MCDM's New Tactical TTRPG Hits $1M Crowdfunding On First Day!

Matt Colville's MCDM is no stranger to crowdfunding, with three million dollar Kickstarters already under its belt. With the launch of The MCDM RPG, that makes four!

This new game is not a D&D variant or a supplement for D&D, which is what MCDM has focussed on so far. This is an all-new game which concentrates on tactical play, with a fulfilment goal of July 2025. It comes in two books--a 400-page 'Heroes' book and a 'Monsters' book which is an adaption of the existing Flee, Mortals!

The MCDM RPG: Draw Steel

Whether you’re a group of local heroes sent to investigate mysterious goings-on in the nearby haunted wood, or famous mercenaries plotting and scheming in the big city, the MCDM RPG makes building adventures and fighting monsters fun.

www.backerkit.com

The game takes aim at traditional d20 fantasy gaming, referring to the burden of 'sacred cows from the 1970s', but point out that it's not a dungeon crawling or exploration game--its core activity is fighting monsters. The system is geared towards tactical combat--you roll 2d6, add an attribute, and do that damage; there's no separate attack roll.

At $40 for the base Heroes PDF and $70 for the hardcover (though there are discounts for both books if you buy them together), it's not a cheap buy-in, but with over 4,000 backers already that's not deterring anybody!

Even more ambitiously, one of the stretch goals is a Virtual Tabletop (VTT). There's already a working prototype of it.

 

[Morrus]

Dang. That’s gotta be exhausting.

Well you don’t make them all. In the same way that you don’t swim to the moon. It’s not a thing you can do. One, maybe. Depending on being on the platform.

 

[Maggan]

I don't know anything about Mork Borg other than that it is illegible.

Here's the raw text:

 

[Distracted DM]

Lots of subclasses and kits, but they believe, rightly from what we see, that almost no one multiclasses. I'm happy for this.

Many of my experienced players multiclass. For some reason multiclassing bugs me, I guess because it's usually done for optimization? But I need to get over that, it's popular and I did it as a player, especially in 3e with cool PrCs

I guess it's about 8/20 players, so not a majority.

 

[darjr]

Well you don’t make them all. In the same way that you don’t swim to the moon. It’s not a thing you can do. One, maybe. Depending on being on the platform.

I mean just dealing with the question all the time.

 

[darjr]

Many of my experienced players multiclass. For some reason multiclassing bugs me, I guess because it's usually done for optimization? But I need to get over that, it's popular and I did it as a player, especially in 3e with cool PrCs

I guess it's about 8/20 players, so not a majority.

I just decided to run without multiclassing and feats.

 

[Morrus]

I mean just dealing with the question all the time.

It's more the lectures about how stupid you are for not having built a space rocket and founded a colony on Pluto. And Europa. And Alpha Centauri. And one in the Andromeda galaxy. We're so stupid!

We'd love to have our books in every shop on the planet, and our rules on every VTT in the world, and a massive thriving community on every social platform on the internet. As would any creator. That's what we want. We also want a pony!

 

[Distracted DM]

I just decided to run without multiclassing and feats.

I tried this and the players really chafed at lack of options, especially cutting out feats. I wanted to do custom awarded features for them based on events in-game, but they're accustomed to the wealth of existing options and having control of their paths.

 

[Distracted DM]

Many of my experienced players multiclass. For some reason multiclassing bugs me, I guess because it's usually done for optimization? But I need to get over that, it's popular and I did it as a player, especially in 3e with cool PrCs

I guess it's about 8/20 players, so not a majority.

Especially since we switched to A5E, which has even more options for multiclassing- I actually do like the MC feats!

 

[darjr]

The second set of boxes are all spoken for.

 

[mamba]

But I guess if people want to sneer and show their bold stance against empathy, that's what they want to do lol.

clearly you ignored most of my post, explaining the 'stuff in the warehouse' bit, and just keep on running with it despite that.

Can the guys running kickstarters sometimes be more clear about what that is, sure. Should the people who back them educate themselves first, hell yes. And yes, my sympathy for someone whining about something they backed running three months or so behind schedule is very limited...