Crows, James Introcasos MCDM Dungeon Crawler RPG

[Nightfly]

Because they haven’t even given the elevator pitch yet. Sheesh.

Maybe they don't care whether anyone is excited about their game at this juncture, but I don't see why they shouldn't be. Either get people excited or keep it secret until you're ready to. Instead they're releasing details about this project yet we have no real sense of what niche their game is intended to fill. Look at the confusion and disagreement in this very thread as what Crows will or will not be.

Kelsey Dionne explained Shadowdark at the very start as What if we redid Basic Set D&D but using everything we've learned about good RPG design since then? And that was an awesome pitch, and lots of us were very excited about it and followed her development rabidly. Not coincidentally, she ended up with a truckload of money. Maybe Crows will get a similarly great pitch in time, but why not now? The entire point of an "elevator pitch" is that it's step one -- or really step zero.

I'm not trying to be overly critical, but it seems like a missed opportunity. Good marketing matters.

 

[TiQuinn]

Maybe they don't care whether anyone is excited about their game at this juncture, but I don't see why they shouldn't be. Either get people excited or keep it secret until you're ready to. Instead they're releasing details about this project yet we have no real sense of what niche their game is intended to fill. Look at the confusion and disagreement in this very thread as what Crows will or will not be.

Kelsey Dionne explained Shadowdark at the very start as What if we redid Basic Set D&D but using everything we've learned about good RPG design since then? And that was an awesome pitch, and lots of us were very excited about it and followed her development rabidly. Not coincidentally, she ended up with a truckload of money. Maybe Crows will get a similarly great pitch in time, but why not now? The entire point of an "elevator pitch" is that it's step one -- or really step zero.

I'm not trying to be overly critical, but it seems like a missed opportunity. Good marketing matters.

First, they have given a more detailed idea of the concept and it was discussed later in the thread. Second, it’s a Bluesky post that formed the basis for the OP’s post, not a full article. Just because he didn’t have all the info available when he made the thread doesn’t mean it wasn’t out there.

 

[Umbran]

So it's an OSR? Hmm, maybe not - I don't think there were they/them-identifying behemoths in the old school.

Mod not:
Hey, Michael?

Are you, like, spending your off-time crawling around inspecting behemoth junk? Because English grammar, for centuries, has used they/them/their for entities of unspecified gender.

So, we are left with either you having an unsettling familiarity with the nether regions of behemoths, or a willingness to ignore both the rules of the English language and this site to make anti-inclusive jabs.

Be better, or be elsewhere, please and thanks.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Something I'll be curious about is how either side of the "go in guns blazing and the monster will kill you outright because they are deadlier than you" and the "come up with a good plan and you can succeed" seesaw actually ends up working with one another. How much mechanical heft does the game have to be able to have monsters kill the PCs using the mechanics? And does the "come up with a plan" have a mechanical system behind it that works in concert with the "monsters kill you" mechanics... or is it like most games where the success or failure of the plan comes down to the arbitrary decision-making of the GM and what they "think" should or shouldn't work?

Because in many of the RPGs I've seen... the side of "come up with a good plan" does not have any mechanical base... but rather it's the narrative decision-making of the GM to decide whether something works or not. The GM hears the plan as given to them by the players... then based on their own interpretation of what they think would probably happen (based on their own logic and reason)... the plan either succeeds or fails. Or maybe just to throw a bone to the mechanics of the game the GM asks for a skill check or two. Which is often what happens in the Social side of something like D&D-- the players and DM improvise a social encounter and the DM then either is actually convinced of the PC's improvised argument and lets them get what they want straight away... or decides to ask for a Charisma-based check (like a Persuasion check) just to give a hint of additional mechanical influence if the DM is up in the air about the results of the social conversation.

D&D is one of the few games that has survived and thrived even though it retains these two completely separate parts-- extreme mechanical combat rules heft... and a very blase exploration and social section that is more often than not arbitrarily decided on success or failure by DM fiat on what they think "sounds good" about the player's ideas-- with maybe a skill check or two thrown in. But it doesn't have any intense "exploration mechanics" or "social combat mechanics".

