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

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.

 

[tetrasodium]

Thanks for providing the actual text. That's helpful. I'm not sure how that wouldn't lead directly to having to track which enemies already gave the PCs Victories to avoid double dipping and the inevitable cheese the players would get up to.

You'd need to track which non-combat encounters gave the PCs Victories so they couldn't then go back later and defeat them in combat to double dip Victories from the same group. Unless that's something you don't care about. But, in my experience, players will find and exploit every loophole they can. So either you close the loophole up front or you're tracking every non-combat win they get to avoid letting them double, triple, quadruple dip the same enemies. Hence some of the questions up thread about when this resets, how many Victories can one group provide the PCs, etc.

In the sense that they're no longer an active obstacle, same as they would no longer be an active obstacle if you sneak past them. That's the trouble with non-combat XP that doesn't remove the enemy from the board. The PCs can always go back an encounter them again. Either the referee tracks that or the PCs will double dip Victories. Or you literally remove the enemies from the board as the referee when the PCs have overcome them however they manage it. But that would be some verisimilitude-breaking nonsense in most cases.

Of course. Just as sneaking past the guards doesn't stop them from continuing their patrol and potentially spotting you later. But, just to be clear, that's literally the problem with non-combat Victories. Either the ref keeps track of who's given the PCs Victories or the PCs can sneak past the same guards a half dozen times and get six Victories out of it. So you either get lots of bookkeeping for the ref or the players cheesing the XP system.

The ref can simply say no, of course. But at a guess they'd need a good reason to not give the PCs the Victories they've earned according to the system. Don't award non-combat Victories? Okay, so you're pushing murderhobo as a playstyle by only rewarding that. Don't award combat Victories? Okay, so you're undermining the premise of the monster fighting game by not rewarding fighting monsters. Award non-combat Victories? Okay, so you'll need to either accept that the players will inevitable cheese the XP mechanic by overcoming without killing as many NPCs as they can (which again would undermine the monster fighting focus of the game), or you'll need to keep track of which NPCs have awarded Victories to the PCs so they can't cheese the XP mechanics.

It's more complicated than the quoted entry. You shouldn't take the RAW as settled gospel just yet. In this case I think the video I mentioned (but didn't link) is more relevant
They've been clear that it's not a dungeon crawler & have outright said (both in videos & the PDFs) to checkout shadowdark if you are looking for one of those. I didn't jump to the victories section* in the video itself because it's on the sorter side & gives a lot of great discussion giving insight into RAI for victories & focus even as it moves into/beyond Resting. simply avoiding an encounter by mot going down that path feels like a thing very counter to the heroic vibes they are going for & I'd be surprised if we don't see some guidance or more clear wording. The death & dying video also covers a lot

I know there was a video that talked about a bag of rats specifically but couldn't find it
*or any other

 

[overgeeked]

But I think my point was that it's not that hard to figure out. You either give them Victory (because you think they deserve it) or you don't (because you expect them to get it later, or because you don't think their solution was worth it) but you don't need to worry much about it. All you need to do is to not give it to them twice for the same encounter.

My point was that to avoid that bolded bit you'd have to keep track of that somehow. Notes are the simplest way to ensure you don't forget. Also, to keep things consistent, you'd need to answer that long string of questions I posted up thread so that you would know where the line is on awarding or not those Victories. Your players would likely also want to know so they could be aware of the actual rules of gaining Victories. Sure, you could arbitrarily decide each case. Which is fine. But that still doesn't avoid having to note down which still existing encounters the PCs have overcome without killing them so you don't award Victories twice.

Either way, this is clearly a pointless loop we're caught in. Happy New Year's.

 

[mamba]

You'd need to track which non-combat encounters gave the PCs Victories so they couldn't then go back later and defeat them in combat to double dip Victories from the same group.

they can double dip for all I care, the case will be rare enough and all that means is that they maybe need one less encounter until the next level, no big deal. No need to turn this into a science

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Either way, this is clearly a pointless loop we're caught in. Happy New Year's.

You too! Have a good one!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

they can double dip for all I care, the case will be rare enough and all that means is that they maybe need one less encounter until the next level, no big deal. No need to turn this into a science

Yeah, I just think that it would come up so rarely, that if I happened to make a "mistake" and rewarded them twice, I'd be okay with that. I just can't imagine it happening.

 

[tetrasodium]

they can double dip for all I care, the case will be rare enough and all that means is that they maybe need one less encounter until the next level, no big deal. No need to turn this into a science

Double dipping would create a bad incentive to do things like sneak past some bad guys, get "lost", then kill everything left while "finding the way" or whatever excuse.

Hitman and assassin's Creed are probably a bad style of gameplay to have players aiming for... Players should be uncomfortable enough to skeptically ask "should we?" when avoiding encounters

 

[mamba]

Double dipping would create a bad incentive to do things like sneak past some bad guys, get "lost", then kill everything left while "finding the way" or whatever excuse.

if this becomes sufficiently frequent for me to notice, I’d address it.

not sure it is all that different from D&D either, or do you only award XP for monsters killed?

 

[aco175]

4 days left to get backed into a train. I feel with the last minute people, the total will be about 4.5M

 

[Zaukrie]

Looks like they'll beat my prediction of $4 million, though I can't see 5, and don't really see 4.5 either.....I think this was a very early funder and there wont' be a massive uptick at the end.

 

[Zaukrie]

And, I'm still not in. I really think it looks fun, but I don't imagine I'll actually ever play it because I can barely get my 5e groups together......and I've got A LOT of other hobbies so learning and teaching a new RPG isn't likely going to squeak into the little time I have.