I genuinely can't tell if this video is trying to farm clicks from rage baiting 4e fans or grognards who hated 4e for no substantial reasons. He says so little of substance in the video it's honestly hard to tell.
This dude's mom: "Why can't you be more like Matt Colville?" This dude: "Grrrr. I'll get you, Matt Colville! If it's the last thing I do!" *Shakes fist in the air*
I ran the playtest twice for 9 different players. All of them really enjoyed it, the always hitting mechanic was something every one of them mentioned really enjoying. They ranged in TTRPG experience from D&D 5e through 3.5, and most have played other systems like PF as well. Not sure where this aggressive attitude is coming from. Also the playtest was out before the backerkit was completed so implying it was intentionally kept secret during it is just incorrect.
I feel you man. I'm willing to hear constructive criticism that exemplifies the similarities between the MCDM rpg and 4e. Partially because I've never played 4e and am curious if the accusations actually have any real basis aside from "encounter powers + grid = 4e". But this guy just seems bitter and butt hurt for like no reason.
@@parkerbrantley4356 I would say that it plays a lot like 4e, but that's not a bad thing if you like tactical gaming. Powers are cut down for you to the bare mimimum, but they are fun to use and there seems to be a lot more movement in this game because you arent afraid of triggering AoO. Most people hated 4e because it cut out a lot of what I feel was unnecessary bloat that 3.5e had become and once you're used to making a gish that can one shot everything, of course you're gonna be mad that the OP button was covered up in favor of working together rather than being a reliable 1 person wrecking crew. 4e brought in video game mechanics and a lot of people bucked that, but it feel it made your progress feel like progress and you had choices that could be made every level that could change your play style easily. But that's just my opinion and take.
@@parkerbrantley4356 4th has some good things, but also many bad -- the main thing I didn't like about 4th is every class had all these powers. So everyone kind of felt like magic users. 4th Ed reminds me of playing a video game like Diablo 2, which I loved but all these powers IMO didn't translate well to a TTRPG. Not a bad game -- had some good ideas -- but in the grand scheme of things I agree with the majority -- overall -- it is the worst of all the D&D editions. Recommend 13th Age if you want to play a game that took the good things out of 4th and left the bad -- and is IMO a much, much better game.
Idk anything about 4e. Personally, I hate the “always hit” rule because failure and missing can be integral to storytelling and random chance can make any situation interesting.
My biggest issue with the game is the backwards concept of "heroism" that they're proposing. Heroism isn't "always winning." Heroism is overcoming very real, and nearly impossible adversity. You are absolutely correct in pointing out that this is D&D 4e for the participation trophy generation.
One of the most fun encounters I've played was when our level 1 group almost got wiped out by a werebear. We spent so much time trying to grapple him, it was hilarious.
I thought this game was a parody or satire. That would have been clever. Present a game that mimics the least popular version of D&D, don't name it, make millions, define heroism as never failing (even in a single die roll), etc. It seemed like the perfect way to own the participation trophy generation.
I have never felt like I was getting a participation trophy playing 4e. Always had to work our butts off to win a combat. 5e on the other hand feels exactly like that. There's no risk, no tactics, just a bunch of invincible characters mowing through everything.
I like the idea of not rolling to hit for the reasons given. Normally, if I miss an attack roll, then I guess I just need to "roll better" next round. However, if I automatically hit but find that my attack is ineffective due to DR or something, then it means I need to try a different approach. That was always an option, but unless I know the enemy's AC, then I can't make an informed decision. In theory, getting rid of the attack roll provides immediate feedback and speeds up combat. Admittedly, I could just try to apply this logic to any other system, but I'm interested to see what their entire system looks like (assuming they actually finish it). I played a bit of 4th and liked it. I understand not liking, but I don't understand why so many people hate it while still having such a hard-on for 3.5.
4e was actually completely fine when you played it like Diablo, with 90% of your time spent whacking loot pinatas in the dungeon. It was, to its core, a tactical game. The problem was that we'd come to expect strategic gameplay, too, which has basically been forbidden in post-3.5 D&D.
I like the idea of no hit rolls, it's true that it sux to miss and have wasted a turn, you may as well have your character be asleep. The idea that you don't get the " lucky hit" against a big villian, you still get that feel when you might get max damage instead. Same effect in the end.
@@OliverK1 In order to have the math work out, they have to compensate for always hitting by radically increasing the probability of dealing zero damage. In other words, they trade "wasting" a turn due to a miss for wasting a turn due to dealing zero damage. Either way, your character might as well have been asleep. It's numerically the same outcome, either way.
@@craigl1641 More specifically, it felt odd to have "use sword" classified as a "power". It didn't help that the rules limited using "use sword" to targeting creatures, so you couldn't actually "use sword" on the rope the orcs were climbing.
Your characterization of the conversation around automatically hitting attacks in RPGs and the MCDM RPG in general is extremely condescending. You're putting people down for disagreeing with you, or looking for a different experience. If you're not interested in the game, or have problems with it's mechanics, that's fine. Talk about your problems with the mechanics. But you don't have to insult people for liking those mechanics. That's just rude.
The man is wearing sunglasses inside and cant help but spit insults every other sentence. He is the real life equvalent of that edge lord anime fan playing the lone wolf rogue, refering to himself as ”alpha” or ”chad”. It is obviously working as he has found an audience, and more importantly, generated views and comments. Its good for him and his fans can go to bed at night knowing they are the superior human beings compared to everyone else but for us normal people with critical thinking skills - the only thing we can do is not feed the trolls.
@DiversityDragons pretty rich to ignore the substance of the comment and instead deflect by whining about how the comments on your last video hurt your feelings. You know this is all public, right? Everyone can see what you are doing here
@@DiversityDragonspointing out childish behavior in others justify your own. Furthermore all your videos are filled with juvenile insults towards others often for simply preferring different mechanics. You encourage 'rude' responses.
I agree that his system isn't really my thing but... This video makes you look terrible. Matt knows that he likes but is able to communicate his ideas in a way that people who game in any style can draw from them. He made a game for people who like the games he likes.
@@DiversityDragons tbf so did 3.5E and 5E, D&D has kinda always had long combats after 2E, its not really new to the Game. People who play D&D and D&D clones are the type who like Combat first typically anyway its why PF2E is also popular its a combat game first. people who play other games like OSR / PbTA style games are the more narrative players and thats why they choose those systems.
The always hit thing makes sense in the context of hit points not actually being physical damage. If people continue to explain it away as an abstraction that just indicates that you're getting tired and less lucky, then it makes sense to pull the trigger and ignore "hitting" because it's not really hitting anyway. That's something that could be addressed instead. Most of these modern games balloon the hit point totals.
The problem with missing isn't that you don't win a trophy, it's that it drags the game down in terms of pacing. Missing based on your own roll feels stupid. Nobody misses a target dummy with a sword. The way I would handle it is that the default action is a hit and your are mitigated by your opponent's DEFENSIVE action. Make the opponent roll to force the miss, not based on a static number. This order of events means if your turn ends without an offensive outcome, you are drawn to narrate "wow, this opponent is tough" instead of "the swordmaster of a small kingdom tripped on his shoelaces and missed a hippo."
Shadowrun does this. Your opponent makes a defense roll against your attack. Objects, obviously, do not roll this, so the only way to miss a static object is to critically glitch (a normal glitch will still hit, but with some downside).
You can't really "feel heroic" without feeling like you are overcoming difficult challenges. Its more like "feel powerful", which may speak to the personalities who like this sort of easy mode game.
Video does a very bad job of describing the game. I've playtested it a number of times now, and have had plenty of very challenging tactical fights. We even got TPKed once. What Matt is trying to do is make your character less fragile in the early levels of the game. Mid to high level 5e doesn't have this problem, but especially at levels 1 and 2 in D&D, characters can easily go down (or even die with a bit of bad luck) in a single hit. They can often only do one thing on their turn, an attack or cantrip, which has something like a 35-40% chance of doing absolutely nothing. Or even hitting with a firebolt or something, and rolling just 1 or 2 points of damage. There's a reason so many D&D campaigns start at level 3 or 5. Level 1 characters in D&D are peasants with swords. In the MCDM RPG, they are more like 3rd level 5e characters already, with way more things they can do. The no to-hit roll was originally just meant to speed up combat, and attacks could still end up dealing 0 damage. They eventually decided to make sure that nearly all attacks would do something, so that every turn you make some kind of progress. They found that no one in tests was missing wasting turns, and I found the same thing. Never once in my playtest sessions did I think, "boy this turn would be so much more fun if there was a higher chance of accomplishing nothing at all than there was for me to kill this goblin!" Anyways, that's what Matt means by heroic. And this isn't some attack on 5e, MCDM is just making a different game, and they want it to feel differently.
To each his own. In my game the players feel like they might die in every fight. And some have. But it makes the game more exciting in our opinion, when the stakes are high.
I always found this perspective weird ngl. The PCs being stronger doesn't mean the game is easy. It means you can throw more wacky nonsense at them. Ie, instead of grubbing around in sewers almost dying to rats, You might instead face something actually cool that would have killed weaker characters outright
@jeromeace1282 if the wacky nonsense you throw at them has a decent chance of killing them then that's fine. Otherwise it's just an exercise in power characters killing something with a different skin. Never had my players killing rats. Mostly humans/humanoids and cthulhu themed monstrosities.
@@craigl1641conversely, for the 'feel powerful' bit, I feel you do need at least some easy battles to get a feel for how strong the more important enemies actually are, and what it means for you to beat them by the skin of your teeth.
If a player is bored waiting 20 minutes between turns 1. Get a new DM (YES -- this is correct in my experience). 2. Also "implies you have no interest in what's happening to your fellow PCs or the game in general." EXACTLY. this has not just affected younger/newer players. I'm 58 and many of my fellow players are around my age. The effect of phone distractions and video game dopamine hits has resulted in the same behavior, especially in online games. 😞
Alright hot take: the MCDM RPG will probably be better suited for the heroic fantasy games that most 5e/pf2e players play than most other games. also I genuinely don't get the hype/outrage around removing the attack roll, the hit points represent a sort of grit and it makes sense that an attack, even one that didn't hit, tires out an opponent.
Great video and I agree on all points. Not only is it stupid to equate "heroism" with "always hitting" but calling such a game "cinematic" is even dumber. Imagine *any* movie where both the good guys and bad guys always hit. Star Wars: "Okay Red Leader you automatically hit the exhaust port, roll damage! So do you Luke, no need for the Force!" "Great shot kid that was...guaranteed!" Or Empire Strikes Back where Luke and Vader are dueling and you never have those cool moments where Luke fails to land a blow against Vader or even those few times where Vader *missed* (gasp) and sliced pieces of the Cloud City structure around them in spectacular fashion. Those misses were totally cinematic!
I will say that D&D 4E doesn't get credit where it did do some things right. I think the bestiary is amazing and how things are statted out rocks. I've stolen ideas from 4E for a long time. I also think the minion rules are great. I didn't back the TTRPG because hearing him talk about it didn't inspire confidence that it was something I actually wanted to play. Their bestiary for 5E was pretty great. I think Dragonbane is a better compromise in that monsters always hit but players and humanoid NPCs do not. I think its a little dramatic to say that "not rolling to hit" is an attack on the "fabric of TTRPGs"; its just something different. I don't think its for me but that's fine...most TTRPGs are not as many are just remixing stuff from other games. If there's an audience for this that's fine but much like every other OSR or DND 2E inspired game out there I don't have the bandwidth for all these games even if I did want to play them.
Spy Craft RPG was the 1st RPG I knew of that used "Minions" circa '02. When I saw that 4e's minions worked in a similar way I was fairly certain Spy Craft RPG was the inspiration. It was a D20 game based off WotC StarWars, & was considered innovative for it's time, won a bunch of awards etc.
@@blackbarnz Very cool. I never heard of Spy Craft (I didn't really get into TTRPGs in earnest until around 3.5 in high school). I need to look up Spy Craft.
So glad I dodged a bullet and didn’t kickstart this one. Felt fishy and I trusted my gut. I’ll stick to my OSR games, thanks! No inflated numbers for me.
Same here. I was a Colville fan, but as time has gone on, it's pretty clear that he and I no longer see eye to eye on things the way it seemed like we used to.
I'm going to Kickstart a game in a couple years. It is pretty hard-core. Characters are flimsy, there are lots of randomness-heavy mechanics, and free-form magic. Support that one. It will be a while, but file it in your brain. Quintom Arcana. Yes, that is spelled right. Not Quantum. Quintom.
I loved 4e back in the day. Unapologetic grid based tactical combat. With a million OSR clones and alternate 5e TTRPGs coming out, I think it’s fine to have a 4e clone come out. Choice is always a good thing. I was am very skeptical of the “never miss” portion of the game design. Enough that I’m passing on backing the game. I’ll keep an open mind and see how it progresses. And I get it, in a way, that it sucks to roll and miss and then sit around for 10 minutes while everyone else is doing stuff. But if you don’t have some bad turns, you aren’t going to appreciate your good turns. Worse, if you roll crappy and do your baseline, say 5 points of damage, which hypothetically is the “consolation prize” of being heroic and contributing (but rolling bad), then you will still have the same problem of sitting around and watching everyone else do 10, 15, or crit and do 25 points of damage and have their secondary effects trigger and being “awesome”. Your rounds where you do minimum damage are still just going to feel like a miss.
It made me scratch my head, too. At first, I thought that maybe it’s to speed up combat, but if that was the case, why would he base it on a game that is, as you yourself put it, “unapologetic grid-based tactical combat”?
The idea is not that you never have a bad round, the idea is that you always make some progress on your turn. There's never a scenario where you would have lost nothing by just skipping the turn. Also, it speeds up combat A LOT. When I playtested I never once missed having a to-hit roll mechanic.
My gut reaction is to be skeptical of the never miss mechanic. But in practice I always seek to mitigate swinginess of die rolls - multitarget save or suck spells, lots of of maybe low damage attacks vs one big one, picking effects that just work vs ones with saves etc. In practice I doubt it will be a big adjustment for me but if you live for crits for x3 damage it may not be for you.
Wow, a game about heroism and adventures that makes each of your turn worth something. I would like to try it. Not because I am a fan of wargame mechanics or anything like that, but mainly because I am tired of 'Old school' games that telling me that eating glass is fun. Love 4E by the way.
Matt made this really weird argument that gamers didn't hate 4th edition, they were angry at how MMORPGs ruined game night and vented that rage out on D&D. It's a strange hypothesis until you realize just how much he really liked 4th edition.
I disagree with his argument, but I understand why he makes it I just hate that system for table top, but 4th Ed D&D is very similar to video game systems I do like -- Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battles, Shining Force, etc. It is a good system ---- just not for ttrpg (in my opinion) and not the D&D setting.
@@cmleibenguth That was always my take away. 4th edition was specifically designed around a vtt that was never 100% rolled out and actively borrowed concepts from MMORPGs. It's impossible to deny, which made his hypothesis all the more absurd.