So I wonder what James has in mind with his game Crows? Does he also try to retain the two completely separate parts of extreme combat mechanical heft and arbritrary GM decision-making on narrative player choice... or will he reduce combat complexity to the same level of narrative decision-making OR will the "plans" that players come up with have an actual mechanical game ruleset behind them that translates their "ideas" into rules you can roll dice against? I'll be curious to see.

 

[TiQuinn]

Something I'll be curious about is how either side of the "go in guns blazing and the monster will kill you outright because they are deadlier than you" and the "come up with a good plan and you can succeed" seesaw actually ends up working with one another. How much mechanical heft does the game have to be able to have monsters kill the PCs using the mechanics? And does the "come up with a plan" have a mechanical system behind it that works in concert with the "monsters kill you" mechanics... or is it like most games where the success or failure of the plan comes down to the arbitrary decision-making of the GM and what they "think" should or shouldn't work?

Because in many of the RPGs I've seen... the side of "come up with a good plan" does not have any mechanical base... but rather it's the narrative decision-making of the GM to decide whether something works or not. The GM hears the plan as given to them by the players... then based on their own interpretation of what they think would probably happen (based on their own logic and reason)... the plan either succeeds or fails. Or maybe just to throw a bone to the mechanics of the game the GM asks for a skill check or two. Which is often what happens in the Social side of something like D&D-- the players and DM improvise a social encounter and the DM then either is actually convinced of the PC's improvised argument and lets them get what they want straight away... or decides to ask for a Charisma-based check (like a Persuasion check) just to give a hint of additional mechanical influence if the DM is up in the air about the results of the social conversation.

D&D is one of the few games that has survived and thrived even though it retains these two completely separate parts-- extreme mechanical combat rules heft... and a very blase exploration and social section that is more often than not arbitrarily decided on success or failure by DM fiat on what they think "sounds good" about the player's ideas-- with maybe a skill check or two thrown in. But it doesn't have any intense "exploration mechanics" or "social combat mechanics".

So I wonder what James has in mind with his game Crows? Does he also try to retain the two completely separate parts of extreme combat mechanical heft and arbritrary GM decision-making on narrative player choice... or will he reduce combat complexity to the same level of narrative decision-making OR will the "plans" that players come up with have an actual mechanical game ruleset behind them that translates their "ideas" into rules you can roll dice against? I'll be curious to see.

Yeah, I’ll be interested in hearing this too. My take on MCDM’s philosophy is they are definitely going to put something out there that:

A. Has an opinion about what it is and isn’t.
B. Isn’t going to create a copycat of other games that already fill that space well.

Based on that, I think they will address this in some way. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them bring a rogue-like play element to the game for instance.

 

[HatWearingFool]

And does the "come up with a plan" have a mechanical system behind it that works in concert with the "monsters kill you" mechanics... or is it like most games where the success or failure of the plan comes down to the arbitrary decision-making of the GM and what they "think" should or shouldn't work?

This is the big question for me as well.

 

[Morrus]

Good marketing matters.

Are you suggesting that MCDM, of all people, are not good at marketing? And yet here you are, talking about a game which doesn't even exist. I think their marketing is working just fine.

 

[gnarlygninja]

Are you suggesting that MCDM, of all people, are not good at marketing? And yet here you are, talking about a game which doesn't even exist. I think their marketing is working just fine.

People criticized the marketing of Draw Steel so much when it came out that it was at least for a while a banned topic on their discord server and subreddit. Ignoring the fact that I don't really understand why people even care about the marketing of a TTRPG, it was definitely a strange choice to criticize the marketing of a game that was selling so well.

 

[Morrus]

People criticized the marketing of Draw Steel so much

The crowdfunder which made $4M? Yeah, that marketing sucked.

when it came out that it was at least for a while a banned topic on their discord server and subreddit.

Whose Discord server and subreddit?

 

[Reynard]

I think online culture has gotten so obsessed with constant information flow that a lot of people are incapable of responding with a simple "Oh, cool, I can't wait to hear more."

I long for the days when new stuff just APPEARED when you went to the game store or movies or whatever.