Midnight Setting For LL?

[samwise7]

I cross posted this idea over on the Against The Shadow forum: http://www.againsttheshadow.org/index.php

Does anyone out there happen to have a Labyrinth Lord, or other Old School Renaissance Retro-clone version of the Midnight Setting out there? I was kicking around the idea of possibly running a game using this setting in the future. I've been moving in a more rules-lite kick these days, and don't feel like using the rules as written for that setting (v3.5).

The Midnight Setting was Fantasy Flight Game's Tolkien-inspired setting, but with a big twist. Imagine Middle Earth if Sauron (Izrador in the setting) won, and started dominating the entire world, by beating it into bloody submission... It is a fun setting to play the standard freedom fighters in a corrupt society, achieving only minor victories, and also for playing the bad guys that are weeding out and killing heretics, etc.

I'm guessing it would be easiest to use the Advanced Edition Companion optional rules for split race and class, and just make homebrew versions of each of the races for LL. I was just curious if anyone did the leg work already? hehe.

I wonder how hard it is to translate 3rd Edition era games over to LL? Has anyone done that before?

[rabindranath72]

I ran a quite successful Midnight campaign using the Mentzer rules. I used the rules mostly as-is, the only caveat being that clerics are for NPCs only, and I used the Elf spell lists from GAZ7 (which also include some healing spells as 3rd level spells).

[samwise7]

Did you do anything with Heroic Paths? I'm not sure if it would be worth it to port those over in some fashion.

[rabindranath72]

Absolutely not. They would make the game too complex with little return. The rules were essentially Mentzer, with the only modification the Elf spell list. All the rest was fluff.

[samwise7]

I liked that the heroic paths didn't depend on what class you picked, so you could mix and match a bit. While I don't think I'd bring over all the complexity of the Heroic Paths, I might have a one-time gift for someone that picked one of the paths. So for instance, if someone chose the Healer Heroic Path, they might be able to cast Cure Light Wounds once a day, no matter what class they were.

The Midnight OGL can be found here:
http://darknessfalls.leaderdesslok.com/

[samwise7]

I ran a Midnight 1-shot using LL. I decided to try to run an evil-themed game, since some of the players got a bad taste in their mouth when they played the good guys in an older campaign (using 3.5). Everyone had a great time, and I was glad that some of the guys didn't mind me trying out an older rules-set, because in the past they were pretty rigid on what systems we could play.

It went so well, that the players seemed to get attached to their characters, and asked if perhaps I could run a campaign of it in the future. We shall see...

[Omote]

The Midnight setting is too amazing not to cross over to other games. The real strength to Midnight is the setting itself, not the Heroic Paths. However, if would not be that hard to convert and TONE DOWN the Heroic Paths to LL or any classic-style fantasy RPG.

~O

[samwise7]

I wanted to do something with the heroic paths, but I ran out of time. A toned down version of Heroic Paths sounds interesting though.

[beedo]

The Midnight setting is too amazing not to cross over to other games. The real strength to Midnight is the setting itself, not the Heroic Paths. However, if would not be that hard to convert and TONE DOWN the Heroic Paths to LL or any classic-style fantasy RPG.

~O

I completely agree; it'd be neat if FFG hadn't dropped the setting.

Does anyone know if there is a hex map out there for Eredane? I've often thought the Midnight setting would be awesome as an old school hex crawl; I just haven't had time/energy myself to scan and convert a map. And I'd love to stat out the various orc armies using the War Machine from BECMI.

The LOTFP Weird Fantasy rules extend the Moldvay style d6 skill system to include things like Forage, that would work well as house rules in a LL/AEC campaign.

[samwise7]

I've ran midnight in three different systems now (World of Darkness, LL, and 3.5). It is a great setting, and I'm close to having all of the material FFG put out.

I'm pretty sure my Monday group will eventually want me to run a campaign of it, so I have some time to think what optional rules to splice in from other old school games.