Open Ended Games Interview
Open up about the Darkmaster
Open Ended Games Interview
14th May 2026
Massimiliano Caracristi, the Lead Designer for Against the Darkmaster (VsD), kindly agreed to an interview where we discussed Open Ended Games, his roleplaying background and what the future holds. Read on!
Q1: What was your design philosophy behind Open Ended Games and what were your expectations back then?
A1: To make something we would enjoy playing while attempting to recapture the feelings back in the day when we were playing RPGs as teenagers with lots of free time! We wanted to condense the rules to make the game manageable as well as appealing to a mix of old school gamers and new roleplayers with differing play styles. Also something that can easily be played online.
Q2: How do you know which games to build and focus on?
A2: Any money we make is reinvested back into the company so we create games we like to play. We are currently developing Against the Starmaster (VsS), which came from an idea of Against the Darkmaster mixed in with Flash Gordon and Star Wars. A gothic horror game along the lines of Ravenloft’s Masque of the Red Death setting for AD&D2e would be interesting as a future project.
Q3: How many are there in your Company and what do you do?
A3: There are Three of us currently: myself the lead designer, Tom the art director, and Nick the CEO. We hire artists and writers and recently had the honour of commissioning Graeme Davis! My friend Paolo also helps design our company's website.
Q4: What are the special moments for the company?
A4. Surely seeing our game delivered as a physical book into our hands! It's all a fantasy up until that point! And the book is a throwback to the great fantasy doorstoppers as it’s 600 pages long. It was first printed in Latvia with the 2nd printing in the US. Transportation costs were expensive and hard to print as paper was scarce during the pandemic. We want to publish easy to print smaller sized books as you don't have to worry as much about the binding as you do with larger books.
Q5: Do you remember your very first RPG session?
A5: I was 10 and the first roleplaying I played was a 1980s Italian fantasy game called Catacombe (Catacombs), similar to WHFRP1e, and written with a very tongue-in-check sense of humour and set in a fantasy version of late antiquity Italy. At the time I was an avid reader of Fighting Fantasy books, when my dad saw this game in the shops and brought it home to me. I played the game's adventures several times with a friend, and was later given the D&D Black Box for Christmas that year.
Q6: What’s your favourite aspect of roleplaying, and what category of gamer do you best associate with?
A6: I love running games, world building and coming up with funny and interesting NPCs.
I also love prepping games and then seeing nothing goes how you expect! I also enjoy playing. I like to be a theatrical player and interactioning with NPCs. I really enjoyed D&D 4e because it was combat focused and was like a well oiled machine. I tried D&D 5e and while it’s not a bad edition high level combat drags on and makes the game longer. My Favourite editions of D&D are Basic, Expert, the Rules Cyclopedia and 2nd edition. I never really got into the 3rd edition.
Q7: What roleplaying game content do you enjoy reading?
A7: This has changed over the years. While I love reading rule books and different games I hope there will never be a “perfect” rules system. I now find myself enjoying reading adventures. I like crunchy games as well as simpler systems such as FATE, Powered by The Apocalypse, and Unknown Armies.
Q8: Who do you admire the most in the roleplaying game community?
A8: Gary Gygax as we wouldn’t be here without him, also the D&D co-creator Dave Andersen and all the OSR indie creators.
Q9. Is VsD the spiritual successor to MERP and Rolemaster?
A9: Rolemaster came out with a new edition entitled Rolemaster Unified in 2023 and it’s not a competitor for VsD, although we certainly took inspiration from MERP and to some extent Rolemaster.
Q10. How did you acquire the rights to MERP from I.C.E.?
A10: We didn’t have to buy the Middle earth license as it would have cost far too much and there is no licensing issue with the VsD rules.
Q11. How do the rules differ from MERP?
A11: There are lots of differences, they are more streamlined, and we separated the races from cultures, and revised the magic system making it easier to manage in game. The skill list has been shortened and in the bestiary we made it possible for the monsters to be used in different settings such as the Wheel of Time. The Darkmaster himself can't be confronted directly rather your characters must go on quests to vanquish him. The fumble table isn’t as extensive as in Rolemaster and we toned them down. Check out page 193 of the corebook for the new fumbles table and there is a little turtle on it as a homage to the original!
Q12. Would you consider VsD to be a fantasy TTRPG toolbox?
A12: Yes in a sense, it’s meant to allow GMs and players to make their own game in the way they like by using some rules and discarding others. However if you use the magic resonance rules for example you'll need to have a Darkmaster.
Q13. Can you run any fantasy genre with these rules?
A13: Doing Harry Potter would be stretching the rules but if you’re prepared to do the heavy lifting you can. Conan would be a good fit and I’d love to do a Swords and Sorcery setting like Elric which has two new games coming out, one using the DCC rules and the other by Free League Publishing.
Q14. What supplements are available for VsD?
Q14: Secrets of the Golden Throne is a campaign and setting supplement with new monsters and adventures and we’re also working on a monster manual and optional player rules for a future companion book which incorporates rules for high level play and new class options.
Q15: What’s your favourite die?
