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.

 

[Velderan]

They have different features and are used based on your "kit" - so a barbarian isn't going to get the same abilities using a dagger as she does using a greataxe.
And - no - you don't miss. But you might do basically no damage. Think of this like throwing a fireball in literally any edition of D&D. Even successful saves do half damage. Same concept. You don't waste your action accomplishing nothing.
No one has a problem with half damage fireballs.
(There are ways to completely avoid damage - reactions/feats/etc.)

The bolded part. I thought I heard Matt say on one of the streams that there will be choices players can make to potentially react and lower their damage taken, but (I think..) you won't be able to eliminate it? I believe this was explained in response to a question asking if HP pools would be huge to account for no one missing.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

You all can watch what Matt actually means with heroic as one of his “four words”.


It’s at about the 6:31 mark and about 3 minutes long. If you can’t be bothered to check his own words, to summarize, “heroic” here means characters who want to be good guys, do the right thing. Not be murder hobos. Not be selfish hunters for gold and treasure. Baseline assumption characters will be motivated to be good guys yet room for exceptions.

It’s there to watch!

So it’s not an overlap with “cinematic” after all.

 

[Parmandur]

Yea. There are a lot of criticisms of 5e from Matt that I just don't see. Or have found how to make it work, and well for me. A lot of fans also have issues I don't seem to quite get. But if they find what they want from the MCDM RPG that's great!

I see other things in it I like, I think, from most of the fans, maybe.

Also I must say a big part is how he runs the company and how MCDM has had a real impact on pay in the industry. I want to enbiggen that and make it last. Same goes with EN Publishing. Is that a bad reason to want an RPG? I don't think so.

I do want to run and play it too.

Absolutely, appreciate the way they are managing this.

 

[Emberashh]

You all can watch what Matt actually means with heroic as one of his “four words”.


It’s at about the 6:31 mark and about 3 minutes long. If you can’t be bothered to check his own words, to summarize, “heroic” here means characters who want to be good guys, do the right thing. Not be murder hobos. Not be selfish hunters for gold and treasure. Baseline assumption characters will be motivated to be good guys yet room for exceptions.

It’s there to watch!

So it’s not an overlap with “cinematic” after all.

Thing is thats not really something you can bake into the mechanics. I can be heroic, per that definition, in pretty much every system ever.

And I go by what was written under the heading "Heroic" in the preview pages; it includes this definition, but it spends most of the page space on describing movies and calling out specific mechanical things the game won't be including in the core rules.

2 out of the 8 paragraphs there are about that definition of Heroic, so you can forgive me for making an assumption of what this section actually cares about. Not the 6 paragraphs it spends on movies and icky rules other games have, but the two initial paragraphs describing something I can do in any system.

Sorry for the snark, but it seems people are leaping to the defense of something that doesn't really need to be defended. This issue has no bearing on the actual game or how it will play regardless of which way you swing on it.

I will still end up playing this game and I'll most likely enjoy it barring a terrible fumble, which I don't expect to happen. So lets not get all heated because I took issue with a blurb.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[SteveC]

Thing is thats not really something you can bake into the mechanics. I can be heroic, per that definition, in pretty much every system ever.

And I go by what was written under the heading "Heroic" in the preview pages; it includes this definition, but it spends most of the page space on describing movies and calling out specific mechanical things the game won't be including in the core rules.

2 out of the 8 paragraphs there are about that definition of Heroic, so you can forgive me for making an assumption of what this section actually cares about. Not the 6 paragraphs it spends on movies and icky rules other games have, but the two initial paragraphs describing something I can do in any system.

Sorry for the snark, but it seems people are leaping to the defense of something that doesn't really need to be defended. This issue has no bearing on the actual game or how it will play regardless of which way you swing on it.

Honestly, this doesn't look like the game for you. Matt's going out of his way to say what the game is about, and you're arguing on the definition and how the game can't support what he's saying mechanically. When someone tells you what their game is about, I tend to believe them. I have seen games where the designer wasn't able to match what they said they wanted to do, but to argue about the actual definition? I don't think that's going to help you out.

I absolutely love some of the adventures the author of Shadowdark has made. I didn't back the game because that game told me it was about things I don't want to play in a game. That's not to say it isn't well done or that the author isn't awesome, just that it's not for me. Perhaps I'd apply a similar approach here.

 

[Emberashh]

Honestly, this doesn't look like the game for you.

This doesn't follow from multiple explicit statements to the contrary; specifically to the tune of "this game is probably going to be fun" and "this game actually does a lot of the same things my own system does"

Honestly at this point its starting to come off like you and others are gatekeeping me, which is, well, bizarre.

But oh well. I don't see any reason in allowing myself to continue to interact with you all.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Less terminology, more numbers!

Are we at 4 million yet??

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That doesn't have any bearing on the idea of well done Smithing being a fun part of a LOTR game.

Absolutely it does, and the fact that you're not engaging with that shows the problem you're having in understanding the problem here.

This is about themes and styles and tone, and you just don't seem to be seeing those or engaging with those concept at all.

The themes of LOTR aren't affected by the presence of smithing as a mechanic or even something that simply exists. This pretty absurd hyperbole that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

You said it would be a major gameplay loop.

So you're changing your position completely to try and and claim "hyperbole". You were the one who said it would be important. And it sounds like you're doing exactly what you criticised - making a system for the sake of system, not because it's needed or warranted.

I maintain that in 3rd Age-set LotR game, it would be entirely inappropriate to make smithing any kind of major part of gameplay. It's completely tonally and thematically inappropriate.

And crafting isn't incompatible with active multiplayer, it just hasn't been done in a lot of places. Space Engineers is an example of that in video games, and obviously in the tabletop space most people are still just copy-pasting the same anemic skill check and time gate mechanics, so you won't likely find examples there.

Because you factually cannot implement something like that in tabletop game.

Afaik, none have. We don't have a lot of innovators (re: none) in this space focusing on these ideas, and I don't actually know yet if my own take would count.

That kind of appeal, however, is fallacious. Engage the idea; don't rely on easy excuses to disregard it.

It hasn't been done, and asserting that it should be done for the first time in some entirely inappropriate RPG is bizarre, frankly. The idea that it's a fallacy for me to point out that you're engaging in a fantasy about a system that doesn't, and where you only example couldn't be implemented in tabletop is pretty funny, if nothing else.

Also kind weird to be complaining about the lack of innovators in this space, whilst attempting to complain about a game that's actually innovating, and innovating enough to upset some people. Maybe attitudes like your own are part of why get fewer innovators?

The crux of the issue wasn't what the game does though, just a bit of what is basically marketing. Essentially, "heroic" is superflous when what it refers to is covered by "cinematic".

None of that has any bearing on the game though; nothings lost by the absence of the "heroic" descriptor.

You think this because you completely point-blank refuse to engage with themes or tone. Heroic is very much about tone and style and themes. It's not about the literal minutiae.

As I've said, it seems like you're going wildly out of your way to critique terms that they've defined and are using by their definitions, because you wish they used different definitions. That's beyond pointless mate.

 

[overgeeked]

Less terminology, more numbers!

Are we at 4 million yet??

$2,976,508. 16,761 backers. 22 days left.