I found this game by sheer luck while surfing RPGnow for inspiring material for running a game. All I have to say is....WOW!

I have always wanted to play and run in D20 games, but the rules formats never "clicked" with me. I always found the various editions of D&D to be far too top-heavy and cumbersome, with rules that are overly-complicated for what (I think) a player needs to play casually, and requiring too many books for a GM to flip through unless they are great at memorizing rules.

But Heroes Against Darkness had me immediately pitching the ruleset to my usual group- and for me to actually DM! It has just the right amount of detail versus accessibility, and I especially love the way that it allows me to easily and quickly build monsters, even for off-the-cuff random encounters. It is a very well put together book, with very nice artwork. And it's free, which is astounding.

The only gripes I had are that the areas of how skills impact the game, and Hybrid class creation, are virtually non-existent. But with some work looking on RPG.Net got me fixed up with some ideas from other fans of the ruleset, along with very positive imput from the author himself.

I would absolutely recommend this game to anyone looking for a good time around a table, and keep up the good work!