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Ooh a new Q&A With Dael! (Patreon)

Published:
2024-01-23 07:57:24
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Hey folks! The monthly Live Q&A is happening this Thursday, 4pm Pacific Time! Actually, let's let Dael sell it.

Hello again, humans! Dael Kingsmill, back again, seeking your juiciest of questions for another Patreon Q&A. 

I know you must have many a burning query given all the excitement since our last session, so please leave them in the comments here for me to peruse with my eyeballs and also frontal lobe. 

We will be livestreaming the Q&A just like last time, at 4pm Thursday (Pacific). The link will be posted here on Patreon when we go live, and we’d be stoked if you could join us, but you’ll be able to access the VOD later if not. Looking forward to it!

-Dael

I (Matt) should add that these live Q&As are for folks to ask questions about development. If you're looking for rules clarifications based on the playtest packet, the Discord is a better place for that, AND that's a good reason to remind all y'all IF you use Discord, to link your Discord and Patreon accounts!

One or both of these links should explain the process. 

 https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/212052266-How-do-I-connect-Discord-to-Patreon-Patron-

They also have this one: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002341603-I-don-t-have-my-Discord-role

Thanks everyone! See you Thursday!

-MCDM

Comments

Technovore

How easy do you think the transition from 5e to MCDM RPG will be? My players are enthusiastic about the game but a few have voiced concerns about onboarding. None of my players have played any other TTRPGs

Valentino Konjik

Besides the minion rework what major findings did you find with the last playtest?

JBR

What will be the process for figuring out the other core classes? Simply basing it off of working prototypes or will there be full development of classes, and simply choosing what makes the page count easiest to work with?

James Archbold

What were the most exciting and most surprising things you found so far from the feedback? Obviously your development process will change from that data, but was there anything that suddenly shifted priorities?

Declan Murphy

Matt has talked about how challenging Tue mage class has been to design, what are some of the issues that make it so difficult and under what circumstances would you cut your losses with a difficult part of design?

Lilcultish Inc

Your example magical weapon from the backer kit page had one active ability and a nice suite of passive abilities including the classic +X to DMG; how has the team's vision for magical weapons changed or evolved since... December lol? Actives seem more tactical and cinematic in most cases, and it's my opinion that +X to hit items are design relics from DNDs past that could use a reconsideration. What are the pros and cons of +X weapons from a game design perspective?

Val

Do you have a general timeline for development? What stage of development are we at now? Are you considering any major revision to the core rules based on playtest feedback? What are your main goals for the next playtest packet? How often should we expect new packets?

Malachi Lynch

Seeing as how I definitely shouldn't be up this late, are there plans for an 'exhaustion' mechanic? I know you folks like ways for players to push their luck, and the idea of swimming across a sea or hiking through a jungle for days on end to emerge exhausted but ahead of the opposition is a somewhat common trope in heroic stories.

Kuroshi

With attacks being differentiated damage wise (melee, ranged, area), will there be melee area attacks and ranged area attacks, and will they use the same damage or different damage? What are your plans going forward with skills? Are you happy with the current (playtest) rules of meet a TN and pass or fail? What can you tell us about the characteristics development? Has anything that you can share at the moment come out of your meetings on this?

Harrison Clayton

Will enemies be easily scalable similar to 4e?

Daniel Dias

Anything that surprised you once the patrons got the playtest?

Eoin

Hey! I think i can speak to everyone in saying that this level of transparency in the game development process is really entertaining to us following. Does the increase in transparency make the development process more difficult in any way? Do you think its a good idea for other design companies to follow your steps in how much you share with the public?

Book4B

Is teamwork something you will/can encourage with the games design?

Christian Lange

Matt has talked a bit about the challenges with the Elementalist on stream. One thing he mentioned was (and I'm paraphrasing), that there wasn't really a clear reason or need for the class in the game and that made it difficult to define (other than it being the fireball and lighningbolt class). Hearing that made me interested to know what the reasons for some of the other classes to exist in the game was, like the Tactitian or the Talent? What about those give them reason where the Elementalits is lacking?

