Tell me about Midnight

[Nyeshet]

Minor Thread-Jack

Not Midnight, but in a campaign I was in about five years ago the group was in a sort of post-apocalypse Faerun. Never got the whole story of what happened, but basically some unknown thing from outside typical reality came into the reality, removed Ao from the picture (either blocked him from Faerun or imprisoned / destroyed him) and proceeded to destroy most of the deities before the rest went into hiding on the Prime.

To win (well, prevent the apacolypse from occurring) we - with the aid of the last of the (now much much weaker) deities (due to so few worshippers remaining, mostly) managed to go back in time several thousand years. (The reasoning being that the creature might notice and follow if a deity attempted such, but being mortals (not even high level ones) we could 'slip under the radar' as it were.) Never was too big on Faerun history, but the ancestors of the Mulhorand had not yet appeared (nor had some of the deities such as Tyr, Ogmah, etc that originally came from outside the universe.) Humans were there, however, so it either it was after the fall of the Elven empires or we appeared in a human dense pocket outside of the borders of those empires.

We eventually learned that the powerful thing had had its start in some obscure region of the Underdark not connected to most other Underdark regions - that it had entered as a mere minor epic level creature and had 'grown' over time into the monstrousity that toppled Ao and hunted deities. Like a mushroom that is present unseen in the soil for years before suddenly overnight arising in capped form, it had grown slowly but strongly, hidden even from the deities before it arose and began reshaping the surface - topping the deities or other beings that got in its way. It was a truly Far Realms type creature - sort of CN/CE, but it had no real interest in Faerun beyond making it more hospitable for itself - no matter how inhospitable that made it for other creatures. In the end we were not the ones to destroy it. We merely alerted the right people, went on a few quests to gain info and items, etc. Then, after its early form was destroyed, we returned to the present - only to find the world utterly unlike anything we knew or recognized. (Apparently our actions changed more than we thought. Elves, for instance, were replaced by some winged fae race, and orcs never gated into Faerun, among other - less obvious - changes.)


So I can relate to the idea of using Time Travel to deal with the foe before the foe becomes too potent to deal with in the Present. It has merit, and - in a world like Midnight - it just might be the only realistic option for 'success'.

(Granted, that DM was a little odd, but he was fun to play under - more of story type than hack/slash type incidentally. We started at third level and, as I recall, none of us went higher than twelfth level.)

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

I and my group love midnight.

The difficulty as has been mentioned is maintaining the feeling of grim, gritty, hopelessness when heroes are effectively fighting stuff way too tough for them; as in, being very tough and cool.



The thing is, you have to really show the desperation of the NPC's. The heroism of the PC's is to allieviate that desperation. The goal as I see it is not to stymie the characters in their heroism but make their heroism seem much more important.

In the world of midnight there's a giant elven snow fortress called Autilar. In my campaign it had been taken by orcs; the majority of the 15 session campaign was finding out about this, travelling there, finding out important information about the place (secret tunnels) and so on.

Anyway, despite horrible odd's the PC's had to get in anyway. (evil ritual, you know the drill.) They had the option of going off on another, less dangerous adventure. (I suggest this. Let PC's have a way out that isn't just chickening out and rejecting the game.) But the PC's chose as a party to do the most good because if they didn't.. they wouldn't be heroes.


So anyway, Midnight can be a long term game. Sure, there's stacked odds - but any DM can stack the odds anyway he likes in any game. The idea is to let PC's try to find their epic hero-ness, not their greedy adventurer-ness.

Now, the dark god can never be toppled. But he can be driven back; in a time of guerilla warfare a team of powerful surgical strikes can be more damaging to a mass war effort than an army.

Some Midnight GMs may cry foul at me to say that Izrador can be driven back. I would attest it isn't easy but a party of heroes may well do it. The game itself says that the PC's are heroes, not just grubby, desperate refugees in a desolate realm.

Heroism shines more brightly in an encompassing shadow, after all.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I own the 1st edition of Midnight, and I don't really like it. Although I recognise the quality of the fluff, I found the tone a bit too angst-ridden for my taste. What's less subjective, though, is the quality of the crunch, which is sub-par. Someone already mentioned the heroic paths which are wildly unbalanced when compared to each other. My impression was that the designers came up with a really cool game world concept (and this part of the book is very well done), then quickly cobbled together some rules without testing them for fun or balance so that the whole thing could be sold as a campaign sourcebook. I can't speak for the 2nd edition, but I was pretty disappointed with the first.

 

[Driddle]

I own the 1st edition of Midnight, and I don't really like it. ... the quality of the crunch, which is sub-par. Someone already mentioned the heroic paths which are wildly unbalanced when compared to each other.

I can't speak for the 2nd edition, but I was pretty disappointed with the first.

Feh. No more "unbalanced" than, say, a halfling rogue is unbalanced against an orc fighter. The paths are a matter of personal taste and character design.

 

[Nyeshet]

I do not yet own either the first or second edition of Midnight, but from what I've read of it in reviews and on websites devoted to the setting, it seems to me that Midnight is in some ways similar to Ravenloft. The differences are that:

1) those trapped within know that they are trapped within - and trapped with a known malevolent deific being. In Ravenloft the setting NPCs are not supposed to know about the Dark Powers or the imprisoning nature of the realms - or even about the Dark Lords, necessarily.

2) there is but one land, not a hodge-podge of various lands that are sometimes connected and sometimes not connected, at the whim of the Mists and the Dark Lords (who can seal the borders to their own realms). As such, there is a real possibility of 'escape' in the sense that one is not trapped in a single county or realm or region. On the other hand, there is widespread knowledge of just how far the Shadow has spread - and the fact that the world is defined (ie: no 'hidden paths or lands' beyond the mists) means that they know that the Shadow is slowly covering all - there is less hope that perhaps elsewhere an undiscovered land exists without it - and perhaps has the strength to route it if the land should be discovered and recruited, etc.

3) the setting is less 'gothic' in the sense that Dracula, Frankenstein, etc is gothic - instead tending towards more of an angst-tinged post-war feel that might be expected in an area long and firmly occupied by enemy troops - without any real hope of overcoming them (as more can always come and replace them - and enact reprisals for any attempt at rebellion).

4) the ultimate foe cannot be slain / destroyed, while in Ravenloft one may potentially do just that to a Dark Lord. Granted, upon success either the realm will gain a new Dark Lord or - potentially - the realm may cease to exist, dooming all within it. (Not sure if the last has happened before, however.)

Otherwise, the setting is remarkably similar to Ravenloft - just with a different feel, less mystery, and less chance of success against the Darkness / Shadow.

To those that have played several times in both settings, is this more or less correct? (Note: I've not played in Midnight, but I have played a couple times in Ravenloft, and collected a few of the 3e books for it.)

 

[Driddle]

No.

 

[Land Outcast]

I must thank everyone collaborating here, and I feel like announcing that Midnight 2nd ed. will be arriving home in about 30 days. (yeha, from amazon, living here sucks when speaking about buying stuff through amazon, yes it does...)