MCDM officially announces their RPG

[Aldarc]

I agree, but the D&D mind space is also his entire livelihood. Any new MCDM game that's completely different from D&D is going to be a hard sell for his fanbase, which is basically 100 percent D&D players.

I agree with your point. I just think, however, that renaming the six attributes seems kinda pointless in most cases. If you are just going to rename the six attributes but leave them mostly the same, it's probably better to keep the six attributes as they are.

 

[Zaukrie]

I'd like three attributes, mind, body, soul.

 

[FallenRX]

I've been following their Patreon at the highest tier since development started, and there are a couple of things that may have turned different people of different persuasions off.

The first one is probably the focus on tactical combat. It's going to be a game very much in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition, likely, with any and all pretense of being a dungeon delver shaved away to make space for set piece battles. As a lover of 4E, this makes me happy, but it is definitely something that could put some people off.

The second big one is (definitely) their decision to stick with the idea of dice with image facings, akin to FFG's Genesys-family games or the dice that come with the Descent board game. To be clear, I think that using these oddball dice could open up some great design space, but... There was quite a bit of conversation about the idea on their Discord before it got clamped down as a subject, essentially. I actually felt the need to largely disconnect from participating in discussions around the project at all because of the reactions from Matt and the mod team that came from it. There were quite a few (what I thought were pretty valid) concerns being raised by people who didn't like the idea of these "funky dice," and the response from the team was to, essentially, insult people who didn't like it as "making the subject their entire personality."

Maybe Darjr has some other things he doesn't like about what's been shown thus far, but for me those are the two things that I could take a guess at being reasons that some people might not think the game is for them.

To be honest, seeing that, i kinda agree with the mods and teams make.

People were making very harsh judgements and criticisms of....to be blunt, a game that doesnt even exist yet, and something they didnt even try for themselves.

Like people having whole elaborate feelings on something they didn't even play reeks of sus to me. Its just pure reaction, not anything meaningful

 

[MichaelSomething]

I hope I'm wrong, but I see this turning into an object lesson is catering to the market vs maintaining some notion of pure artistic vision.

I thought tons of people here were all for screwing the market for a personal vision?

 

[Haplo781]

The irony of people thinking 30-year RPG industry veteran Matt Coleville just wants to make a D&D clone is absolutely staggering, as is the idea that he doesn't understand the purpose of the dice system he's using.

Also nobody is being insulted. The team has simply made it clear that they don't want to deal with people badgering them about creative decisions that they won't be changing their minds on. They're showing you how the sausage is made, not soliciting advice on sausage making.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I hate weird dice. Always seems to me it’s just another way for people to have to spend money on your system.

“After the $60 book purchase be sure to spend another $20 on the special dice you need to play! Only available from us!”

I had made this point when Fantasy Flight made the new L5R... with different dice. ... which were also different from their Star Wars dice.

 

[darjr]

Check out Tuesday Game Design Chat #mcdm #ttrpg

 

[overgeeked]

Check out Tuesday Game Design Chat #mcdm #ttrpg

I’ve been saying that about D&D combat and RPG rules for years. Years. Your rules focus determines the focus of your game. If the bulk of your game’s rules are about the killing and looting of monsters, guess what…your game is about killing and looting monsters. If the bulk of your game’s rules are about romance, guess what…your game is about romance.

 

[SakanaSensei]

The irony of people thinking 30-year RPG industry veteran Matt Coleville just wants to make a D&D clone is absolutely staggering, as is the idea that he doesn't understand the purpose of the dice system he's using.

Also nobody is being insulted. The team has simply made it clear that they don't want to deal with people badgering them about creative decisions that they won't be changing their minds on. They're showing you how the sausage is made, not soliciting advice on sausage making.

"Stop coming into every thread about DnD, complaining about WotC, and then pitching A5E. You've made it your entire personality."
"Stop making threads about the caster martial divide, everything is fine, you've made it your entire personality."

