Crows Officially Announced by MCDM

MCDM Productions has officially announced Crows, a new dungeon-crawling RPG. The new RPG is being led by James Introcaso, with Nick De Spain directing the art. The game is described as a game about staring death in the face and grabbing as much loot from dungeons before your luck runs out. The game is played using D6s and D10s, with a health system similar to Knave in which inventory slots doubles as a health tracker.

In a Patreon post released today, Introcaso described Crows and its differences from Draw Steel. For one, experience points is determined by calculating the value of loot taken from a dungeon. Crows retains the power roll from Draw Steel but with some differences as to the result of the roll. Unlike Draw Steel, where the power roll always results in some kind of benefit for the player, the power roll in Crows has negative results for low rolls. However, players have no limit to the number of circumstantial bonuses they have in Crows, which can result in higher results with good planning.

Other nuances mentioned in the post include that all players can use any equipment they might find (spellbooks were given as an example), but some character classes will be more attuned to certain kinds of equipment. There's also a base building component to Crows, in which players build up the town they're headquartered in. There will also be a default campaign setting for Crows, described as a world in which Archmages were eventually corrupted by the magic they wielded and became Necromancers who waged war on each other until they all disappeared.

No release date was announced for Crows, but MCDM plans to provide updates on the development of Crows via its various social media platforms.

 

[Reynard]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glasscannonunplugged/diablo-the-roleplaying-game

just putting it out there

I forgot this existed, and I even have it saved for alerts.

 

[zakael19]

From the post, it seems like they have done that "shoving". Its full of NSR/OSR references. (From you next post) its seems to totally fit into "The whole "avoid combat or you'll LOSE!" paradigm".

Yeah, the blog is pretty full of the idea that this is "what if we made the kinda OSR-esque / dungeon looting game we want to with our Power Roll tech, and a lot of the innovations in this space that the ream of brilliant OSR games have done."

 

[Not a Decepticon]

I'd also add that their whole approach to "usage dice" and random encounters is going to have a similar effect, albeit a far less pronounced one. They won't get the focus on survival they want, because the whole game will likely become about mitigation of RNG, and players will just become increasing cautious, because unlike in most survival horror, the PCs can and probably should simply retreat once they've got enough loot to justify their expedition. There's no apparent requirement or real benefit to "getting to the end", whereas survival horror relies on that to keep you pressing forward.

I think a perfect way to midigate that issue would be to adapt the Victories from Draw Steel - the more challenges you overcome, the stronger you become, but the buffs fade/turn into xp once you take rest or, in this scenario, leave the area. This could give that "one more room" feeling that creates tension between trying to chase the high of winning and avoiding the risk.

Much bigger issue in creating survival horror experience is that in these kind of games heroes do not leave because they don't want to but because they cannot. We have heroes trapepd in mansions, from Resident Evil to Lamentum, trapped in cities they cannot walk away from like Silent Hill etc. Or at least pushed by some sort of internal or external motivation - in Conscript the character both keeps pushing ahead to save his brother AND the moment you try to leave the area, you are getting bad ending for abbandonning your post, since you are a soldier in WWI. This is why Fear and Hunger is a survival horror with RNG mechanics also - the heroes cannot leave in either of the games.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A lot of folks have observed that this seems to have formalized a shift in what TSR adventures were primarily about that occurred over the 80s, arguably kicked off with the GDQ modules being centered on a plot, and shifting to being more and more plot/heroism based, and less treasure-based, over the decade, with the "Hickman Revolution" and Dragonlance being notable signposts along the way. And that the release of 2E with the revised XP rules put the big official seal on it.

The G series still had the good manners to have a shocking amount of coin that the giant slayers were forced to reckon with getting out of the various giant clans' halls. Getting all of that stuff back to town (presumably handwaved during the tournament versions) was necessary to power up enough to be able to face what was to come.

 

[Mannahnin]

The G series still had the good manners to have a shocking amount of coin that the giant slayers were forced to reckon with getting out of the various giant clans' halls. Getting all of that stuff back to town (presumably handwaved during the tournament versions) was necessary to power up enough to be able to face what was to come.

Of course. For publication under 1E, where treasure was still the primary source of xp and monsters were a relatively small fraction, modules for home use/ongoing campaigns still needed big treasures. Ravenloft and the Dragonlance modules had big piles of treasure too.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think a perfect way to midigate that issue would be to adapt the Victories from Draw Steel - the more challenges you overcome, the stronger you become, but the buffs fade/turn into xp once you take rest or, in this scenario, leave the area. This could give that "one more room" feeling that creates tension between trying to chase the high of winning and avoiding the risk.

That would totally work, and indeed there are dungeon crawling videogames which have some similar mechanics, but they explicitly called out that they weren't using that approach so I suspect they won't.

Much bigger issue in creating survival horror experience is that in these kind of games heroes do not leave because they don't want to but because they cannot.

Which is hard-incompatible with "extract with the treasure whilst avoiding combat" and the whole "crows" who "dive" into dungeons.

There are ways you could work around it, but they most revolve around making each expedition have a cost significant enough that unless you recoup that cost, you're losing money on it. And that's a tricky thing to balance - doable but tricky, because you can flop out of balance in multiple directions that way. You could also have a "the PCs are working for someone else"-type situation, but that's also kind of at-odds with the setup.

