Quote from: AsenRG;883579That's a failing of "most game systems", not of REH's story. Ask Goliath whether slings have low damage;).

This. Whipping a stone around and around in a sling before releasing it gives it enough momentum to break your arm. If Conan got hit in the skull, it was a heroic act to merely be knocked out instead of dying.

I don't know that I would ever explicitly set a game in Hyboria, but if I were to, Mythras would be my pick for reasons that have already been stated. Plus it has slings that do damage on par with a mace or longbow.

Quote from: CRKrueger;883605Naw, Hit Points are a ridiculously abstracted mechanic, but still representative of something completely in game.  Granted it's abstracted to the point that some may see no difference, but it's there.

"Hit points are hit points. They represent hit points, and they simulate hit points. Hit points are Errol Flynn physics.They are meant to represent the duel at the end of the Errol Flynn movie. Hit points are a game thing that makes the game fun."
Yeah, definitely doesn't seem like something in the game.

Quote from: AsenRG;883688"Hit points are hit points. They represent hit points, and they simulate hit points. Hit points are Errol Flynn physics.They are meant to represent the duel at the end of the Errol Flynn movie. Hit points are a game thing that makes the game fun."
Yeah, definitely doesn't seem like something in the game.

So a search and read what Estar and Alexander have said about Hit Points. Or not.  Don't have the energy to do Abstract vs. Dissociated the 1200th time.

TL/DR;
A crappy, over-abstracted model that doesn't work very well does not mean it's not representing something completely inside the setting.

I've found that Pendragon has worked well generally for worlds of pre-D&D pseudo-medieval fantasy literature, and I see no reason the pseudo-classical elements of the Hyborian Age should pose any problem.

The magic system from the 4th ed. is a pretty good starting point, but I find that what most preserves the flavor of the tales is leaving magic in the GM's hands. NPC sorcerers may on occasion be companions on adventures, but far more often they are patrons or foes.

However, Zenobia is what I'm most inclined to choose now if I were to run an REH game. It has quite simple yet sufficiently comprehensive mechanics, putting the focus on what interesting exploits the player-characters will undertake, and what strategically significant hurdles must be overcome, rather than on number-crunching for a myriad of mundane tasks.

The hand-to-hand combat system is also interesting, allowing one to "save" point results for a chance at dealing grievous wounds (which may be lost if one presses luck too long). There are some minor tweaks I would make, but overall it's a pretty elegant rules set that seems to have just the "sword and sandal" flavor for a Conan style campaign.

Quote from: JeremyR;883504In the Frost Giant's Daughter, as an 18 year old (ish), he kills two Frost Giants in basically a single blow each.

 Then you have that one story where an adult Conan is knocked out by a rock from a sling. Which I guess hurts quit ea bit, but in most game systems the damage from one is about as low as it gets.

1: At age 18 Conan had allready seen more than a few wars.

Quote"I was," grunted the other. (Conan)"I was one of the horde that swarmed over the walls. I hadn't yet seen fifteen snows, but already my name was repeated about the council fires."

2: Having been hit in the chest with a sling stone (a rock propelled by a lawn mower) and laid out flat. And the fact that once again. Conan does not equate to D&D well. You can simulate it with things like subdual damage and special shots. But pointing out that he was KOed by a sling proves nothing at all other than he was KOed by a sling.

x: This was something I actually considered when writing RS. The concept of situational HP and regular HP. Things you are aware of and can react to allow situational HP to come into play. Otherwise it comes off your base HP. Instead went with a base life score that does not improve unless you actually train to improve. The real factor was your ability to either dodge or use your armour and/or shield and/or parrying effectively. Which worked better and was part of the sales pitch that got me the green light.

So, how does your favored system handle Hyborian Age Magic?

This is slightly tangential, but IMHO most of the listed systems above struggle to do Hyborian Age magic well.  Certainly Vancian systems or systems where there is little risk or cost are poor fits.  Furthermore, just about any magic system that follows particular reliable formulas or structures feels - unmagical.

The original TSR Conan basically had no magic system, only guidelines about how a GM could create spells and some consequences for PCs who trifle with sorcery.  Its quite cool, but the GM must do all the work as nothing is done for you.

Mongoose Conan made a valiant effort at Hyborian sorcery.  I think it is the only full blown magic system designed specifically for the Milieu.  It's a little limited and is heavily dependent on the class/level structure of the game.

BoL magic can work well, but because it is a player driven improv system, you need a very good GM to keep it under control.  BoL sorcery requires good GM judgment (and that can be good or bad depending if your GM gets it or not) or it can be overly powerful, even game-wrecking, in my experience.

