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.

 

[Gravenhurst48]

Is "MCDM RPG" the final name? Interesting choice, if so.

"Would you like fries with that sir?"

 

[MNblockhead]

"Would you like fries with that sir?"

Yes, but they have to fried to the point of being CRUNCHY!

 

[Gravenhurst48]

According to the video linked just before this post, they have a short list of names but haven’t decided on one yet.

Based upon Flee, Mortals:
MOAT = Mortal Combat
MORT RPG = Mortal Rpg
FLOAT = Flee Combat
MORK = Mork from Ork

 

[Makath]

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 won't be cheaper because is 5 months of $8 a month, which is the full price of the PDF. Also, the Monster Book might not be ready in the same exact month that the Heroes book, so even for the two PDF's deal of $65 if they are a few months apart the Patreon supporters might pay about the same or more. Seems like a way to avoid that people have to pay twice for the digital goods.
They also did post it on the FAQs

 

[Composer99]

I'm a bit surprised at the view that favouring patrons - who doubtless have way more skin in the game than backers do over the long term - is somehow "insulting" to backers.

Backers are helping get one project off the ground. The patrons are the folks helping keep the lights on over the long haul. If anything, it seems to me that favouring one-off backers, whose only motivations might be to snag your product at a slight discount compared to what they'd have to pay once it's on store shelves or DrivethruRPG or what-have-you, as opposed to your highly motivated and personally invested supporters, at least some of whom may well have stuck with you through thick and thin, would be the actual "unhelpful and [...] thoughtless and ill-considered" behaviour.

 

[Morrus]

I'm a bit surprised at the view that favouring patrons - who doubtless have way more skin in the game than backers do over the long term - is somehow "insulting" to backers.

Backers are helping get one project off the ground. The patrons are the folks helping keep the lights on over the long haul. If anything, it seems to me that favouring one-off backers, whose only motivations might be to snag your product at a slight discount compared to what they'd have to pay once it's on store shelves or DrivethruRPG or what-have-you, as opposed to your highly motivated and personally invested supporters, at least some of whom may well have stuck with you through thick and thin, would be the actual "unhelpful and [...] thoughtless and ill-considered" behaviour.

I am very sure they don't talk about their backers quite so... ummm... contemptuously?

 

[mamba]

I'm a bit surprised at the view that favouring patrons - who doubtless have way more skin in the game than backers do over the long term - is somehow "insulting" to backers.

the theory is you start backing in January 2025 or so, the books become available in June and drop out right after. You then spent $50 rather than $65, but yeah, I am not overly concerned about that theoretical possibility

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My group missed one (they snuck past an encounter instead of fighting)

Uh-oh, is that a perverse incentive I see? Because it really looks like a perverse incentive given:

converts those victory points into experience points

I mean, it'd hardly be the first TT RPG to have a perverse incentive re: XP and combat, but I was hoping in 2023 Anno Domini that perhaps designers were smart enough to spot this sort of thing and prevent it being an issue. If sneaking past an encounter doesn't give you a Victory for the purposes of XP, then a lot of players are just not going to sneak, even when it makes sense to. I get that there's a conflict because the idea is that Victories are opposed by the loss of resources etc. and you want to balance them, but I hope they resolve this in some what that doesn't make sneaking seem perverse in the longer-run.

 

[Velderan]

Uh-oh, is that a perverse incentive I see? Because it really looks like a perverse incentive given:

I mean, it'd hardly be the first TT RPG to have a perverse incentive re: XP and combat, but I was hoping in 2023 Anno Domini that perhaps designers were smart enough to spot this sort of thing and prevent it being an issue. If sneaking past an encounter doesn't give you a Victory for the purposes of XP, then a lot of players are just not going to sneak, even when it makes sense to. I get that there's a conflict because the idea is that Victories are opposed by the loss of resources etc. and you want to balance them, but I hope they resolve this in some what that doesn't make sneaking seem perverse in the longer-run.

In that case, I just went with the wording of the encounter and chose not to award them a victory point because they didn't "defeat" the kobolds. The game is described as being heroic fantasy and there didn't seem to be anything particularly heroic about sneaking past a group of lowly kobolds in the 2nd encounter of the adventure when they still had most of their recoveries and weren't even outnumbered. Given how Matt has talked about the game, that didn't seem out of place for the adventure to describe the reward that way and just doesn't seem to be the type of game they're shooting for. Now if the encounter they snuck past was a dragon that could easily kill them all, sure, I'd probably award a victory point for finding a way past it without requiring combat.

Since it was a playtest, I tried to play it as close to RAW and the exact wording of the adventure so when I provide feedback next week, it will be based on what they actually wrote.

 

[Andvari]

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.



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.

Hmm, the obvious question is then what prevents PCs from artificially extending fights, attacking rats or “dueling” each other to build up resources ahead of the next battle? Perhaps the GM can deem it “unheroic” when it feels like clear abuse?