The setup they have isn't bad but it's just absolutely not a survival horror-friendly one (especially when they specify the survival horrors they're aiming to be like as RE and Silent Hill).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I find it weird that we have to shove any game in which there is dungeon crawling into the *SR paradigm. Can't a game just be a dungeon crawler?

Not all dungeon crawlers are alike, though - this one has a lot of NSR-specific conceits. Like, if you baseline say dungeon crawler to anyone but the most NSR/OSR-pilled serious TTRPGhead, they think of something where a party of HEROES (not merely "gimme the money" merc/adventurers) goes into a dungeon with the intention of going to the bottom of that dungeon and killing the BOSS (not "avoiding the boss as much as possible and nicking his stuff before fleeing, but leaving him to cause harm forevermore").

This actually ties into another comment you make, which I think actually reflects what a lot of people want from a "dungeon crawler".

Dungeon crawlers have existed throughout the whole life of the hobby. OSR dungeon exploration is one particular flavor of that, but it is hardly the only one. The whole "avoid combat or you'll LOSE!" paradigm is beyond played out. Give me a hack and slash dungeon crawler, a tabletop Diablo.

Very much agree.

It's a weirdly underserved space in the sense of TTRPGs designed specifically for that. There are an absolute ton of RPGs you can, in theory, use to do something like that, but that don't really have the "hack and slash!!!" energy, which includes not really caring about attrition (the Diablo series are characterized by their lack of meaningful attrition - at worst you might quickly TP back to town to sell loot and buy some more potions, but you'll be there for like, seconds, in most cases), and going through a ton of loot pretty quickly.

Maybe it's just because videogames are pretty strong in the space, but I honestly don't think they are, these days. Most ARPGs are rather "I BLEW UP THE SCREEN LOL" solitary affairs (PoE2 is the least like that, but it's still a lot like that), but something party-based and high-energy would be really cool.

If they were hewing a bit closer to Draw Steel! I think they could have done well there, but this looks like just another spin on "Avoid combat!!!!" as you say. I really hope they have like, rival adventuring parties and stuff at least as part of the default, because if you're going to go as "extraction shooter" as they seem to want to, they should bring in that element, that you might have to fight other adventurers looking for the same stuff REGULARLY, that they in fact might be a bigger threat than the monsters a lot of the time. D&D and other RPGs have often very light touched on this, with like "competition" with other adventuring parties occasionally in specific adventures or one-off encounters, but none have made it a regular part of the setting that I'm aware of. It would certainly give it a bit more edge.

 

[Reynard]

Not all dungeon crawlers are alike, though - this one has a lot of NSR-specific conceits. Like, if you baseline say dungeon crawler to anyone but the most NSR/OSR-pilled serious TTRPGhead, they think of something where a party of HEROES (not merely "gimme the money" merc/adventurers) goes into a dungeon with the intention of going to the bottom of that dungeon and killing the BOSS (not "avoiding the boss as much as possible and nicking his stuff before fleeing, but leaving him to cause harm forevermore").

This actually ties into another comment you make, which I think actually reflects what a lot of people want from a "dungeon crawler".


Very much agree.

It's a weirdly underserved space in the sense of TTRPGs designed specifically for that. There are an absolute ton of RPGs you can, in theory, use to do something like that, but that don't really have the "hack and slash!!!" energy, which includes not really caring about attrition (the Diablo series are characterized by their lack of meaningful attrition - at worst you might quickly TP back to town to sell loot and buy some more potions, but you'll be there for like, seconds, in most cases), and going through a ton of loot pretty quickly.

Maybe it's just because videogames are pretty strong in the space, but I honestly don't think they are, these days. Most ARPGs are rather "I BLEW UP THE SCREEN LOL" solitary affairs (PoE2 is the least like that, but it's still a lot like that), but something party-based and high-energy would be really cool.

If they were hewing a bit closer to Draw Steel! I think they could have done well there, but this looks like just another spin on "Avoid combat!!!!" as you say. I really hope they have like, rival adventuring parties and stuff at least as part of the default, because if you're going to go as "extraction shooter" as they seem to want to, they should bring in that element, that you might have to fight other adventurers looking for the same stuff REGULARLY, that they in fact might be a bigger threat than the monsters a lot of the time. D&D and other RPGs have often very light touched on this, with like "competition" with other adventuring parties occasionally in specific adventures or one-off encounters, but none have made it a regular part of the setting that I'm aware of. It would certainly give it a bit more edge.

I feel like incorproating deck building systems into the RPG mechanics might allow for something that feels at least a little like that vicious chaos of a dungeon crawler. That way you would not have to count cool down or whatever. When the card comes back up (redrawing your hand is "initiative") that means it is recharged. Something like that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I feel like incorproating deck building systems into the RPG mechanics might allow for something that feels at least a little like that vicious chaos of a dungeon crawler. That way you would not have to count cool down or whatever. When the card comes back up (redrawing your hand is "initiative") that means it is recharged. Something like that.

Loot cards would also be a good way to make generating reams of loot, Diablo-style, something fun and easy to do, rather than dragging the game to a halt.

Those end-of-2E Diablo books were fun, but no one wants to have to generate magic items with suffixes and prefixes every few minutes if you want the game to not just be watching the GM rolling on loot tables.

It'll be very interesting to see how the official Diablo RPG handles this.