Tabletop Nonsenseverse

Do you have thoughts for developing specific tools/rules to help Directors handle sudden, unexpected improv like "Orcs Attack!"? Or do you envision the default action in those situations to be something other than monster fighting? To clarify, I ask because the monster stat blocks for both Flee Mortals and the playtest, require study before running, because of certain conditional passive abilities such as "Shield? Shield!" They are difficult to run if that's the first time you are looking at the stat block.

That black guy

With the first playtest survey done/no longer accepting feedback as of today as of me posting this, is there any "Oh well that's unexpected" response that may make an aspect of the game pivot going foward ?

Edward Newton

I'm trying to develop my own sense of "how much playtesting is enough" to determine whether a feature or mechanic is really sound. Do you have any philosophies/methodologies that you like to use?

Eran Arbel

What are the most clear changes you think you need to make or mechanics you need to overview after reading what survey answers you have?

Eran Arbel

Also, any chance these streams could be a bit earlier so it wouldn't be in the middle of the night for me?

Richard Miller

Now that we've seen damage reduction on both player characters and monsters in the patreon pack, I'm curious why the design team felt damage reduction from a kit's armor wasn't working. No armor on the Panther is worth 8 health, but heavy armor and a shield is only worth 17? It sure seems like the Panther's damage immunity 3 is going to go a lot further than than those extra 9 health.

Eugene Cheney

At what point does homebrew become polished product?

Dawn

Is there ever debates regarding design decisions? How do you all handle disagreement over design amongst the team?

Blake Chartier

Skill tests in the MCDM RPG feel essentially like skill checks from DnD with 2d6 instead of a d20. Are there ideas you had or have to help MCDM’s skill checks have a more distinctive identity?

Reformed Hillbilly

You’ve talked about how at 1st level characters are already heroes. Do you have things in mind to reinforce that notion at character creation (besides just powerful abilities) or is it up to the director/players to work out?

wyatt wustrau

How many pages are being used up currently with all the rules you guys have? (Knowing that the rules are subject to change, the page layouts are subject to change, and just about everything else is subject to change) Or how has work on the virtual table top been?

Nienke

At this point, what do you think would make a classic MCDM RPG adventure vs a D&D or Pathfinder adventure?

Seth Lang

You guys mentioned looking over the Stats/Characteristics again, any interesting changes coming out of doing so?

DimaJeydar

I’m just happy to learn any new info on the Elementalist. I know the development is challenging, but it seems like the process is going in a strong direction.

Matt Mason

James & Matt, love the direction the game is going! Curious to know... are you planning on sticking with the current skill system? With all the innovation you guys are bringing to the space, I'm wondering if you have a better idea to bring to the table than the standard "here's a list of skills, roll a check and add your modifier."

Haezan

I’d love to know how religion will be handled in this game? Is it just a thing you chuck on your character sheet, or does a choice of deity have effects on your character. Edit: for clarity I mean all characters not the conduit specifically

Cory Thackston

Do you guys have any ideas on how encounter balance will work?

Michael Kling

Has the team considered something similar to 5e's "ribbon abilities"? During playtest, I found skill tests a little bare bones and I wonder if the team is cooking up more options for each class to uniquely interact with the world outside combat. Thanks for all the hard work!

Andrew C

How are you finding the development 'sprint' working out for you? Have you stuck to it, or are you making micro-adjustments to the development plan all the time?

MarxMayhem

Our Avatar comes forth!

Ryan Randolph

I will post TWO questions in case one of them has already been answered! 1. Was/is their a goal for how long an average turn in combat takes? (What is that goal?) 2. (This may have been answered already) is money of any major significance in the system yet? How (if at all) do you envision money playing a different role in your games (can help my team win a negotiation encounter with bribery?) Or does this give itself to the INK TAX OF DREAD LORD PAGE COUNT VON GLAUER?

