anyone ever play in or run a Midnight campaign?

[GlassJaw]

A long-running campaign is coming to an end and we are currently talking about some new campaign ideas. One guy has been reading the Midnight book and is thinking about running a couple of sessions to see if we want to start a full campaign.

Has anyone played or run in a Midnight campaign? How did you like it? Would you recommend? What did you like or not like? Any advice for a group that's about to start a campaign?

Try to keep the spoilers to a minimum if possible. I'm just looking for general comments. Thanks!

 

[DMScott]

Has anyone played or run in a Midnight campaign? How did you like it? Would you recommend? What did you like or not like?

I like it quite a bit. The atmosphere is a bit different, and the rules execute it pretty well. The magic system is actually worth stealing for other types of campaigns, if you want a system where a lot of people have low-level magic but high level magic is rare and difficult. I'd recommend it, though I think it's a setting that benefits greatly from personalization, so it's best of the DM is willing to put their own unique stamp on it rather than just run it as-is.

Any advice for a group that's about to start a campaign?

Try to keep the spoilers to a minimum if possible. I'm just looking for general comments. Thanks!

Most of the advice I'd give would be DM-specific. For general consumption, I'll just say that Midnight works best when the group is relatively cohesive - IMHO it's not as good with a fractious group with divergent goals and methods. So if you've got some lone wolf players, maybe make sure everyone's on the same page, or at least somewhere in the same book.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

It's very cool. And it probably works even better for high-level campaigns than "standard" D&D. Normally, your PCs have magical armor and powerful weapons that make them near-invincible at high levels, and your spellcasters can easily kill whole armies of low-level folks within short order.

With Midnight, magic items draw unwelcome attention, and those nasty area-effect spells cannot be cast all that often - their energy cost is too high.

All this means that enough orc troopers <i>will</i> will you, even at high levels. And this is an effect I like a lot...

 

[Nifft]

Great setting, great rules. Dive in with both feet.

I wish the Midnight campaign that I'd been playing in were still alive...

-- N

 

[Chingerspy]

I've not played MN yet, I am yet again going to try and run something at the next con with some players but its never got very far

Its always worth pointing out ATS in these threads though, a superb resource for anyone playing or running MN.

I fell in love with the setting the day I opened the book. I've learnt that the adventure in the back of the book is easy going. Then just yesterday I found out about this Link to ATS post which kinda follows on from it. Then from here if you still like the setting you can follow into Crown of Shadow which is a published campaign.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I've read it but not yet played.

I really liek it. I think it is the closest thing to real horror that D&D has created. Its more frightening than Ravenloft for . . . well a bunch of reasons that would involve me slamming Ravenloft. In any event, what is so scary about it is the fact that the world is so bleak. Evil has already won. Whereas there is this feeling in the back of your minds that you might some day be able to get a shot at taking them on, most of your time is spent trying to survive as the citizens live in a Nazi-like police state where neighbors will sell you out and the evil keeps lots of pressure on everyone to hand over information.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I ran it for a while. I love it! The only reason it came to an end is that I prefer to play rather than DM and one of our group members wanted to run a FR campaign.

 

[GlassJaw]

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm definitely intrigued now. Now I want to go buy the book of course!

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

One thing I might suggest is to inspect your copy before you buy it. Mine appears to be a little weak in the binding after just one read-though. It is already on my 'be careful how you handle this' list.

 

[Gregor]

It is such a great setting and its a really nice change of pace from regular D&D.

There is something fun about have to scavenge, hunt or steal your food, equipment, weapons and armor. Hardly anyone uses currency so bartering is the order of the day. If you use the weapon and armor degradation rules found on www.againsttheshadow.org, your things keep getting damaged, broken etc. The setting kicks your butt over and over again and its the simple matter of trying to survive and take down as many evil minions of Izrador as possible that makes it SO good.