BRP magic works well, I think, because it is practically a non-system and it is completely open ended.  Nothing is scaled, but there are a ton of spells (in all the various products) most of which fit weird fiction well.  You have multiple magical systems to draw from such as spirit magic from RQ or Demon magic from stormbringer, and these can help to create separate magical traditions from different cultures.  If you include sanity and spells from CoC then dabbling in the black art is truly perilous.  Like BoL, it requires a bit of judgment from the GM in when and how PCs learn magic, but its more likely to backfire on the PCs than it is to break the game.

At any rate, Magic seems one of the hardest things to "get right" for the Hyborian Age.  I'd be interested to hear how other people's favored Conan system handles magic.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883735BoL magic can work well, but because it is a player driven improv system, you need a very good GM to keep it under control.  BoL sorcery requires good GM judgment (and that can be good or bad depending if your GM gets it or not) or it can be overly powerful, even game-wrecking, in my experience.

Atlantis 2nd Age shares a lot with BoL though it is more built up and adds more genre specific flavour. Magic is no exception.

Magic effects are free form but there are specific guidelines for each meaning that though magic is unpredictable it is neither improv nor unbalanced. It is also dangerous to use, but mostly when the caster is pushed (such as when facing a mighty chewed barbarian intent on their blood).

Cool things include a focus on magical traditions based on real world beliefs to frame magical effects without limiting them. There is also rules for powerful ritual magic and alchemy. Finally, worship of gods has its own set of supernatural effects that are very different to magic, being both more subtle and potentially more powerful.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883735So, how does your favored system handle Hyborian Age Magic?

As noted in an older thread.

Probably the best system to model is Call of Cthulhu as Lovecraftian magic is about the same as Hyborian magic. The more you use it the more your sanity tends to slip. But using warding items and sigils usually does not. Both also focus a-lot on summoning things.

TSR Conan has you right out the gate a little loony if you start with or even pick up actual magic.

Though D&D/Vancian magic can fill in as most Hyborian/Lovecraftian magic was pretty reliable.

Quote from: CRKrueger;883692So a search and read what Estar and Alexander have said about Hit Points. Or not.  Don't have the energy to do Abstract vs. Dissociated the 1200th time.

TL/DR;
A crappy, over-abstracted model that doesn't work very well does not mean it's not representing something completely inside the setting.

When it comes to "what HP are meant to be", I prefer to listen to Gronan. And I get the above statement. Which might be read as being part of the setting, but then you're definitely engaging in an "use narrative mechanics immersively" exercise;).

Quote from: Madprofessor;883735So, how does your favored system handle Hyborian Age Magic?

This is slightly tangential, but IMHO most of the listed systems above struggle to do Hyborian Age magic well.  Certainly Vancian systems or systems where there is little risk or cost are poor fits.  Furthermore, just about any magic system that follows particular reliable formulas or structures feels - unmagical.

43 AD/Warband has a system where you sacrifice to your gods, or the dark forces you serve, for power. The gain is based on the Maximum Hits of the creature and its Fate attribute (unless including the Fate was my own houserule, not sure on that account).
Interestingly, you could count Conan as benefitting from powerful magic, in that he is constantly sacrificing to Crom by proving his valour. Depends on how you want to treat it;).
In all cases, it's magic created for an Ancient World setting, and adds British Isles magic. I doubt you'd get a better fit any time soon:p.

QuoteThe original TSR Conan basically had no magic system, only guidelines about how a GM could create spells and some consequences for PCs who trifle with sorcery.  Its quite cool, but the GM must do all the work as nothing is done for you.

You either do that, and it's a non-system, or you get reliable formulas and structures, called "rules". Alas, there's no way around it, IMO:).

QuoteBoL magic can work well, but because it is a player driven improv system, you need a very good GM to keep it under control.  BoL sorcery requires good GM judgment (and that can be good or bad depending if your GM gets it or not) or it can be overly powerful, even game-wrecking, in my experience.

BoL is just easy to wreck IME. Then again, getting a powerful PC is fully in genre, as far as I'm concerned.

QuoteBRP magic works well, I think, because it is practically a non-system and it is completely open ended.  Nothing is scaled, but there are a ton of spells (in all the various products) most of which fit weird fiction well.  You have multiple magical systems to draw from such as spirit magic from RQ or Demon magic from stormbringer, and these can help to create separate magical traditions from different cultures.  If you include sanity and spells from CoC then dabbling in the black art is truly perilous.  Like BoL, it requires a bit of judgment from the GM in when and how PCs learn magic, but its more likely to backfire on the PCs than it is to break the game.

