Just wanted to say how impressed I am with the Midnight RPG. The setting is brilliant, and the adaptation of the d20 system is one of the best I have seen, full of flavour and logical mechanics.

For those who dont know about it, the high concept is imagine a world where Sauron won the war of the ring, and what life is like under the harsh rule of an evil god and his minions. But the actual realisation is brilliantly detailed, and greatly provoking of the imagination for players and gamesmaster.

I have now picked up all the available supplements in either PDF or 'real' format. I would urge anyone who likes dark fantasy and roleplaying to give it a spin. My players are enjoying it too.

Quite sad that it looks like the system is being pensioned off. Is there any chance that the licence for it could be sold on? A company like Mongoose might be able to give it a new lease of life.

Heres hoping. In the meantime , i urge you all to pick up the supplements for it while you still can.

How 'D&D' is it? Does it have the core book classes/races for example?

All of the core races are present, although all of them are retooled to suit the world and given some boosts. The classes are changed... I think only the fighter, rogue and barbarian are kept, the non-casters. Magic is done differently and so different magic using classes are presented, and there are some localized classes such as the Defender, a champion of the people.

The mechanics are the same as D&D, of course. But having played it, it feels very different than a regular D&D game.

Yes, a core character is stronger in Midnight than in 'vanilla 3.5e' - better racial bonuses all round, and each character having a pathway that gives additional bonuses.

This is partly to offset the comparative lack of magical equipment that they will have (its effectively a post holocaust environment - gems and gold are worthless, magic is extremely rare, and illegal) and also because the players are explicitly heroes of Aryth, infused with power by the world to battle against Izrador and his minions.

It sounds... different, anyway.

So what would the typical party of PCs be doing?

Classicaly they would be the resistance against Izradors evil, fighting a guerrilla war against his minions. Ever fancied playing a fantasy version of WW2 french resistance fighters? This is your chance.

There is one place of open resistance in the elvish forest to the west, a semi sentient forest the size of north America that is sieged on all sides by armies of Orcs, and worse.

The first published adventure, Crown of Shadows, has the players acting as couriers for a dwarven chieftain, taking a message across the world to the queen of the elves, and alternately battling and hiding from the evil that pursues them. Halfway through with my players , who are greatly enjoying it.

As the rebels the adventurers have to be cunning, as too obvious resistance spells doom for the people they are trying to fight for.

And I take it that the PCs are basically up against insurmountable odds? They will never be able to destroy these evil forces or turn the tables on them? How many scenarios and supplements were out for the game when it went out of commision?

I know but little of the game, but from what I do know there is an actual "path to success", but it is presented in terms of an "eventual route". In other words, the heroes can't just "kill the big bad" and save the day and spend all their careers leading up to it in empty levelling sessions before hitting the level to face the big bad. There's actually a process that requires actual resistance work - for example, taking out a major lieutenant has serious consequences for the commonfolk, and so they have to make sure there is a strong resistance to defend them when the inevitable reprisals come. There's also the fact that, while there's an ultimate leader, there's no single source of peril for the world, so there no single place to turn to defeat them.

Actually, for a while Runebound had a Midnight supplement that introduced a method of liberating a relatively moderately-sized plot of real estate, and it was rather (excuse the pun) illuminating as to how much is actually required to defeat the evils of the setting.

Hmmm... intriguing!

Thanks for that.

I'm really hoping Midnight's not dead. There was all that talk of the movie, and I'd love to see Midnight continue in one form or another. Hell, 3.5 edition or 4th edition, I want to see more Midnight. Hmm, I wouldn't mind seeing it also done in a new mechanics, solely created by FFG...

Might make an interesting setting for Anima , come to think of it.

Midnight is one of those games I'm sorry I missed. It seems to offer the kind think before you hack mentality I try to constantly weave into sessions. Going to have to scour the net now to find it to add to my treasure trove of wickedness.

I love the Midnight setting. I managed to grab most all of the books in last Christmas's firesale from FFG. I've noticed that most people are turned off by the heavy roleplaying aspects of the setting though. Since going in a normal D&D hack n' slash demeaner will only make your PC's have to re-roll characters until they get it right. I'm hoping they are re-tooling things for 4th edition, it might actually make me want to play that contrived MMO based pen and paper bloat.

drivethrurpg.com has some PDFs of the 2nd edition rules available again. The Midnight Chronicles DVD will include the main 2nd edition rule book PDF. It also includes an adventure module which is 4th Ed D&D compatible. So I am an not sure what that means long term.

Yeah, I was really fond of Midnight, and at one point point had everything except the original 1st Ed rulebook. Then I lost track for a while, and when I came back discovered that it had been shelved, just like all of FFGs other great RPGs - With the exception of Grimm, they don't seem to publish any RPGs that are truly their own any more.

Now I'm just wondering how I'll ever complete my collection of 2nd supplements. :-(

Do you think they will ever bring Midnight back? Maybe under a different system like they are using for Warhammer Fantasy, or perhaps join the 4th edition D&D games? I really love the world of Midnight, and I am not all that fond of 4th edition, and would personally prefer they bring this great game back under a system they create themselves.

Me too Zadok and you also bring up a great point. A point I will not get into.

Anybody interested in Midnight that is not aware of the Againsttheshadow and darknessfalls websites should really check them out.