MCDM RPG Patreon Playtest Packet 1 (Patreon)

Hey Wonderful Patrons,

Welcome to the very first Patreon playtest packet for the MCDM RPG. The packet attached to this post contains just a very small piece of the game: a short adventure with five premade heroes and the rules, maps, and tokens you need JUST to run that adventure. There is a lot more game to make and what you have is still a work in progress.

In about a week, we’ll also put out a survey through Patreon to get your feedback on this packet. The survey will be open for three weeks and then close down. We’ll give you the exact date once the survey is sent to all of you via Patreon post. However, the documents will remain on Patreon for you to read or use at your leisure. That survey will be limited to Patrons only. It's okay if you don't have time to try the game during this period. Plenty of folks will be able to, we'll get good feedback either way, and there'll be plenty more opportunities to give us feedback with future packets. You’ll also be able to fill out the survey if you’ve only read the packet as well.

If you want to chat more about the game or find folks to run a playtest with, visit mcdm.gg/Discord. We have a Looking for Group channel set up for folks to run playtests.

You are free to share the playtest documents privately with anyone who you want to play with! You are not limited to testing only with fellow Patrons. You are also free to talk about the contents of the packet in public. There is no NDA here!

One thing to note is that the game has already been through some changes since we launched the BackerKit campaign. Many of the sample pages on the campaign page are actually a little out of date, so don’t worry if the information in this packet doesn’t match up exactly with everything you know about this game.

This Is a Playtest

Just to be clear, what you have is a playtest. It isn’t close to the final product. If there’s something you don’t like about the system, we want to read about it in the survey feedback! Thank you for helping shape the game.

Playtests are always a little rougher than the final product. There will be a bit of a learning curve with this game, not only in the rules, but also in learning how the information is organized and what kinds of stories are good in this game. We thank you for checking it out and helping to make the game better. We also hope you have fun battling kobolds in our game!

Yet To Come

Since this game’s development is in progress and incomplete, I wanted to share with you a list of things that we know are coming to the game eventually. If it feels like something is missing, it’s because it probably is!

• Way more advice for Directors about running and prepping the game. Right now it would be hard to run this system if you aren’t experienced in running RPGs, but we intend to fix that as the game develops and we learn the best practices for Directors.
• Rules for building and making your own characters from the ground up.
• Rules for character advancement.
• Rules for crafting and research.
• Rules for having NPC contacts who heroes can ask for favors and aid.
• Rules for renown. How does your growing fame affect your social interactions?
• Rules for wealth and purchasing stuff.
• More out-of-combat character options. As we refine negotiation and build other non-combat systems for the game, we’ll implement more class features, ancestry benefits, and the like that interact with those systems.
• Guidelines for Directors to build their own monsters and other pieces of the game. We won’t have this for a long time. We need to understand and refine the system’s mechanics before we give a lot of advice in this arena.

Where to Start

We recommend you start with the rules document first. Anyone, players and Directors alike, can read this document. Players should also check out the pregens, and Directors can look at the creature stat blocks and the Tower of Coins and Swords adventure. There are maps and tokens to go along with the pregens and adventure. There is a cheat sheet for Directors and players to use during a game as well!

That’s about it! Go forth and game! Thank you so much for your support. It’s thanks to you that we’ve been able to develop this game.

Ex animo,

James Introcaso

MCDM Lead Game Designer