Like, you can agree with their position that they don't want a design element up for discussion in their 8 dollar a month Discord channel about game design. But agreeing with someone making an insult doesn't make it NOT an insult. Can you imagine Jeremy Crawford popping up on Twitter or something and making the second statement I put above? I imagine people would be quite upset being on the receiving end of that. I imagine even the first statement, directed at someone wanting to support an EnWorld product, would have a very high chance of getting red texted here.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The second big one is (definitely) their decision to stick with the idea of dice with image facings, akin to FFG's Genesys-family games or the dice that come with the Descent board game. To be clear, I think that using these oddball dice could open up some great design space, but... There was quite a bit of conversation about the idea on their Discord before it got clamped down as a subject, essentially. I actually felt the need to largely disconnect from participating in discussions around the project at all because of the reactions from Matt and the mod team that came from it. There were quite a few (what I thought were pretty valid) concerns being raised by people who didn't like the idea of these "funky dice," and the response from the team was to, essentially, insult people who didn't like it as "making the subject their entire personality."

Yeah, this is what is extremely off-putting to me.

They initially acknowledged that there were a bunch of valid concerns re: funky dice, even listed some. Then they offered some solutions - they were all pretty silly off-the-cuff stuff that didn't address the core issues with funky dice, just workarounds that might make sense for playtesting, but not for long-term play. The core issues, as I see it, are:

1) They're a significant extra cost - and are usually wildly overcharged for, relatively to the actual quality of the dice being provided.

2) They're usually extremely low-quality, like absolute bottom-of-the-barrel quality. I can't, off-hand, think of any exceptions except for when the "funky dice" have been made of wood. All the plastic ones I've ever seen, whether for TTRPGs or wargames or boardgames have been trash-tier if they're made of plastic. Over the years, pretty much everyone in my main group(s) has got nicer and nicer dice, and better-balanced ones too. That's all out the window with funky dice.

3) They require extra coordination to ensure everyone has them, and potentially an entire extra dicebox/dicebag to drag around/lose/forget. Maybe this isn't an issue for everyone, but it is for me - I've been using the same dicebox for 20+ years, and I don't want to ditch 1/5th the dice (or more - and it sounds like it would be more, based on how heavy they want to go with different die types!) just to make sure I can potentially give 4 players and me all their funky dice. And players will have difficulty finding/buying them themselves, in my experience. God and I'd have to separate them somehow too so they didn't get mixed in.

4) They cause most players to completely lose the ability to estimate odds unless they're d6s - particularly as they rarely actually learn how many of each symbol are on each die - and god help us if you have same-size dice with different symbols.

And that makes the entire "tactical" or "decision-making" aspect of rolling funky dice go totally out the window!

Only a very specific kind of math-absorbent player retains the ability to understand the odds and make decisions relating to the dice on that basis - which is like, at best, 1 in 3 players (and I think that's being extremely generous - being realistic I'd say it's more like 1 in 5). This is a big one that MCDM has never acknowledged AFAIK and clearly from the playtest, didn't even understand (you could see it was happening on their Patreon article about the playtest - and it was confusing everyone - but they didn't see why - I should probably have posted something but the responses were so sycophantic/fan-ish/hype-y that I felt like it wasn't worth it).

And yeah as you say, because there were serious concerns with this, and MCDM didn't have any real answers, this turned into one of those negative feedback loops, where someone who doesn't have good answers re: an issue with their project, just gets increasingly defensive about it as it keeps being brought up, and then finally directs their anger at the people raising it, and starts attacking them. Which is super-gross and cringe.

I've seen it for decades - the first time I really identified it was with World of Warcraft. The first PvP honor system was described in detail, and immediately, people pointed out pretty much all the faults it would have, all the problems it would have, with truly remarkable accuracy. It was actually quite impressive. People were even rather polite about it, because Blizzard presented it as "subject to change" and that they were seeking feedback. Only apparently they weren't ready for these specific critiques, because they didn't have any answers for them, they just started saying "It'll be fine!" and "Don't worry about it!" and "You haven't played it, shut up!" and then eventually "You're all morons who suck and I will prove you wrong!" (this from the main designer). The critics were 100% correct. Everything they predicted would go wrong, did go wrong, and 2 years later the system was completely overhauled and changed on a fundamental level.

The sad thing is I think the "funky dice" issue could be handled okay even if they're determined to stick with it, but they've chosen as path of denial and rudeness, so they probably won't. The two big fixes I could see would be:

A) Sell high-quality funky dice, and make sure you do so at the absolute cheapest price you can manage - a zero-profit price. Do not sell, even as an option, low-quality versions of the dice. You can have some fancy-looking ones you do make a profit on too, of course, but you need to sell stuff that works and as cheaply as you can.

