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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 3205647" data-attributes="member: 1757">To my mind, Midnight always cried out for a game-theory approach, viz. the following: In a heroic fantasy campaign, players have the idea that the thematic deck is stacked in favor of their PCs; because the PCs are the heroes of the story, and because heroic fantasy is about the triumph of the heroes over their foes, they're likely to win, sooner or later, no matter how dire the odds against them seem. The Midnight sourcebooks, OTOH, clearly state that the PCs will be able to achieve only minor victories and will never achieve a serious or lasting defeat of the Shadow or its minions. That theme is hammered into the reader over and over again. Because of this, I think that a DM who allows the PCs to beat Izrador can genuinely surprise the PCs by allowing them to achieve an unlikely victory in the Midnight setting. Because they don't know that they may be allowed to triumph, the triumph can become all the sweeter. In short, I'd certainly allow the PCs to achieve victory, but I'd never tell them it were possible. In fact, I don't think I'd much like a campaign in which victory were impossible; that's even lamer, IMHO, than a campaign in which victory were guaranteed. That said, I think you have to structure the campaign so that a victory by force of arms is not possible. I am reminded of Midnight's chief literary inspiration:"Was there ever any hope, Gandalf?""There never was much hope. Just a fool's hope.""We cannot achieve victory by force of arms."I actually conceived my Midnight campaign with a possible ending similar to the one that Imruphel proposed. One of the principal paradoxes facing Izrador's enemies is that the world of Aryth serves, to some extent, as the Shadow's prison. Even if one could breach the barriers imposed by the Sundering and seek aid from beyond, the gods would be unwilling to help, for by pulling aside the veils that separate Aryth from the realms beyond, they would be giving Izrador a chance to escape. So perhaps the only way to defeat the Shadow is to destroy or remake the world of Aryth altogether. This theme of a total or costly victory is pretty resonant with, say, Elric or Lord of the Rings (the destruction of the Ring is also the passing of magic out of Middle-Earth, and the fading of elvenkind). I think it's probably better to go down that route, which keeps the sad, elegiac quality of the setting, than to have a simple military victory, however temporary.</blockquote>

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