To celebrate the 5th anniversary of Open Ended Games (and their CURRENT 50% OFF SALE!), I've decided to create a Let's Read thread for their flagship (only?) game, Against the Darkmaster. I have read a number of these "let's read" forum posts, and they seem like fun. I figure that this will be a good way for me to force myself to gradually read the game while I have time over the summer as well as engage with a community simultaneously. By the end of this series, which will likely take several weeks, if not a few months, I hope to be ready to run a game. I also hope to spread the word about this game that, at first glance, seems terrific.
The main website: https://www.vsdarkmaster.com/
The Discord channel: https://discord.gg/uXPCjrH
What is Against the Darkmaster?
Let's start with some background. Against the Darkmaster, hereafter "VsD," is for all intents and purposes a reimagining of Middle-Earth Role-Playing (often referred to as MERP). MERP was relatively popular in Britain in the 80s and 90s. The company who published it, Iron Crown Enterprises (I.C.E.), also published the one-time heavyweight competitor to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster. Rolemaster is widely remembered as one of the crunchiest, heaviest, densest games in existence largely due to the fact that much of its gameplay featured poring over countless tables and charts to determine the outcomes of rolling d100. However, the game itself flows relatively smoothly and is surprisingly straightforward, as long as you have the tables on hand for reference. MERP was a slimmed-down version of Rolemaster, and VsD is a streamlined version of MERP with the Tolkien serial numbers filed off.
And even still, VsD weighs in at over 500 pages! Jiminy Christmas. But we'll get to that later.
VsD could perhaps be considered part of the OSR, aka Old-School Renaissance, inasmuch as it's a reimagining of an old-school game from the same era as AD&D and B/X D&D, which most OSR games use as their basis today. Most would not assume it's part of the OSR at first glance, because it's not explicitly derived from D&D; even still, I would consider it part of that movement. Let's call this new branch of it the Rolemaster Renaissance. Congratulations for being on the ground floor of the next big thing.
My Background
I began playing TTRPGs with D&D 4e and Call of Cthulhu nearly 15 years ago when I was in my early teens (to give you a sense for my age...). More recently, I dabbled in a bit of D&D 5e (because at this point, who hasn't?), Dungeon Crawl Classics, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess (my preferred B/X rule set, not so much for the modules/brand, to be clear). I have no experience with MERP or Rolemaster. Besides VsD, the other games I'm currently reading are Mork Börg and Mazes, both of which lie on the complete opposite end of the crunch spectrum. Maybe I'll do a Let's Read for Mazes down the road. I view these threads as good chances to give some games more exposure. Everyone and their second cousin has probably heard of or played Mork Börg at this point.
A Glimpse at the Book
To kick things off, I see no better way than to start at what precedes the book's opening pages: the actual book itself. Attached below are some images to give you a sense for what we're dealing with: our own Darkmaster that we'll be tackling together.
The cover artwork is an homage to the cover of MERP. The font is done after Rolemaster. "The Classic Game of Fantasy Adventure." I don't know if it's safe to call VsD itself a "classic," but we're certainly told that this is at the very least a classic-style game of fantasy adventure. I'm in.
The cover art is absolutely beautiful. Based on the art, I'm given to believe that this is a game about epic sagas, fantasy quests like you'd see unfold in Lord of The Rings or The Wheel of Time. The ominous tower looming in the background looks similar to Barad-dûr (Sauron's fortress). I love how it shows what amounts to a fellowship, because right off the bat it sets the tone that this is a game about a group going on a journey together to stop a great, formidable evil. Thehobbit halfling looking at the map with a furrowed brow is definitely me with maps in the GPS era. Ha!
Glancing down a bit, we can see that this is a hefty tome. Good lord! The page count is 561. While I have tended to favor lighter rule sets like LotFP, Mazes, or something ultra-lite like Mork Börg these days, part of the point of this Let's Read is to help set me on the path for an experiment. That experiment is this: try to start both an online and local scene for a crunchy game other than D&D (which I would vaguely put in the medium-crunch category, from AD&D 1e to 5e). Now, how would one go about doing that? Well, the first step is reading the rules. After I've read them, if I like them well enough, I'll begin to think about how I might run some demo games at an FLGS and get a group going through word of mouth, blogging, talking the game up on various forums, etc.
Let's turn to the back and see if our assumptions about what kind of game it is are on the mark:
I like the wraparound cover. An epic saga is about to begin! Not only for any players, but also for this Let's Read! High adventure, heroic action, and heavy metal combat. The last one is interesting. I love heavy metal (not a big fan of doom metal, which inspired Mork Börg). Defeating the "ultimate Evil" sure seems like the kind of story you'd see in Lord of the Rings. I wonder how VsD would fare in one-shot demo games? That's part of the appeal of lighter OSR games like LotFP and Mork Börg, as far as I'm concerned. Makes it easy to bring new players it.
Punctuation seems to be missing after the second sentence.
Until next time, when we'll crack open the book! Thanks for reading.
The main website: https://www.vsdarkmaster.com/
The Discord channel: https://discord.gg/uXPCjrH
What is Against the Darkmaster?
Let's start with some background. Against the Darkmaster, hereafter "VsD," is for all intents and purposes a reimagining of Middle-Earth Role-Playing (often referred to as MERP). MERP was relatively popular in Britain in the 80s and 90s. The company who published it, Iron Crown Enterprises (I.C.E.), also published the one-time heavyweight competitor to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster. Rolemaster is widely remembered as one of the crunchiest, heaviest, densest games in existence largely due to the fact that much of its gameplay featured poring over countless tables and charts to determine the outcomes of rolling d100. However, the game itself flows relatively smoothly and is surprisingly straightforward, as long as you have the tables on hand for reference. MERP was a slimmed-down version of Rolemaster, and VsD is a streamlined version of MERP with the Tolkien serial numbers filed off.
