We still don't have a name for the MCDM RPG - I almost think it would be funny if they called it "Masters of Combat, the Domains of Magic" so that we could all just call it MCDM, but that would be a terrible title.
Anyway, as readers of this blog will no doubt ascertain by now, I'm an anti-purist when it comes to genre. While I do love a good medieval fantasy or sci-fi space opera, I'm happiest when these genres blend into a delicious soup with a bit of horror to taste. Indeed, most of the fantasy fiction I've written has zealously insisted upon a more modern setting (though the book I'm currently writing is primarily in a Regency-England-inspired setting, there's plenty of incursions into it with more modern ideas and technologies).
This has been something of a challenge to me in the way that I run D&D. D&D is, of course, primarily based in a kind of quasi-medieval/renaissance era by default, where swords, axes, and bows are the typical weapons. The game is flexible enough to make it relatively easy to "skin" your game with less traditional fantasy iconography - indeed, the Eberron setting really plays up a kind of 1930s pulp adventure vibe, with a somewhat Noir-ish city of Sharn, for instance.
But something occurred to me regarding the way that MCDM's RPG is going to work:
Equipment, outside of notable magic items (which are something you'll probably only get like one or two per character in a campaign, if I understand correctly, and which will "level up" with you so that you aren't tossing that priceless magical artifact once you get the +2 version of it) is handled with "Kits." And Kits are less of an itemized inventory of pieces of equipment than they are an overall "vibe." For instance, we're given two examples of Martial Kits, with the "Shining Armor" kit giving you more defense, but also implying that you've got the classic heroic knight look and feel. Meanwhile, the "Whirlwind" has you in light armor and swinging around a big barbed whip.
I don't have enough of the rules in front of me to figure out quite what it means that the Shining Armor kit has "heavy armor" and the Whirlwind has "light armor," other than that the Shining Armor kit increases your HP by 20 while the Whirlwind does only by 5.
But it also strikes me that, at least from what we've seen so far, the classes themselves, and the abilities that they use, seem to be pretty broad, conceptually. The Tactician is simply built around maneuvering on the battlefield and working as an effective battlefield commander. The Fury is driven by Rage and recklessly taking on waves of foes. The Shadow is sneaky and stealthy.
None of these, I think, are going to feel totally restricted to pure medieval fantasy.
We know that they're intending to release three official campaign settings - one a classic fantasy world with wilderness and villages and dungeons, one a grand city of intrigue, and one a kind of "space fantasy" setting.
That latter one I think has a big opportunity, if they take it.
See, one of my biggest problems with Spelljammer as a D&D setting (setting aside how underwhelming the 5E box set was) is that it really nixes any of the science fiction tropes - making space itself work differently in order to justify tall ships sailing from planet to planet.
Even if a part of me wishes that the entire franchise had just closed shop after Return of the Jedi came out, Star Wars is far closer to the balance of fantasy and science fiction that I'd actually like to run games in. I might err a tad more on the side of fantasy (basically the only supernatural stuff in the films at least is all Jedis and Sith, and I think we could expand on that a bit for a more D&D-derived game) but I still think no one really does space battles and starships like Star Wars (I'm also a big Star Trek fan, but I don't know that that series lends itself as well to a combat-heavy game, given that Star Trek is most interesting when it's dealing with complex political, interpersonal, and philosophical ideas that are hard to gamify).
But while we'll need to see how the MCDM RPG develops, and, for example, how flavor-specific the subclasses will be, kits could be a great way to let you hop genres while retaining familiar rules - what if there's a Martial Kit that is something like "Space Marine," which gives you an armored space suit and a heavy blaster rifle as your weapon?
Furthermore, Kits could enable more esoteric genres - my Holy Grail would be to make a tactical, progression-based RPG that has the vibe and genre of Control. Could we get a Kit that is "Paranatural Agent?"
If Kits are easy enough to homebrew, that might make it a lot easier to play around in genre.
Now, there are a couple more things that might need help:
One issue when converting D&D to a more sci-fi setting is that the skill proficiencies are really geared toward medieval fantasy. There's no "technology" proficiency, nor is there any kind of "piloting" proficiency. Paizo's Starfinder, built on the bones of Pathfinder, just straight-up changes which proficiencies you can get (well, Skills - they don't have proficiencies because that's more of a 5E thing, and Pathfinder was built on 3.5E).
I don't know what the total list of skills in the MCDM RPG will be, so maybe we'll have some genre-flexible ones.
That being said, I know Matt Colville's philosophy is geared more toward specificity - he likes purpose-built games and game concepts to fit as specifically to the one thing they should be doing well as possible, and that's been a guiding philosophy to this game's entire design.
That said, I also think the whole reason why TTRPGs are fun in the first place is the way that players and GMs/DMs/Directors/whatever can express themselves creatively through the games. Too little flexibility and you're basically just playing a board game.
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