@@saintjst7 WotC's D&D was always a videogame. D&D Online, an actual MMORPG used 3.5 for all of its systems. Can't get more "this D&D ruleset is an MMO" than that!
1) The gridded map for the likes of Roll20 is very useful, and in most cases needed. I have used a variety of maps during live play (grid paper, dry erase mats, players plot as they go, digital screen, 3D diorama, etc.) I have found that a digital jpg/mp4 image ran through a laptop onto a vertically-placed TV works best with a grid. This way the players can use a miniature directly atop the gridded screen for movement, combat, etc. 2) Auto hits take away the joy of rolling a critical or the frustration of fumbling. These emotional swings are realistic and great for table dynamics. My players celebrate when they roll a 20 and curse when they roll a 1. That's how it should be. Furthermore, critical hit/epic failure tables add flavor to the game. Who doesn't want their character to shit their pants, cough up a lung, or get some strange seminal fluid in their eye when they index a d100 roll on the failure chart? Conversely, skull-crushing instant death and dismemberment results are equally as joyous when they index a d100 on the critical chart. Auto hits seems like "everybody gets a trophy" woke shit that sucks the variance out of combat and is, therefore, a fun killer. 3) Waiting for your turn is not fun-- this is why you should be engaged throughout. This involves encouragement of your comrades, making fun of other players, strategizing, plotting, scheming, etc. It's a social event of mutual story-telling after all. If you're on your phone, sitting around waiting for your turn, you might as well go home. 4) Not all characters are heroes. Not all decisions by the players are good decisions. Not every move should be rewarded. If you have a bad plan/no plan as a party and it fails accordingly, your character should suffer the consequences, up to and including death. Hitting the monster with every roll negates the possibility of genuine and natural consequences for stupidity (which is precisely why it's used for modern snowflake gaming). 5) I have not used the metric of having players roll damage together with their To Hit roll. It may (marginally) speed things up but I like the anticipation of what the damage will be. Further, if you roll that natural twentizo, you need time to talk trash and celebrate. The pause in between the To Hit roll and damage is healthy I think. On the flip side, if a player rolls a natural "1" and also rolls a huge damage pool that never happened, all that will result is "I would have kill you" type of discussion. It's kind of like rabbit hunting the River card after you fold on the Turn just to see what would have come-- it's just going to bring butthurt. 6) I don't think we need a "D&D killer" type of game. WotC is already dead and rotten from the inside with their wokeness. Anyone who doesn't want to play an paraplegic lesbian wizard in a wheelchair (there are legit miniatures of this) will naturally flock to other games.
I see a lot of people shitting on the hit mechanics. I've actually watched his Dev vids, it's not literally an always hit-it's a armor reduces damage thing. I'm not a fan of Colville's life views, but you guys aren't evaluating the system fairly.
@@uriahedwardsDamage is done if it's not reduced to 0. It's just inverted from d20 to-hit. Instead of rolling against a certain AC to deal damage, you deal partial damage reduced from armor. Mathematically there's little difference, play experience is faster. Even if it is always hit, that's not an issue. I know you guys hate comparisons to video games, but most rpg games have upwards of 95% hit chance and it works well. Missing in those games feel awful, which is the feeling Colville wants to avoid.
In terms of expected value, there's no difference between (i) having a 50% chance to hit for 20% of a target's health, and (ii) having a 100% chance to hit for 10% of the target's health. The only real difference between _i_ and _ii_ is that _ii_ is guaranteed, so it's completely predictable, which means that it involves no risk or tension. Now, if they can make the rest of the combat system generate risk and tension in other ways, then that could make up for the loss of the risk of missing. This is, however, at odds with their goal to avoid "rolling to see if you have a turn". After all, the easiest way to inject the tension back into the scenario is to make that 10% health an _average_ where dealing zero damage is common. We see exactly this with the damage mitigation abilities, which means that you absolutely still roll to see if you have a turn. It's just that it's obscured by an couple layers of mechanics. In other words, they're selling snake oil.
@@commandercaptain4664 Pretty much, yeah. The whole point is to complicate the process enough that you don't _notice_ that you're rolling to see whether you have a turn.
@@PedanticTwit But isn't what people notice the important part? There's nothing truly objective to game design; if it's an approach that people enjoy, it's a good approach for them. The logic and math behind it doesn't really matter if you're not aware of it.
@@SNWWRNNG That's fair enough; it very well could solve the perception problem. But the point is that it's misleading to say that it solves one problem (rolling to see if you have a turn) when it actually solves a different problem (_feeling_ like you're rolling to see if you have a turn).
The comparisons to 4e made throughout his ramblings: 1. There’s a grid 2. There are different power timings including at will and triggered He then goes on in saying that not rolling to hit is akin to a participation trophy. Went into this video hoping for well thought out criticism and comparison but only saw mediocre analogs and gross misrepresentation of game design choices.
@@DiversityDragons Comment: Points out reasonable critcism with direct references to things said in the video. Your Response: Namecalling. Yeah totally the adult in the room here.
"good warrior" WTF is that? Did they port the crappy 5E Fighter into the game? The GM is shocked when the the guy does so much damage. You can see the shock on his face at 4:18 or so... 4E was great *IF* you leaned into the cinematic combat aspects of it. In a round about way it has more of 0E + Chainmail's DNA than B/X does. MCDM RPG is way to early in dev to know if its going to be good or not, but based on these live plays its going to be hilariously bad... To the point that playing it ironically with the intention of roasting it might be amusing. Which is sad because Colville knows better. I just hope his smart enough not to blow through all of that nest egg, because I bet by the time he finishes that game in late 2026 (if he's lucky) most of the normies he depends on will have left the hobby. Most of us will still be here though ready to roast this garbage when it comes out.
In my 5e campaign I lowered the enemies AC but pc's attacks only do half damage in that lowered range if they beat the original AC then they do full damage it seems to be working great so far as they hit more often, but can still miss
As someone who actually like 4e over the others, I have some real issues with what was presented for MCDM RPG. I absolutely hate the idea of auto hitting. That is completely stupid. Take for an example, I have a Dwarf fighter built around a two-handed axe fighting in 4e. But I know that I need some range attack ability ever so often. While I carry a couple of throwing axes just in case, I have been looking at getting a crossbow. My ability to hit is a lot worse than with my axe. If I hit every time with a weapon that I am not good with, how is that going to reflect with damage? If I hit every time, where comes the tactics of suddenly missing a critical attack and now needing to figure out a new plan or taking the gamble that the baddie will miss me when I am down to my last hit point so I can hold a critical position one or more turns. Those scenarios just came up in our last 4e game where I picked up a crossbow laying on the ground and started shooting because there was no where I could get into melee and also I was holding a big baddie in place and with two critical hits against me in the first two turns, I was down to 1 hit point, but I took the gamble that it would miss me the next couple of turns so I could hold my position and block all of the creatures behind it from coming through into the room. I was luckily and it missed a total of four rounds and I was able to get relieved. Had I known that it would always hit, I would never stayed there hoping that my luck was better than my DM's rolls.
You scoff at Matt's fans because they don't stand for any criticism towards Matt, yet you cannot utter a single sentence about Matt without insulting him or give him and his viewers a derogatory nickname. At this point it's just rage bait lmao. Even if you have a point in some regards that i share, i find it hard to just agree with this antagonistic demeanor. I'm not a big fan of either of you, i just think that there is a less ill-spirited conversation to be had.
4e isn't so bad as some make it out to be but it definitely isn't perfect. That Matt Colville didn't learn from 4e's mistakes but seemingly does things WORSE than what 4e did (including where it was strong and polished) is disappointing. A far more polished 4e would be great, but 13th Age is the closest that we've been getting in that direction so far.
Oh, it was kinda bad. I remember all the at-will powers and synergies made this into a gimmick of a game. We had a party that we dubbed "The proners united". One PC would create an aura where enemies get knocked prone and in combination with another PC power, it meant that the enemy creatures could do little more than wasting their turn. Which felt stupid. Like whenever any mechanic breaks the fundamentals of a game: like Stun. It should be a very rare ability, nothing which you can do at will. So yeah, we turned our backs pretty fast on the 4e fiasco.
The more I learn about this game, the more I’m glad I canceled my pledge before the deadline. I used to be a big fan of Colville, I even bought his book “Where Evil Lives”. Then I opened the book and saw box text dedicated solely to the pronouns of one singular NPC, not to mention the incessant use of “content warning” boxes for things like spiders and blood… I’ll still go back and watch the old Running the Game videos, but that’s about it.
It seems like a pretty good book. I like my copy fine enough. Just grab a marker and fill those parts in. Or cover them with a sticker. They have their views, doesnt mean you have to agree with them or follow them.
A criticism I understood from this video is that the author feels like taking away the attack roll undermines the integrity of the game for them. They feel that victory is earned because of decisions made on who to attack and the fate of the die. I respect that opinion, but I don't find it compelling. If your victory is earned in part due to luck, how is it not even more earned when chance is removed? Without chance, only your decisions and tactics matter. If you fail an encounter, it's much more likely that it is because of a skill issue, not a whim of the dice. The notion that removing attack rolls is for people that don't like RPGs just comes off as as toxic and elistist, which I feel is the general vibe of this video. I think the criticism about not supporting theater of the mind makes sense, but I feel like 5e tries to support too many things and in doing so does them poorly. Grid combat is not very tactical in 5e, so if MCDM makes a fun grid combat game, that could be fun for some people.
I quite like Matt's content, but I get frustrated at how he frames "removing the attack roll" as some revolution, when loads of other games only have a single roll when you attack something. For real, many of my friends who play 5e for the first time find the attack/damage roll system sort of arbitrary (why not just have one roll?) and some of the less game-savvy ones regularly forget to make the attack and just roll damage first, and I have to remind them. "Getting rid of the attack roll" is literally just moving towards a more intuitive system. This gross angry youtube man has no reason to be so annoyed about it.
@@joshuawinestock9998 I don't think you're alone in feeling this way about Matt's framing. A member of the Morrus Unofficial Tabletop RPG podcast said something along the lines that he finds Matt offputting because he makes it sound like creating an RPG with audience feedback is revolutionary. Personally, my interpretation of the "elitist" vibe people get from Matt is that he's just really exited about his own ideas and is unapologetically self-confident. I don't think Matt thinks his products and ideas are better or revolutionary, but I do think he thinks they're great. That said, I have never met the man in person and cannot actually speak to his character.
It's the players and DM who decide whether it is "combat 24/7" or the rules. I expect the rules to describe mostly combat and technicals, but if people don't know how to role-play, they should go to many plays and just watch.
Rolling straight for damage works great - it's an excellent rule in games like Cairn and Into the Odd Combat is also fast in those systems, like basic D&D OSR level fast - and that's a great thing. Fast combats are excellent
Having hit and damage rolled with one roll does not seem so bad for me.Like damage go up the higher you roll and you have to overcome the amor of the monster to really hurt it.
A big issue I had with the 'Always Hit' mechanics they are touting, is that they have openly said that they are raising hit points (From what you see in 5e) to compensate for always hitting and being hit... So for all their whining about missed rolls and wasted 20 minute turns: Their 'trick' resolution mechanic does not actually speed up combat at the table in any measurable way! IF they had designed the 'Always Hit' system with normal 5e HP levels, so that you had to use the in-game tactics to come out on top in fast playing encounters; That I could see bringing something to the table. As is? It's just different math, same destination...
Because what I wanted to always play in my RPG is a resource management game and cut rolling dice completely out. I want to ALWAYS be successful no matter what the circumstances, because feeling heroic isnt overcoming adversity...its never seeing a failure!
I do think there's a lot of personal atacks to the people that like MCDM and to Mat itself. But, i manage to hear all your points. Caviat: i'm talking without having experience many ttrpg sistems other than DnD. For what i can see about the MCDM rpg they're trying to create a mashup of everything they like about other ttrpg sistems. Yeah, 4E is clearly a big inspiration, they've always been vocal about that. And i can see how combat could be long still, but i do think the "no atack roll" idea is pretty interesting and good! it takes some of the randomness out and gives a lot more agancy to the players on how to deal with incoming damage. I don't think there's a problem in that, in any case i think it makes the combat more dramatic and engaging with bigger swings of power. It also has the benefit of pulling players with small attention windows back into the moment and creates more meaningfull moments. I'm a bit worried about the posibility of the players havin TOO MANY ways to deal with incoming damage making the DM (or director, how they call it) life a bit more dificult. But hey, that's what playtesting is for! and they're really transparent about it. About the complexity of the system, honestly... DnD is not that much simpler... Yeah, the core is simple, but once you add spells, feats, and class abilities, it gets messy. Not even mentioning all the CR crap and summons....
The complexity of D&D is that all the systems are mechanical and used at once. Feats, spells, attacks, class abilities etc 95% of the time are either direct combat tools or fed into combat through context like darkvision. I am mainly a Burning Wheel GM. As a whole the game is far more complicated that D&D but the sub systems are all separate and used fractally to add nuance. Take LotR, supposedly a huge D&D inspiration. There is no difference in a D&D's mechanical narrative between killing orcs on a battlefield during a siege and the Fellowship fighting the troll in Balin's tomb. In games like Burning Wheel the troll fight is epic because it's one dangerous creature that you can use one fighting system for, whereas the siege uses a completely different system where the problem isn't killing the enemy, you can wade through orcs, it's holding them off.
4e was overhated. It had poor design choices, yes, but the monsters are by far the best they've ever been in the D&D Editions, which isn't given enough credit.
@@theatheistbear3117 mate, 100% agree. I still use the 4e database as inspiration for making set piece combat encounters. Extensively when I played 5e (which has such mundane monsters) less so with OSE Advanced but I still leverage the 4e ideas.
@@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115 4e Monsters turn a mundane combat against a bunch of Goblins into a fight for survival, and against an Illithid with a couple minions into a death sentence.
You know, 4E is actually my favorite edition. And it's dawned on me this is the case with MCDM too, which leads me to wonder...why pick it up? It's just their 4E heartbreaker
If mechanics good, I play game, If mechanics bad, I no play game. If game good, but made by bad person, I not care, still play. If game bad, but made by good person, I not care, still no play. If game good, but by person who I don't agree with, I start TH-cam channel pretending to have valid criticism of design choices that are clearly just a departure of genre and not objectively good or bad.
I love Matt Coleville’s channel, knowledge and his take on RPGs… but I love my dice more. I have hundreds of dice and told I don’t need to roll them! I absolutely love rolling dice and know that fate is determined by those splendid polyhedral pieces of plastic, resin and crystal. I’ve yet to find a game that uses all the types of dice creatively. This is just how I roll.
Yeeeeeaaaaaah kinda seems like this guy is just hating on the MCDMRPG because it has a lot of eyes on it - I especially think it lowbrow to play babycrying noises for those of us who don’t mind getting rid of “to attack rolls” or other philosophically different game design decisions. Different shouldn’t automatically mean scary or bad 🤷♂️ I’m not even gonna play MCDM either! I’m much more excited for Runehammer’s Crown&Skull; This guy just failed the vibe check so hard I had to say something
The funny thing is Pathfinder 2e is a better version of DnD 4e and Matt Colville didn't seem interested. He just blew off anyone that mentioned it to him :) Some of the more PE2 evangelist harassed him while he was streaming DnD4e once, needless to say he was not happy with them LOL.
