Crows, James Introcasos MCDM Dungeon Crawler RPG

[Reynard]

Even Hall of Fame quarterbacks throw bad passes.

I knew exactly what Draw Steel! was intended to be before that project even had a name, when it was just called MCDM RPG, and I was excited about it from the start. I know the name of Crows and all sorts of miscellaneous stuff about it, but don't have the foggiest idea what it actually is, other than yet another vaguely retro ruleset in a market already overrun with those. I continue to worry that's putting the cart before the horse. I'm positive they'll correct that by the time the Kickstarter launches, but why not do that from the start?

To be clear, I hope I'm wrong. I like MCDM's stuff so I'm rooting for Crows. But I wish I had some idea what I'm rooting for.

I don't think there is any indication that Crows is "retro." It is always dungeon crawler with gear based advancement using a modern game engine as a foundation. Unless you just call any dungeon crawler "retro" that assessment doesn't make any sense. Just by way of example, there are as many modern video game dungeon crawlers as there are retro ones, maybe more.

 

[Staffan]

I definitely don't agree with that at all lol but YMMV.

It's got a more-or-less medieval tech level, with elves and humans and dwarves and hobbitspolders and castles and knights and towns and dungeons. If your definition of "generic fantasy" is "Greyhawk with a slightly different map", it's not that, but it's pretty close. And the monster book is definitely if not identical to the D&D MM pretty close, with things like reptilian kobolds, semi-fiendish gnolls, purplekingfissure worms, and regenerating green-skinned trolls. We're not talking Jorune here, or even Glorantha.

 

[Reynard]

It's got a more-or-less medieval tech level, with elves and humans and dwarves and hobbitspolders and castles and knights and towns and dungeons. If your definition of "generic fantasy" is "Greyhawk with a slightly different map", it's not that, but it's pretty close. And the monster book is definitely if not identical to the D&D MM pretty close, with things like reptilian kobolds, semi-fiendish gnolls, purplekingfissure worms, and regenerating green-skinned trolls. We're not talking Jorune here, or even Glorantha.

While this description isn't inaccurate, it does cherry pick the more traditional elements and completely ignores the very long list of weird elements.

 

[Staffan]

While this description isn't inaccurate, it does cherry pick the more traditional elements and completely ignores the very long list of weird elements.

Are e.g. time raiders more weird than e.g. githyanki? Or are you just more familiar with githyanki since they've been in D&D since the 80s (or whenever Fiend Folio was released)?

Orden is at its core a pretty traditional vanilla fantasyland. On the periphery there's some weird stuff, but that's not more weird than the stuff that's in traditional D&D. It's just differently weird. And that may or may not make it incompatible with things written assuming D&D's flavor of weird.

 

[zakael19]

It’s definitely got a lot of Warcraft-vibes vs FR vibes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

On the periphery there's some weird stuff

I think this assertion that it's all "on the periphery" when we're talking about default playable races and backgrounds and so on is a bit well, completely factually wrong lol. Not much nuance there. It's obviously not just "on the periphery".

Plus, like 50% of the monster book is weird-as-hell stuff. Cool as hell? Yes. But both very weird and very specific. And this is a tactical RPG, so you need really well-built-out monsters.

 

[zakael19]

I think this assertion that it's all "on the periphery" when we're talking about default playable races and backgrounds and so on is a bit well, completely factually wrong lol. Not much nuance there. It's obviously not just "on the periphery".

Plus, like 50% of the monster book is weird-as-hell stuff. Cool as hell? Yes. But both very weird and very specific. And this is a tactical RPG, so you need really well-built-out monsters.

I cannot stress enough how well the core ancestries simply map over to 4e D&D. Do you own the book? If you do, ignore all the fluff and look at the mechanics. The ancestry stuff hits the fiction of dwarves/wood&wild elves/moon&sun elves/ uhhh Dragondudes (help I have so many different names for the same thing in my head right now, Dragonborn? Dragonborn! But not the Skyrim ones) / Goliaths / etc.

I legit forgot that Revenants were an option, but they show up in some recent D&D stuff (exandria!), and Memoneks work perfectly as the 4e Shade folks

Edit: monster wise, I'm using the Radenwrights as were rats (perfect low-level criminal gang stuff, extra convenient since in 4e Neverwinter Campaign Setting a wererat gang is a big deal). Shadow Elves make perfect Shadovar/Netherese, most other stuff maps directly, the Dwarves make good Duergars with the constructs just being stone.

The one standout is the War Dogs. Those are his Special Children and need actual work, or just ignore them mostly and sadly lose out on a bunch of profiles.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I cannot stress enough how well the core ancestries simply map over to 4e D&D. Do you own the book? If you do, ignore all the fluff and look at the mechanics. The ancestry stuff hits the fiction of dwarves/wood&wild elves/moon&sun elves/ uhhh Dragondudes (help I have so many different names for the same thing in my head right now, Dragonborn? Dragonborn! But not the Skyrim ones) / Goliaths / etc.

I legit forgot that Revenants were an option, but they show up in some recent D&D stuff (exandria!), and Memoneks work perfectly as the 4e Shade folks

No, I get it, but it requires a lot of ignoring, and I don't know why exactly they decided to make the default setting so strange apart from the whims of Matt Colville (which I honestly got the vibe most of the team were not super-keen on, but YMMV on that interpretation).

Again though do we know anything about Crows' setting? Is Matt involved in the setting design?

 

[zakael19]

No, I get it, but it requires a lot of ignoring, and I don't know why exactly they decided to make the default setting so strange apart from the whims of Matt Colville (which I honestly got the vibe most of the team were not super-keen on, but YMMV on that interpretation).

Again though do we know anything about Crows' setting? Is Matt involved in the setting design?

Yeah, that's fair.

(no idea on Crows, looking forward to hearing more over the next X years)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

(no idea on Crows, looking forward to hearing more over the next X years)

Yeah @Morrus correctly points out we'll no doubt hear more when the KS is ready (or before that), but I'm surprised they announced this when it's just a name and very vague genre. Like, unusually vague, because "dungeon crawler" tells you almost nothing about the mechanic or even the vibe - could anything from edgelord-y death funnel grimdark ration-counting to over-the-top colourful monster-smash stuff where it's about getting to the end but not really about any careful resource management. The name sort of evokes the former and as does the fact that it's being presented as distinct from Heroic Tactical Fantasy but it's pretty vague. I'm not sure I can think of an announcement quite this lacking in details (we don't even have a logo or something right?) - I'm sure it's happened though.