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Matt Colville’s The MCDM RPG Obliterates One Million Dollars in Crowdfunding Within First Hours

The MCDM RPG Art (MCDM Productions)Matt Colville and MCDM Productions have launched a crowdfunding project to bring a new fantasy roleplaying game to the masses. Built from the ground up, The MCDM RPG promises to focus on the most fun and exciting aspects of fantasy RPGs while doing away with some of the overblown bookkeeping and other drudgery. Fans are responding as this BackerKit project has passed one million dollars in crowdfunding in just a few hours. You can reserve copies of the two core books in hardcover (with PDFs) for a $135.00 pledge or score them in PDF for a $65.00 pledge through January 5. Expected delivery of the PDFs is spring/summer 2025 with the physical books to arrive later that year. Alpha and beta kits will be made available far sooner than that.

About the project:

What this game is…

A Fantasy RPG where your character starts, at level 1, already a hero. Maybe even locally famous! You might meet in a tavern, or start in the middle of the action!
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.

Basically, any adventure or story you’re running in your current Fantasy RPG, you can do that in this game. Just, in a more straightforward and fun way, unburdened by sacred cows from the 1970s.

What this game is not…

You can absolutely run epic games with heroes exploring dungeons, but this game is not about dungeoncrawling. You don’t track torches or rations or worry about running out of light.

You can plunge, heedless of danger, into a dark and haunted forest, but this game is not about exploration. No hexes to explore.

By focusing on the core fantasy of epic heroes fighting monsters and tyranny, we think we can deliver a better experience for your friends and your table.

Draw Steel

Fighting monsters in this game is a dynamic, action-oriented blast. Heroes and monsters often have abilities that knock their opponents into walls, through doors, into each other. 

Every hero has a small array of cool, thematic abilities they can use every round. You gain resources in this game as you play, so battles get more epic as they go. No slog.

The game uses 2d6, plus a handful of d4s and d8s. When you attack, you roll 2d6, add one of your attributes, and that is how much damage you do. Your attack roll IS your damage roll. 

You cannot miss. No more wasted turns, no more burning resources on spells only for your target to “save.”

Negotiation

We love fighting monsters! But there’s more to the game than that!

Certain NPCs can be negotiated with to get them to change their allegiance or reconsider their actions. (Technically, ANY npc can be negotiated with but there’s usually only one per adventure) These NPCs have stats like Patience and Interest. 

We also plan on rules for Research & Crafting to let players unlock ancient secrets and build wonderous marvels. 

We have ideas for how to make language fluency relevant, better rules for wealth, renown. But it’s unknown how much of that we can fit in a 400 page rulebook.

What’s being funded?

Heroes

Basically, The Rulebook. Approximately 400 pages of rules for making characters, character customization, advancement. There’ll be ancestries (classic and new!), classes, skills, rules for combat, negotiation, research & crafting, and more!

We really like customizing characters and giving players lots of options. Even two heroes of the same class and ancestry can be very different in this game.

Monsters

A monster book! Basically, Flee, Mortals! without the Villain Parties or Environments. MOST of the monsters in our 5E monster book, plus all the stuff we had to cut, and a bunch of new stuff!

You’ll also get rules for building balanced (or deliberately unbalanced depending on how much trouble your players have gotten into) encounters.

The MCDM RPG Interiors (MCDM Productions)

Jeff McAleer

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