@@FMD-FullMetalDragon Pf2e is very balanced from 1-20. Your fights at 20th level are not ROFLStomps like they would be in any other DND game. With that said. I prefer OSR :)
I don't like the always hit mechanic. But I'm not going to hate on it either. Matt wanted to make a gane that made players seem heroic and powerful. It's simply not the game for everyone, especially DMs. They said they would have to rework damage because players were too strong.
I don't own anything by MCDM but I'm willing to see more of what this game will offer. You always hit, but so do the monsters is my understanding. There are things to do and things that will add to or reduce damage, as well as other actions/powers to do during combat. Plus you get they say you get more "resources" the longer a fight goes on, whatever that means. They are promising to make combat more fun and heroic, which doesn't sound like a bad thing to me. I will follow its progress and see it if will be a game for me, though it's release will be a long way off.
Correct me if I am wrong but I think the damage roll is a "to hit" roll... your damage is just whatever is over the "to hit" roll. So you can still miss your roll if you don't roll high enough. Just wanted to through that clarification out there (again, correct me if I am wrong). I also don't get the "it's just a video game with paper" argument people make... to me games are just games whether on a computer or with paper - what's important is if everyone is having a good time playing it... I liked and still like 4e. I thought martial characters were way more interesting compared to the 5e ones we have now where you basically attack and extra attack every turn and I do find the moves and perks interesting for the classes of MCDM. I think anything over traditional "I attack and then extra attack" every round is in the right direction. Even if it isn't perfect, it's still trying something new. Not a coveille fanboy here (just in case people took my comment as such) and I am personally not interested in owning or playing MCDM. My greatest interest in the game is that the art and formatting looks pleasing to my eye.
No he is correct. Your defence stat and the powers associated (for both players and monsters) are there to mimic an AC. Assume the defense Stat is 10. You then need to roll 10 or more on the dice + mods in order to deal damage. However, there are things you do to enemies such as pushing them, Knocking them prone, and imposing some condition on them that makes your turn still do things regardless of the amount of damage you actually dealt (even if it was zero). This is how the game allows for you to be tactical and do something to progress the game on your turn, but still have the ability to deal little or no damage. The tactics come in that you are at least guaranteed to get the rider to the damage, and thus have choices to make other than "I go up and hit... opp I missed"
We had several instances where unfortunate misses created great moments in my campaigns I DM. One was where the group was getting held up my a bunch of gang members in the bad part of the city and were being extorted for money. The group instead decided to try and fight their way out. The barbarian of our group managed to go first and tried hitting the gang’s leader and instead tragically missed. He got shot to pieces next turn by the gang leader and the rest of the group nearly died the same way but barely managed to get out and seek medical aid. Another example is when my same group in an earlier campaign were raiding a lair of a known cult and were entering their inner sanctum. The group got caught and the head priest of that cult sent forth a magical plague of locusts to kill the group. Everyone rolls their saves to avoid it, unfortunately our group’s ranger failed his save and gets turned into a pile of wet bones before the party can even blink. This left a lasting impact on the group as they had to carry what was left of him to his family and tell them what had happened. The players memorialized his character and with one of them even naming a child after him in the epilogue of the campaign. I don’t understand how people can take the ability to fail as a bad thing in ttrpgs as some of my favorite moments DMing and playing have been failures. When you can fail those successes hit even harder and are remembered even more fondly because you and your friends overcame adversity.
In fact I used the Colville fans in your comments as inspiration for a cult in my recent ACKS 2 game. The cultists feverishly worship the golden idol Ma'tt'col'evil and act like the boxers in the chinese boxer uprising, pretending their magic makes them invulnerable. Well, and if one of them gets killed they pretend his worship was not strong enough anyways.
I think "always hit" can work but only if the damage is very swingy, from doing practically nothing to a great deal. However, "always effective" cannot work. If there are no disappointing outcomes, the thrill is gone. A tale of an "always effective" character is not heroic, it is a power fantasy.
Much of the excitement of playing is because of the "risk" of failing that round. No risk, no excitement. Some of the most fun I had back in the day was playing a 4hp lvl 1 Magic User. Do you use your magic missile on the goblin attacking you and go without spells until the next rest, or do you whack em with your staff and risk death?
Fireball doesn't roll to hit. In fact pretty much nothing a wizard does requires attack rolls. You've given a perfect counter-argument to needing hit rolls.
@@jasongrundy1717 Have you ever played DnD in your life? Many spells in the wizards arsenal is a type of attack roll, and many of the spells that aren't use something very similar to an attack roll (e.g., a saving throw, spell resistance, caster/ability check, etc).
Genuinely curious. What’s fun about using magic missiles in your example and then just hoping to whack bad guys with your stick until you convince your DM to let you rest?
@@diszect7134 Geniunely curious. What's fun about playing a half-squirrel/half-turtle vampire paladin/thief that chain whirlwind kick-stuns the entire encounter until they use their split atoms ability to detonate the campaign?
But this is their version of armor class. You aren't phased when a PC with an AC of 22 shrugs off the missed attack. Essentially, monsters and PC's always hit (and often have a secondary effect that one might akin to powers in 4e). But instead of dealing no damage and big spikey damage they tend to do closer to more of a bell curve. Armor and certain powers negate damage for both PCs and monsters.
@@parkerbrantley4356 Yeah, that's because you aren't gaining something back when your armor mitigates damage. Going from "bloodied" to "just a flesh wound" is completely different in narrative.
I’m a fan of Colville, and I have learned a lot from his content. I also think he’s wrong about a lot of things, and I chose not to buy his new game until it’s finished and I can see actual reviews of it.
Ok, the "no roll to hit"-take is just wild. Matt is like: "It is more fun that way" And this dude goes: "Yeah, sure, but its not supposed to be fun. Its selfish to want to have fun." Dude, its a game. Leave the rant about entitlement and trophies at home. We are playing it to feel good. Like whats the next take? Chocolate hasn't enough noutriants? Thats not, what it is designed for.
I liked Collville's style of his early videos before he started doing all that Kickstarter shit, he has different beliefs than I do but I enjoyed listening to his videos. I quit watching him when he took that MCDM turn, his previously genuine demeanor changed into said snake oil salesman.
The risk of rolling a miss is what creates tension, that what we want! Also, I've said before, the meaningless turns makes meaningful turns so much better.
Yes, we want the drama: the tension for what would happen if we fail an action. It's only truly rewarding if something is on the line. Thank you for reminding me that I don't need to cuddle the players. I rather need to be pushing them to spend their resources in order to overcome challenges the world throws at them.
The concept of someone swinging a sword at an enemy and somehow managing to not hit them sucks all the tension out of the room. A fighter standing in front of an immobile 16ac slime monster kinda just paddling it and nothing happening (on either side) for a few turns straight is the opposite of tension. I agree with what Matt is doing but the bigger issue is D&D players specifically having very little imagination for this sort of thing when the RuneQuest / BRP / Mythras family of RPGs already came up with the far more sane solution of armor being armor, and enemies actually being able to parry your strikes.
Been excited for your vid on this since Wednesday brother, cuz I can't wait to see the MC-fans to come wailing in this comment section! Lol. And the sad part is as a new GM, I would watch some of Coleville's old "Building the Dungeon" series and he gives well thought out advice, my guess being because he used to be a game designer. But man, any time I've watched a tabletop stream of his I get put to sleep!
As someone who used to watch those same Colville videos, I learned the hard way that he is a good storyteller. His session recaps were good as was the fiction he wrote. Conversely, His DM style is about as exciting as watching a puddle of milk.
He seems like a person that is good with scripted comments and then loses all of his brilliance when he responds in real time. That's not a knock. Some of his scripted content is excellent. I just wouldn't want to watch or spend time with him in real time, much less in a game session.
What's odd is the disconnect between proposed combat proposition and implementation. Maybe it's a natural consequence of the "streamline all combat" mentality? Proposition: Streamline combat. How? Remove to-hit rolls! How do we balance it? Add a bunch of other features that actually make combat more confusing.... A coherent system has the proposition and implementation match. My favorite system right now is Mythras. It knows it wants to lean on simulationist combat. It leans into that, but keeps it streamlined given that proposition. (It's still way crunchier than D&D 5e and many other systems, but it's streamlined given the design goals; nothing feels excessive or unneeded or out of place.) The action point economy is a real thing here, per player. It's great. Defense is active. You have special effects to improve your position in both defense and offense. It all fits together and feels cohesive. It's also gritty and "real". You can bump up the "heroic" level by giving players more skill points in character creation, giving them more XP rolls, giving them more fate points, or changing the rules at your own table in probably a number of different ways. (As an example: Classic Fantasy gives players more HP as they advance in rank, but not a whole lot. It's more heroic than normal, but it's at AD&D level, not D&D 5e.) Interestingly, Mythras is by-default theater of the mind. The rules for combat grids (which I do prefer, but I came from CRPGs) is in a supplement.
I like Matt Colville and MCDM I think they make cool videos/products. As for their game, some mechanics like negotiations and kits are really appealing even if it is basically another 4e clone. The never rolling to hit thing is weird but you can still “fail” now it’s “you make less progress” which is their way of remedying the feel bad of “I attack, fail, and pass” problem which is definitely an issue even if your not a 13 year old tablet kid. The game isn’t finished, it’s very clear that it needs more work and polish to stand on its own. As for the people who blindly paid into it they just want to support their favorite creator and see the game do well. It’s true that some of them are probably obsessed but it’s normal to want to support something financially because you want it to do well. Hopefully this provokes some thought and isn’t drowned in an echo chamber.
Honesty looks uninspired and I am someone who values the game being at least somewhat challenging (and have the stack of dead characters to prove it.) Plus I sold my Pathfinder 2e because I did not find the system to my taste (it was huge for a year locally and then just died off). Not a bad system just not for me (still have my Pathfinder 1e which I enjoyed far more). So if his game just a worse version of that, I'll gladly leave it behind. Thank you for the info Double D.
@@opaqued2039 Pathfinder 1e was my old Groups 2nd favorite system for years (Palladium was number 1). Have to run it again sometimes soon despite the work needed for higher level play.
@@jeframdenkar Palladium was a regular for our group too. I think we played everything in that system (Palladium, Beyond the Supernatural, TMNT, Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas and Super Spies).
6:28 if a player is bored and not paying attention when it is not his/her turn, that is a shit player. Players should be paying attention to what every other PC / NPC is doing, so that he/she can potentially modify his/her action accordingly. That shows engagement.
Rolling a nat 1 doesn't mean you're not heroic. In fact, it raises the stakes as the desperate hero has to recover and gain back his footing against the villain. They just have bad DM's.
Automatically hitting to me is not much different than "Armor makes you harder to hit". Automatically hitting doesn't mean you automatically do damage. I like it more as I used to play Warhammer 40k back in 5th edition about 15 years ago, where you compared Weapon Skills to your opponent, a lot like how AC works, and it was almost the idea of "if you're fighting someone with a 0 weapon skill, or a target dummy, of course you will hit. But that target is doing his best to dodge, block or step away. Your ability to hit comes down to your opponents failure rather than your success" and even then, what is the mechanical difference of: 1. "You make a swing. You fail to hit" 2. "You make a swing. Your blow glances off the targets armor". I don't see the difference. "Oh but my players missed attack made the BBEG kill another player!" Would it be any different than if the damage roll had gone under the target number? Not really. Hell, if anything the only actual thing MCDonalMs RPG does interesting is the pushing enemies around, kind of needing the board.
Personally, I liked flames of wars take on it, where the skill of your target determined how likely you were to hit. Anyone can be competent with a rifle with little training, but making the best use of cover is the real skill. That mostly applies to modern combat though.
@@Nos2113 Absolutely another cool idea, "staying cool under fire" is more important than being able to hit the broad side of the barn in trench-style combat. It's practically like in the ancient times, "You break and run? You get cut down." But I definitely think that your over-all combat situation can be done with a single roll.
I absolutely loved Matt's early 'running the game' videos...but I felt as soon as he started to get bigger the videos kind of seemed different!? Is that just me? In my opinion Runehammer has much better games....I can't understand how Hank doesn't have more subscribers??
For anyone who bought Strongholds & Followers or his other books, a lot of these same heroic, high magic concepts are in there too. Giving players powerful buffs and new abilities from controlling a castle? Pal, owning a castle and having hundreds of soldiers is enough of a boon without gaining new abilities. I do like Matt though, especially his older videos.. Great video as always DD.
@Sammo212 He hides it for most of his scripted content, but off-the cuff remarks frequently come off as extremely conceited and full of himself. His story about meeting an actual PMC as a subject matter expert for his Mercenaries game was weapons-grade Reddit-esque insufferability.
@Sammo212 He hides it for most of his scripted content, but off-the cuff remarks frequently come off as extremely conceited and full of himself. His story about meeting an actual PMC as a subject matter expert for his Mercenaries game was weapons-grade Reddit-esque insufferability.
To be fair, 20 min between combat rounds, can also be a system and a player mastery issue too, or just a large group. It doesnt have to be a DM specific problem ;)
I cant tell you how many freaking HERO System games I have been part of and run where a full combat round of 12 phases takes an hour. Ironically, the much less complicated, but much more convoluted 5e D&D system, takes almost as long some times.
While I really appreciate your cynical look into RPGs (no sarcasm) I think you're missing two points. Firstly, a system can give you what you want when playing so if you're playing a game to be the super heroes that just pump out excessive damage or if your table wants grid tactical combat like 4e (though why not just play 4e?) this could be a good choice. Secondly, this could be a good "gateway drug" to bring people into experiencing other games besides D&D. I remember when I discovered the limitations of D&D in character creation that drove me to look for other systems. Most people never get that because they want to stay with what is comfortable. But if they move from D&D to MCDM or Daggerheart they might realize that other systems have lots to offer and might experiment with other systems. Lastly I'd like to add in the realm of rolling to hit I can see both sides. A complaint my best friend always has about TTRPGs is he has a cool idea and then rolls the dice and fails which makes him not want to play the game if he feels like he's always failing. On the other hand there is a lot to say about feeling like you could fail at a clutch moment because Lady Fate has deemed it so which pushes the story in fun directions.
Not rolling for attack is an old concept, at least popularized with the game "Into the Odd" in 2014 and probably even older. I don't get why people says MCDM is innovative, is just recycling mechanics as most do.
He acknowledges that they're taking inspiration from multiple games numerous times in different videos. He's never said anything in this game is a never-seen-before mechanic. At the end of the day, if you don't like it, just don't play it. Hell, he'd encourage you to go out and make the game you'd want to play.
