been just the actual new product.

So as long as that line continually to be intentionally blurred, and in really wild ways, I think blaming people for misperceiving Kickstarter is a bit silly. At this point Kickstarter should honestly have two separate modes, a "new product" mode and a "order window" mode, but it's not going to because people would spend less money.

Or people could just read what they're agreeing to. I'll 100% continue to blame people for unrealistic expectations when they're told this upfront when they back a project.

 

[overgeeked]

Or people could just read what they're agreeing to. I'll 100% continue to blame people for unrealistic expectations when they're told this upfront when they back a project.

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Way too many people mistake Kickstarters for pre-orders. You’re not pre-ordering a finished product, you’re investing in the hope of a product. Two wildly different things.

Oh, hey. Anyone remember MCDM? Turns out they have a Kickstarter going. Those crazy kids are designing an RPG. Who knew? Turns out they surpassed $2 million before a full 24 hours. That’s great. Good for them.

 

[Velderan]

Way too many people mistake Kickstarters for pre-orders. You’re not pre-ordering a finished product, you’re investing in the hope of a product. Two wildly different things.

Oh, hey. Anyone remember MCDM? Turns out they have a Kickstarter going. Those crazy kids are designing an RPG. Who knew? Turns out they surpassed $2 million before a full 24 hours. That’s great. Good for them.

On that note..

This may have been discussed, but do we have any idea yet how magic will work?

 

[Reynard]

On that note..

This may have been discussed, but do we have any idea yet how magic will work?

The preview pages strongly suggest that it will work like everything else: casters will have a resource to spend and powers that use that resource. Very 4E.

 

[overgeeked]

On that note..

This may have been discussed, but do we have any idea yet how magic will work?

My impression is it works like the base attack. You auto hit and deal a random amount of damage. At a guess, they’ll split out combat magic from the bigger stuff just like 4E did.

 

[Velderan]

The preview pages strongly suggest that it will work like everything else: casters will have a resource to spend and powers that use that resource. Very 4E.

The one thing I'll say my players universally seem to dislike is slot based magic where if the target makes their save, nothing happens and they lose a resource and their turn. PF2e for example has a bit less of that with the 4 degrees of success where sometimes a successful save still results in something happening, but I think if the MCDM leans further in that direction my table might enjoy it a lot.