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Heroes Against Darkness is now released!



Heroes Against Darkness is a free, fast, flexible, and fully-featured fantasy d20 RPG system. The game is quick to learn and play, while offering progressively greater options and flexibility as players develop their characters and explore the breadth and depth of the system.

The key aspects of Heroes Against Darkness are:

For Players:
• A game that’s fast, fun and deep
• Streamlined rules system using unified mechanics
• Eleven character classes for all play-styles
• Three martial classes: Warrior, barbarian, berserker
• Two specialist classes: Rogue, hunter
• One hybrid class that combines magic and martial: Hospiter
• Five magi classes: Warlock, healer, canonate, necromancer, mystic
• Extensive character background and skill options
• Fast character building with plenty of depth
• Martial and specialist classes get meaningful combat choices through class-specific techniques that are based on trade-offs and the unique capabilities of each class
• Anima points-based magic system with five main schools focusing on each of the following; physical, healing, protection, necrotic and controlling

For GMs:
• A system that’s easy for the GM to set up and run
• Intuitive and clear rules
• Set up unique combat encounters in minutes
• A simple ability test system for non-combat challenges
• Support for long-term campaign play
• Extensive GM’s Guide to help run the game
• Huge bestiary with over 80 monsters
• A framework for quickly making custom monsters
• A comprehensive world-building guide
• Appendix of key tables for GMs

You can download Heroes Against Darkness from the blog here:

Normally I'd bounce a naked promo into the promotions forum but seeing as it's Justin, who is a good egg, I'll turn this into a discussion with a question...

I'm a GM (which is true) who runs D&D (which isn't true). I have loads of D&D books on my shelf (also a lie). I find Heroes Against Darkness and think it is very cool (which is true). How do I convince my players to make the switch? What is it about HAD that makes it unique?

Well, considering that organizing RPG groups to do anything seems to be virtually impossible, it's tricky. The GM does have a fair bit of sway over what game the group is playing, mainly because he or she puts in the bulk of the effort of actually running the game.

As for why they should choose Heroes Against Darkness, that's a question that is answered in part by the reasons I made the game. We'd been playing 4th Edition for a while, and though I love the modern mechanics, we didn't like the 'magic' martial powers. Furthermore, we'd just been stuck for months inside an inter-dimensional pyramid, and when we got out we were ripped off by our sponsor! So we decided to go back to Basic D&D, which we had some fond memories of. I GMed the Basic campaign and was really frustrated with a lot of the mechanics in it, and the bizarre idiosyncratic aspects of those rules.

So I decided to make my own game. Which is a short sentence but a lot of work...

So the main things I wanted to achieve with Heroes Against Darkness:

- Martial powers that are based on situational advantages or trade-offs.
- Anima-points based magic system that allows players to choose how and how much of their anima to use.
- Balanced play for all classes.
- Quick to learn and fast to play.

I think I achieved these goals, and to me Heroes Against Darkness is an ideal version of D&D, taking the best parts of all of the different editions and introducing a whole new magic system that side-steps all of the inherent issues of Vancian magic.

Now, I'm not saying that this is the perfect version of D&D, I'm just saying that this is my preferred way of playing D&D, and it might be the same for other groups.

Finally, as a GM who has a lot of books on your shelf already, this is the perfect time to try out new games. 4th Edition (which I think is the best version of D&D yet) is on the wane because of community in-fighting and the upcoming 5th Edition. Pathfinder is around, and well-supported, but many groups don't want that much crunch. Basic and the other early editions are having a resurgence, but not everyone likes those games. The upcoming public playtest of 5th Edition is going to put a lot of groups into the mindset of trying out different rules, so why not try out Heroes Against Darkness to see if there's anything there that works for your group!

Plus it's free.

This game deserves POD.

The cover art is quite impressive. Is the artist a friend or was it a commissioned piece? I've frequently thought about commissioning some decent artist but one of the things they never do is discuss price (at least not with me). I've heard of some doing pieces for $400 and other times a beer and a handshake. The chasm between is quite large. Can you share any insight?

Holy smoke, the amount of work put into this book is amazing! and the quantity and quality of illustrations (not only the cover, which I frankly don't like that much, but the in-text ones!) - well, they really grab your attention. Gonna read this one.

Okay, I'm going to have to check it out.