MarxMayhem

Q: Are there any ideas on how Kits would interact at levels higher than one? The mockup on BackerKit suggests that magic items will "level up" based on the wielding character. Is something similar thought about for Kits?

GM Seven

Have there been thoughts or play tests expanding the idea of "don't roll to hit" to other aspects of the game? Like replacing target numbers for forced movement and status effects with impact rolls.

Joe G

Matt shared some ideas about the Elementalist on Twitch and how elements could also represent abstract concepts, e.g. water = change, fire = destruction. Is this similar to the D&D magic schools or Magic mana colours, albeit more poetic and evocative? How do you avoid the generalist wizard trap again in that instance? Thank you!

GM Seven

Kit tech tree?

George_APOG

How close have you been able to keep to you own internal goals for this development period? I'm not going to say the S word. I'm excited to learn more about languages and a class prototyped with levels when you guys show that work.

Peter

How does the world lore influence what archetypes and abilities/enemies you design vs something more generic?

GubDM

what were some parts of the game everyone agreed on the survey that they were middle-of-the-road on? No one had strong feelings one way or another about?

atomicsorcery

We have seen the tall folk ancestries as pregens. Is the Polder ready to show off?

Micah Peltier

Which class(es) are people most excited to see?

Caleb Fasnacht

Do y'all think that the Beastheart is Core?

AnyDingo

I do believe the damage immunity 3 is a fury specific ability and not a kit ability. You could just as easily have a Fury with a Shining Armor Kit, in which case The Fury would have Positioning Strike instead of Devastating Rush as a signature

D.R.

I think it was James who said in one of his streams that they were considering to change the core roll of 2d6 for some monsters & classes (to, e.g., 1d10 etc.) to make them feel more unique. Has that been tested yet? And what are your current ideas on that?

D.R.

I think based on what's been said so far the answers to your questions might be: 1. The main criterion for combat has been said to be fun. If a turn takes 30 minutes but everyone is having an absolute blast, that'd be fine. Of course, one person taking too long with their turn can quickly impede the fun of others, so I'm sure turn length has been considered; however, I'd suspect that they don't have a specific median number of seconds a turn should take in this game (and instead focus on feedback from the testers regarding how fun combat is). 2. I believe it's currently planned to implement a simplified wealth system where you progress through a few 'tiers' of wealth (like 'pauper', 'commoner' or 'nobleperson') instead of counting every coin - because counting every coin is not heroic. Some things like basic food & shelter would then basically be free (or rather, their cost would be so negligible that you wouldn't track that anymore). Others would be affordable but cause you to decline by one wealth tier etc. In short, I think you should totally be able to bribe someone with gold in a negotiation. Since negotiations usually have higher stakes, that might just cost you one or two tiers of wealth instead of 300 gold pieces.

Ryan Randolph

Thanks! Those answers make total sense!

Zachary Yoder

Do you have a goal date for Playtest Packet 2?

Gogo M

Has elementalist seen any development yet? Is there anything you can share so far?

Dennis Castello

Was there anything really surprising that you learned from the play test surveys or did it all pretty much fall into line with what you were expecting? Was the experience valuable overall and is there anything you plan to do differently for future play tests?

Durenar Valleyhammer

The Agony of being European. These unholy Streamtimes. xD Whelp, VOD it is.

Clark Nichols

What's the battle plan for getting classes done? Your 5e classes had a long development time to ensure quality. What are you going to do to ensure the same level of quality for a lot more classes, in a new system? What does the development strategy look like in terms of schedule, and in terms of strategy?

Ron Hopping

Are there any rules or suggestions for building encounters, adventures and campaigns? If this game isn't a dungeon crawler then where do the encounters take place?

Nathan Peacock

Really interested in your approach to adventure pacing, leveling. Just thinking about this because I ran a 5e module that went from lvl 1 to lvl 11 over maybe like two or three in game weeks? Will this RPG design for a more slow paced adventure/campaign? Or would it fall on the Director to make the mechanics fit the campaign speed?