Q15: I did buy a D100 which is just a golf ball with numbers painted on! But I'd say the D10.
Q16: Can CYOA books help you learn RPGs?
A16: They were my entry point into RPGs and GURPS did this by teaching you the rules of the game. I’d be interested in writing my own CYOA and I did write an Italian language CYOA for the HARP TTRPG by I.C.E.
Q17: What’s more popular right now, fantasy or science-fiction?
A17: Fantasy romance is popular right now and Fantasy TTRPGs are still the most popular to the mass appeal of D&D. Science Fiction is harder to play and run as it’s important to be more critical as you have to pay more attention to what's happening and you might actually have to explain things, whereas in fantasy you don't!
Q18: How do you successfully blend realism with playability?
A18: We just ignore realism! (laughs) It’s really more a matter of what you're trying to emulate and what's actually playable at the table. What's credible for you is different for me and what you may want to highlight in your game. It does need to make sense and have an internal coherence but realism is over rated!
Q19. What can you tell us about Against The Starmaster (VsS)?
A19: We’re pretty far into the development and it’s basically VsD in space. It will be more space opera than science fiction, so think Flash Gordon and Star Wars but in its own distinct setting. You create your own Starmaster just like VsD but it’s a different setting to that game. We’re aiming for a release on Kickstarter in October/November 2026 and then we’ll commission the
art work on the layout with a release sometime in 2027. It will be two volumes rather than one as it’s easier to handle at the table and not so intimidating! Mystic Powers allow you to attune to the energy known as the ether which surrounds everything and are basically psionics.
You can play androids, robots and synthetic beings who have gained sentience. Travel won’t have the same impact as it has in VsD which is part of the core mechanics as it’s assumed your characters will be doing a lot of walking and riding; rather you're assumed to be on a planet or go zap and you’re when the adventure begins.. There are rules for hyperspace travel, spaceships and dogfighting and the game assumes the party will have a home ship which will carry them around like the Millenium Falcon or the Fire Fly. It’s special as they can customize it, giving it special abilities to make it a character in its own right.
There are no tech levels in VsS as the technology is the same everywhere. There will be guidelines for world generation but not detailed as in this type of sci-fi setting you won’t need to pay too much attention to what's going on system wide, rather the focus will be on individual planets. You will create your own Starmaster, but he will be more of a sinister presence like a central machine intelligence, or a hive mind like the Borg rather than an individual like the Emperor in Star Wars. Indeed in my campaign the Starmaster is essentially this type of entity attempting to assimilate everything! The Starmaster is evil with a capital “E!” as we wanted to create games where the characters are heroes rather than morally ambiguous operating in shades of grey, and we didn't want to do anything too grim dark. The setting isn’t hopeless as you can win. In VsD there are rules to fall from grace and they are also in VsS although you will become an NPC and a potential new antagonist for your former party to face.
Q20. Is VsS similar to Space Master?
A20: No. Not really. Space master formerly published by I.C.I. was a very detailed and hard science fiction game and we’re going in the opposite direction with heroic pulpy action.
Q21: Any advice to new GMs and Players who want to try your games?
A21: We have a free QuickStart with an adventure and Pre-gens for both VsD and VsS covering the basic rules, which allow you to be up and running quickly. The adventure in VsD should last 1-2 sessions while the adventure for VsS can be completed in a single session. Both available from our website and DTRPG.
Q22. What future releases do you have planned?
A22: Mostly single adventures, small rules compendiums and short adventures collections containing additional world lore. The shorter adventures are 20-30 pages for $10 in PDF.
The Mines of Kor Khazan is 50 pages with the PDF being $13. One shot adventures are $3-4, with everything on DTRPG in PDF and print on demand.
Q23. Do you have an online community and can I play VsD on VTTs?
A23: We have an active Discord community server here: https://discord.com/invite/uXPCjrH
and character sheets on Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds with a new revised version due out soon. We’re working on a QuickStart adventure for Roll20 although you can easily import maps to create your own adventures and it’s even easier with VsS as we’re going more into the theater of the mind game play where your characters are either at short range, melee or long range.
We would also consider producing a character and monster token pack for use with VTTs.
Q24: What are your thoughts on A.I.?
A24: It’s a tool that basically depends on how you use it. And if it’s used indiscriminately to produce everything it’s just going to produce slop! But it’s very good at repetitive stuff such as coding, excel sheets and calculations. From a writing point of view it’s good for setting up a structure. We use it for editing and to catch some errors in our English as it’s our second language. I wouldn’t use art completely generated by A.I. But I think the point here is not if you use A.I. but how you use it, it can be a great help to create inspiration for ideas. It’s just a tool. When photoshop came out there was a similar outrage. A.I. doesn’t understand what it writes so it wouldn’t be good enough for an adventure. I did try to participate in a game where the GM was an A.I. with some friends to run us through the VsD introductory scenario. It started relatively well then it felt like it was hallucinating as A.I. is so agreeable! And I wouldn’t play with A.I. players as I can just play a video game at that point. Part of the lure of roleplaying games is the social aspect and compared to playing with my friends A.I. feels a bit hollow.
Thank you for your time!