Reposting from the earlier thread (which is recommended in its entirety):
Writing this in 2023, after playtesting Against the Darkmaster or "vsD" for ~10 sessions.
First, let's set expectations. This is basically MERP. And no other game. It is not RoleMaster and it is not HARP.
In some cases, vsD is (thankfully) much streamlined compared to MERP. In others, vsD ignores pretty much all of the rpg crafting improvements made since the dawn of the hobby (MERP celebrates its fortieth anniversary next year).
That means some things are decidedly out of fashion. Everything about vsD pretty much takes the standard party of Fighter, Thief, Wizard, Cleric (or Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, Animist) for granted. The idea that you might end up with players where nobody decides to create a Rogue, or a Wizard, or an Animist just doesn't seem to have entered the minds of its creators. For a 1984 game that would have been excusable. In 2023 however...
The "niche protection" is strong with this one. This isn't a game where others can multiclass to cover up a lack of a main role. If an item only works for an Animist, and you don't have one, you're sold out of luck. If even the introductory scenario features -50 locks, you
know its writers expected one character to minmax the Locks and Traps skill. And so on. You are basically guaranteed to end up with a character that has huge holes in their abilities, much like AD&D heroes of old. (Unless you're playing an Elf, perhaps)
As discussed by previous posts, this is a game where you make all major character build decisions at character creation. Leveling up just means getting better at what you're good at. There is no notion of suddenly gaining a new ability at a playable degree of competence - all you can do is stop putting points in what you're good at in order to put points into what you suck at, and maybe five levels later you're middling at both things. Again, contrasted to the AD&D of 1984, this makes the MERP/RM system look good. Contrasted to modern games played in the 2020s, not so much.
MERP was designed before Initiative systems became the norm, and features an outright strange solution for determining who acts first. HARP wisely eschewed this mind-boggling solution for a reasonably normal initiative system. Sadly, vsD goes all in on the MERP compatibility here, and uses a "Tactical Round Sequence" that offers no advantages over initiative while needlessly creating many questions. At first blush, you think you perform each phase in order, but not so fast! See, anytime this rigid and inflexible structure makes no sense, you're instructed to have the two combatants make an Opposed check to see who acts first.
Not only is this system fantastically complicated and out of date, it also introduces a truckload of complications and the prospects of analysis paralysis is overwhelming. There is a reason initiative became popular. The GM isn't continuously asked to deliver judgement calls. The ability to make decisions and then immediately act upon them (when it is your turn in D&D you simply do your turn) makes combat much faster and much simpler. In vsD you're supposed to first declare your action, remember your choice, and only later perform it. You're also supposed to choose an action without knowing if it will be rendered moot by the time you get to act. With the TRS system, I wouldn't be surprised if you got deadlocks like A acting faster than B acting faster than C acting faster than A...
For a complicated wargame like Advanced Squid Leader this might make some sense, but for a fantasy roleplaying game? While old MERP players will obviously take to vsD as fish to water, I seriously doubt that just because you're interested in high fantasy or Tolkien-inspired campaigns, you want to spend that much brain-power on just killing some Orcs. VsD fails to realize much of its potential customer base comes from D&D 5 players who will definitely not take to the "Tactical Round Sequence" easily, and the game offers no other explanation for its byzantine combat system other than "MERP was our inspiration".
However. VsD cleans up and simplifies MERP in countless ways, so that argument fails. HARP had already proved d100 games could use a sane initiative system. Anyway, if you do look at MERP, you realize that vsD improves it in almost every way - except the core combat engine, which makes that all the more unfortunate.
One aspect that does not come across as modern is vsD's take on races. Yes, the game does avoids that term (calling the options "Kin"), but still - some Kins are simply better than others. While this makes sense for a MERP game pitting prof. Tolkien's Elves and High Men against garbage races like Men and Orcs, there isn't even a sidebar discussing how to even out the racial choices.
Another choice that makes more sense for a Tolkien campaign specifically, than more general fantasy gaming, is the absence of gold and money. VsD features a simple wealth system, anticipating games where heroes just aren't motivated by money. Have just one Noble in your party, and economic issues chiefly just evaporate. This makes the game difficult to use for anything else than "save the world" type scenarios.
Another design decision worth mentioning is how you basically aren't allowed to recover wounds and injury unless you retreat to a "Safe Haven" - the Rivendells, Lothloriens, and Minas Tirithes of your campaign world. If this makes you react "what? but having an easy Über over to Rivendell isn't always possible! Doesn't this effectively make the game unplayable?" you are completely correct. Even the introductory adventure suggests the completely generic little starting village be deemed a Safe Haven. While this does allow gameplay to actually work, I would consider this to seriously devaluing the concept of a "Safe Haven" as described by the rule book: "Safe Havens are a beacon of light in the wilderness, houses of healing, and bastions against the forces of the Darkmaster."
A more personal reflection is that I absolutely loved the way herblore played an integral part of MERP. Sadly, the vsD designers don't share this love, and herbs are been reduced to generic blandness.
I haven't changed the following paragraph, but I do want to insert my later quote to help avoid confusion.
To clear things up, I conflated "Passions" and "Achievements". Sorry about that.
Some people think the XP system warrants praise. I do understand the sentiment, but I'm afraid that all the effort that went into tying your Passions to xp gain is wasted, when you have played rpgs for so long that you have realized xp systems are mostly just useless and needless. (The only xp system I have needed for the past 15 years is "the heroes level up when I say so".) I would have found it MUCH more useful if the Passions were connected to Drive points instead, for instance.
Good stuff with vsD includes
- general art direction. I like the clean simple black-n-white old-skool design
- a good Bestiary with a decent selection of core monsters
- lots of little simplifications of MERP concepts
- Drive points is a surprisingly simple and playable implementation of the "action points" mechanic
All this boils down to:
instead of using MERP, absolutely do use Against the Darkness. But this is not a game trying hard to win over
new devotees; this is mainly a game that allows old MERP hands to keep playing in the style they're accustomed to, without a lot of the clutter that plagued ICE's old old games. For some, that's good enough.
If you aren't interested in the MERP trappings, I would still say HARP is the more newcomer friendly option for d100 gaming, even though that isn't saying much: To be honest, there really haven't been
any revolutionary progress for this system, and d100 remains weighed down by decisions made decades ago. Neither HARP nor vsD truly brings d100 into the new millenium. In that, a good comparison might be Traveller; another game where anybody interested in actual reinvention simply leaves the community, while the games themselves continue to fossilize.
This is not a game I expect to usher in a new age of d100 gaming. I don't see many D&D gamers choosing this game over other much more enticing and less baffling options that are out there in the 2020s.
Maybe if there's ever a second edition tearing out the Tactical Round Sequence and finally having d100 offer meaningful character build options at every level, not just the first...