B) Provide a well-designed dice-rolling app for the game, with no ads, no bollocks, which preferably shows the percentage odds of each face-type for each die. I think they are planning a die-rolling app (though that may have just been something they said and then later forgot), but I am unconvinced it'll be focused correctly, and it only helps rather than solving the problem. Also, I know of a specific example with a game that never got released (but still might one day) that a friend-of-a-friend was working on, where showing the percentages basically created a "Oz curtain pull" situation about how the game worked, which was part of why it never got released. So I worry if they'd actually do that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

as is the idea that he doesn't understand the purpose of the dice system he's using

It's not that he doesn't understand the purpose, that's a misrepresentation. It's that he doesn't understand the impact or issues this causes, and he and others rapidly got into just denial-lock rather than actually addressing issues or talking about the mitigations they wanted to use.

Also, he may be a 30-year-veteran, but based on everything he's said, he's not actually played that many different RPGs, and I don't think he's nearly as circumspect as some people wish he was.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Like people having whole elaborate feelings on something they didn't even play reeks of sus to me. Its just pure reaction, not anything meaningful

This always has been, and always will be a profoundly ignorant viewpoint, ironic as that might seem. It's incredibly insulting and dismissive towards people who, in many cases, have a great deal of experience, and do, in fact, understand the criticisms they're making. I'd go as far as to say it's an ill-considered and reactionary viewpoint itself, which ironic, but there you go.

I've seen this play out before, as I said, with the specific WoW example. People acting like you are and mindlessly dismissing criticism on those grounds are very often digging a deep hole, which they're going to be a bit red-faced to find themselves in later.

And it's sad, because if you honestly look at mitigations and listen to criticism, even if you want to stick with an idea, you can do a better job - but MCDM have chosen the Blizzard path here.

 

[Haplo781]

In the blue corner: Matt Colville, creator of multiple multi-million dollar Kickstarter projects.

In the red corner: a bunch of anonymous internet posters who have created zero notable projects.

DING DING

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Also, he may be a 30-year-veteran, but based on everything he's said, he's not actually played that many different RPGs, and I don't think he's nearly as circumspect as some people wish he was.

Yeah the fact that, as a designer, he only just got around to trying out the Star Wars FFG dice is not a great sign.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah the fact that, as a designer, he only just got around to trying out the Star Wars FFG dice is not a great sign.

That’s an incredibly bad assumption on your part. He’s been using versions of that system and those dice since WFRP3E. He was a vocal early adopter and has talked about them for years.

 

[FallenRX]

This always has been, and always will be a profoundly ignorant viewpoint, ironic as that might seem. It's incredibly insulting and dismissive towards people who, in many cases, have a great deal of experience, and do, in fact, understand the criticisms they're making. I'd go as far as to say it's an ill-considered and reactionary viewpoint itself, which ironic, but there you go.

I've seen this play out before, as I said, with the specific WoW example. People acting like you are and mindlessly dismissing criticism on those grounds are very often digging a deep hole, which they're going to be a bit red-faced to find themselves in later.

And it's sad, because if you honestly look at mitigations and listen to criticism, even if you want to stick with an idea, you can do a better job - but MCDM have chosen the Blizzard path here.

I agree, but the difference here.

They are criticizing something that doesn't even literally exist yet because it is a bit different, like, they havent actually played with it, see how it runs, nor even understand it, it might not even be in the game.

WoW is one thing because its a done game, people play, beta test, and inform people of the issues of, This game is not wow, its not even a game yet, the very idea of it, without even trying it, they just don't like. Based on....very little.

So yea, Im not a fan of funky dice, but id like to actually try it first before actively trying to invoke endless discussion on "I hate X" before its even out, that is incredibly vapid and nothing, like that discussion they have ever right to cool off about because its not feedback, its not anything constructive, it cant be, because they havent actually even played or done anything with the game yet, its just straight up whining that "This game is different from X game I like, so i don't like it" This is the emptiest form of criticism and is truly worth no merit.

 

[FallenRX]

"Stop coming into every thread about DnD, complaining about WotC, and then pitching A5E. You've made it your entire personality."
"Stop making threads about the caster martial divide, everything is fine, you've made it your entire personality."

