A New Indie TTRPG Aims To Revitalize The Dungeons And Dragons Formula

The MCDM RPG, a new tabletop RPG from MCDM, wants to shake up the Dungeons and Dragons formula, and the board game already smashed its crowdfunding target (thanks, TechRadar). The campaign ended on Jan. 5, 2024, with $4,600,520 raised – quite a lot more than its initial target of $800,000.

MCDM’s new tabletop game is “unburdened by sacred cows from the 1970s” – Dungeons and Dragons, in other words – and is also a little confusing, if we’re being honest. The group posted several paragraphs discussing what the game isn’t and what it kind of resembles, but interspersed among all the qualifiers and lengthy explainers are a few points that seem to guide the whole project.

Part of the unburdening involves how the MCDM RPG handles attack rolls. Attacks might miss in D&D, and even if they hit, your foe has a chance of diminishing the damage you deal with a saving throw of their own dice. Encounters can drag on for far longer than they need to with this system, so the MCDM RPG gets rid of it. Every attack lands, and your own attack role determines how much damage you deal.

Another departure from the established formula is how your characters level up. Characters gain experience after winning certain battles or reaching milestones in most D&D campaigns, and you see no change or improvement until their level increases. MCDM has two types of experience. You earn one of them during battle and by completing events and see moderate progress tied to that specific adventure. When you rest – thing Long Rests in Baldur’s Gate 3 – you convert that to permanent experience gains that give your character buffs that last after that scene ends.

MCDM explained the idea of an adventure in D&D terms as well. A scene is a single incident similar to a one-shot D&D campaign, and several scenes together make an adventure.

That’s barely scratching the surface. There’s a tactical emphasis on positioning and movement, several fresh classes, and different races – though it doesn’t sound like MCDM is moving away from the racial determinism that burdened D&D.

The campaign funds will help MCDM produce two hefty books to guide your scenes and adventures – a rule book and a monster book. MCDM plans on launching its tabletop game sometime in 2025, but said the goal is getting a test version to backers in 2024’s second quarter – sometime during the summer.

You can check out what MCDM has in store on the game's crowdfunding page.