Yeah, I watched that entire playthrough to see what the supposedly revolutionary mechanic that increased throughout the adventuring day instead of being depleted was... and it gave me constant 4e vibes. I too am a longtime wargamer who was playing D&D minis weekly for years when 4e came out and that was way too much HP bloat with faux choices even for my tastes. The same thing seemed to be happening here with supposedly stellar hits with massive damage involving limited powers being waved off the next turn if they actually had an effect or simply not having any real effect due to HP bloat. That combat iirc took 45 minutes for a couple rounds with only two players; that's neither elegant nor efficient if that the best you can manage with the one of the superstar developers running you through it.
Honestly the 4e HP complaint basically always boiled down to flaws of early math, Solos being an unfinished concept, and people generally not leveraging teamwork or really knowing what everything on their sheet did. I also don't really see the issue with "powers waved away by next turn" because effects that landed were guaranteed to take effect for at least that turn if not more, as opposed to other editions where an instant saving throw could nullify the effect. I've played with a very tactical GM that made EVERY encounter exp budgeted at party level+6-7 and still no fight lasted over 4 turns.
As a normal and smart person who actually played 4e, I can say that the idea of removing the attack roll is not that radical. It worked perfectly for Gloomhaven. And yes, Gloomhaven is not an RPG, but we are talking about the combat system here. So, if you don't like the idea, it doesn't mean that this is a bad idea. Just ignore the system and tell us more about modern society.
The thing about DnD 4th edition is that its actually making a bit of a resurgence. It was ahead of its time and wizards didnt really explain what they were making which is unfortunate.
There is already an alternative version of D&D4e, it's called 13th Age. Personally, I have no opinion on the author. I just don't see a reason to buy a game that copies two other games that I already like.
In the time I have spent DM'ing (though I have only ever run 5e), I found high armor armor class somewhat annoying. Sometimes, I will have combats where both sides miss many attacks. In these scenarios, combat drags unnecessarily. It also prevents me from running combats where mid-to-high-level players fight large numbers of small monsters. Why attempt this when all the goblins will miss the players anyway? I can't create any tension with that. For that reason, I don't have buyer's remorse yet for my pledge. Hopefully, MCDM keeps the damage reduction/healing to a minimum. Tension caused by threatening the players is important. Your video does bring up some concerns on this front for sure. Matt said in one of his updates that his aggressive decision-making led to the deaths of his barbarian characters during playtesting. I think that is a good sign, but who knows whether the game will be released that way. Thanks for the video!
this is some vallid criticism. The no hit roll exists in Into the Odd, and they make HP very valueable. Yeah, if MCDM RPG don't make HP valuable, it will be a terrible design.
Hit all the time isn't even new to MCDM. Black Hack does it for monsters, into the odd and things it has spawned do it too. I like it for osr/nsr style of games. It avoids honestly kinda dumb situations when nobody can hit for a good couple of round, making the encounter awkward rather than scary. It makes the players know that they're gonna lose some resources (namely - HP) every time they engage an enemy, unless they can basically surprise it. MCDM isn't for me, but at the same time Matt is very open about what this game isn't, going as far as suggesting other systems, like shadowdark, to people. I just don't see what the big deal is. You seem to hint at a drama that simply doesn't exist
@@DiversityDragons Really, that's what you're going with? It's not unpleasant because it upset me or hurt my feelings, it's unpleasant because it's an embarrassing display of your obvious inferiority complex. I'm not a fanboy of Matt Colville (hell, I had to scroll up to your title to even remember his name), but you're making it really obvious that is his success while your channel flounders is eating at you.
I am impossibly amused by the number of Dislikes on this video. Obviously this struck a nerve. No roll to hit? Fine, as long as the mechanics capture the dangerous nature of combat (e.g. damage reduction vs defense reduction, HP vs Vitality/ Injury, fray dice, etc). Hit roll wiffed? Fine, as long as the mechanics reward engaging an enemy to aid allies (e.g. flanking, advantage, disengagement penalties, etc). None, and I mean NONE, of these concepts are original yet they are all controversial/ revolutionary to these neophytes. All this whining and whinging is only perceptible thanks to the internet feeding our toxic curiosity about the opinions of strangers. And 20 minute combat rounds result from one of three behaviors: deranged, diabolical, or dumbass (maybe derelict). *sigh* What a world we live in, eh Double D? LOL Stay frosty.
because in the 4e style of game, recoveries (healing surges) are a metric of attrition, while hit points track short term impact. The idea is that the game is designed for players to have multiple combats before resting and recovering their resources, but they also want each combat to individually represent a challenge. - imagine that a character has 60 hp. They are going to face 3 encounters. In order for the first encounter to threaten the character, it must threaten to deal 60 points of damage. but if it deals close to that, then the character can't adventure forth towards the next two encounters. So a DM could design it so that each encounter expects to deal about 20 points of damage, but then the first encounter or two won't contain any feeling of threat. So what 4e thought, was "lets take a fraction of a character's total health, and make it so they can only take that much in a single encounter before being defeated". So now let's say the character can only take 20 points of damage in a single encounter before being defeated, but they can take, overall, 60 points of damage over an entire adventuring day to be defeated. Now 3 encounters, each potentially dealing 20 points of damage contains a lot of threat. Each encounter can defeat the party, but if the party wins, then they can challenge the next encounter confident they have a chance of success. In this way, the player is dealing with the threat of losing this encounter AND also the threat of losing through attrition. - its kinda hard to wrap your head around if you've never played a system like this, but these mechanics may seem like they eliminate a sense of threat when you just read them, but in practice, I find that they create the potential for a lot more threat for the players. - I remember when I used to run pathfinder 1, I would give my players a lot of healing wands and stuff. The healing wands were effective their "attrition" tracker, while the hit points were the "short term" health tracker. I think that if you have that background, think of recoveries as healing wands. There is an action economy cost to using them in the middle of combat, so you tend to use them between combats, etc etc.
@@bonzwah1 I can see that this kind of system would make sense if you measure the attrition to the characters hit points as them being worn down and fatigued as well as actually being injured so that could work well in a narrative setting. I think tuning the mechanical aspects to represent what you're getting at could be done and this could end up being a compelling and interesting way to handle this. Thank you for your comprehensive explanation of what you had in mind with this, it was enlightening and also thought-provoking. 👍
@bonzwah1 Thus, video games are born. Using step tier systems loses the roleplaying theme once the players know the agenda is solely combat. There is no character development, no need for backgrounds, except playing to kicking ass. No more roleplaying needed to fumble for that healing Wand and forgetting you have one charge left. Heck, forget about equipment and rations. No need to travel back to town to recharge the Wand because I have healing surges. Say what now? I'm not interested. DMing turns into refereeing, which is not D&D. Whatever floats your boat.
I am glad I did not back Matt's Kickstarter. But it's good for those looking for something new because I know that I have, moving away from anything WOTC. Back to older D&D editions, except for 4e, DCC RPG, Castles&Crusades, and so on.
Well hang on a sec, I agree with you on most things but doing *something* about the lameness of missing on your attack and so you accomplish nothing that turn is worth addressing. I don't think it's quite as simple as 'everyone gets a prize', since the usual reason someone missed an attack is not because they didn't work for it but because of random chance: They didn't roll well. Now, yeah, one rather bold way to address that is to do away with the attack roll altogether. But if you think about it more broadly, lots of games have tried to 'enrich' rolls so it's not just 'succeed or fail'. Games like Monster of the Week or the Kids on Bikes series give you a token of some kind for having failed that can either be used as later experience (nothing teaches like failure!) or as a bonus on a later try. The Fantasy Flight Star Wars games tried--a little clunkily--to have additional special dice that let you 'bank' a near-success and get a bonus on a later try. That way at least you reduce the risk of a PC failing to accomplish anything over and over, which can be a really un-fun experience to have.
The ''always hit'' mechanic could work in a highly cinematic game like a White Wolf kind of game. But as it is, this is baby DnD for people that don't even like RPGs.
I hate the elimination of rolls to hit. There might be mitigating mechanics that might alter my opinion, but "it's boring to miss" ought to be the epitaph on the tombstone of the RPG career of anyone who would say that unironically. There is martial TH-cam who gives guys 30 seconds to hit his head while he uses evasive postures. Those guys swinging away didn't seem bored to me.
I'd hate to defend Colville as a person, but you're being too realistic with that example. Actual people fighting of course wouldn't be bored because they are actually punching/dodging. If someone misses a punch, they can transition into other movements from that position. In an abstracted game system, you have no control over those movements. If you miss, it's not because your opponent was better, it's because you rolled poorly. And once you miss, there's no follow-up. You can't continue to do anything directly that turn, which is the boring Colville was talking about.
I think it works pretty well in games like Dragonbane. Monsters always hit and players can either spend their action trying to evade/parry or they can hope for the best and hope their armor negates enough of the hit. Standard enemies, or non-monsters, still have to roll against their skills. That said, NPCs and humanoid NPCs still roll to attack.
@@thatsnotoneofmeatsmanyuses1970 That's certainly one possible way of addressing it, but it adds complexity. (and probably longer turns). Colville evidently went a different route and kept it simpler.
I have zero interest in the MCDM rpg and Colville comes across as pompous quite often, but I don't get the point of this video. Some will like the game, some won't. This just feels like sour grapes. The game is "horrible for society"? Get a grip, man.
Good video as always! I would say that it seems a little uncharitable to call it "worse 4E" considering the 2d6 dice mechanic and forced movement, but the powers and tactics take HEAVY inspiration from 4E. I did back the project and some things I like, some things I'm ok with, and others are rather undesirable. I do like the forced movement because it makes combat not feel like a slog of rolling better dice than another player until one of the sides dies. This could also be done by a GM who can describe the combat in detail (maybe not all the time, but a healthy sprinkling). I like that they bundled equipment into "Kits" to make it easier for players to invision their characters into different archetypes. I am ok with automatic hits as long as the system using it makes sense on a meta-level. For example 1E adnd takes no time at all to get back to your turn. Even with spell-casters. This makes the combat feel like it's moving so automatic hits would be detrimental. MCDM gives the player more options and things to do in and outside thier turns. With more options means more time per turn. I once played in a 5E group as a fighter, I missed, then proceeded to wait 20 minutes for it to come back to me. Needless to say, I did not stick with that group for long. 😆 I am ok with making sure that your turn is never wasted if it takes a while to get back to you (unless a round does end up taking 20 minutes, in which case the books will be an expensive bookshelf item). I am not too happy with the large hp of monsters and players. I do understand that comes from the automatic hits, so its unavoidable in this system. For now it feels fine, but when players hit max level, and they fight a 2000 hp dragon, assuming the players doing 50pt of damage each turn the damage output variable of 2d6 is going to be virtually nil. In which case it is just a pencil pushing exercise. At the end of the day, it might be cool to grab inspiration from, but if they don't change what they are doing, it will not be my go-to system. As an aside, I did pick up a copy of Castles and Crusade thanks to you. That system seems pretty simple to run and relatively friendly to new GMs like myself. TL:DR, the MCDM RPG has stuff going for it, and stuff weighing it down. Castles and Crusades is pretty cool!
Why all the personal attacks?
Cause he has no point xd.
Calls narcisit to everyone but himself
He is a Trump supporter, it's what they do.
I genuinely can't tell if this video is trying to farm clicks from rage baiting 4e fans or grognards who hated 4e for no substantial reasons.
He says so little of substance in the video it's honestly hard to tell.
Yeah, that was very offputting.
This dude's mom: "Why can't you be more like Matt Colville?"
This dude: "Grrrr. I'll get you, Matt Colville! If it's the last thing I do!" *Shakes fist in the air*
Am I a Boomer or do I live with my mom? You seem to think it's both, Jacob.
@@DiversityDragons you can absolutely be both boomer and live with your mom
I agree the system doesn't seem to offer a ton. But it seems difficult for our host to separate personal attacks and game play critiques...
I ran the playtest twice for 9 different players. All of them really enjoyed it, the always hitting mechanic was something every one of them mentioned really enjoying. They ranged in TTRPG experience from D&D 5e through 3.5, and most have played other systems like PF as well. Not sure where this aggressive attitude is coming from.
Also the playtest was out before the backerkit was completed so implying it was intentionally kept secret during it is just incorrect.
I feel you man. I'm willing to hear constructive criticism that exemplifies the similarities between the MCDM rpg and 4e. Partially because I've never played 4e and am curious if the accusations actually have any real basis aside from "encounter powers + grid = 4e".
But this guy just seems bitter and butt hurt for like no reason.
@@parkerbrantley4356 I would say that it plays a lot like 4e, but that's not a bad thing if you like tactical gaming. Powers are cut down for you to the bare mimimum, but they are fun to use and there seems to be a lot more movement in this game because you arent afraid of triggering AoO.
Most people hated 4e because it cut out a lot of what I feel was unnecessary bloat that 3.5e had become and once you're used to making a gish that can one shot everything, of course you're gonna be mad that the OP button was covered up in favor of working together rather than being a reliable 1 person wrecking crew. 4e brought in video game mechanics and a lot of people bucked that, but it feel it made your progress feel like progress and you had choices that could be made every level that could change your play style easily. But that's just my opinion and take.
@@parkerbrantley4356 4th has some good things, but also many bad -- the main thing I didn't like about 4th is every class had all these powers. So everyone kind of felt like magic users. 4th Ed reminds me of playing a video game like Diablo 2, which I loved but all these powers IMO didn't translate well to a TTRPG. Not a bad game -- had some good ideas -- but in the grand scheme of things I agree with the majority -- overall -- it is the worst of all the D&D editions. Recommend 13th Age if you want to play a game that took the good things out of 4th and left the bad -- and is IMO a much, much better game.
Idk anything about 4e. Personally, I hate the “always hit” rule because failure and missing can be integral to storytelling and random chance can make any situation interesting.
@@starking2162 I mean you can still roll a 2, which given the average is a 7 on 2d6 is basically a fail, you can also fail to hit the DC.
I don't like his system too, but I don't understand why so much hate towards Matt and his fans?
Matt's a communist and that's not opinion, he has stated it on Twitter. I love Matt's channel but not as a person
I remember those game nights where I could only stare at my friends and not participate due to failed rolls. Good times.
My biggest issue with the game is the backwards concept of "heroism" that they're proposing. Heroism isn't "always winning." Heroism is overcoming very real, and nearly impossible adversity.
You are absolutely correct in pointing out that this is D&D 4e for the participation trophy generation.
One of the most fun encounters I've played was when our level 1 group almost got wiped out by a werebear. We spent so much time trying to grapple him, it was hilarious.
just like any game, a GM is going to be able to make the game harder or easier depending on their group. 4E was brutal with a tactical GM.
I thought this game was a parody or satire. That would have been clever. Present a game that mimics the least popular version of D&D, don't name it, make millions, define heroism as never failing (even in a single die roll), etc. It seemed like the perfect way to own the participation trophy generation.
I have never felt like I was getting a participation trophy playing 4e. Always had to work our butts off to win a combat. 5e on the other hand feels exactly like that. There's no risk, no tactics, just a bunch of invincible characters mowing through everything.
