Midnight: My players wonder--What's the point?

[Buttercup]

I told some of my players a bit about the Midnight campaign setting, and they wonder what the point is of playing in a world where there is no hope. I have no answer for them, because I wonder that too.

I love the bloodlines, I like the races, I like the idea of having no clerics but evil, magic sniffing ones. I even like the coherency of the monsters. But how do you keep players from throwing up their hands in despair?

 

[Desdichado]

Midnight is all about hope. Why do they think there is none?

This is a common theme in the Lord of the Rings itself (and how influenced Midnight is by that isn't what I'm here to debate! ) that you go on even without hope, or even with only a fool's hope, as Gandalf says at one point. You don't need hope, you need faith, and that's something a little bit different. And then, at the end, of course, the hopes come to pass anyway.

 

[francisca]

I told some of my players a bit about the Midnight campaign setting, and they wonder what the point is of playing in a world where there is no hope. I have no answer for them, because I wonder that too.

I love the bloodlines, I like the races, I like the idea of having no clerics but evil, magic sniffing ones. I even like the coherency of the monsters. But how do you keep players from throwing up their hands in despair?

Well, I'm one for "there is always hope". Of course, I don't live in a world ruled by a wicked, evil overlord where nearly omnipotent heavies show up at the slightest sign of dissent to mash your brain into a pulp, so that's easy for me to say.

I am in a similar make and model of boat that you are: bought it, love it, but can't really run it. One of the guys in my group would dig it, as he is the "fight the power" type. He'd go through characters like we go through snack food during games. The other guys wouldn't like it.

Maybe a "11:59" game could work. Take Midnight, but remove the despair and replace with dark humor. Make the heavies bumbling goofs like the cardinals in Monty Python's old "Spanish Inquisition" skit or like the bumbling, slinking, scared-witless henchmen from almost any disney movie.

Edit: Another idea might be to take the approach of an espionage-based campaign. The whole goal is to disrupt the evil guys and get away with it. Forget about an uprising or defeating the big guy altogether. Kinda like Hogan's Heros if you prefer humor, or the real WWII French Resistance, if you prefer seriousness.

 

[d20Dwarf]

There have been copious discussions on this very topic on both Against the Shadow and the Yahoo! group. I would suggest you search those archives for some great answers.

 

[Wombat]

Dum spiro, spero

While I breathe, I hope.

I think that is the point in Midnight, but I must admit that the way the game is written, I'm not sure the authors had that in mind. There are so many references scattered throughout the book along the theme of "The Big Bad will never go away, honestly, don't even think about it" that this could put a major downer on any campaign, sort of like saying "Cthuhlu has risen, now we start a game of Call of Cthuhlu."

If I were to run a game of Midnight I would never say there is no chance of defeating the darkness, just very, very little. Maybe, through the actions of the characters (or through the actions of generations of characters, which might be an interesting concept for running the game) actions take place that get humanity back in contact with the other gods. Or, although I personally dislike this kind of game, maybe the characters could eventually destroy the evil god themselves.

In other words, to run Midnight I'd need to alter it enough so there is a thin glimmer of hope.

This probably also explains why I don't run Call of Cthuhlu.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

This very question is addressed in the DM's Advice section of the Tome of Sorrows. It's a free Midnight Suppliment available for download.

See my sig. It's only about 2MB, but it about 109 pages of yummy Midnighty goodness.

Basically, there is no hope in defeating Izrador, but you can do your part to make the world a tolerable place to live.

Then again, some DMs may want to give the PCs a chance to take out the dark god. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[KnowTheToe]

Quite simply to survive and to experience a game world like no other you may have encountered. It is bleak, muscle may win a battle, but it will not allow you to survive. You have to think of the consequences of your actions, to both yourself and the people around you. In Midnight you have endless struggle, as a DM it is imporatnt to put faces behind those being oppressed, give hope that characters can change their lives, but the characters need to also feel the pain and guilt of failure. The pain brought by the slaughter of villagers because the players acted too brashly or just at the wrong time.

The shadow fell upon the land, the characters are mere candles for the people. It is the players job to try and turn those candles into blazing torches or raging fires of hope. It is the GMs job to portray a world where this is possible, but only a great peril and great sacrafice.

I suggest trying a couple of one shots, or play it only once a month and play standard D&D the other three weeks.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I suggest trying a couple of one shots, or play it only once a month and play standard D&D the other three weeks.

That's very good advice. In fact, I've taken to doing that very thing. I'm about to start a AU game running alongside my Midnight campaign. We'll change up every game session.

I feel that if I don't, my players are going to slit their wrists from the anxiety that my Midnight sessions cause.

 

[d20Dwarf]

I'm not sure why everyone focuses on completely destroying Izrador as the only way a Midnight game can be run. Perhaps that's why we put so many admonitions in the book about that idea.

When you play Forgotten Realms, do you quit when you realize you can't completely destroy the Zhentarim?

When you play Scarred Lands, do you quit when you realize you can't fully heal the world and destroy all the titans and evil gods?

Now, Midnight is different, in that it's hard to build a character up to have 1,000,000 gp and his own country, but I suppose the setting isn't for you if that's your goal.

Now if you want to be a hero, that's a different story. And it's possible to be a hero without completely destroying all evil in the world. But this stuff has been hashed and reshashed on the two Midnight resources I recommended above.

I'll repeat again, this is not a game about destroying Izrador. It is a setting where evil is in control instead of good. What you do with that is your own campaign business, but don't be confused about what Midnight is and isn't.

 

[Henry]

Here's a good question, for those in the know:

What would be some realistic goals for good characters to complete in Midnight?

In the Realms, "realistic goals" might include:

• shutting down a major cell of Zhentarim who have surreptitiously taken over a town
• Stopping a Red Wizard plot on someone's life
• Decimating a Dracolich and unseating the plans of the Cult of the Dragon
• Convincing a Sembian noble of the advantages of a trade agreement with a rival trading coster.

What would be some equivalent goals, because all of the above involves freedom of action, which by description it seems Midnight PC's don't have. What with magic-sniffing monsters, evil clerics, and an oppressive evil overlord, it seems that the PC's don't have the freedom of latitude to make much difference. Does anyone have some equivalent examples from their Midnight games, or from the core setting itself?