Like, you can agree with their position that they don't want a design element up for discussion in their 8 dollar a month Discord channel about game design. But agreeing with someone making an insult doesn't make it NOT an insult. Can you imagine Jeremy Crawford popping up on Twitter or something and making the second statement I put above? I imagine people would be quite upset being on the receiving end of that. I imagine even the first statement, directed at someone wanting to support an EnWorld product, would have a very high chance of getting red texted here.

The difference is.
That is about games that actually exist, people are playing with, and people are giving feedback on.
This is about a game, in its designing phase, not even a real game, that no one has tried, the mechanic in question might not even make it to the final game(which was said on stream recently). most of the mechanics ,most of the classes they are designing with, arent even the real classes, just mockups basically. placeholders, its just prototypes at best, its not even a game.

One is actual feedback that comes from playtesting, experiences, and a mostly done game, the other is just pure reaction based on very little, about a game that doesnt even exist yet, that no one has played?

You see how actually meaningless that reaction is in comparison?

 

[SakanaSensei]

The difference is.
That is about games that actually exist, people are playing with, and people are giving feedback on.
This is about a game, in its designing phase, not even a real game, that no one has tried, the mechanic in question might not even make it to the final game(which was said on stream recently). most of the mechanics ,most of the classes they are designing with, arent even the real classes, just mockups basically. placeholders, its just prototypes at best, its not even a game.

One is actual feedback that comes from playtesting, experiences, and a mostly done game, the other is just pure reaction based on very little, about a game that doesnt even exist yet, that no one has played?

You see how actually meaningless that reaction is in comparison?

If I may, I believe you are misunderstanding my concern, or I did a bad job of properly expressing myself.

My issue isn't with the mechanic. I was cautiously optimistic and at the very least intellectually curious about how they planned on using their dice in a tactical game. I thought it was really nice to see people talk about the pros and cons of messing with dice math and the game feel associated with the mechanic. Some of those pros and cons, talked about quite a while ago now, have even started cropping up in their playtests it seems! I remember early discussion talking about how "your stat equals how many dice you roll" possibly leading to stats leading to too strong of a swing, and lo and behold that seems to have cropped up in the playtests.

My issue was entirely with Matt coming into the Discord, insulting some of his fans (I don't think many people are dropping 8 dollars a month out of spite, after all), and then doubling down on the insult in a Patreon post.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I agree, but the difference here.

They are criticizing something that doesn't even literally exist yet because it is a bit different, like, they havent actually played with it, see how it runs, nor even understand it, it might not even be in the game.

That's not really different unless we're talking about something OTHER than the dice. Which maybe you were? But I didn't get it if so.

The dice stuff is well-established and well-known, and in fact what MCDM are currently suggesting (as I understand it) would be BY FAR the most extreme use of "funky dice" in RPG, possibly in any wargame or boardgame, even, which wasn't specifically a game about dice (i.e. dice-pool builder or the like).

This isn't magic.

We know what the problems with funky dice are. And again, nothing MCDM has proposed will mitigate the issues, and they're proposing to do something far more extreme than previous scenarios.

So yea, Im not a fan of funky dice, but id like to actually try it first before actively trying to invoke endless discussion on "I hate X" before its even out, that is incredibly vapid and nothing, like that discussion they have ever right to cool off about because its not feedback, its not anything constructive, it cant be, because they havent actually even played or done anything with the game yet, its just straight up whining that "This game is different from X game I like, so i don't like it" This is the emptiest form of criticism and is truly worth no merit.

No.

This is a purely hypocritical position you're holding.

You yourself are mindlessly disregarding stuff simply because you haven't play the game yet. That is exactly what you're complaining about.

There may be some worthless criticism, there always is with any product. But the issues with funky dice are known factors. And again, MCDM are not, to my knowledge, proposing any mitigations at all against the four factors I listed. And that's messed-up, because there are mitigations for some of them. But again, MCDM haven't proposed them, and have shut down discussion on the subject entirely.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In the blue corner: Matt Colville, creator of multiple multi-million dollar Kickstarter projects.

In the red corner: a bunch of anonymous internet posters who have created zero notable projects.

DING DING

This is absolutely awful and cringe-worthy stuff, dude. It's not helpful to the discussion, it's not intelligent, it doesn't add anything at all, it only creates a more hostile atmosphere. Why even post it?