Heroism! HEROISM! Pew, pew. And, again, HEROIC pew-pew....
I like the idea of not rolling to hit for the reasons given. Normally, if I miss an attack roll, then I guess I just need to "roll better" next round. However, if I automatically hit but find that my attack is ineffective due to DR or something, then it means I need to try a different approach. That was always an option, but unless I know the enemy's AC, then I can't make an informed decision. In theory, getting rid of the attack roll provides immediate feedback and speeds up combat. Admittedly, I could just try to apply this logic to any other system, but I'm interested to see what their entire system looks like (assuming they actually finish it).
I played a bit of 4th and liked it. I understand not liking, but I don't understand why so many people hate it while still having such a hard-on for 3.5.
4e was actually completely fine when you played it like Diablo, with 90% of your time spent whacking loot pinatas in the dungeon. It was, to its core, a tactical game. The problem was that we'd come to expect strategic gameplay, too, which has basically been forbidden in post-3.5 D&D.
I like the idea of no hit rolls, it's true that it sux to miss and have wasted a turn, you may as well have your character be asleep. The idea that you don't get the " lucky hit" against a big villian, you still get that feel when you might get max damage instead. Same effect in the end.
@@OliverK1 In order to have the math work out, they have to compensate for always hitting by radically increasing the probability of dealing zero damage. In other words, they trade "wasting" a turn due to a miss for wasting a turn due to dealing zero damage. Either way, your character might as well have been asleep.
It's numerically the same outcome, either way.
For many many people, 4th Ed video game style powers just don't feel right for a game with actual role-playing
@@craigl1641 More specifically, it felt odd to have "use sword" classified as a "power". It didn't help that the rules limited using "use sword" to targeting creatures, so you couldn't actually "use sword" on the rope the orcs were climbing.
Your characterization of the conversation around automatically hitting attacks in RPGs and the MCDM RPG in general is extremely condescending. You're putting people down for disagreeing with you, or looking for a different experience. If you're not interested in the game, or have problems with it's mechanics, that's fine. Talk about your problems with the mechanics. But you don't have to insult people for liking those mechanics. That's just rude.
Check out the comments I got on my last Colville video for "rude" and then piss off.
The man is wearing sunglasses inside and cant help but spit insults every other sentence. He is the real life equvalent of that edge lord anime fan playing the lone wolf rogue, refering to himself as ”alpha” or ”chad”.
It is obviously working as he has found an audience, and more importantly, generated views and comments. Its good for him and his fans can go to bed at night knowing they are the superior human beings compared to everyone else but for us normal people with critical thinking skills - the only thing we can do is not feed the trolls.
@@ClassicThermitehe calls the younger generation narcissists while he films himselfs with sunglasses spewing his boring opinion hahahha.
@DiversityDragons pretty rich to ignore the substance of the comment and instead deflect by whining about how the comments on your last video hurt your feelings. You know this is all public, right? Everyone can see what you are doing here
@@DiversityDragonspointing out childish behavior in others justify your own. Furthermore all your videos are filled with juvenile insults towards others often for simply preferring different mechanics. You encourage 'rude' responses.
I agree that his system isn't really my thing but... This video makes you look terrible. Matt knows that he likes but is able to communicate his ideas in a way that people who game in any style can draw from them. He made a game for people who like the games he likes.
ngl this whole comment section is just a MCDM hate-train circlejerk
🐀
@@DiversityDragonsGlad you are not denying it
To be honest, I never understood the hatred for 4e. Had lots of fun with the game.
We did too, but combats really bogged down thd higher you got. I did a recent video on it.
@@DiversityDragons I will check it out. :) And yep, remember that the campaigns tended to end around level 10.
@@DiversityDragons tbf so did 3.5E and 5E, D&D has kinda always had long combats after 2E, its not really new to the Game. People who play D&D and D&D clones are the type who like Combat first typically anyway its why PF2E is also popular its a combat game first. people who play other games like OSR / PbTA style games are the more narrative players and thats why they choose those systems.
The always hit thing makes sense in the context of hit points not actually being physical damage. If people continue to explain it away as an abstraction that just indicates that you're getting tired and less lucky, then it makes sense to pull the trigger and ignore "hitting" because it's not really hitting anyway. That's something that could be addressed instead. Most of these modern games balloon the hit point totals.
The problem with missing isn't that you don't win a trophy, it's that it drags the game down in terms of pacing. Missing based on your own roll feels stupid. Nobody misses a target dummy with a sword. The way I would handle it is that the default action is a hit and your are mitigated by your opponent's DEFENSIVE action. Make the opponent roll to force the miss, not based on a static number. This order of events means if your turn ends without an offensive outcome, you are drawn to narrate "wow, this opponent is tough" instead of "the swordmaster of a small kingdom tripped on his shoelaces and missed a hippo."
A competent GM would not make you roll for things that are almost certain to succeed.
@@DeadMeat991 which is why the MCDM RPG is removing roll to hit. when does Captain America miss a punch?
You are not understand what is dnd miss.
@@fluxk7506 year - its absolutly zero impact of many attacks:)
Shadowrun does this. Your opponent makes a defense roll against your attack. Objects, obviously, do not roll this, so the only way to miss a static object is to critically glitch (a normal glitch will still hit, but with some downside).
You can't really "feel heroic" without feeling like you are overcoming difficult challenges. Its more like "feel powerful", which may speak to the personalities who like this sort of easy mode game.
Video does a very bad job of describing the game. I've playtested it a number of times now, and have had plenty of very challenging tactical fights. We even got TPKed once. What Matt is trying to do is make your character less fragile in the early levels of the game. Mid to high level 5e doesn't have this problem, but especially at levels 1 and 2 in D&D, characters can easily go down (or even die with a bit of bad luck) in a single hit. They can often only do one thing on their turn, an attack or cantrip, which has something like a 35-40% chance of doing absolutely nothing. Or even hitting with a firebolt or something, and rolling just 1 or 2 points of damage. There's a reason so many D&D campaigns start at level 3 or 5. Level 1 characters in D&D are peasants with swords. In the MCDM RPG, they are more like 3rd level 5e characters already, with way more things they can do. The no to-hit roll was originally just meant to speed up combat, and attacks could still end up dealing 0 damage. They eventually decided to make sure that nearly all attacks would do something, so that every turn you make some kind of progress. They found that no one in tests was missing wasting turns, and I found the same thing. Never once in my playtest sessions did I think, "boy this turn would be so much more fun if there was a higher chance of accomplishing nothing at all than there was for me to kill this goblin!"
Anyways, that's what Matt means by heroic. And this isn't some attack on 5e, MCDM is just making a different game, and they want it to feel differently.
To each his own. In my game the players feel like they might die in every fight. And some have. But it makes the game more exciting in our opinion, when the stakes are high.
I always found this perspective weird ngl.
The PCs being stronger doesn't mean the game is easy. It means you can throw more wacky nonsense at them.
Ie, instead of grubbing around in sewers almost dying to rats,
You might instead face something actually cool that would have killed weaker characters outright
@jeromeace1282 if the wacky nonsense you throw at them has a decent chance of killing them then that's fine. Otherwise it's just an exercise in power characters killing something with a different skin. Never had my players killing rats. Mostly humans/humanoids and cthulhu themed monstrosities.
@@craigl1641conversely, for the 'feel powerful' bit, I feel you do need at least some easy battles to get a feel for how strong the more important enemies actually are, and what it means for you to beat them by the skin of your teeth.
If a player is bored waiting 20 minutes between turns 1. Get a new DM (YES -- this is correct in my experience). 2. Also "implies you have no interest in what's happening to your fellow PCs or the game in general." EXACTLY. this has not just affected younger/newer players. I'm 58 and many of my fellow players are around my age. The effect of phone distractions and video game dopamine hits has resulted in the same behavior, especially in online games. 😞
Alright hot take: the MCDM RPG will probably be better suited for the heroic fantasy games that most 5e/pf2e players play than most other games.
also I genuinely don't get the hype/outrage around removing the attack roll, the hit points represent a sort of grit and it makes sense that an attack, even one that didn't hit, tires out an opponent.
Great video and I agree on all points. Not only is it stupid to equate "heroism" with "always hitting" but calling such a game "cinematic" is even dumber. Imagine *any* movie where both the good guys and bad guys always hit. Star Wars: "Okay Red Leader you automatically hit the exhaust port, roll damage! So do you Luke, no need for the Force!" "Great shot kid that was...guaranteed!" Or Empire Strikes Back where Luke and Vader are dueling and you never have those cool moments where Luke fails to land a blow against Vader or even those few times where Vader *missed* (gasp) and sliced pieces of the Cloud City structure around them in spectacular fashion. Those misses were totally cinematic!
"Great shot kid, that was guaranteed". 🤣🤣🤣🤣
The good guys always win.
I will say that D&D 4E doesn't get credit where it did do some things right. I think the bestiary is amazing and how things are statted out rocks. I've stolen ideas from 4E for a long time. I also think the minion rules are great. I didn't back the TTRPG because hearing him talk about it didn't inspire confidence that it was something I actually wanted to play. Their bestiary for 5E was pretty great. I think Dragonbane is a better compromise in that monsters always hit but players and humanoid NPCs do not.
I think its a little dramatic to say that "not rolling to hit" is an attack on the "fabric of TTRPGs"; its just something different. I don't think its for me but that's fine...most TTRPGs are not as many are just remixing stuff from other games. If there's an audience for this that's fine but much like every other OSR or DND 2E inspired game out there I don't have the bandwidth for all these games even if I did want to play them.
Spy Craft RPG was the 1st RPG I knew of that used "Minions" circa '02. When I saw that 4e's minions worked in a similar way I was fairly certain Spy Craft RPG was the inspiration. It was a D20 game based off WotC StarWars, & was considered innovative for it's time, won a bunch of awards etc.
@@blackbarnz Very cool. I never heard of Spy Craft (I didn't really get into TTRPGs in earnest until around 3.5 in high school). I need to look up Spy Craft.
So glad I dodged a bullet and didn’t kickstart this one. Felt fishy and I trusted my gut. I’ll stick to my OSR games, thanks! No inflated numbers for me.
Same here. I was a Colville fan, but as time has gone on, it's pretty clear that he and I no longer see eye to eye on things the way it seemed like we used to.
I'm going to Kickstart a game in a couple years. It is pretty hard-core. Characters are flimsy, there are lots of randomness-heavy mechanics, and free-form magic.
Support that one. It will be a while, but file it in your brain.
Quintom Arcana. Yes, that is spelled right. Not Quantum. Quintom.
@@hamwise881 Sounds interesting! Do you create your own art?
I loved 4e back in the day. Unapologetic grid based tactical combat. With a million OSR clones and alternate 5e TTRPGs coming out, I think it’s fine to have a 4e clone come out. Choice is always a good thing.
I was am very skeptical of the “never miss” portion of the game design. Enough that I’m passing on backing the game. I’ll keep an open mind and see how it progresses.
And I get it, in a way, that it sucks to roll and miss and then sit around for 10 minutes while everyone else is doing stuff. But if you don’t have some bad turns, you aren’t going to appreciate your good turns.
Worse, if you roll crappy and do your baseline, say 5 points of damage, which hypothetically is the “consolation prize” of being heroic and contributing (but rolling bad), then you will still have the same problem of sitting around and watching everyone else do 10, 15, or crit and do 25 points of damage and have their secondary effects trigger and being “awesome”. Your rounds where you do minimum damage are still just going to feel like a miss.
It made me scratch my head, too. At first, I thought that maybe it’s to speed up combat, but if that was the case, why would he base it on a game that is, as you yourself put it, “unapologetic grid-based tactical combat”?
The idea is not that you never have a bad round, the idea is that you always make some progress on your turn. There's never a scenario where you would have lost nothing by just skipping the turn. Also, it speeds up combat A LOT. When I playtested I never once missed having a to-hit roll mechanic.
My gut reaction is to be skeptical of the never miss mechanic. But in practice I always seek to mitigate swinginess of die rolls - multitarget save or suck spells, lots of of maybe low damage attacks vs one big one, picking effects that just work vs ones with saves etc. In practice I doubt it will be a big adjustment for me but if you live for crits for x3 damage it may not be for you.
My favorite ttrpg, Mausritter, is "always hit" and is great. All enemies are deadly, players use ambushes and stealth way more.
Wow, a game about heroism and adventures that makes each of your turn worth something. I would like to try it.
Not because I am a fan of wargame mechanics or anything like that, but mainly because I am tired of 'Old school' games that telling me that eating glass is fun.
Love 4E by the way.
Matt made this really weird argument that gamers didn't hate 4th edition, they were angry at how MMORPGs ruined game night and vented that rage out on D&D. It's a strange hypothesis until you realize just how much he really liked 4th edition.
Bending reality to fit his will.
I disagree with his argument, but I understand why he makes it
I just hate that system for table top, but 4th Ed D&D is very similar to video game systems I do like -- Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battles, Shining Force, etc.
It is a good system ---- just not for ttrpg (in my opinion) and not the D&D setting.
@@cmleibenguth That was always my take away. 4th edition was specifically designed around a vtt that was never 100% rolled out and actively borrowed concepts from MMORPGs. It's impossible to deny, which made his hypothesis all the more absurd.
@@cmleibenguth Also... Shining Force is amazing!
@@saintjst7 WotC's D&D was always a videogame. D&D Online, an actual MMORPG used 3.5 for all of its systems. Can't get more "this D&D ruleset is an MMO" than that!
1) The gridded map for the likes of Roll20 is very useful, and in most cases needed. I have used a variety of maps during live play (grid paper, dry erase mats, players plot as they go, digital screen, 3D diorama, etc.) I have found that a digital jpg/mp4 image ran through a laptop onto a vertically-placed TV works best with a grid. This way the players can use a miniature directly atop the gridded screen for movement, combat, etc. 2) Auto hits take away the joy of rolling a critical or the frustration of fumbling. These emotional swings are realistic and great for table dynamics. My players celebrate when they roll a 20 and curse when they roll a 1. That's how it should be. Furthermore, critical hit/epic failure tables add flavor to the game. Who doesn't want their character to shit their pants, cough up a lung, or get some strange seminal fluid in their eye when they index a d100 roll on the failure chart? Conversely, skull-crushing instant death and dismemberment results are equally as joyous when they index a d100 on the critical chart. Auto hits seems like "everybody gets a trophy" woke shit that sucks the variance out of combat and is, therefore, a fun killer. 3) Waiting for your turn is not fun-- this is why you should be engaged throughout. This involves encouragement of your comrades, making fun of other players, strategizing, plotting, scheming, etc. It's a social event of mutual story-telling after all. If you're on your phone, sitting around waiting for your turn, you might as well go home. 4) Not all characters are heroes. Not all decisions by the players are good decisions. Not every move should be rewarded. If you have a bad plan/no plan as a party and it fails accordingly, your character should suffer the consequences, up to and including death. Hitting the monster with every roll negates the possibility of genuine and natural consequences for stupidity (which is precisely why it's used for modern snowflake gaming). 5) I have not used the metric of having players roll damage together with their To Hit roll. It may (marginally) speed things up but I like the anticipation of what the damage will be. Further, if you roll that natural twentizo, you need time to talk trash and celebrate. The pause in between the To Hit roll and damage is healthy I think. On the flip side, if a player rolls a natural "1" and also rolls a huge damage pool that never happened, all that will result is "I would have kill you" type of discussion. It's kind of like rabbit hunting the River card after you fold on the Turn just to see what would have come-- it's just going to bring butthurt. 6) I don't think we need a "D&D killer" type of game. WotC is already dead and rotten from the inside with their wokeness. Anyone who doesn't want to play an paraplegic lesbian wizard in a wheelchair (there are legit miniatures of this) will naturally flock to other games.
