Crows, James Introcasos MCDM Dungeon Crawler RPG

[zakael19]

In that they chose a hyperspecific setting and made it significantly hard to use any other setting,

I gotta say, it’s about as hard to use DS! in a generic setting like FR as it is to use Daggerheart. That is to say, not very.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I gotta say, it’s about as hard to use DS! in a generic setting like FR as it is to use Daggerheart. That is to say, not very.

I politely but strongly disagree, and I think your comparison illustrates it well, actually.

Daggerheart is very easy, because races are essentially pick two abilities (one top line, one bottom line), combine at will, and the classes map directly to D&D classes, and the monsters are all fairly simple, and extremely easy to reskin. It doesn't have any strong implied setting, and in fact, the game itself comes with five entirely different settings with totally different vibes.

Whereas DS! requires huge amount more work with the very bizarre races (they're cool, but they're very specific, or most of them are). The classes I love so won't complain about any work in translating (and yeah that's the least work). The monsters though, and some other elements of character building? Those are big work to translate to a generic campaign imho. I started doing that work and then gave up, myself. And I don't personally find it easy or straightforward to come up with new monsters for DS! compared to DH, but YMMV.

If you're currently using DS! for an active, ongoing campaign in a different setting, cool, and I'm inclined to listen to you a bit more on that basis, but I'm guessing you're not, right? Or wrong?

This discussion does raise the question re: the setting of Crows, though. I presume it won't be the DS! setting, but will it also be hyperspecific? My guess is not. My guess is they're going for something a lot more generic and/or intentionally flexible, setting-wise.

 

[mamba]

Source: I subscribed to the Patreon for a couple of months around release, and looked back to see what all the updates were - sparser than I'd expected, I'd actually have been annoyed if I was paying $9 a month for that - and note I'd subscribed to his Patreon some years before, when he was doing monthly D&D content mags, and that felt much more like it was worth $9/month).

if you factor in that you also get the finished digital products, I think the price is ok on average, you just do not get your dollars worth every single month, instead it averages out

In that they chose a hyperspecific setting and made it significantly hard to use any other setting, and the setting they chose is basically "1970s prog rock album cover", which like, I get that has its fans, but I don't know any of them IRL lol. It's a real pity to me because a lot of the specific classes and the mechanics are cool, but everything else (including the races) is... less cool.

yeah, the setting is a bit more specific, but I don’t see why you cannot either use a different one or ignore the parts you do not want to engage with and refluff what you do not like about the races

To me it is basically Forgotten Realms with Spelljammer, so basically the default D&D setting. I can understand not caring about the SJ part however, I never did.

Interestingly enough I did like the pitch for Crack the Sun because it was more out there than the average D&D adventure.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Interestingly enough I did like the pitch for Crack the Sun because it was more out there than the average D&D adventure.

Yeah I did too. If you're going to make a setting like that, you need to go for it adventure-wise, and they did.

 

[Staffan]

In that they chose a hyperspecific setting and made it significantly hard to use any other setting, and the setting they chose is basically "1970s prog rock album cover", which like, I get that has its fans, but I don't know any of them IRL lol. It's a real pity to me because a lot of the specific classes and the mechanics are cool, but everything else (including the races) is... less cool.

Hyperspecific? Orden is pretty vanilla fantasyland. There is some fantasy space stuff, but that's all out on the periphery of the setting, much like the planes are in D&D.

It would take some effort to use most D&D settings with Draw Steel, but that's because those settings are specific in different ways. But there's nothing generic about things like "dark-skinned silver-haired evil elves that worship spiders" or "mortals with fiendish heritage" or "ten types of dragons, five of which are evil and named for colors and five of which are good and named for metals".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Orden is pretty vanilla fantasyland.

I definitely don't agree with that at all lol but YMMV. I don't think Colville would agree at all either, in fact, he stressed that it wasn't.

It would take some effort to use most D&D settings with Draw Steel, but that's because those settings are specific in different ways.

Yet they all work just fine with a D&D and many other RPGs. Hmmm. I guess my issue here is DS! seemed to be intentionally designed not to be compatible with other settings (including homebrew), which limits how many people it's going to reach, whereas DH for example, was intentionally designed to be adapted to completely different settings, and what's more, they showed you how to do it with five very strong examples.

But this is beside the point - this thread is about Crows - I take it we don't know anything about the setting there? 80% chance it's at least semi-grimdark given the name.

 

[zakael19]

If you're currently using DS! for an active, ongoing campaign in a different setting, cool, and I'm inclined to listen to you a bit more on that basis, but I'm guessing you're not, right? Or wrong?

You’d be wrong. I’ve posted in the DS! thread and on its subreddit about the relatively small amount of work I had to do to map DS! To 4e FR, where I’m currently running a campaign. When I make assertions like that I’m doing it from personal experience. The one ancestry I didnt map is the 4 arm guys.

Because of how many weird ancestries DH does, many of which don’t map cleanly (frog people, monkey people, flying faeries, etc), I’ve had to do way more work to minimize ancestry exclusion and work them into settings with the players.

 

[mamba]

Yet they all work just fine with a D&D and many other RPGs.

because they were created for / alongside D&D, and thanks to its popularity other RPGs intentionally stay close to it rather than doing their own thing. That includes DH

I guess my issue here is DS! seemed to be intentionally designed not to be compatible with other settings (including homebrew)

I don’t think that was the intention, but they definitely did intentionally not create another D&D clone. Instead they stretched the envelope a little (it still is recognizably very similar to D&D when you compare it to say, Vampire, CoC, or sci-fi RPGs)

As to homebrew, you can certainly homebrew for it, whether it fits your existing homebrew setting that was based on D&D, who knows. I don’t think there is much from DS! you cannot use with it either however

 

[Nightfly]

Are you suggesting that MCDM, of all people, are not good at marketing?

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.

 

[Morrus]

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’m sure you will find out before the crowdfunder launches in a year or more. Don’t panic.