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.

 

[mamba]

The second function is class specific I. How each class starts combat with class specific resources, some classes start with a pool equal to current victories while others have abilities that are gated or have modified power by current victories. Resting will reset your victories to zero by converting them to experience.

ok, short rests reduced to HP recovery then. I do not want them to do anything else anyway, at which point they can be shorter too, so that part works for me.

Not sure how the victories and skill recharge / power level interact yet. I mean, I get your description, I just want to see some class descriptions with it

If I use a victory to ‘power a skill’ do I use it up and cannot convert it to XP during a rest later, or is it counted for both skills and XP?

 

[Composer99]

5e can do heroic fantasy play, but it's not focused on it because it's also trying to have rules elements (even if they're vestigial) that appeal to classic attritional play.

If I use a victory to ‘power a skill’ do I use it up and cannot convert it to XP during a rest later, or is it counted for both skills and XP?

IIRC what happens is some of your abilities get buffs as you gain Victories; you don't spend the Victories.

For instance, the Tactician class (a preview page of which is on the backerkit page) gives you an amount of your class resource (focus) equal to your number of Victories when you roll for initiative. The Tactician also has a class feature that depends on having 1 or more Victories, allowing you to grant an ally a benefit once per round that scales with your Victories.

 

[overgeeked]

let me push back on that, attrition is pretty negligible in 5e, and as long as you have hit points (which MCDM has as well) there will always be some.

Right...but that negligible attrition is squarely due to the game rewarding you acting like a coward. Long rest as often as possible to gain the maximum resources before every single fight you can. That's the opposite of heroic.

As with tactical, there are degrees, 5e falls squarely into heroic fantasy however.

If for you heroic requires that the chars are at the same capacity after a fight as before, then I disagree with that logic. That is pretty much the opposite of heroic, because you cannot be heroic if there are no stakes for you. Then there are less consequences for the chars in the fight than I have eating a burger, and that does not at all feel heroic to me

so their short rests are shorter (and possibly stronger / more numerous) than the ones in 5e. As I said, heroic is on a scale, so they can both be covered by it - or MCDM crosses into superhero territory

If the mechanics of the game push you to play as a coward, it's not a heroic game. That's every edition of D&D except 4E.

 

[mamba]

Right...but that negligible attrition is squarely due to the game rewarding you acting like a coward. Long rest as often as possible to gain the maximum resources before every single fight you can. That's the opposite of heroic.

no, that is the opposite of foolish / thoughtless

If in the MCDM RPG you rest after running out of healing surges, is that cowardly? If not, then it is not in D&D either

I can see the gaining victories vs guaranteed novas from rest helping, but to me that is very gamey.

If the mechanics of the game push you to play as a coward, it's not a heroic game. That's every edition of D&D except 4E.

we have different ideas about what constitutes heroic, and probably about what we want our games to be as well

 

[tetrasodium]

ok, short rests reduced to HP recovery then. I do not want them to do anything else any

Short rests are a 5e thing (4e too kinda) There is no analog until you really start stretching to count the d&d equivalent of casting cure wounds between combats as a "rest". Post 568 was talking about action economy being a thing in combat but not between combats. Spending a recovery in or out of combat still consumes a recovery regardless of the action economy.

way, at which point they can be shorter too, so that part works for me.

Not sure how the victories and skill recharge / power level interact yet. I mean, I get your description, I just want to see some class descriptions with it

If I use a victory to ‘power a skill’ do I use it up and cannot convert it to XP during a rest later, or is it counted for both skills and XP?

The class specific resources are talked about in one of the recent videos I think it was. The point is that you get them for doing stuff that fits your class rather than trying to fit each class to a one size fits all thing. Victories often grant a certain amount of points in that pool at the start of combat but the resources are consumed not the victories. Here are a couple examples using the level one PCs included with me trying to rephrase rather than just quoting a bunch of stuff in isolation...

