Midnight RPG 2e

[Ancalagon]

I'm not sure why, but this game has been popping up in my head for the last week or so. We played it for a short while BITD and I had a good time with it. In fact, it was probably the only published 3.x game setting I really enjoyed.

For those not familiar with the Midnight RPG, here is a quick and dirty review from 2007.

[Necron 99]

Funny you mentioned this, I was just thinking about our short-lived campaign in Midnight the other day. Great setting, I wouldn't mind taking a trip back through that if there were ever the time.

[Ancalagon]

Here is another review.



This setting could be easily run with a system more rules lite than 3.5 WotC branded fantasy. :wink: The first two that pop in my head are C&C and OSE.

Any other ideas?

[Necron 99]

This setting could be easily be run with a system more rules lite than 3.5 WotC branded fantasy. :wink: The first two that pop in my head are C&C and OSE.

Any other ideas?

The biggest kicker with Midnight is the inclusion of more meta, you have Paths your character chooses, in addition to Class, and these give mechanical bonuses in some cases. It would probably take sitting down and making sure the numbers were somewhat balanced.

Plus, 3.x uses skills, so there would have to be some implementation of a skill system or work around for that.

[Ancalagon]

This setting could be easily be run with a system more rules lite than 3.5 WotC branded fantasy. :wink: The first two that pop in my head are C&C and OSE.

Any other ideas?

The biggest kicker with Midnight is the inclusion of more meta, you have Paths your character chooses, in addition to Class, and these give mechanical bonuses in some cases. It would probably take sitting down and making sure the numbers were somewhat balanced.

Plus, 3.x uses skills, so there would have to be some implementation of a skill system or work around for that.

With a little DM/GM/CK fiat, imagination, thinking on the feet, and maybe just winging it, C&C's SIEGE Engine could handle a lot of the skill stuff, I imagine.

I went a dug my Midnight 2e core book out of storage... and found my Cthulhu Dark Ages and Basic Roleplaying books, too. Its like getting presents today!

[Captain_Blood]

I enjoyed playing that setting, and would like to return to it someday. I feel I could do it much better justice these days.

[Necron 99]

Ran across some info about Midnight, apparently it will be coming out again as Midnight: Legacy of Darkness.

Link HERE

The downside to all of this, is the fact that it will be for D&D 5e, but much like 3e, which I didn't really like, if Midnight is worth playing, I could see still running it, the same way we ran Midnight with 3e, back then.

This year, Fantasy Flight got out of the roleplaying games business, and sister studio Edge picked up their Star Wars license, Genesys RPG and Legend of the 5 Rings. It’s Edge, a publisher based in Spain, who is resurrecting Midnight.

Midnight, which has already had two editions, will not use Genesys. Instead, it’ll use Wizards of the Coast’s OGL and run on 5th edition. That’s the D&D ruleset.

Asked why this was the case, Stewart offered up two reasons for not moving to Genesys. Firstly, Midnight’s legacy has been with the D&D rule system, and there was the feeling at Edge that this should be maintained. Secondly, it would be easier.

We didn’t get timelines for the project. In fact, Edge is still working to onboard Fantasy Flight Games’ RPG assets and don’t even have a website ready.

Even worse, though, which leads me to believe that this edition is probably going to pale in comparison to it's predecessor, is the fact that it seems to be getting the "woke" treatment, just like D&D 5e.

Stewart was also asked about “evil races”. D&D has recently acknowledged the idea of “bad by blood” is wrong and issued a diversity in Dungeons & Dragons statement. Could this be a concern for good races versus evil races setting like Midnight?

It could be, acknowledged Stewart, but it was an issue they were already working to address. In fact, Legend of the Five Rings already works with sensitivity readers and cultural experts since that RPG draws so heavily on Asian cultures.

If they can't understand that Midnight is 100% about bad-races being bad and bad-fallen-god being evil, then they have no business trying to put this back out, what would be the point, it would just be another standard fantasy setting. But, I'll reserve full judgement until I've managed to get the PDF and look it over or hear more about it.

