Here are timestamps for the questions in the Q&A 0:39 In terms of Negotiation 5:37 Now the career paths, sadly, are dead 14:06 Is the intention still to have subclasses, is it possible you have other class choices that take the place of subclasses? 16:37 Tying this games to the towards better rewards concept, are there any thoughts on what is the reward for playing the MCDM RPG, will it be magic items, or more powers that can only be unlocked by going on specific adventures? What kind of behavior are you wanting to encourage in players? 20:32 The ebb and flow of narrative, dramatic, tense action scenes and then you get a minute to breathe, is important for the feeling of the story, do you think the experience tied to rests will lend to that or could it interrupt the momentum? 23:14 Is there a way to also encourage those small character moments that don't have major mechanical impact? Do you lose those moments if you don't back them up with mechanics? 24:13 Matt has previously spoken about a personal preference for unique magic items playing an important role in making players feel heroic, is this something that we can expect to see baked into the way magic items might work in the game? How will magic items differ from those in other games?"
I was not expecting my "Count Page von Glauer" chat joke to get mentioned in the original stream, much less survive the edit to 14:14. We must all suffer under the Tyranny of the Page Count.
There was a great scene in a friend's Fate campaign where one of the PCs was attacked by a former teammate who joined the bad guys in the time apart. Instead of retaliating by hitting the traitors physical health track, he surprised the DM by hitting his mental health track, and was able to convince his team mate to stand down and explain what had happened in their years apart. I really like social combat, and multiple health tracks are cool.
I always said 4e was a generation too early and the game design in MCDM Un-named Roleplaying - MURPs for short - is covering more of the same sensibility Bravo Matt and team
4e was not a generation too early. it would fail just as bad today as it did back then. the problem with 4e is that it shifted too much of the game's focus towards combat and it tried to turn D&D into a tactical combat board game. the reason 5e is so popular is because it took a more balanced approach between combat/exploration/roleplaying which also allows GMs to run less combat focus games that focus more on roleplaying... which seems to be the current trend (nobody does the recommend 6-8 encounters per day because its insanely boring, and 2-3 encounters per day with more roleplaying is what most GMs do). I hope MCDM is different enough from 4e that it doesnt fall into the same trap of battlegrid combat dominating way too much of the available gametime.
Friendly reminder@@Khobai, Having robust and interesting options in combat does not mean that 4e was trying to solely be a tactical combat board game. I'd argue there is just as much support for RP and Exploration in 4e as there is in 5e. 5e just has far less interesting combat. Mind you, I play 5e and not 4e because I think 4e has other problems (mostly around scripted play patterns due to inbalance of player options) but I still agree that 4e had so much potential it never got to realize because people crapped on it too hard and for bad reasons.
Dael! Gosh i love that you all guys had met each other, y'all have done so much great things! I am talking both MCDM team, Matt's friends and players and Dael's friends and players... Basically all of YOU. I love you.
What if I want to use milestone leveling instead of the XP system? Do victories still disappear when the party rests or is there some way to balance the party keeping them?
The mechanic of choosing between class options when you level up makes me think of the upgrade canisters in Deus Ex. Each canister gives you the choice between two new abilities, but you can only pick one. Something like that, where the number of options are kept small, but the impact on your character is big, sounds like it could work for this type of game
League of Legends and World of Warcraft have Runes and Talents respectively (in addition to a lot of much more complex mechanics). Both of these systems have 3 abilities to choose from and similarly you can only choose one. It seems like an elegant way to have choice and customization, but also balance. If two abilities would be broken together, you can put them on the same “row” so they can’t be used together. Actually Heroes of the Storm does this in a really good way
The idea these days is that 1st level characters are noobs, but in 1e AD&D, it's clearly stated that a 1st level fighter is a Veteran, having had experience in several military campaigns already. And RAW, clerics and magic-users have a much older starting age than fighters and thieves, giving them much more life experience. None of this is discussed in terms of backstories, of course, but it is implied as part of their character. Many of their goals and ideas seem to me, in a good way, to be a callback to all that OS D&D included peripherally but didn't incorporate effectively.
