In May 2025 we presented the Against the Darkmaster Bundle featuring Against the Darkmaster, the FRPG from Open Ended Games of epic adventure and heavy-metal combat. Funded in an October 2019 Kickstarter campaign, Against the Darkmaster (abbreviated VsD for “versus Darkmaster”) adapts old-school percentile systems (specifically, Middle-Earth Role-Playing) to support grand sagas in the style of Tolkien, The Wheel of Time, Labyrinth, and Dragonslayer – stories of a fellowship of heroes standing together against overwhelming evil.
Using rules aimed at creating epic quests, with detailed travel mechanics for long overland adventures, you’ll travel to distant lands, face terrible dangers, uncover ancient items of power, and gather the armies of the world under your banner to defeat an ultimate menace. What menace, specifically? That’s up to your group of players: You launch your VsD campaign by rolling on or choosing from several charts that collectively define a dreadful and immensely powerful being who seeks to plunge the world into darkness. The rulebook describes three examples: the Horned King of Annwn, the Witch-Queen of Despair, and the Blood Lord of War. Whether an eldritch horror or a devious warmaster, a tempter or sower of discord, a herald of Death or Fimbulwinter – the Weaver of Lies, the God of Entropy, the Unborn Spirit – whatever his nature and epithet, the Darkmaster commands ruinous powers, hordes of servants, and corrupting magic. He has no game statistics and cannot be directly fought. But a prophecy tells of this entity’s downfall, if the heroes can find the Coveted Artifact that is his bane.
The Darkmaster rules, faithfully (if tacitly) modeled on Iron Crown’s 1980s Middle-Earth Role-Playing (which was in turn based on Rolemaster), assign player characters (PCs) the six MERP Stat scores, plus a Kin, Culture, and Vocation. Where Rolemaster characters could reach level 50, VsD PCs top out at 10. They gain experience through Achievements; at the start of the campaign, your group chooses which Achievements award XP, so you yourselves determine how fast or slow the campaign moves.
PCs have up to three Passions (designated as Nature, Allegiance, and Motivation) and a Drive score that fluctuates during play. By pushing the story forward based on your Passions, you increase your Drive. You can spend Drive points for die-roll bonuses and re-rolls. For each ten points of Drive you spend, your character advances on a Heroic Path track, reaches a Milestone, and triggers a Revelation, which can improve your stats, skills, or equipment. If your character dies, your next PC inherits half the predecessor’s Heroic Path marks – and if the character died in heroic sacrifice to protect the other heroes, you inherit the entire Path.
Like MERP, VsD uses percentile dice to resolve almost every task (the “Open00 System”), and combat involves many charts. In an attack, you roll 1d100, add your Skill Bonus, subtract the target’s Defensive Bonus, adjust the total based on many fine-grained modifiers, compare the result to the target’s armor, and check a chart keyed to the weapon type. Results may range from a miss to any of five Critical Strikes (Superficial, Light, Moderate, Grievous, Lethal). The percentile dice explode – that is, a very high or very low roll means you roll again and add the new total to the result. A lucky roll can take out the strongest opponent. The magic system, based around spell points and casting rolls, adds another wrinkle, Magical Resonance: If you roll doubles (11, 22, 33, etc.), you may attract the Darkmaster or his minions.
Also like MERP, Darkmaster works best when everyone knows the rules well. The tables produce colorful results, the old-school equivalent of player-directed fiction-forward games that encourage improvisation of combat details. For groups that want to adapt Darkmaster‘s table-driven approach to virtual tabletops, Open Ended Games sells a Foundry VTT version.
This new Against the Darkmaster Bundle presented much of the line – everything you need for a full-scale campaign of good against evil, of courage and sacrifice, and a struggle that will transform the world – for an unbeatable bargain price. (The bundle was bargain-priced, not the transformation of the world.) There were three titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $33.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete 574-page Against the Darkmaster Core Rules (previously in our November 2021 Cornucopia 9), plus the pay-what-you-want Quick Start Rules and the free Ready to Play Characters, Map Pack, and character sheet; the short introductory adventure Heartbane; and the GM Screen.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Bonus Collection with nine more titles worth an additional $57, including the 355-page rules expansion Secrets of the Golden Throne; two full-lenth adventures – The Silence of Dawnfell and Legacy of Blood; and six sets of printable Core Spell Cards for easy reference, keyed to the spellcasting classes: Animist, Champion, Common & Kin, Dabbler, and Wizard, plus the new spells from Secrets of the Golden Throne.
