MCDM officially announces their RPG

[Faolyn]

New patron post went up about classes.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/classes-80350995

TL;DR for those of us who aren't patrons?

 

[darjr]

TL;DR for those of us who aren't patrons?

haven’t had a chance to read it yet.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I dunno if I said it here yet.

This game doesn’t seem to be shaping up to something I want at this point. However watching the process, having the access to see the pizza get made is deeply fascinating to me and has been useful for my own personal reasons.

What is it that you don’t like? I know nothing about it but am curious

 

[SakanaSensei]

What is it that you don’t like? I know nothing about it but am curious

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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It being a 4E-style game with funky dice is probably enough to be plenty divisive, with passionate feelings on both sides.

 

[darjr]

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.

Your first paragraph is definitely one of my big sticklers. The dice I’m actually a fan of. I play DCC after all.

 

[SakanaSensei]

Your first paragraph is definitely one of my big sticklers. The dice I’m actually a fan of. I play DCC after all.

Yeah, like I said, I can see where changing dice up can lead to neat design space, like DCC’s chain. I was just really soured by the way they handled the conversation.

 

[Zaukrie]

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.

Insulting people in this makes me very uninterested in supporting them.

 

[Aldarc]

Your first paragraph is definitely one of my big sticklers. The dice I’m actually a fan of. I play DCC after all.

I'm quite the reverse. I'm not a fan of funky dice. Not revolving play around the d20 is one thing, but novelty dice are another. It's also one thing that turns me off from DCC as well. However, I think that there is plenty of additional space in the hobby for a more tactical game play experience a la 4e D&D. It's not as if there is a dearth of TotM fantasy adventure games inspired by D&D.

Edit: I suspect that there is also some fan disappointment that MCDM is not trying to create a d20 successor to 4e D&D.

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."

I suspect that Matt Colville (and his team) played Stars Wars Edge of the Empire, became enamored with the novelty of it all, and then locked on to that for their own game, though maybe you can provide some insight into their design decision. I do think that they probably would have benefited had they played a wide-variety of other tactical tabletop games out there: e.g., Lancer/Icon, Gubat Banwa, Fabula Ultima, etc.

 

[Retreater]

I suspect that Matt Colville (and his team) played Stars Wars Edge of the Empire, became enamored with the novelty of it all, and then locked on to that for their own game,...

Edge of Empire is the exact opposite of what I think of as a tactical game. Those are "storytelling" dice, which are fine in a game like Star Wars. But a in crunchy, tactical game inspired by 4E? I'm not sure I like them in that.
I want to deal in hard numbers, not have conversations like "I can give you an extra blue die in your die pool so you might be able to roll an extra crown."