There was a mechanic like this at one point, but it was deemed too bean-counter-y, and struck in favor of working more on the core dice mechanics. Who knows where the future leads?
So excited for this game and love hearing about its development. I reckon I’m terms of the resting they should make it longer than 12 hours. 12 doesn’t really feel much more than 8 maybe a whole 24 or even 48 hours. Would help add to the feeling that resting isn’t just sleeping.
i agree 12 hours is not long enough. i use 48 hour long rests in d&d, and even thats pretty unrealistic in terms of healing all wounds and recovering all stamina/spellslots. but making it 48 hours forces the players to long rest somewhere safe.
Traveller hd a pretty cool "past" character generator that made some bonds, flaws, opportunities for connections with PC or NPC, and gave you a lot of flavor. What a huge amount of work though and requires a certain willingness to play what you end up with.
I love lifepath character creation, even though I’m not that big a fan of the original traveler version. It’s such an easy way to help players flesh out a backstory without having to do much work
I enjoy the fact that you are sticking to the Heroic Fantasy theme. Some of the big pitfalls that other D20 TTRPGs fall into is trying to please everyone. Which can end up with a much shallower game.
I understand the fear on page count, but why can’t things be available electronically or from and MCDM webpage that has a lot of the cool stuff that couldn’t fit in the physical book.
Scope bloat is very much a problem and constraints can also help ensure the best stuff makes it into the base game. Expansion of the game will come, with success, in new books. Also the sale of physical books is a heavy incentive for collectors, for which page count is very important. Not to mention the size of the game itself can be a barrier to entry for new players. Limits must exist in order to focus the game!
The fear is only for the *books* Heroes & Monsters which were crowdfunded as having a physical book version. PDF and Physical book must be the same obv; therefore page count is relevant to even the PDF version. They will probably release other random stuff digital only.
I have a campaign that it sounds like this system is perfect for. My first run of it will likely begin before the game is out, but when I run it again, the Empress In Worms will have to face MCDM heroes.
Separating customization from rewards does sound pretty good, but to me it seems more based on adventure modules than core game, which is fine but hard to mechanize. The negotiation system seems like breath of fire IV.
I feal like Matt would be the natural choice, but frankly I think I'm also into the idea of Dael, the most inside outsider, or possably outside insider at this point. Oh, and I think the verb for running their game will be "directing" it, since GM's are called directors.
Loved this q and a, personally want to hear more about class abilities other than the ones convered alrdy (tactician and shadow). I want to hear more about the censer and conduit
I'm wondering if defining what a victory is for any given situation will be awkward because the players have limited information. For example, " What do you mean its not a victory, we killed all the bad guys." But the DM knows they werent the bad guys. That kind of thing.
Incident idea; Like in Mongoose Traveler 'CONNECTIONS' rule you pick a PC or create an (D)NPC and get a little story about how you made that connection and potentially a bonus to a skill and in MCDM you could link 'incidents' to this preserving the background story elements of 'career'; linking it to skills makes the story between the PC/NPC more constrained and easier to come up with and you can add the bonus for including an 'incident' on top of that. Also see "The One ring' for growing magic items; its a great implementation ( I particularly like the concept of 'Treasure' in that game its really smart). I think Earthdawn took it a bit too far with its implementation so dont go that far.
I like the idea of players having motivation to push on with the adventure, however I am worried about the tension it could cause at the table, especially if it becomes tied to levelling up. Not that you can entirely avoid tension when making decisions as a group, but one of the fundamental problems I find groups get into is coming to a common concensus on how to proceed, and creating additional situations where that can occur, while interesting, can be a significant hurdle at some tables. This impact may vary by table as well. Experienced players and potentially playtesters may naturally behave in a way that avoids this conflict, but inexperienced tables are potentially going to find this a big stumbling block. This is similar to how short resting can be a big source of contention at some tables playing 5e but not others.
