Against The Darkness

The store recently received a copy of Against the Darkness, “A Roleplaying Game of Vatican Horror and Conspiracy”, from Tabletop Adventures. I’ve known one of the principals in the company via email from the GPA (Game Publishers Association) and was intrigued by the game when I saw them showing it off at a convention I attended last week.  I’ve always been a sucker for modern day horror RPGs (long time fan of Call of Cthulhu and I still run a game of Pacesetter Games’ Chill on rare occasions), so when I saw ATD in Tabletop’s display rack, I asked them enough questions about it that they finally gave me a copy (I also bought two copies and a GM pack for the store so they made some revenue off me).

Against the Darkness really intrigued me because of the similarity in themes between it and the anime, Trinity Blood.  Both involve representatives of the Catholic Church and the Vatican, fighting against the forces of darkness, save that Trinity Blood focuses on vampires as the main villain and is more overt in the conflict between the church and the vampires than ATD.  In ATD, the darkness is always there, but it hides in the shadows and the players must venture there, outside the ken of their fellow men.  The quality of the book looks good as well, the only problem I have is that Tabletop has saddle stapled it with no room for a logo on the spine. Ergo, if it (and the GMs pack) gets shelved spine out, well, it vanishes, leaving only the folded over cover of a book to attract the customer’s eye. The company is looking into the economics of producing a book with a printable spine and probably will come out with one in the future.