David L

Did we level up yet? Also serious question: Has there been any more development you can share regarding kits and how they interact with magic users (or more broadly with classes whose core fantasy does not involve their gear)?

Axrameula

How do you plan to scale damage at higher levels? Will players be making multiple attacks, or adding lots of d8's to damage rolls, or using larger core attack rolls (e.g. 3d6 or 2d8 replacing 2d6)?

Alex

I would love to hear their thoughts on skills!

Michael Jerde

What mechanics do you expect to be under observation in playtest packet 2?

Alex

Can you share anything about Languages and Backgrounds? I’m really curious about character creation.

Roman Penna

Hey Dael :) I've always been curious James, when there doesn't seem to be consensus from the testers on a specific mechanic or area of design. I.e. there are clearly two or more opinions and camps among us. How do you decide what the problem is and whether it needs solving? Or is it something you leave for the time being and see if other design will help the issue calm down?

Louis, Thomas

It has been talked about that level 1 will be getting simplified, what kind of things might be removed/delayed to later levels/streamlined to make level 1 less busy, for want of a better word?

Erik Meier

How much does the development team have a handle on what the levers are for ratcheting up class power as characters level up?

Cody Rapai

There is no damage immunity on the panther kit.

Richard Miller

Not the question. If Damage Immunity works as a class ability, why doesn't it work on a kit? And to be clear, "that's how we want it to work" is fine. But if there's a deep reason reason, I'd love to know.

Graham Schofield

Could there be a class/subclass/kit etc that has abilities that tied into negotiation?

gm_naahz

Does MCDM see a wizard as a fundamentally core class for a heroic fantasy that they need to have in development now, or are the tropes of a wizard so overplayed that they feel some other magic-user will be a better development piece to achieve cinematic game descriptions or that wizard fantasy can be tactically delivered through magic items?

gm_naahz

Not sure yet what counts as acceptable development comments and questions at the moment. What I really want to ask about is... The panther fury jump ability seems like development was striving for black panther/spiderman level mvmt. Out of curiosity was the development team striving for the packet 1 rules for other classes to have jumping more like Indiana Jones or more like batman (or pick your example)? What development tests are you using to benchmark vertical movement (climb, jump, fall, fly etc.) What other jumping rules have they already tried and didn't like?

Joshua Heisler

How do you foresee subclasses diistinguishing themselves from kits (if subclasses are still on the agenda)? If the tactician can wear the cloak and dagger kit how much of that subclass fantasy does it already fulfill?

Zach Stones

Matt has previously said that he wants each mini-adventure to span one level, with the adventuring party leveling up at the end. If that's the case, why not go with milestone leveling for core class functions and use xp for feats and kit upgrades? Is xp a necessary benefit to motivate resting?

Pedroig

Is there an idea of when skills/attributes are planned to have a "deep dive" with their scope, need, and necessity for such granular definitions to exist? As long as we are cogitating slaying "sacred cows" in development...

Dillon

Do you have a feel at this point for how the book will line out page wise? How many for rules how many for classes, kits, magic items. And if so is there anything on the fringes that has been considered more or less seriously?

Josh Rodell

Process question, I hope that's okay: How do you test for game design that's still going to be fun in a year or a decade, not just the first time? Has this consideration come up with anything yet in this process?

Guillaume Gentile

process question: What is the link between statistics of the roll and fun? do you base your design on one or another? Some rolls can generate good frustration, some can generate bad frustration. How do you differentiate them?

Katze

Aside from the minion rules, what is the most obvious thing that needs to change based on the playtest feedback? Do you already have ideas for how to "fix" it?

Cool Bag

Curious to learn about cool Maneuvers you're cooking up, and how you think about designing Maneuvers as opposed to other types of abilities.

Cyrus Mach

When Coming up with a new thing that a character can do. How do you decide whether it's an action or a maneuver or something else entirely?

TheMartyr781

Will there be rules for Milestone progression? Will MCDM RPG support small group sizes (2 players + 1 Director and up)? Is there an 'ideal' group size that MCDM is using during development / testing?