I see a lot of people shitting on the hit mechanics. I've actually watched his Dev vids, it's not literally an always hit-it's a armor reduces damage thing.
I'm not a fan of Colville's life views, but you guys aren't evaluating the system fairly.
So the armor reduces damage, but damage is always done. So they always hit.
@@uriahedwardsDamage is done if it's not reduced to 0.
It's just inverted from d20 to-hit. Instead of rolling against a certain AC to deal damage, you deal partial damage reduced from armor.
Mathematically there's little difference, play experience is faster.
Even if it is always hit, that's not an issue. I know you guys hate comparisons to video games, but most rpg games have upwards of 95% hit chance and it works well. Missing in those games feel awful, which is the feeling Colville wants to avoid.
@@kori228You should feel awful and curse your dice for missing.
In terms of expected value, there's no difference between (i) having a 50% chance to hit for 20% of a target's health, and (ii) having a 100% chance to hit for 10% of the target's health. The only real difference between _i_ and _ii_ is that _ii_ is guaranteed, so it's completely predictable, which means that it involves no risk or tension. Now, if they can make the rest of the combat system generate risk and tension in other ways, then that could make up for the loss of the risk of missing.
This is, however, at odds with their goal to avoid "rolling to see if you have a turn". After all, the easiest way to inject the tension back into the scenario is to make that 10% health an _average_ where dealing zero damage is common. We see exactly this with the damage mitigation abilities, which means that you absolutely still roll to see if you have a turn. It's just that it's obscured by an couple layers of mechanics.
In other words, they're selling snake oil.
@PedanticTwit Seems like the longer way toward the same result.
@@commandercaptain4664 Pretty much, yeah. The whole point is to complicate the process enough that you don't _notice_ that you're rolling to see whether you have a turn.
@@PedanticTwit But isn't what people notice the important part? There's nothing truly objective to game design; if it's an approach that people enjoy, it's a good approach for them. The logic and math behind it doesn't really matter if you're not aware of it.
@@SNWWRNNG That's fair enough; it very well could solve the perception problem. But the point is that it's misleading to say that it solves one problem (rolling to see if you have a turn) when it actually solves a different problem (_feeling_ like you're rolling to see if you have a turn).
@@PedanticTwit Fair enough. Thanks for the reply!
The comparisons to 4e made throughout his ramblings:
1. There’s a grid
2. There are different power timings including at will and triggered
He then goes on in saying that not rolling to hit is akin to a participation trophy. Went into this video hoping for well thought out criticism and comparison but only saw mediocre analogs and gross misrepresentation of game design choices.
LOL Lowkey Mattrat.
@@DiversityDragons
Comment: Points out reasonable critcism with direct references to things said in the video.
Your Response: Namecalling.
Yeah totally the adult in the room here.
"good warrior" WTF is that? Did they port the crappy 5E Fighter into the game?
The GM is shocked when the the guy does so much damage. You can see the shock on his face at 4:18 or so... 4E was great *IF* you leaned into the cinematic combat aspects of it. In a round about way it has more of 0E + Chainmail's DNA than B/X does.
MCDM RPG is way to early in dev to know if its going to be good or not, but based on these live plays its going to be hilariously bad... To the point that playing it ironically with the intention of roasting it might be amusing. Which is sad because Colville knows better.
I just hope his smart enough not to blow through all of that nest egg, because I bet by the time he finishes that game in late 2026 (if he's lucky) most of the normies he depends on will have left the hobby.
Most of us will still be here though ready to roast this garbage when it comes out.
Indeed sir! Well said, Tora. The steam will go out of this game after a while. Plus very little support I bet.
can you tell a bit more about that point of it sharing DNA with 0e and chainmail? that's an interesting and unexpected take
In my 5e campaign I lowered the enemies AC but pc's attacks only do half damage in that lowered range if they beat the original AC then they do full damage it seems to be working great so far as they hit more often, but can still miss
As someone who actually like 4e over the others, I have some real issues with what was presented for MCDM RPG. I absolutely hate the idea of auto hitting. That is completely stupid. Take for an example, I have a Dwarf fighter built around a two-handed axe fighting in 4e. But I know that I need some range attack ability ever so often. While I carry a couple of throwing axes just in case, I have been looking at getting a crossbow. My ability to hit is a lot worse than with my axe. If I hit every time with a weapon that I am not good with, how is that going to reflect with damage? If I hit every time, where comes the tactics of suddenly missing a critical attack and now needing to figure out a new plan or taking the gamble that the baddie will miss me when I am down to my last hit point so I can hold a critical position one or more turns. Those scenarios just came up in our last 4e game where I picked up a crossbow laying on the ground and started shooting because there was no where I could get into melee and also I was holding a big baddie in place and with two critical hits against me in the first two turns, I was down to 1 hit point, but I took the gamble that it would miss me the next couple of turns so I could hold my position and block all of the creatures behind it from coming through into the room. I was luckily and it missed a total of four rounds and I was able to get relieved. Had I known that it would always hit, I would never stayed there hoping that my luck was better than my DM's rolls.
You scoff at Matt's fans because they don't stand for any criticism towards Matt, yet you cannot utter a single sentence about Matt without insulting him or give him and his viewers a derogatory nickname.
At this point it's just rage bait lmao.
Even if you have a point in some regards that i share, i find it hard to just agree with this antagonistic demeanor. I'm not a big fan of either of you, i just think that there is a less ill-spirited conversation to be had.
4e isn't so bad as some make it out to be but it definitely isn't perfect. That Matt Colville didn't learn from 4e's mistakes but seemingly does things WORSE than what 4e did (including where it was strong and polished) is disappointing. A far more polished 4e would be great, but 13th Age is the closest that we've been getting in that direction so far.
Oh, it was kinda bad. I remember all the at-will powers and synergies made this into a gimmick of a game.
We had a party that we dubbed "The proners united". One PC would create an aura where enemies get knocked prone and in combination with another PC power, it meant that the enemy creatures could do little more than wasting their turn.
Which felt stupid. Like whenever any mechanic breaks the fundamentals of a game: like Stun. It should be a very rare ability, nothing which you can do at will.
So yeah, we turned our backs pretty fast on the 4e fiasco.
13th AGE if you want a game that takes the good stuff out of 4th Ed and makes a much better game.
@@quantus5875 I already mentioned 13th Age.
But I'd personally like a game like what 4e did well, like 13th Age, but crunchier than 13th Age.
No attack rolls, torches last 60 mins real time, and when you drink a healing potion you have to take an actual shot of NyQuil.
In my campaign, it's Pepto-Bismal. NyQuil is the sleeping potion.
The more I learn about this game, the more I’m glad I canceled my pledge before the deadline. I used to be a big fan of Colville, I even bought his book “Where Evil Lives”. Then I opened the book and saw box text dedicated solely to the pronouns of one singular NPC, not to mention the incessant use of “content warning” boxes for things like spiders and blood… I’ll still go back and watch the old Running the Game videos, but that’s about it.
It seems like a pretty good book. I like my copy fine enough. Just grab a marker and fill those parts in. Or cover them with a sticker. They have their views, doesnt mean you have to agree with them or follow them.
Seems like the content warning and prounouns offended you, maybe they should have put a content warning for that on the cover 😂
A criticism I understood from this video is that the author feels like taking away the attack roll undermines the integrity of the game for them. They feel that victory is earned because of decisions made on who to attack and the fate of the die.
I respect that opinion, but I don't find it compelling.
If your victory is earned in part due to luck, how is it not even more earned when chance is removed? Without chance, only your decisions and tactics matter. If you fail an encounter, it's much more likely that it is because of a skill issue, not a whim of the dice.
The notion that removing attack rolls is for people that don't like RPGs just comes off as as toxic and elistist, which I feel is the general vibe of this video.
I think the criticism about not supporting theater of the mind makes sense, but I feel like 5e tries to support too many things and in doing so does them poorly. Grid combat is not very tactical in 5e, so if MCDM makes a fun grid combat game, that could be fun for some people.
I quite like Matt's content, but I get frustrated at how he frames "removing the attack roll" as some revolution, when loads of other games only have a single roll when you attack something. For real, many of my friends who play 5e for the first time find the attack/damage roll system sort of arbitrary (why not just have one roll?) and some of the less game-savvy ones regularly forget to make the attack and just roll damage first, and I have to remind them. "Getting rid of the attack roll" is literally just moving towards a more intuitive system. This gross angry youtube man has no reason to be so annoyed about it.
@@joshuawinestock9998 I don't think you're alone in feeling this way about Matt's framing. A member of the Morrus Unofficial Tabletop RPG podcast said something along the lines that he finds Matt offputting because he makes it sound like creating an RPG with audience feedback is revolutionary.
Personally, my interpretation of the "elitist" vibe people get from Matt is that he's just really exited about his own ideas and is unapologetically self-confident. I don't think Matt thinks his products and ideas are better or revolutionary, but I do think he thinks they're great. That said, I have never met the man in person and cannot actually speak to his character.
Mm, totally agree. And to be clear, I've followed him for a while, and I do think his D&D advice and philosophy is very thoughtful/useful
It's the players and DM who decide whether it is "combat 24/7" or the rules. I expect the rules to describe mostly combat and technicals, but if people don't know how to role-play, they should go to many plays and just watch.
Rolling straight for damage works great - it's an excellent rule in games like Cairn and Into the Odd
Combat is also fast in those systems, like basic D&D OSR level fast - and that's a great thing. Fast combats are excellent
Having hit and damage rolled with one roll does not seem so bad for me.Like damage go up the higher you roll and you have to overcome the amor of the monster to really hurt it.
A big issue I had with the 'Always Hit' mechanics they are touting, is that they have openly said that they are raising hit points (From what you see in 5e) to compensate for always hitting and being hit...
So for all their whining about missed rolls and wasted 20 minute turns: Their 'trick' resolution mechanic does not actually speed up combat at the table in any measurable way!
IF they had designed the 'Always Hit' system with normal 5e HP levels, so that you had to use the in-game tactics to come out on top in fast playing encounters; That I could see bringing something to the table.
As is? It's just different math, same destination...
Because what I wanted to always play in my RPG is a resource management game and cut rolling dice completely out.
I want to ALWAYS be successful no matter what the circumstances, because feeling heroic isnt overcoming adversity...its never seeing a failure!
Then play a dice game without the resource management. Casinos have lots of them.
Original D&D is really a resource management game, though it does have rolls
I do think there's a lot of personal atacks to the people that like MCDM and to Mat itself. But, i manage to hear all your points.
Caviat: i'm talking without having experience many ttrpg sistems other than DnD. For what i can see about the MCDM rpg they're trying to create a mashup of everything they like about other ttrpg sistems. Yeah, 4E is clearly a big inspiration, they've always been vocal about that.
And i can see how combat could be long still, but i do think the "no atack roll" idea is pretty interesting and good! it takes some of the randomness out and gives a lot more agancy to the players on how to deal with incoming damage. I don't think there's a problem in that, in any case i think it makes the combat more dramatic and engaging with bigger swings of power. It also has the benefit of pulling players with small attention windows back into the moment and creates more meaningfull moments.
I'm a bit worried about the posibility of the players havin TOO MANY ways to deal with incoming damage making the DM (or director, how they call it) life a bit more dificult. But hey, that's what playtesting is for! and they're really transparent about it.
About the complexity of the system, honestly... DnD is not that much simpler... Yeah, the core is simple, but once you add spells, feats, and class abilities, it gets messy. Not even mentioning all the CR crap and summons....
The complexity of D&D is that all the systems are mechanical and used at once. Feats, spells, attacks, class abilities etc 95% of the time are either direct combat tools or fed into combat through context like darkvision.
I am mainly a Burning Wheel GM. As a whole the game is far more complicated that D&D but the sub systems are all separate and used fractally to add nuance. Take LotR, supposedly a huge D&D inspiration. There is no difference in a D&D's mechanical narrative between killing orcs on a battlefield during a siege and the Fellowship fighting the troll in Balin's tomb. In games like Burning Wheel the troll fight is epic because it's one dangerous creature that you can use one fighting system for, whereas the siege uses a completely different system where the problem isn't killing the enemy, you can wade through orcs, it's holding them off.
Not surprised. He is a 4e advocate.
Edit: I can imagine this game getting old fast. I expect the backers will have buyers remorse on this one.
It's going to be almost identical to 500 other RPGs on drivethrurpg. So yeah.
4e was overhated. It had poor design choices, yes, but the monsters are by far the best they've ever been in the D&D Editions, which isn't given enough credit.
@@theatheistbear3117 mate, 100% agree. I still use the 4e database as inspiration for making set piece combat encounters. Extensively when I played 5e (which has such mundane monsters) less so with OSE Advanced but I still leverage the 4e ideas.
@@theatheistbear3117 When running 5e games, monsters are all about 4e, and players really sweat bullets!
@@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115 4e Monsters turn a mundane combat against a bunch of Goblins into a fight for survival, and against an Illithid with a couple minions into a death sentence.
You know, 4E is actually my favorite edition. And it's dawned on me this is the case with MCDM too, which leads me to wonder...why pick it up? It's just their 4E heartbreaker
Pathfinder 2e is another 4e heartbreaker.
4e isn't in print.
@@ThomasCpp So what?
@@FMD-FullMetalDragon I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that.
@@ThomasCpp Wait what?!?!
If mechanics good, I play game, If mechanics bad, I no play game. If game good, but made by bad person, I not care, still play. If game bad, but made by good person, I not care, still no play. If game good, but by person who I don't agree with, I start TH-cam channel pretending to have valid criticism of design choices that are clearly just a departure of genre and not objectively good or bad.
"...then I make semi-coherent comment, which helps people see video I no like."
😘
If video do good or bad, no care, unrelated to game.@@DiversityDragons
I love Matt Coleville’s channel, knowledge and his take on RPGs… but I love my dice more. I have hundreds of dice and told I don’t need to roll them! I absolutely love rolling dice and know that fate is determined by those splendid polyhedral pieces of plastic, resin and crystal. I’ve yet to find a game that uses all the types of dice creatively. This is just how I roll.