Do anyone know if there will be a range component in the kits? For example longsword vs halberd or crossbow vs longbow. It would be cool if using a halberd gives you a trigger action when enemy's enter your range (2 squares) or some other benefit but also made you deal less damage of you where fighting at close range (1 square).
I think having favour is a great mechanic. Personally I would give a contact the favour stat so they can grow or decline. When spent the amount of favour is gone.
Loving the updates. Free idea as I listened to the magic item convo: Allow the choice for victories to infuse items at rest. Could be a fun Glamdring on the bridge moment or something more... Adds another choice of "more levels or better items" like Dota 2 skill tree stuff.
The incident mechanic reminds me of Baldur’s Gate 3, and like the Running the Game episode about it, it probably should be something campaign specific rather than a core rule. Then again, Pathfinder 2e has the free archetype variant that was designed specifically for campaigns and player power too.
Thought that map in the background looked familiar, then I realized it's an old one I drew and shared like 4 years ago. Glad to see someone's still using it!
Super excited for when these books come out. Saved up to back them but sadly had to spend that money on new tires 😭. Back to stashing money in the RPG fund so I can get them when they come out. Seems like I might be able to finally take a break from my 3.5 books with these. 🤩
Is there going to be an option for pasts to be rookie type characters? Like if you look at Star Wars, Han Solo, Obi-wan and Lea have a past and a position, but Like is just a farm guy who got dragged into it by coincidence.
i think you should be able to use your recoveries for other characters. Think about aragorn stabilizing frodo, sam cheering up frodo with his talk of home. Allows the group to.better carry a single player whos maybe not the most tactical but you dont want situations where they are essentially always having a bad time or the group.is always having to.slow down for them. That way it still slows the group down but its not so blantantly a 3 bad ass players sighing as they take a rest for 1 inexperienced player
This truly sounds like it's going to be an interesting RPG even though it seems like it wouldn't be my cup of tea, which is fine honestly, can't please everyone after all.
I am trying to figure out who the authors of the character illustrations published on the Backerkit page are. Usually, the names would be added below each image.
what if, the villain could also get more powerful as time went by, it could force players to end things quickly while also being incentivised to keep the combat longer due to the gained resources
Im really curious if there is anything from traditional d20 rules systems you guys thought was dumb or clunky that in your design and testing youve found yourselves understanding how it came to be or have come to a greater appreciation of
Will the game offer support for different settings and themes. Biggest issue I have with games like Pathfinder is it always seems geered to their world. And all you get is a short paragraph on how to change the theme, gods etx of the setting.
I think the career paths could make a cool little pdf or staple bound supplement down the line. Definitely should be under optional content though, so not appropriate in the core book
One of the difficulties of fourth ed and was the powers limited the spontaneous roleplay. "I want to jump from the tree I am in and sneak attack the mounted highway man. 'You need a power for that'".
I literally just wrote up design for a mechanic regarding NPC's you knew and called the mechanic Favours. Then I just watched this. Not sure if I should be happy my design isea has merit or sad because people will think it's stolen from this 😅
Every idea they have said is stolen from another game in some form or another, it’s how they’re placing them together as a whole and making it work mechanically that makes “stolen” ideas into unique ones; same can be said with your ‘favour’ mechanic! (:
I just can't get excited about playing 5e anymore after hearing someone succinctly lay out the flaws in that game and then propose something that sounds way more fun. I want to play this game now
26:04 Man! Such an important point! The reward for adventuring shouldn't be leveling up, and a character sheet needs to properly represent and reflect your past deeds and adventures
Heroics encouraged? So no villainy allowed? Villainy penalized? Maybe it's same as risk, lioe maybe you do get penalized for doing evil but maybe itsna risk that can pay off later on the get more dope PCs scale?