Andrea Costantini

What choices can players make when it comes to defensive ability in combat?

Nathan Lee

Similar to this, do you have a goal "feature list" for future packets? Like "we don't want to put out another packet until we have Crafting rules we like"?

Mira

Were the villain actions in the playtest intended to trigger after a player's turn like in 5e? I ran them that way but when I looked at Octavia's sheet and the rules doc I couldn't find anything about how villain actions worked. Seemed like they were just per/encounter powers. If I did run them wrong, I'm glad I did because my players killed her in 2 turns!!!

Steven V. Neiman

99% sure they're just use-limited actions and maneuvers.

Steven V. Neiman

I'm curious roughly how often we should expect playtest packets. Are they going to be something close to 1 per sprint? One every handful of sprints? Just a couple for the whole project?

nugetthechicen

I second this, I think I fumbled my feedback on the survey by getting into suggestion territory. You put it in a much more elegant way, I’d love to see a new take on skills that is just as fun as their their take on combat. I found myself wanting to skip tests and get back into the action as quick as possible in the playtest haha.

nugetthechicen

With the way damage works being in flux, I’m very curious how that is going to affect kits. Are y’all still trying to keep weapons abstracted? Or are you finding that, for example, The Panther should deal more damage than the Cloak and Dagger simply because of the difference in weapons they use?

Jonathan Wilder

Matt had mentioned on Twitter that he used a comparison to a League of Legends Champion when talking to James about the design of the Fury. Are there any TTRPG design principles that can be gleaned from LoL’s Champion design? Or more generally, what video games have been inspiration points for the class designs?

Alanitus TheDm

Are there any plans to perhaps change how initiative works? What I have noticed in my game is the most tactically minded player at my table is telling everyone what they should do on their turn and it creates some tension when the other players would rather do their own thing. The current version of initiative encourages too much quarterbacking imho.

Captain

Does the intention for all the heroic resources to feel distinct preclude having another class besides the conduit which manages two opposing resources, like say, heat/cold or growth/decay?

Christian Keegan

How far into the future do you think it will be before you can start designing out the first full class?

Mattamue

One of Matt's stories about Rockstar hiring a literal rock star to help punch up their dialogue has stuck with me. What do you think about hiring another fantasy author to write a character or a short story in the world? Maybe a Glen Cook type?

Christian Keegan

Any details you can give us on the revised elementalist?

Graham Schofield

What sort of interesting out of combat interactions and choices does the team see fitting the core ethos? What sort of out of combat scenes/etc does the team see as being not part of the core experience? (i.e. I guess 'shopping scenes' aren't going to be supported mechanically via any sort of 'list of misc. gear and prices)

Alex

James has said on stream that they think Patreon playtest packets will be released every quarter. So the next one might be around April?

Alex

I had some things to say regarding skills in the survey too XD I feel like skills could be so much better than they are. I wonder if the dev team feels the same way.

Skye McLaren Walton

If a major NPC wants something specific and costly (whatever form that takes) from the PCs, how will the (Negotiation) system support the Director in establishing that scene and giving it mechanical and narrative weight?

GubDM

Do yall find it challenging to swap mindsets from tackling focused, detail questions like "is overkill for melee too much" to big picture questions like "what is the role of stats in our game?" How do you think of the big picture questions when you're busy solving problems on the detailed level? Do you reserve time to ponder the orb in its totality, or just keep nose to the grindstone until a big picture question presents itself loudly?

Rowan

Regarding the Elementalist class: Have you learned anything new in the development that you hadn't considered about the gameplay? Do you expect the design to influence the core game mechanics we have thus far in some way, or will it fit in without an issue? I love the idea of language being the major component of spells, has that idea been able to stick so far?

Steven V. Neiman

Ah, thanks. I've only been a patron for a few weeks and haven't had time to backread, so I haven't seen a lot of older stuff.

