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.

 

[mamba]

And if non-backers of the project “come first” then I don’t feel good about that.

You might be ok with that, but I feel otherwise.

you can feel however you want and act accordingly

BTW do patreon backers get a copy of the game itself when it’s done? Or just the actual project backers?

yes they do, if they were backers long enough for that at the time of release, so you cannot just join for the month it gets released and grab it that way

 

[Waller]

Patreon supporters who have been with them for the 5 months prior to the PDF release get the PDF for free. So if you're interested in following the rough playtest and only want the PDF, I would just give them $8 a month to see how the sausage is made and don't back the campaign. If you want a book, backing at that tier will probably save you money over whatever a retail release for the book is in 2025.

But to get a book and see the early playtest stuff I have to back both? It’s already a very expensive pledge level at about $70 for the hardcover (and that’s apparently a discount?)

I think I’m just gonna canxel at this point and pick it up at retail. I’m paying twice what I would for most crowdfunding campaigns for the same content and access. The extra to see playtest packs just feels like gouging at this point. Plus it leaves a bad taste when people who haven’t backed the project have better access than me. It’s a bit like when kickstarters hit retail before you get your reward—you wonder what the point of backing was?

Good luck to those backing it! It’s not for me, but YM(O)V! Clearly they’re doing exceedingly well, so I’m sure they won’t miss me.

 

[Zaukrie]

But to get a book and see the early playtest stuff I have to back both? It’s already a very expensive pledge level at about $70 for the hardcover (and that’s apparently a discount?)

I think I’m just gonna canxel at this point and pick it up at retail. I’m paying twice what I would for most crowdfunding campaigns for the same content and access. The extra to see playtest packs just feels like gouging at this point. Plus it leaves a bad taste when people who haven’t backed the project have better access than me. It’s a bit like when kickstarters hit retail before you get your reward—you wonder what the point of backing was?

Good luck to those backing it! It’s not for me, but YM(O)V! Clearly they’re doing exceedingly well, so I’m sure they won’t miss me.

You get the play test packets, just a month or so later than they do. They are getting very rough drafts.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Patreon supporters who have been with them for the 5 months prior to the PDF release get the PDF for free. So if you're interested in following the rough playtest and only want the PDF, I would just give them $8 a month to see how the sausage is made and don't back the campaign. If you want a book, backing at that tier will probably save you money over whatever a retail release for the book is in 2025.

I'm confused - $8 month for 5 months is $40 - does that get Patrons the PDF of the Heroes book when it eventually is finished, or of both the Heroes and Monsters books? Because backing at the level to get PDFs of both is $65, which is quite a lot more than $40, as you will observe.

So what's actually going on?

I'm fine with Patrons getting the rougher draft rules first - plus they managed to slap sense into Matt re: fancy dice, so respect to them - but I'm less fine with paying more than Patrons for the same material, if that's what's happening.

 

[Retreater]

I'm fine with Patrons getting the rougher draft rules first - plus they managed to slap sense into Matt re: fancy dice, so respect to them - but I'm less fine with paying more than Patrons for the same material, if that's what's happening.

Patrons are not getting the physical books, just the PDFs. So there's that.
So if you prefer to join the patron instead of crowdfunding the PDFs, that's your call.

 

[mamba]

But to get a book and see the early playtest stuff I have to back both? It’s already a very expensive pledge level at about $70 for the hardcover (and that’s apparently a discount?)

no, you will get playtest packages as well, not just the final result

 

[mamba]

I'm confused - $8 month for 5 months is $40 - does that get Patrons the PDF of the Heroes book when it eventually is finished, or of both the Heroes and Monsters books? Because backing at the level to get PDFs of both is $65, which is quite a lot more than $40, as you will observe.

So what's actually going on?

yes, you might get it cheaper that way, if you time your subscription right and both get released close enough together. That is the math I arrived at at least

 

[Velderan]

I'm confused - $8 month for 5 months is $40 - does that get Patrons the PDF of the Heroes book when it eventually is finished, or of both the Heroes and Monsters books? Because backing at the level to get PDFs of both is $65, which is quite a lot more than $40, as you will observe.

So what's actually going on?

I'm fine with Patrons getting the rougher draft rules first - plus they managed to slap sense into Matt re: fancy dice, so respect to them - but I'm less fine with paying more than Patrons for the same material, if that's what's happening.

December 6th Patreon update says both:

When the Heroes book in PDF format is released, everyone who is an active MCDM+ Tier Patron and has been for the 5 months prior to when we release the PDF will get a copy of the PDF. The same will be true when the Monsters book is released in PDF format. We do not know when this will occur as the production schedule is still being worked out and frankly depends on how well the crowdfunding campaign goes.

My guess is because there's no clue when they'll release them, it's largely going to be people who have been with them on patreon much longer than just the 5 month period, especially if both books don't release at the same time. So the odds of it actually being only $40 for the PDFs is against you and they just wanted to set a reasonable cutoff point in advance to avoid people jumping on right before release. Who knows?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My guess is because there's no clue when they'll release them, it's largely going to be people who have been with them on patreon much longer than just the 5 month period, especially if both books don't release at the same time. So the odds of it actually being only $40 for the PDFs is against you and they just wanted to set a reasonable cutoff point in advance to avoid people jumping on right before release. Who knows?

That's kind of a crap/rude approach, then. I mean, I get that most people will have subscribed for more than $65/worth, but they're also getting the Patreon, which has a non-zero value. At the very least MCDM could have set it to 9 months to ensure that it wasn't outright cheaper (even 8 months would be cheaper). That would have been a "reasonable" cut-off. There's no "reason" to make it any lower than that except weird favouritism/and or an attempt to get people subscribing to the Patreon rather than backing the Backerkit (and thus hopefully not cancelling and paying more still), which doesn't look good at all. It's kind of a bad look both ways!

I have to say, that considerably lowers my opinion of MCDM and does make me consider whether I should cancel.

 

[tetrasodium]

That's kind of a crap/rude approach, then. I mean, I get that most people will have subscribed for more than $65/worth, but they're also getting the Patreon, which has a non-zero value. At the very least MCDM could have set it to 9 months to ensure that it wasn't outright cheaper (even 8 months would be cheaper). That would have been a "reasonable" cut-off. There's no "reason" to make it any lower than that except weird favouritism/and or an attempt to get people subscribing to the Patreon rather than backing the Backerkit (and thus hopefully not cancelling and paying more still), which doesn't look good at all. It's kind of a bad look both ways!

I have to say, that considerably lowers my opinion of MCDM and does make me consider whether I should cancel.

There has been a lot of videos & blogposts about various facets of building the rpg since it started, admittedly I'm not sure that a lot of it would fit in the usual KS/backerkit updates