Yeeeeeaaaaaah kinda seems like this guy is just hating on the MCDMRPG because it has a lot of eyes on it - I especially think it lowbrow to play babycrying noises for those of us who don’t mind getting rid of “to attack rolls” or other philosophically different game design decisions. Different shouldn’t automatically mean scary or bad 🤷♂️ I’m not even gonna play MCDM either! I’m much more excited for Runehammer’s Crown&Skull; This guy just failed the vibe check so hard I had to say something
For real though. Pretty sad.
yep
The funny thing is Pathfinder 2e is a better version of DnD 4e and Matt Colville didn't seem interested. He just blew off anyone that mentioned it to him :) Some of the more PE2 evangelist harassed him while he was streaming DnD4e once, needless to say he was not happy with them LOL.
Probably because he always planned to do his version.
Pathfinder 2e is more than inferior to 4e. By a lot.
Pf2e is still rooted in 3.5e mechanics which is fundamentally different from 4e. Whichever you support, neither is objectively better
@@kori228 well said!
@@FMD-FullMetalDragon Pf2e is very balanced from 1-20. Your fights at 20th level are not ROFLStomps like they would be in any other DND game. With that said. I prefer OSR :)
I don't like the always hit mechanic. But I'm not going to hate on it either. Matt wanted to make a gane that made players seem heroic and powerful. It's simply not the game for everyone, especially DMs. They said they would have to rework damage because players were too strong.
I don't own anything by MCDM but I'm willing to see more of what this game will offer. You always hit, but so do the monsters is my understanding. There are things to do and things that will add to or reduce damage, as well as other actions/powers to do during combat. Plus you get they say you get more "resources" the longer a fight goes on, whatever that means. They are promising to make combat more fun and heroic, which doesn't sound like a bad thing to me. I will follow its progress and see it if will be a game for me, though it's release will be a long way off.
Monsters hit but a lot of powers are there to mitigate damage it seems.
Convoluted.
Correct me if I am wrong but I think the damage roll is a "to hit" roll... your damage is just whatever is over the "to hit" roll. So you can still miss your roll if you don't roll high enough.
Just wanted to through that clarification out there (again, correct me if I am wrong).
I also don't get the "it's just a video game with paper" argument people make... to me games are just games whether on a computer or with paper - what's important is if everyone is having a good time playing it... I liked and still like 4e. I thought martial characters were way more interesting compared to the 5e ones we have now where you basically attack and extra attack every turn and I do find the moves and perks interesting for the classes of MCDM. I think anything over traditional "I attack and then extra attack" every round is in the right direction. Even if it isn't perfect, it's still trying something new.
Not a coveille fanboy here (just in case people took my comment as such) and I am personally not interested in owning or playing MCDM. My greatest interest in the game is that the art and formatting looks pleasing to my eye.
That couldn't be, because then you'd essentially be "doing nothing" on your turn. That's supposed to be something the game is getting rid of.
No he is correct. Your defence stat and the powers associated (for both players and monsters) are there to mimic an AC. Assume the defense Stat is 10. You then need to roll 10 or more on the dice + mods in order to deal damage.
However, there are things you do to enemies such as pushing them, Knocking them prone, and imposing some condition on them that makes your turn still do things regardless of the amount of damage you actually dealt (even if it was zero).
This is how the game allows for you to be tactical and do something to progress the game on your turn, but still have the ability to deal little or no damage. The tactics come in that you are at least guaranteed to get the rider to the damage, and thus have choices to make other than "I go up and hit... opp I missed"
We had several instances where unfortunate misses created great moments in my campaigns I DM. One was where the group was getting held up my a bunch of gang members in the bad part of the city and were being extorted for money. The group instead decided to try and fight their way out. The barbarian of our group managed to go first and tried hitting the gang’s leader and instead tragically missed. He got shot to pieces next turn by the gang leader and the rest of the group nearly died the same way but barely managed to get out and seek medical aid.
Another example is when my same group in an earlier campaign were raiding a lair of a known cult and were entering their inner sanctum. The group got caught and the head priest of that cult sent forth a magical plague of locusts to kill the group. Everyone rolls their saves to avoid it, unfortunately our group’s ranger failed his save and gets turned into a pile of wet bones before the party can even blink. This left a lasting impact on the group as they had to carry what was left of him to his family and tell them what had happened. The players memorialized his character and with one of them even naming a child after him in the epilogue of the campaign.
I don’t understand how people can take the ability to fail as a bad thing in ttrpgs as some of my favorite moments DMing and playing have been failures. When you can fail those successes hit even harder and are remembered even more fondly because you and your friends overcame adversity.
In fact I used the Colville fans in your comments as inspiration for a cult in my recent ACKS 2 game. The cultists feverishly worship the golden idol Ma'tt'col'evil and act like the boxers in the chinese boxer uprising, pretending their magic makes them invulnerable. Well, and if one of them gets killed they pretend his worship was not strong enough anyways.
🤣🤣🤣
I love that idea. Don't forget the Fangirl subgroup to the boxers, the Red Lanterns. They could be a fun addition to your cult.
@@TheCommandBunker thanks, I will look into this. They could shave one side of their head as custom and utter "patriarchy" whenever enraged. 🤔
Hey that also sounds like the simba rebels in the Congo. They had rituals with magic water that was supposed to make you impervious to projectiles.
I think "always hit" can work but only if the damage is very swingy, from doing practically nothing to a great deal. However, "always effective" cannot work. If there are no disappointing outcomes, the thrill is gone. A tale of an "always effective" character is not heroic, it is a power fantasy.
Much of the excitement of playing is because of the "risk" of failing that round. No risk, no excitement. Some of the most fun I had back in the day was playing a 4hp lvl 1 Magic User. Do you use your magic missile on the goblin attacking you and go without spells until the next rest, or do you whack em with your staff and risk death?
Fireball doesn't roll to hit. In fact pretty much nothing a wizard does requires attack rolls. You've given a perfect counter-argument to needing hit rolls.
@@jasongrundy1717 Did you respond to wrong comment?
@@jasongrundy1717 Have you ever played DnD in your life? Many spells in the wizards arsenal is a type of attack roll, and many of the spells that aren't use something very similar to an attack roll (e.g., a saving throw, spell resistance, caster/ability check, etc).
Genuinely curious. What’s fun about using magic missiles in your example and then just hoping to whack bad guys with your stick until you convince your DM to let you rest?
@@diszect7134 Geniunely curious. What's fun about playing a half-squirrel/half-turtle vampire paladin/thief that chain whirlwind kick-stuns the entire encounter until they use their split atoms ability to detonate the campaign?
Do the badguys always hit, too? Never mind, I got to the point where the PC shrugs off all the incoming damage.
But this is their version of armor class. You aren't phased when a PC with an AC of 22 shrugs off the missed attack.
Essentially, monsters and PC's always hit (and often have a secondary effect that one might akin to powers in 4e). But instead of dealing no damage and big spikey damage they tend to do closer to more of a bell curve. Armor and certain powers negate damage for both PCs and monsters.
@@parkerbrantley4356 Yeah, that's because you aren't gaining something back when your armor mitigates damage. Going from "bloodied" to "just a flesh wound" is completely different in narrative.
I’m a fan of Colville, and I have learned a lot from his content. I also think he’s wrong about a lot of things, and I chose not to buy his new game until it’s finished and I can see actual reviews of it.
Ok, the "no roll to hit"-take is just wild.
Matt is like: "It is more fun that way"
And this dude goes: "Yeah, sure, but its not supposed to be fun. Its selfish to want to have fun."
Dude, its a game. Leave the rant about entitlement and trophies at home. We are playing it to feel good.
Like whats the next take? Chocolate hasn't enough noutriants? Thats not, what it is designed for.
Last time I checked, success =\= heroism. But if the game is meant to emulate chess with extra steps, so be it.
I liked Collville's style of his early videos before he started doing all that Kickstarter shit, he has different beliefs than I do but I enjoyed listening to his videos. I quit watching him when he took that MCDM turn, his previously genuine demeanor changed into said snake oil salesman.
The risk of rolling a miss is what creates tension, that what we want! Also, I've said before, the meaningless turns makes meaningful turns so much better.
Yes, we want the drama: the tension for what would happen if we fail an action.
It's only truly rewarding if something is on the line.
Thank you for reminding me that I don't need to cuddle the players. I rather need to be pushing them to spend their resources in order to overcome challenges the world throws at them.
The concept of someone swinging a sword at an enemy and somehow managing to not hit them sucks all the tension out of the room. A fighter standing in front of an immobile 16ac slime monster kinda just paddling it and nothing happening (on either side) for a few turns straight is the opposite of tension. I agree with what Matt is doing but the bigger issue is D&D players specifically having very little imagination for this sort of thing when the RuneQuest / BRP / Mythras family of RPGs already came up with the far more sane solution of armor being armor, and enemies actually being able to parry your strikes.
I'm going out on a limb, no player character will ever perish in this "game".
Killed a player in the playtest game.
Been excited for your vid on this since Wednesday brother, cuz I can't wait to see the MC-fans to come wailing in this comment section! Lol. And the sad part is as a new GM, I would watch some of Coleville's old "Building the Dungeon" series and he gives well thought out advice, my guess being because he used to be a game designer. But man, any time I've watched a tabletop stream of his I get put to sleep!
Oh they'll be coming. I decided to say what the heck and embrace it by tweaking their noses a little.
As someone who used to watch those same Colville videos, I learned the hard way that he is a good storyteller. His session recaps were good as was the fiction he wrote. Conversely, His DM style is about as exciting as watching a puddle of milk.
He seems like a person that is good with scripted comments and then loses all of his brilliance when he responds in real time. That's not a knock. Some of his scripted content is excellent. I just wouldn't want to watch or spend time with him in real time, much less in a game session.
What's odd is the disconnect between proposed combat proposition and implementation. Maybe it's a natural consequence of the "streamline all combat" mentality?
Proposition: Streamline combat. How? Remove to-hit rolls! How do we balance it? Add a bunch of other features that actually make combat more confusing....
A coherent system has the proposition and implementation match. My favorite system right now is Mythras. It knows it wants to lean on simulationist combat. It leans into that, but keeps it streamlined given that proposition. (It's still way crunchier than D&D 5e and many other systems, but it's streamlined given the design goals; nothing feels excessive or unneeded or out of place.) The action point economy is a real thing here, per player. It's great. Defense is active. You have special effects to improve your position in both defense and offense. It all fits together and feels cohesive. It's also gritty and "real". You can bump up the "heroic" level by giving players more skill points in character creation, giving them more XP rolls, giving them more fate points, or changing the rules at your own table in probably a number of different ways. (As an example: Classic Fantasy gives players more HP as they advance in rank, but not a whole lot. It's more heroic than normal, but it's at AD&D level, not D&D 5e.)
Interestingly, Mythras is by-default theater of the mind. The rules for combat grids (which I do prefer, but I came from CRPGs) is in a supplement.
You’re trying to get me to seek out Mythras. Wel, it’s not gonna work, ya hear? IT’S NOT GONN-
*makes a beeline to RPG Geek*
I like Matt Colville and MCDM I think they make cool videos/products. As for their game, some mechanics like negotiations and kits are really appealing even if it is basically another 4e clone.
The never rolling to hit thing is weird but you can still “fail” now it’s “you make less progress” which is their way of remedying the feel bad of “I attack, fail, and pass” problem which is definitely an issue even if your not a 13 year old tablet kid. The game isn’t finished, it’s very clear that it needs more work and polish to stand on its own.
As for the people who blindly paid into it they just want to support their favorite creator and see the game do well. It’s true that some of them are probably obsessed but it’s normal to want to support something financially because you want it to do well. Hopefully this provokes some thought and isn’t drowned in an echo chamber.
Honesty looks uninspired and I am someone who values the game being at least somewhat challenging (and have the stack of dead characters to prove it.)
Plus I sold my Pathfinder 2e because I did not find the system to my taste (it was huge for a year locally and then just died off). Not a bad system just not for me (still have my Pathfinder 1e which I enjoyed far more).
So if his game just a worse version of that, I'll gladly leave it behind.
Thank you for the info Double D.
Same experience, and our group definitely liked Pathfinder 1e more.
@@opaqued2039 Pathfinder 1e was my old Groups 2nd favorite system for years (Palladium was number 1).
Have to run it again sometimes soon despite the work needed for higher level play.
@@jeframdenkar Palladium was a regular for our group too. I think we played everything in that system (Palladium, Beyond the Supernatural, TMNT, Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas and Super Spies).
6:28 if a player is bored and not paying attention when it is not his/her turn, that is a shit player. Players should be paying attention to what every other PC / NPC is doing, so that he/she can potentially modify his/her action accordingly. That shows engagement.
Rolling a nat 1 doesn't mean you're not heroic. In fact, it raises the stakes as the desperate hero has to recover and gain back his footing against the villain. They just have bad DM's.
Dang you just dropped this, & im on it!
Cal on the spot!
Automatically hitting to me is not much different than "Armor makes you harder to hit". Automatically hitting doesn't mean you automatically do damage.
I like it more as I used to play Warhammer 40k back in 5th edition about 15 years ago, where you compared Weapon Skills to your opponent, a lot like how AC works, and it was almost the idea of "if you're fighting someone with a 0 weapon skill, or a target dummy, of course you will hit. But that target is doing his best to dodge, block or step away. Your ability to hit comes down to your opponents failure rather than your success" and even then, what is the mechanical difference of:
1. "You make a swing. You fail to hit" 2. "You make a swing. Your blow glances off the targets armor". I don't see the difference. "Oh but my players missed attack made the BBEG kill another player!" Would it be any different than if the damage roll had gone under the target number? Not really.
Hell, if anything the only actual thing MCDonalMs RPG does interesting is the pushing enemies around, kind of needing the board.
Personally, I liked flames of wars take on it, where the skill of your target determined how likely you were to hit. Anyone can be competent with a rifle with little training, but making the best use of cover is the real skill. That mostly applies to modern combat though.
@@Nos2113 Absolutely another cool idea, "staying cool under fire" is more important than being able to hit the broad side of the barn in trench-style combat. It's practically like in the ancient times, "You break and run? You get cut down."
But I definitely think that your over-all combat situation can be done with a single roll.
I absolutely loved Matt's early 'running the game' videos...but I felt as soon as he started to get bigger the videos kind of seemed different!? Is that just me? In my opinion Runehammer has much better games....I can't understand how Hank doesn't have more subscribers??
For anyone who bought Strongholds & Followers or his other books, a lot of these same heroic, high magic concepts are in there too. Giving players powerful buffs and new abilities from controlling a castle? Pal, owning a castle and having hundreds of soldiers is enough of a boon without gaining new abilities. I do like Matt though, especially his older videos.. Great video as always DD.
Matt Coleville is like if Reddit was a person.
lol I don't think he's anywhere near that insufferable.
He does give off mad reddit dork vibes
Brilliant!! 😂😂😂
@Sammo212 He hides it for most of his scripted content, but off-the cuff remarks frequently come off as extremely conceited and full of himself. His story about meeting an actual PMC as a subject matter expert for his Mercenaries game was weapons-grade Reddit-esque insufferability.