As a note, since REH was in correspondence with Lovecraft, CoC magic should be more than fine. Indeed, I'd be tempted to lift the CoC magic and add the Demon Magic from Stormbringer/Elric (I think Stormbringer 4e was reputed to have the more Moorcockian magic, right?), if I ever managed to find Stormbringer in PDF.
Demon magic would be solely for the "good" religions:D!

Quote from: CRKrueger;883692So a search and read what Estar and Alexander have said about Hit Points. Or not.  Don't have the energy to do Abstract vs. Dissociated the 1200th time.

TL/DR;
A crappy, over-abstracted model that doesn't work very well does not mean it's not representing something completely inside the setting.

I will repeat it.

In Chainmail, a early 70s miniature wargame, in combat, one hit killed one warrior or stand of warrior. A Hero took 4 hits to kill, and a Super-Hero took 8 hits to kill. Along with that a Hero was worth four ordinary veteran warriors, a Super-Hero was worth eight veteran warriors.

In D&D this was expanded. One hit did 1d6 damage. A veteran warrior was given 1d6+1 hit points. A Hero now had 4d6 hit points, and a Super-Hero was given 8d6+2 hit points. Plus intervening levels were filled in with Warrior, Swordsmen, Swashbuckler, etc.

Hit points by themselves have no context, you have to look at the hit dice used to roll them to understand what they equate too. A 7th level wizard could absorb hits equal to four warriors and fought as a Hero with -1 on the die roll (2d6).

All of this was focused on number of attacks and the amount of damage a character could takes. In terms of being able to hit something a 4th level fighter was NOT four times better than a ordinary warrior.

This was D&D's system of abstracting combat. The problem was that none of this was explained well. The average would have had to own and played Chainmail, then OD&D to get the abstraction. If you came in straight into roleplaying with OD&D by itself, or later Basic D&D or AD&D it wasn't obvious why there was hit points, AC and all that.

This fact is what lead others, (Chivalry & Sorcery, Runequest, etc) to come up with system that made more sense to them.

But now with the internet, PDFs and advancement of D&D scholarship, we can see exactly how D&D abstracts the real world of medieval combat and why it works the way it does.

Quote from: AsenRG;883785When it comes to "what HP are meant to be", I prefer to listen to Gronan.

By all means do that. But then again the original material is out there for you to read and to come to your own conclusion. Everything I laid out can found in books that are readily available.

In chainmail the basic mechanic was a to hit roll based on the troop type versus troop type. Part of what made a specific troop type was the armor they wore.

In the man to man section, the to hit roll was again a result of cross-index the weapon used versus the armor worn. This is obviously the direct ancestor of the alternative combat system in OD&D where the chart was the level of the character versus the armor worn.

And Gygax worked in the weapons vs armor comparison back in OD&D with the Greyhawk supplements. You can see how the values in the Greyhawk chart mirror the 2d6 target numbers in Chainmail.

You can see the rules for hero and super-hero in the fantasy supplement section for Chainmail. You can see the fact that the level title for 4th level fighter is Hero and the 8th level title is Super-Hero.

You can see the chainmail-OD&D link in the fact that fighter get one attack per level against creature of 1 HD or lower. Exactly the same mechanic in Chainmail where a Hero attacks as four figures and a Super Hero attacks as eight figures.

I've used Rolemaster (a home brew version of it) for our last campaign which was set in Hyboria.
Why?
Because most of my players are fond of the system and it really worked pretty well. Even if you're a really good fighter one lucky critical by your opponent and it's game over, so players can be cocky but not too cocky. I use something like fate points in our home brew, but it can still get lethal quickly.
We had a blast: a journey across Hyboria so the players received a "look and feel" of the setting (everybody knew who Conan was, but nobody had heard of Hyboria ), enough fights and encounters to entertain the lot and a grand finale...

Quote from: AsenRG;883785As a note, since REH was in correspondence with Lovecraft, CoC magic should be more than fine. Indeed, I'd be tempted to lift the CoC magic and add the Demon Magic from Stormbringer/Elric (I think Stormbringer 4e was reputed to have the more Moorcockian magic, right?), if I ever managed to find Stormbringer in PDF.
Demon magic would be solely for the "good" religions:D!

The Stormbringer/Elric/Magic World magic systems are a lot of fun, but none of them really reflect magic as it worked in Moorcock's books. The truest version to the books is Elric of Melnibone for MRQII. It's written by Lawrence Whitaker, so it is very easy to blend with RQ6/Mythras.

Ron Edward's Sorcerer & Sword has been touted as a great treatment of the S&S.

If I ran Hyborian Conan - right now - I'd probably leverage Atlantis the 2nd Age. Loved the original which you included - but I think the new one is better.

Barring that - I'd leverage Talislanta 3e or 4e for the system.