And even still, VsD weighs in at over 500 pages! Jiminy Christmas. But we'll get to that later.
VsD could perhaps be considered part of the OSR, aka Old-School Renaissance, inasmuch as it's a reimagining of an old-school game from the same era as AD&D and B/X D&D, which most OSR games use as their basis today. Most would not assume it's part of the OSR at first glance, because it's not explicitly derived from D&D; even still, I would consider it part of that movement. Let's call this new branch of it the Rolemaster Renaissance. Congratulations for being on the ground floor of the next big thing.
My Background
I began playing TTRPGs with D&D 4e and Call of Cthulhu nearly 15 years ago when I was in my early teens (to give you a sense for my age...). More recently, I dabbled in a bit of D&D 5e (because at this point, who hasn't?), Dungeon Crawl Classics, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess (my preferred B/X rule set, not so much for the modules/brand, to be clear). I have no experience with MERP or Rolemaster. Besides VsD, the other games I'm currently reading are Mork Börg and Mazes, both of which lie on the complete opposite end of the crunch spectrum. Maybe I'll do a Let's Read for Mazes down the road. I view these threads as good chances to give some games more exposure. Everyone and their second cousin has probably heard of or played Mork Börg at this point.
A Glimpse at the Book
To kick things off, I see no better way than to start at what precedes the book's opening pages: the actual book itself. Attached below are some images to give you a sense for what we're dealing with: our own Darkmaster that we'll be tackling together.
The cover artwork is an homage to the cover of MERP. The font is done after Rolemaster. "The Classic Game of Fantasy Adventure." I don't know if it's safe to call VsD itself a "classic," but we're certainly told that this is at the very least a classic-style game of fantasy adventure. I'm in.
The cover art is absolutely beautiful. Based on the art, I'm given to believe that this is a game about epic sagas, fantasy quests like you'd see unfold in Lord of The Rings or The Wheel of Time. The ominous tower looming in the background looks similar to Barad-dûr (Sauron's fortress). I love how it shows what amounts to a fellowship, because right off the bat it sets the tone that this is a game about a group going on a journey together to stop a great, formidable evil. The
Glancing down a bit, we can see that this is a hefty tome. Good lord! The page count is 561. While I have tended to favor lighter rule sets like LotFP, Mazes, or something ultra-lite like Mork Börg these days, part of the point of this Let's Read is to help set me on the path for an experiment. That experiment is this: try to start both an online and local scene for a crunchy game other than D&D (which I would vaguely put in the medium-crunch category, from AD&D 1e to 5e). Now, how would one go about doing that? Well, the first step is reading the rules. After I've read them, if I like them well enough, I'll begin to think about how I might run some demo games at an FLGS and get a group going through word of mouth, blogging, talking the game up on various forums, etc.
Let's turn to the back and see if our assumptions about what kind of game it is are on the mark:
I like the wraparound cover. An epic saga is about to begin! Not only for any players, but also for this Let's Read! High adventure, heroic action, and heavy metal combat. The last one is interesting. I love heavy metal (not a big fan of doom metal, which inspired Mork Börg). Defeating the "ultimate Evil" sure seems like the kind of story you'd see in Lord of the Rings. I wonder how VsD would fare in one-shot demo games? That's part of the appeal of lighter OSR games like LotFP and Mork Börg, as far as I'm concerned. Makes it easy to bring new players it.
Punctuation seems to be missing after the second sentence.
- Unified d100-based action resolution mechanic: the d100 system is something I'll hopefully be at least vaguely familiar with from my Call of Cthulhu days.
- Huge variety of character customization options: There's a part of me that loves how many lighter OSR games eschew character options in favor of character differentiation through the magical items you find and the emergent narratives that unfold as a result of engaging with the GM's world. Lack of character options also makes it easier to bring a new character to the table when the one you're currently playing kicks the bucket. I was never a big fan of how out the wazoo games like D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder were with all of their bajillion "builds." This might make bringing the game to the table for demo games difficult unless I just throw together some pre-gens. We'll see!
- Detailed travel mechanics for long overland adventures: I love travel mechanics; one of my favorite aspects of OSR games is hex-crawling and exploring vast stretches of interesting landscapes. I never liked handwaving away travel, be it over land, sea, air, or underground. It felt like fast-traveling in Skyrim. That's well and good for a video game where you don't want to backtrack a lot, but I like more verisimilitude in my TTRPGs. More travel means more chances for building bonds through role-playing and stumbling on cool new things via random encounters.
- Flexible magic system with over 300 spells: 300 spells is quite a bit, but we'll see how different each of them is from the other.
- Tactical combat and brutal Critical Strikes: I liked tactical combat in my D&D 4e days, because that's all I knew, but I wonder if I'll like it as much these days. I know enough about Rolemaster to know that "Critical Strikes" are central to the myriad of charts and tables that you use when you roll well enough. The kind of damage you inflict can get quite granular.
- Immersive rules for character driven adventures: Sounds good. This will be different from the D&D OSR rule sets I've grown accustomed to as of late that seem to place less emphasis on character-driven and more emphasis on interacting with the world itself.
Until next time, when we'll crack open the book! Thanks for reading.
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