@Sammo212 He hides it for most of his scripted content, but off-the cuff remarks frequently come off as extremely conceited and full of himself. His story about meeting an actual PMC as a subject matter expert for his Mercenaries game was weapons-grade Reddit-esque insufferability.
To be fair, 20 min between combat rounds, can also be a system and a player mastery issue too, or just a large group. It doesnt have to be a DM specific problem ;)
I cant tell you how many freaking HERO System games I have been part of and run where a full combat round of 12 phases takes an hour. Ironically, the much less complicated, but much more convoluted 5e D&D system, takes almost as long some times.
Matt has also taken on the modern D&D art style, technically impressive, but soulless.
Matt has forgotten the greatest lesson i got from him..... tension and resolution
While I really appreciate your cynical look into RPGs (no sarcasm) I think you're missing two points. Firstly, a system can give you what you want when playing so if you're playing a game to be the super heroes that just pump out excessive damage or if your table wants grid tactical combat like 4e (though why not just play 4e?) this could be a good choice. Secondly, this could be a good "gateway drug" to bring people into experiencing other games besides D&D. I remember when I discovered the limitations of D&D in character creation that drove me to look for other systems. Most people never get that because they want to stay with what is comfortable. But if they move from D&D to MCDM or Daggerheart they might realize that other systems have lots to offer and might experiment with other systems.
Lastly I'd like to add in the realm of rolling to hit I can see both sides. A complaint my best friend always has about TTRPGs is he has a cool idea and then rolls the dice and fails which makes him not want to play the game if he feels like he's always failing. On the other hand there is a lot to say about feeling like you could fail at a clutch moment because Lady Fate has deemed it so which pushes the story in fun directions.
Why all the hate man...? Just seems really unprovoked
Not rolling for attack is an old concept, at least popularized with the game "Into the Odd" in 2014 and probably even older. I don't get why people says MCDM is innovative, is just recycling mechanics as most do.
He acknowledges that they're taking inspiration from multiple games numerous times in different videos. He's never said anything in this game is a never-seen-before mechanic. At the end of the day, if you don't like it, just don't play it. Hell, he'd encourage you to go out and make the game you'd want to play.
Do monsters always hit too? If so ghouls and ghasts are going to paralyze the world.
Holy walking dead Batman!
No, because reducing hitpoints is not equivalent to inflicting physical damage.
4e is awesome.
The only people who say it's the "worst" are people who never played it OR tried to play it like it was 3e or 5e
Yeah, I watched that entire playthrough to see what the supposedly revolutionary mechanic that increased throughout the adventuring day instead of being depleted was... and it gave me constant 4e vibes. I too am a longtime wargamer who was playing D&D minis weekly for years when 4e came out and that was way too much HP bloat with faux choices even for my tastes. The same thing seemed to be happening here with supposedly stellar hits with massive damage involving limited powers being waved off the next turn if they actually had an effect or simply not having any real effect due to HP bloat. That combat iirc took 45 minutes for a couple rounds with only two players; that's neither elegant nor efficient if that the best you can manage with the one of the superstar developers running you through it.
Honestly the 4e HP complaint basically always boiled down to flaws of early math, Solos being an unfinished concept, and people generally not leveraging teamwork or really knowing what everything on their sheet did. I also don't really see the issue with "powers waved away by next turn" because effects that landed were guaranteed to take effect for at least that turn if not more, as opposed to other editions where an instant saving throw could nullify the effect.
I've played with a very tactical GM that made EVERY encounter exp budgeted at party level+6-7 and still no fight lasted over 4 turns.
As a normal and smart person who actually played 4e, I can say that the idea of removing the attack roll is not that radical. It worked perfectly for Gloomhaven. And yes, Gloomhaven is not an RPG, but we are talking about the combat system here.
So, if you don't like the idea, it doesn't mean that this is a bad idea. Just ignore the system and tell us more about modern society.
The thing about DnD 4th edition is that its actually making a bit of a resurgence. It was ahead of its time and wizards didnt really explain what they were making which is unfortunate.
There is already an alternative version of D&D4e, it's called 13th Age.
Personally, I have no opinion on the author. I just don't see a reason to buy a game that copies two other games that I already like.
Suspect MCDM will be in the ebay equivalent of the bargain bin just a few months after its backers get it.
In the time I have spent DM'ing (though I have only ever run 5e), I found high armor armor class somewhat annoying. Sometimes, I will have combats where both sides miss many attacks. In these scenarios, combat drags unnecessarily. It also prevents me from running combats where mid-to-high-level players fight large numbers of small monsters. Why attempt this when all the goblins will miss the players anyway? I can't create any tension with that. For that reason, I don't have buyer's remorse yet for my pledge.
Hopefully, MCDM keeps the damage reduction/healing to a minimum. Tension caused by threatening the players is important. Your video does bring up some concerns on this front for sure. Matt said in one of his updates that his aggressive decision-making led to the deaths of his barbarian characters during playtesting. I think that is a good sign, but who knows whether the game will be released that way.
Thanks for the video!
this is some vallid criticism. The no hit roll exists in Into the Odd, and they make HP very valueable. Yeah, if MCDM RPG don't make HP valuable, it will be a terrible design.
The smell of jealousy and envy is potent
As a Matt Colville fan, I'm sure you're well acquainted with all types of strange odors.
@@DiversityDragons Grow up little one.
Hit all the time isn't even new to MCDM. Black Hack does it for monsters, into the odd and things it has spawned do it too. I like it for osr/nsr style of games. It avoids honestly kinda dumb situations when nobody can hit for a good couple of round, making the encounter awkward rather than scary. It makes the players know that they're gonna lose some resources (namely - HP) every time they engage an enemy, unless they can basically surprise it. MCDM isn't for me, but at the same time Matt is very open about what this game isn't, going as far as suggesting other systems, like shadowdark, to people. I just don't see what the big deal is. You seem to hint at a drama that simply doesn't exist
What's with the aviator glasses? I don't trust anyone that wears sunglasses inside.
Trust no one.
@@DiversityDragons What does that even mean? There's a clinical term for people who don't trust anyone; it's called paranoia!
Not trusting people who were glasses is being paranoid..I get it😅
Me having literally just bought both OSE box sets laughing about this not missing attacks lol
The MCDM RPG doesn't sound like something I'd want to play, but this video is pretty unpleasant.
Poor baby! Can I get you anything?
@@DiversityDragons Really, that's what you're going with? It's not unpleasant because it upset me or hurt my feelings, it's unpleasant because it's an embarrassing display of your obvious inferiority complex. I'm not a fanboy of Matt Colville (hell, I had to scroll up to your title to even remember his name), but you're making it really obvious that is his success while your channel flounders is eating at you.
I am impossibly amused by the number of Dislikes on this video. Obviously this struck a nerve.
No roll to hit? Fine, as long as the mechanics capture the dangerous nature of combat (e.g. damage reduction vs defense reduction, HP vs Vitality/ Injury, fray dice, etc).
Hit roll wiffed? Fine, as long as the mechanics reward engaging an enemy to aid allies (e.g. flanking, advantage, disengagement penalties, etc).
None, and I mean NONE, of these concepts are original yet they are all controversial/ revolutionary to these neophytes.
All this whining and whinging is only perceptible thanks to the internet feeding our toxic curiosity about the opinions of strangers.
And 20 minute combat rounds result from one of three behaviors: deranged, diabolical, or dumbass (maybe derelict).
*sigh* What a world we live in, eh Double D? LOL Stay frosty.
Waait?!? What?!? Did he recover 20 out of 36 lost hit points with one round of activity? Huh?, what the......?
A snap of the finger. You get multiple recoveries, too.
because in the 4e style of game, recoveries (healing surges) are a metric of attrition, while hit points track short term impact. The idea is that the game is designed for players to have multiple combats before resting and recovering their resources, but they also want each combat to individually represent a challenge.
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imagine that a character has 60 hp. They are going to face 3 encounters. In order for the first encounter to threaten the character, it must threaten to deal 60 points of damage. but if it deals close to that, then the character can't adventure forth towards the next two encounters. So a DM could design it so that each encounter expects to deal about 20 points of damage, but then the first encounter or two won't contain any feeling of threat. So what 4e thought, was "lets take a fraction of a character's total health, and make it so they can only take that much in a single encounter before being defeated". So now let's say the character can only take 20 points of damage in a single encounter before being defeated, but they can take, overall, 60 points of damage over an entire adventuring day to be defeated. Now 3 encounters, each potentially dealing 20 points of damage contains a lot of threat. Each encounter can defeat the party, but if the party wins, then they can challenge the next encounter confident they have a chance of success. In this way, the player is dealing with the threat of losing this encounter AND also the threat of losing through attrition.
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its kinda hard to wrap your head around if you've never played a system like this, but these mechanics may seem like they eliminate a sense of threat when you just read them, but in practice, I find that they create the potential for a lot more threat for the players.
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I remember when I used to run pathfinder 1, I would give my players a lot of healing wands and stuff. The healing wands were effective their "attrition" tracker, while the hit points were the "short term" health tracker. I think that if you have that background, think of recoveries as healing wands. There is an action economy cost to using them in the middle of combat, so you tend to use them between combats, etc etc.
@@bonzwah1 I can see that this kind of system would make sense if you measure the attrition to the characters hit points as them being worn down and fatigued as well as actually being injured so that could work well in a narrative setting. I think tuning the mechanical aspects to represent what you're getting at could be done and this could end up being a compelling and interesting way to handle this. Thank you for your comprehensive explanation of what you had in mind with this, it was enlightening and also thought-provoking. 👍
@bonzwah1 Thus, video games are born. Using step tier systems loses the roleplaying theme once the players know the agenda is solely combat. There is no character development, no need for backgrounds, except playing to kicking ass. No more roleplaying needed to fumble for that healing Wand and forgetting you have one charge left. Heck, forget about equipment and rations. No need to travel back to town to recharge the Wand because I have healing surges. Say what now? I'm not interested. DMing turns into refereeing, which is not D&D. Whatever floats your boat.
I am glad I did not back Matt's Kickstarter. But it's good for those looking for something new because I know that I have, moving away from anything WOTC. Back to older D&D editions, except for 4e, DCC RPG, Castles&Crusades, and so on.
Well hang on a sec, I agree with you on most things but doing *something* about the lameness of missing on your attack and so you accomplish nothing that turn is worth addressing.
I don't think it's quite as simple as 'everyone gets a prize', since the usual reason someone missed an attack is not because they didn't work for it but because of random chance: They didn't roll well. Now, yeah, one rather bold way to address that is to do away with the attack roll altogether.
But if you think about it more broadly, lots of games have tried to 'enrich' rolls so it's not just 'succeed or fail'. Games like Monster of the Week or the Kids on Bikes series give you a token of some kind for having failed that can either be used as later experience (nothing teaches like failure!) or as a bonus on a later try. The Fantasy Flight Star Wars games tried--a little clunkily--to have additional special dice that let you 'bank' a near-success and get a bonus on a later try. That way at least you reduce the risk of a PC failing to accomplish anything over and over, which can be a really un-fun experience to have.
If I want to play a better version of 4E, I'll play 13th Age
what ever happened to the 2nd edition of that game?
@@Grimmlocked still in development i think
The ''always hit'' mechanic could work in a highly cinematic game like a White Wolf kind of game. But as it is, this is baby DnD for people that don't even like RPGs.
I hate the elimination of rolls to hit. There might be mitigating mechanics that might alter my opinion, but "it's boring to miss" ought to be the epitaph on the tombstone of the RPG career of anyone who would say that unironically.
There is martial TH-cam who gives guys 30 seconds to hit his head while he uses evasive postures. Those guys swinging away didn't seem bored to me.
I'd hate to defend Colville as a person, but you're being too realistic with that example. Actual people fighting of course wouldn't be bored because they are actually punching/dodging. If someone misses a punch, they can transition into other movements from that position.
In an abstracted game system, you have no control over those movements. If you miss, it's not because your opponent was better, it's because you rolled poorly. And once you miss, there's no follow-up. You can't continue to do anything directly that turn, which is the boring Colville was talking about.
I think it works pretty well in games like Dragonbane. Monsters always hit and players can either spend their action trying to evade/parry or they can hope for the best and hope their armor negates enough of the hit. Standard enemies, or non-monsters, still have to roll against their skills. That said, NPCs and humanoid NPCs still roll to attack.
@@kori228 So add secondary actions. It seems like this is still more of a player/stakes problem than a lore/mechanic problem.
@@thatsnotoneofmeatsmanyuses1970 That's certainly one possible way of addressing it, but it adds complexity. (and probably longer turns). Colville evidently went a different route and kept it simpler.
@@kori228 I haven't seen anyone say it was simpler. Everyone is talking about the complexity that has been added to mitigate the mechanic.
I have zero interest in the MCDM rpg and Colville comes across as pompous quite often, but I don't get the point of this video. Some will like the game, some won't. This just feels like sour grapes. The game is "horrible for society"? Get a grip, man.
Good video as always!
I would say that it seems a little uncharitable to call it "worse 4E" considering the 2d6 dice mechanic and forced movement, but the powers and tactics take HEAVY inspiration from 4E.
I did back the project and some things I like, some things I'm ok with, and others are rather undesirable.
I do like the forced movement because it makes combat not feel like a slog of rolling better dice than another player until one of the sides dies. This could also be done by a GM who can describe the combat in detail (maybe not all the time, but a healthy sprinkling).
I like that they bundled equipment into "Kits" to make it easier for players to invision their characters into different archetypes.
I am ok with automatic hits as long as the system using it makes sense on a meta-level. For example 1E adnd takes no time at all to get back to your turn. Even with spell-casters. This makes the combat feel like it's moving so automatic hits would be detrimental. MCDM gives the player more options and things to do in and outside thier turns. With more options means more time per turn. I once played in a 5E group as a fighter, I missed, then proceeded to wait 20 minutes for it to come back to me. Needless to say, I did not stick with that group for long. 😆
I am ok with making sure that your turn is never wasted if it takes a while to get back to you (unless a round does end up taking 20 minutes, in which case the books will be an expensive bookshelf item).
I am not too happy with the large hp of monsters and players. I do understand that comes from the automatic hits, so its unavoidable in this system. For now it feels fine, but when players hit max level, and they fight a 2000 hp dragon, assuming the players doing 50pt of damage each turn the damage output variable of 2d6 is going to be virtually nil. In which case it is just a pencil pushing exercise.
At the end of the day, it might be cool to grab inspiration from, but if they don't change what they are doing, it will not be my go-to system.
As an aside, I did pick up a copy of Castles and Crusade thanks to you. That system seems pretty simple to run and relatively friendly to new GMs like myself.
TL:DR, the MCDM RPG has stuff going for it, and stuff weighing it down. Castles and Crusades is pretty cool!
Matt Rats. 😅
Thank you! I was rather pleased with myself over that one.