Steven V. Neiman

I think the plan has been for a while that exact specifics of weapons will be vague (like, a "heavy melee weapon" might be a mechanical object, but it's just a matter of describing your character whether that's a greatsword, a maul, a two-handed war axe, the femur of a giant you killed in your backstory, etc.). Those rules just aren't very transparent yet because packet 1 didn't feature the customizable kits.

Steven V. Neiman

I feel like that's kind of inevitable in any system with rigid mechanics and a certain balance of players (specifically one tactician who is confident in their plans and bossy combined with other players opinionated enough they don't like being told what to do but not vocal/confrontational enough to stand their ground if they're getting pushed around). When I ran I didn't have that issue, since while I did have one player who was more tactical than the others he was willing to respect their choices if they disagreed with the ideas he pitched. If we had done this 5 years ago I might have seen the same problem you described since I occasionally saw it in our first game (D&D 3.5), but that player has improved a lot at coordinating tactics while still respecting the other players and their choices. Ultimately, there's only so much that rules can do about player behavior, and I personally don't think these particular rules make the problem you're discussing worse than D&D. It's also worth noting that a player coordinating tactics isn't inherently a bad thing. Some people naturally engage less and will often appreciate someone who offers them a bit of support, and others can get into a healthy dialog about how their abilities can fit into a broader game plan. This is not to say that it can't be a problem, but it isn't one by definition.

Steven V. Neiman

The Sprint 1 post mentioned outlining a few classes from level 1-10 and prototyping one from level 1-3, so I'd guess that it's probably going to be sprint 2-3 that they work on their first full 1-10 class.

BasCB

From the playtest material it seems that the idea is that depending on deity your conduit gets a different table for rolling wrath/virtue for example. I guess they would build on that?

Haezan

I’m meaning for other characters who don’t get their powers from the divine. In general, does a general character worshipping a god mean anything? Or is it like alignment in 5e which means little to nothing except in really specific and strange circumstances

BasCB

While it's probably too early to give any "number crunching" feedback from the survey, out of curiosity, how many filled out surveys did you get back to look through? Did the number fit your expectations, or did it surprise you?

Haezan

At the end of the day there’s not a huge difference between damage immunity and extra health is there? Obviously there is a small difference but not that much right? Or am I missing something

Richard Miller

Depends entirely on how many attacks you're taking. Pick a number of attacks. If your right, then there's no difference, if not, the difference can add up quickly in either direction. And taking no damage means you often avoid the effect attached to the attack. There are people out there that see Damage Reduction as just more logical. I'd like to be able to tell them, "we get that, but here's why this game doesn't do it that way".

Andy Bodin

What's the most unexpected or surprising feedback you got from the playtest?

Cody Rapai

This may be too much in the weeds and jnto the future but its been building up in my head. The summoner doesn't feel like a class to me. It feels like a category of classes similar to spell caster or martial. Any chance the summoner will have a more specific fantasy or split into multiple classes like the necromancer, golemancer, spirit walker, etc?

Sammie

It’s the second ttrpg you learn that makes learning the rest way easier.

Cody Rapai

Why have different spell caster classes? Can't those just be subclasses of the spell caster?

Sammie

Will there be another “martial” class? I feel like the tactician and the fury cover a solid range, but it feels like we’re missing the something that can fill the showy, stylish fighter class fantasy.

GroovyTrain

How will magic item balance work in the game? Will players be restricted to how many items they can use? I.e Attunment slots in 5e

Matthias Havrez

"Hello humans" is the best greeting ever and also the one which instantly triggers my nostalgia for the beggining of the G&Sundry beggining days. Dael, I'm glad you stuck with youtube, with making D&D videos, and that you are still part of this online space after so long. You put your very own touch in it and it very much enriches it.

BRex

James mentioned in his stream on twitch yesterday that Matt's approach to game design is in part to ask WHY certain mechanics exist in TTRPGs in the first place and evaluate if they are necessary or how they can be changed to feel cooler. With that in mind, what is your opinion of critical hits and their purposes in a game? I like the way they worked in the playtest and they always feel impactful, but I'm starting to wonder if crits are even necessary since they are, I assume, closely tied the concept of an attack roll.