• The conduit is a cleric/priest type class that has two resources (one for allies one for enemies), some of their abilities use one & some the other. At the start of a combat their combined total of those two resources is equal to victories but they also have the abilities to gain more of those resources during combat by prayer. Obviously they are far more capable in combat if they have a hypothetical 10 victories they could use to start with one of 5/5 6/4 7/3 8/2 9/1 or 10/0 in their resource pool. At the end of combat their resource pool resets to zero & hopefully they now have 11 victories rather than still being at 10 while glad they got away.
• The fury is a barbarian/berserker type class who has fury as a resource. They get fury equal to victories at the start of combat plus an additional 1d4 of it each round. Right off the bat they get some buff like benefits based on how much rage they have. Beyond that they have two abilities that cost a set amount of rage plus a triggered action that can be used as is or with a some rage consumption for extra dice. Again rage pool resets to zero after combat ends, having more victories is obviously going to be starting the fury off combats with a larger rage pool.

 

[overgeeked]

no, that is the opposite of foolish / thoughtless

If in the MCDM RPG you rest after running out of healing surges, is that cowardly? If not, then it is not in D&D either

I can see the gaining victories vs guaranteed novas from rest helping, but to me that is very gamey.

we have different ideas about what constitutes heroic, and probably about what we want our games to be as well

It's more a question of thinking about the mechanics and the fiction they produce. Yes, the smart play in 5E is to long rest after every fight. Not doing that is thoughtless / foolish from a min-max gamer perspective. But, and this is the important bit, the fiction that produces is not heroic. The heroes of fiction do not stop to recharge their resources at every opportunity. They do not delay the fight to rest. They do not wait to rescue people because they're low on resources. They push ahead because the stakes are high and stopping to rest would guarantee disastrous results. That's what makes them heroic. They push ahead.

Yes, we want different things from gaming. I want heroic fiction reinforced by and produced from the rules of the game I'm playing. If it's supposed to be that kind of game. 5E utterly fails to produce that fiction. Worse, it produces the literal opposite of that fiction. MCDM RPG sounds like it will produce the heroic fiction I want. But I haven't played it yet so I don't know. I'm hopeful.

 

[mamba]

It's more a question of thinking about the mechanics and the fiction they produce.

yes, which is why I agreed that the buff you get from victories is very different from being refreshed by rests, ready to nova, that 5e has.

The heroes of fiction do not stop to recharge their resources at every opportunity. They do not delay the fight to rest. They do not wait to rescue people because they're low on resources. They push ahead because the stakes are high and stopping to rest would guarantee disastrous results. That's what makes them heroic. They push ahead.

so they push on despite running low on resources. That is not what is happening in the MCDM RPG however. Since you gain power from victories you are not really pushing on at all. The real limiter are the HP / remaining healing surges. I doubt you will be pushing on past those, and the resource drain of 5e is more of a 'pushing on' than the escalating resources of MCDM.

Yes, we want different things from gaming. I want heroic fiction reinforced by and produced from the rules of the game I'm playing.

we might both want that, but we do have a different idea about what is heroic. To me MCDM and 5e have different takes on it, that is all

MCDM RPG sounds like it will produce the heroic fiction I want. But I haven't played it yet so I don't know. I'm hopeful.

I'll keep an eye on it (I backed it)

 

[tetrasodium]

yes, which is why I agreed that the buff you get from victories is very different from being refreshed by rests, ready to nova, that 5e has.


so they push on despite running low on resources. That is not what is happening in the MCDM RPG however. Since you gain power from victories you are not really pushing on at all. The real limiter are the HP / remaining healing surges. I doubt you will be pushing on past those, and the resource drain of 5e is more of a 'pushing on' than the escalating resources of MCDM.


we might both want that, but we do have a different idea about what is heroic. To me MCDM and 5e have different takes on it, that is all


I'll keep an eye on it (I backed it)

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

 

[mamba]

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

yeah, that is one of my gripes with 5e, rests are too easy. Unless MCDM makes rests harder, they have the same issue however, since the only resource worth caring about is HP / healing surges.

 

[tetrasodium]

yeah, that is one of my gripes with 5e, rests are too easy. Unless MCDM makes rests harder, they have the same issue however, since the only resource worth caring about is HP / healing surges.

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