James Introcaso talks about the Power Roll, a change to the MCDM resolution system.

[FitzTheRuke]

Eh, I don't know.

That's like saying you like At the Drive Inn and not The Mars Volta. Or that you liked Joy Division but can't stand New Order. You can like someone's previous works and also dislike what they are currently doing and wish they were doing something else instead.

I agree. I was a huge fan of David Bowie, but I had no interest whatsoever in Tin Machine.

 

[Aldarc]

Eh, I don't know.

That's like saying you like At the Drive Inn and not The Mars Volta. Or that you liked Joy Division but can't stand New Order. You can like someone's previous works and also dislike what they are currently doing and wish they were doing something else instead.

Right now I wish the poster in question wasn't using this thread to rehash their hate on the Cypher System on a point that is pretty tangential to the system itself.

 

[Campbell]

What I personally dislike about the above sentiment is that it seems to come from a place of being entitled to someone else's creative labor. I haven't been big on Vincent Baker's last couple projects, but it's not like a waste that he is creating stuff that isn't for me. The Cypher system games aren't exactly my favorite games, but they seem to really hit with some people and their designers seem to really enjoy working on them.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Look, I think the important thing here is that we can all agree that Joy Division is far superior to New Order and that Sharkleberry Fin is the best flavor of Kool-Aid.

 

[Willie the Duck]

If you didn't want to take a chance on a game they said wasn't finished, all you had to do was wait until it was. There's no grift here. It was all very clear that things would change. Backing the kS for an unfinished game clearly carried risk you wouldn't like what came.

Let's be clear, exactly one individual suggested that there was a grift going on, and the person you are responding to was not that person. It is not helpful to include that statement in your response to their post.

Beyond that, everyone* is aware that the game was unfinished and subject to change. Bayushi_seikuro was laying out why what has transpired might be, as you put it, 'an issue' (a very broad topic). An issue can, and IMO should, include reasons someone is more or less thrilled with how something is going, not just whether there is something untoward (like a grift) going on. People have every right and reason to be disappointed with how things end up going, even if they weren't promised that they would turn out a given way.
*particularly now that Meech17 laid out the specifics of the Kickstarter proposal

 

[FitzTheRuke]

What I personally dislike about the above sentiment is that it seems to come from a place of being entitled to someone else's creative labor. I haven't been big on Vincent Baker's last couple projects, but it's not like a waste that he is creating stuff that isn't for me. The Cypher system games aren't exactly my favorite games, but they seem to really hit with some people and their designers seem to really enjoy working on them.

That's fair.

Right now I wish the poster in question wasn't using this thread to rehash their hate on the Cypher System on a point that is pretty tangential to the system itself.

Sure, that makes sense.

I get where both of you are coming from, but I think you're probably reading too much into it. I would (and did!) read their statement as "I don't like the Cypher system and I wish the designers would work on something else" - which seems like a reasonable opinion to have.

After all, everything everyone posts is just their opinion (whether they choose to phrase it that way or not) and it makes sense to me to choose to take every post with that in mind.

 

[Aldarc]

As a reminder, this is sole point of comparison that I made from the MCDM RPG to a single aspect of the Cypher System:

This honestly seems less like PbtA and more like the Cypher System, though [...] in the Cypher System the bonus damage and minor/major effects occur at 17+ on a d20 roll.

That's it. That does not make the MCDM RPG the Cypher System by even the longest stretch of the imagination.

 

[Retreater]

Right now I wish the poster in question wasn't using this thread to rehash their hate on the Cypher System on a point that is pretty tangential to the system itself.

I thought it was pertinent because of your own comparison to Cypher (which honestly started the tangent to begin with). I stated I'm not a fan of Cypher and pointed out that it's not well ranked on these boards either. If it had been compared to Fantasy Flight's Star Wars/Genesys, I might've mentioned how that system doesn't appeal to me either.
And I think it's somewhat relevant. MCDM produced some highly regarded 5e-compatible content - just like Monte Cook and crew created some highly regarded D&D-based content back in the day. And I am expressing regret that Monte Cook's studio isn't making stuff that appeals to me - or even the more successful/played RPG systems out today. And I feel that loss. I hope that MCDM doesn't put all their future into a system that I don't like.

 

[kenada]

Still 2d6 but like PBTA you compare it to a reference. Above a 7 you do some damage and some minor effect, 8-10 is more damage and a bigger effect, 11-12 and a lot of damage and a big effect.

Seems like a pretty typical degrees of success system. Pathfinder 2e does something. My homebrew system, which also uses 2d6, does something similar¹. Probably a bunch of games do that.

At the same time, it does concern me that they are making radical changes to (one of?) the basic resolution system(s). It seems to me that this has to be at least semi-solid (and tested) before you have something upon which to make your pitch. At the very least, it is something that could jeopardize the timeline.

I’d be more concerned if he weren’t willing to make changes when things aren’t working like they should. Sometimes something works in the small but starts having problems once you start integrating it more completely or try torun full games with it. AFAIK he’s not using another system as a base, so he’s having to find out these problems through iteration.

The other place I’d be concerned is if he were continually tweaking things in search of the perfect mechanic. I’ve had a one Kickstarters fail because they were too worried about perfection. At some point, you have to make the game and ship it. However, Matt Colville has been good about delivering in the past, so I’d be surprised if he fell into that trap.

---

[1]: I’m putting this out here as documentation, so I can point to it should people think I took it from MCDM RPG. I define degrees of success and use that, but I want to spell out the result ranges (in actions, spells, and specialties) because doing mental division to get the degree sucks and is slow.

 

[Zaukrie]

So, what was the new idea they ahve anyway?