GubDM

with humans being the ancestry so closely connected to the Green, do you think the ancestry powers will be updated to reflect that? Or does the sensitivity to the supernatural already imply a connection to the Green (the natural)? Now that the elements are shaken out better, do you think the Gods of Orden have a 1-to-1 relationship with them, or no?

AnyDingo

I'll list off my questions for Dael to peruse with her eyeballs (great lates video btw Dael): 1. Is there a plan to have cooler monsters at lower levels, like vampire lords or the ability to scale down high level monsters? 2. Is there a plan for subclasses to have new ways to generate resources, have new victory benefits, specific new signatures and heroic abilities, new manoeuvres or new cool things they can do on a critical instead of an extra action? 3. Are there plans for a class/subclass to use manoeuvres to gain a resource, like a Shadow gaining Insight for each turn they spend hidden? (Bad example but still) 4. Any plans for more characters to have more than one attack on a turn, if yes will there be a variant where the attack is against the same creature? 5. Any plans for a class to be able to negate all of a damage instance via a dodge triggered action or something similar? 6. Any plans for a class to have more than one triggered action? 7. Will there be flavour/descriptive text on abilities? 8. Plans for a spellblade class?

Tony Sladky

As someone whose d20s routinely choose Initiative as the time to stab me in the back, I found "Hesitation is Weakness" to be one of the most design-inspiring powers in the Playtest. I'm curious: have you started looking at ways other classes (or monsters) can manipulate the Initiative system?

Tony Sladky

(Sorry, James. I didn't read the "Don't do design work for free" advice until AFTER I'd raved about this power and rambled out ideas for similar powers in my survey.)

Ulises Oliveros Bahamondes

Hi, I love the class design for MCDM RPG. How do you divide the work for developing and creating it? Are Matthew and James the only ones who divide the development of classes, or do you have a team that brings different options to the table? I would love to know who is in charge of each one to ask on your personal stream-direct questions about where the inspiration for the mechanics and fantasy comes from! And when you start developing higher level play, would the systems have to change for designing the fantasy, for example, the Subclass feature?

Patrick Colvin

Matt has mentioned that one priority is "staffing up"—is there any news to share on that front? (Thank you, love these streams!)

TheMartyr781

Will MCDM support Archetypes of differing views and beliefs? For example will there be an elven archetype that follows St. Cuthbert while a different sect of elves follow Explictica Defilus? Will these sects have different physical/mechanical characteristics as a result of these choices? To put it more simply Dwarves are in MCDM, will Duergar also be present and if so will they be mechanically different from dwarves?

Arash - Game Narrative 101

when you reach a design decision that is significantly different from D&D, is there every any attempt to "bridge the gap"? I'm trying to ease my 5e players towards The Yet Unnamed by running it for them, and I often find myself in a design negotiation where players want to get the "good stuff" from D&D (mostly excitement from the swingy D20), and I want them to have all the other good stuff. I'm wondering if you also face the same thing/pay attention to it and how/whether you try to address player excitement going down a bit when engaging with core mechanics.

Kyle Beck

I'm sure you have a lot of class-related questions but I would LOVE to hear any details you have about the Troubadour and how you'll handle non-combat features & abilities!

Ben Mortensen

How close are you to figuring out the base classes of the game?

mcdm

Well the finished game will have a lot of language helping new players understand everything. But at least for the near future, the playtest packets are more about "Here are the rules, figure it out!" But we're seeing a lot of feedback from people who were surprised how easy it was to pick up already. That's good! But we also see people who find the stuff really hard to grok, we think that'll get better as there's more language for new players. -MC

mcdm

I think we're gonna spend the next year or so making classes (and the rest of the game) THEN we start the process of figuring out "how many of these will fit into the book?" So I predict you're gonna see at least a few "Patreon Classes," meaning classes we finished and tested, but there wasn't room in the core rules. So they'll just go on Patreon until there's a future book for them to be in. -MC

