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<blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1612680" data-attributes="member: 3146">I've never been interested in Midnight, but I've played in Arcanis for a while and I really like it. It diverges far enough from ordinary D&amp;D to feel different and unique but not so far that you lose your bearings. Dwarves for instance, manage to be different from standard D&amp;D dwarves and still feel dwarvish. The Coryani empire and Milandesia are familiar enough to be understandable and convincing cultures but are different enough that magic doesn't feel out of place and that there's a point to playing a campaign in Coryan rather than Rome.There's room for hope, despair, honor, faith, impiety, obligation, and honor. (That's not true of all settings--standard D&amp;D (Greyhawk, FR) doesn't do honor or despair particularly well and settings like Midnight don't seem like they handle hope, honor, or faith very well). There's also a very nice balance between global conflict and consequences (for example, a dwarf satisfying the bargain of Sarish, retreiving the lost city of dwarves from the Isle of the Sorceror King, returning the Sword of the Heavens to the world, etc), midscale campaigns (General Menisis's campaign to retrieve the Val'tensen lands from Milandesia for Coryan, the decadence of Emperor Calcestus leading to either the fall of the Coryani Empire or its transformation into tyranny, or leading Menisis to turn his legions around and march on Coryan), or small-scale, local campaigns (the harvesters have kidnapped someone and he needs rescuing/there's a forbidden, heretical cult of Larissa that needs to be dealt with, etc).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Elder-Basilisk, post: 1612680, member: 3146"] I've never been interested in Midnight, but I've played in Arcanis for a while and I really like it. It diverges far enough from ordinary D&D to feel different and unique but not so far that you lose your bearings. Dwarves for instance, manage to be different from standard D&D dwarves and still feel dwarvish. The Coryani empire and Milandesia are familiar enough to be understandable and convincing cultures but are different enough that magic doesn't feel out of place and that there's a point to playing a campaign in Coryan rather than Rome. There's room for hope, despair, honor, faith, impiety, obligation, and honor. (That's not true of all settings--standard D&D (Greyhawk, FR) doesn't do honor or despair particularly well and settings like Midnight don't seem like they handle hope, honor, or faith very well). There's also a very nice balance between global conflict and consequences (for example, a dwarf satisfying the bargain of Sarish, retreiving the lost city of dwarves from the Isle of the Sorceror King, returning the Sword of the Heavens to the world, etc), midscale campaigns (General Menisis's campaign to retrieve the Val'tensen lands from Milandesia for Coryan, the decadence of Emperor Calcestus leading to either the fall of the Coryani Empire or its transformation into tyranny, or leading Menisis to turn his legions around and march on Coryan), or small-scale, local campaigns (the harvesters have kidnapped someone and he needs rescuing/there's a forbidden, heretical cult of Larissa that needs to be dealt with, etc). [/QUOTE]

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