[Ancalagon]

Following WotC's more recent politically correct focus would be a disservice to the inherent evil of the bad guys. Should Izrador not be evil by nature? He is basically evil incarnate in the setting. Or maybe Izrador is just misunderstood.

[Necron 99]

Following WotC's more recent politically correct focus would be a disservice to the inherent evil of the bad guys. Should Izrador not be evil by nature? He is basically evil incarnate in the setting. Or maybe Izrador is just misunderstood.

I know, I would really like to see Midnight come back out in full force with everything kept intact, but who know what will happen. Like I said, if I get the PDF and see that it looks and reads well, then I'm all for taking it for a test drive. But if it looks like it is changed and the changes just don't jive, well, then I might have to just jump back to the original version (of which I have all the PDFs) and we take 3.x for a spin again just to revisit the setting and see how much more we can do in it.

[Necron 99]

Today, on DriveThruRPG, I noticed the PDF for the 5e version of Midnight is available. But...so far, it doesn't really look too favorable. One of the reviews had this to say about the 5e version in comparison to 3.x.

Very disappointing. As an old grognard who had a standing order for every 3e Midnight supplement from my FLGS back int he day, I feel like they just missed the mark.

The setting is there. The fluff is there. The feel... not so much. The mechanics for bringing Midnight to 5th Edition are severely lacking. I say that because they left out a lot - not stuff from the years of supplements that they had in 3rd edition, but stuff that was in the original 3e Midnight CRB.

No half-races. No Defender class. No special weapons (technically, they are there, but almost all are "Treat as existing weapon x with no modifiers"). No new sub-classes to the existing 5e classes. No new classes (so no 5e Monk, no Defender, if you want to be an unarmed combatant, I guess be a fighter?). No Wildlander (play a Ranger, I guess?). You can play a 5e paladin or Bard though!?! They do give write-ups for the standard (full) races of Midnight, but not the half-races (dworg, dwerro, elfling).

The Heroic Paths are... less than expected. In 3e, they gave you an ability each level. In 5e, you get a free bonus feat at 1st level, but any further investments into your heroic path come at the expense of your ability increases/feats every 4 levels. Want to take all of the abilities in your Heroic Path? You'll pretty much never get any other feats or ability increases. Mechanically, I feel like this might have been a better fit for Pathfinder 2e, not D&D 5e.

Don't even get me started on magic. Wizards, Sorcerers, and Druids are valid classes, no reworked Channeler (except as a Heroic Path, see above). A caster can take the new Subtle Spellcaster feat to choose 2 1st level spells to cast without detection once per long rest, but that's all I could see.

I feel like a lot of the original thought and care that went into making the game a balanced 3e experience was left out of this version. This is not a 5e version of the classic Midnight setting, it is 5e with Midnight flavor text.

That said, I still hope that the publishers put forth the effort to fix the issues and correct things. The setting is truly phenomenal and deserves better than this book offers.

Someone else mentioned this:

An intriguing but also rather flawed interpretation of the Midnight setting. It is missing some of the elements that made the 1st and 2nd editions unique, such as the survivor class and the Elfling and Dwarrow races. It also shows a lack of imagination on the part of the author as they have changed the gender of some of the cast so that they are now women, rather than coming up with interesting new female characters themselves.

Jaden Norfall, and the head of The Gorand Clan of Bodruna are now women. The Nightking Jahzir also has a different name and background. There is not much consistency between this edition and the previous ones.

Not including the half-races and gender swapping NPCs sounds like the usual attempt to appease the "woke" crowd. This trope is getting tiresome. Not including the Defender is a head scratcher because that was something of an iconic class in the original books where getting and using traditional weapons was difficult, those fighting against Izrador had to scrounge and struggle to fight the dark god and his followers, Defenders allowed this as a viable option for those wanting something outside of the usual fighter-type of combatant, and showed how the resistance was tapping into other sources of personal and spiritual power.

Allowing wizards, sorcerers and druids is a complete antithesis to what the setting is about. This is just bad.

IMO, it sounds like a quick money grab by someone who doesn't really care about the setting, looking to ride the 5e train and going so far as to just ruin everything that made the setting unique and interesting.