mcdm

I think the feedback we took the most seriously was "we don't miss rolling to hit, but everyone rolling 2d6 damage feels too samey." That's good feedback, so now we're working on that. -MC

mcdm

The first challenge was identifying the Wizard fantasy. I think we cracked that when we realized...there isn't really "A wizard fantasy." There's a BUNCH of different archetypes in there. And one of those is the "fireball and lightning bolt class" fantasy. That's the Elementalist. The challenge THERE was just...making it cool. Like, anyone could make A Fire Mage for this game, but what's the "wow that's what I wanted and MORE" version?" Well, that remains to be seen, but that's what we're trying to solve. Usually if there's a thorny problem like this, the issue isn't "cutting our losses" it's "let's back up and think about this from first principles." -MC

mcdm

Right now we're working on the first milestone (Formerly called a Sprint) which is six weeks work. Once that six weeks pass, we'll stop and see "Did this work?" Was six weeks too long? Not long enough? Did we fail to properly break out all the dependencies, did we fail to estimate how long things would take? And it may be, we do another milestone and see if it goes better. Once we feel like milestones are working, we'll sit down and put EVERY task we know of into a milestone, and that will be the Schedule. But I've never worked on any game, in any category, where the Schedule proved to be accurate. It's not a predictive tool, we can't see the future. It's an organization tool that helps keep us motivated and on track. I don't think there will ever be a "schedule" for packets. Each packet is the result of a bunch of new design, and polishing old design, and those things take as long as they take. -MC

mcdm

I don't know if the game needs a generalized Exhaustion system like 5E has. It doesn't seem like many people are very happy with that design in the first place. We already have Extended Tests, so if you want to test the team's endurance you challenge them with an Extended Test and if they do badly it might mean they start the next encounter with fewer Recoveries. No specialized Exhaustion system required. But we'll see! -MC

mcdm

I think that's what adventures are for. A good starter adventure teaches you a LOT about how to play the game. Actually reading the rules is a very poor way to learn how to play an RPG. -MC

mcdm

I think it already is! Just the initiative system resulted in a LOT of patrons telling us that it changed how their group played, they spent more time planning and coordinating. We got more ideas for teamwork stuff, but nothing written down yet. _MC

mcdm

We haven't had any disagreements, but we've had a lot of: one person gets excited by an idea, and the other person points out it probably won't work. But that's just normal collaboration. It's a huge time saver! If it's just one person doing everything, it takes a LOT longer to figure out "oh this won't work." -MC

gm_naahz

Can't believe I'm going to quote MC at work "But I've never worked on any game, in any category, where the Schedule proved to be accurate. It's not a predictive tool, we can't see the future. It's an organization tool that helps keep us motivated and on track." is a much more homebased comment about Agile planning than a lot of others I've heard.

Steven V. Neiman

I don't think that's really possible to do without a very long timescale of playtesting, but it sounds like this might be a multi-year design process which is already a step in the right direction, since for most of their design process they'll at least have enough time left for playtesters to warn them of what gets old after a few drafts. That said, when trying to design a game like this to be fun for a long time a good place to start is mechanical depth, and even if they haven't used that exact language it's clear that the design of the game is intended to have a lot of depth, especially as it nears completion. It's also worth noting that they are explicitly NOT trying to make a game which meets all of everyone's TTRPG needs forever, the way 5e tried to. Which is a wise decision, at least if your goal is to maximize product quality rather than market share.

Steven V. Neiman

I'm fairly certain Matt's answer is going to be "I just make something up that feels right to me". That said, there are definitely a few broad patterns - If the point is first and foremost to manipulate the battlefield, it's probably a maneuver - If it does damage and doesn't have any logical reason to be something else, it's probably an action - Many things just aren't coherent or useful as anything other than the timing they have. For example, the triggered actions all have fluff which wouldn't make sense with any other timing, and since Recover is an action the Conduit's Healing Grace wouldn't really be worth much if it wasn't substantially faster than that.