Quote from: AsenRG;1039145We know no such thing regarding Conan.

Whatever. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I am just relaying how I took Pundy's statement. Regardless, if you play a character from literature, there is a chance you are playing a story, and not a game, since characters in literature inhabit stories, not games.

QuoteMaybe, but all it conveys to me is "this guy's a nutcase". Also, real "barbarian societies" didn't eschew what armour they had, and often looted better armour from civilised people as soon as they could, like the Picts in Howard's history!

Real "barbarian societies" is something of a paradox to begin with, since they only exist as terms given by other societies. But no, I can't think of a reason why Bronze Age Joe wouldn't loot better armor from Iron Age Jim after besting him. Ahnold, however, doesn't need to since he's got awfully fancy plot armor to keep him safe.

I'm going to watch the first Conan movie tonight to see what it's like.

Quote from: AsenRG;1038949Also, in the stories, Conan wore armour as often as he could, which was "none" when running from captivity. Hell, he sneaked around in the forest wearing chainmail!
In the movies and some comics, he is almost deliberately eschewing armour.

Sure.....kinda. Howard does like to talk about armor and such. But the thing is, I can totally see where the comics artists, and even film makers got it from. Conan sometimes wears only a loincloth when he goes thieving, or when his chainmail is torn off in battle, and sometimes he wears shirts and such open at the chest anyway. Before reading the stories, I was under the impression that most artists got it wrong, because of all the assertions from Conan fans. Then I read the stories.....and I can totally see where the artists got it from. Even when he is wearing a lot, the description sort of invites an artist to imagine rippling muscles.

As for women; another old Conan fan talked about how he had hoped that the latest film would have had more vistas of wild scenery and such. I joked "sure, particularly if they include some wild sexy lady vistas as well" or some such. He thought that was totally inappropriate. Then I had to wonder; WTF are we reading completely different stories here?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1039249I'm going to watch the first Conan movie tonight to see what it's like.

Some people love it and some hate it.  I think the directing by Milius is exceptional and musical score by Basil Paledouris (which Milius allows to carry the movie) is brilliant.  It seems to be almost impossible to create a Conan movie that isn't campy and stupid. Milius damn near succeeded, though Arnie and the chick who plays Valeria almost blow it.  Fortunately, most of the dialogue is carried by James Earl Jones and Max von Sydow.

Quote from: Trond;1039321As for women; another old Conan fan talked about how he had hoped that the latest film would have had more vistas of wild scenery and such. I joked "sure, particularly if they include some wild sexy lady vistas as well" or some such. He thought that was totally inappropriate. Then I had to wonder; WTF are we reading completely different stories here?

Yeah, that's just "Fear the Nipple" prudishness.  In Howard's stories, the Nipples are proud and free.  A drawing of Belit with any breast covering is what's inappropriate.

That's the one thing I liked about the Momoa Conan movie.  The slave caravan they freed and the Messantian tavern scene looked straight out of a Howard story.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1039407Yeah, that's just "Fear the Nipple" prudishness.  In Howard's stories, the Nipples are proud and free.  A drawing of Belit with any breast covering is what's inappropriate.

That's the one thing I liked about the Momoa Conan movie.  The slave caravan they freed and the Messantian tavern scene looked straight out of a Howard story.

Yup, and I kinda liked Momoa as Conan. I think the biggest problem was the plot, as far as I remember.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1038960I think Pundy was going for the idea that playing as Conan is a storygame, since we already know Conan survives and kicks ass, and the only question is how (and whether the treasure/girl is stolen/killed out from under his nose in the last act).

If he wants to play Conan, AND expects that Conan can't die and will always win in the end, then yes, that would be a storygame. he might not want that, though.

I know.  Late to the thread.  Here is "The Tower of the Elephant" for BoL that someone adapted from the d20 version on the Xoth.net website.  You can find it here.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1036762My friend wants me to run him a D&D game set in the Conan setting for his birthday. I am all for it! The only problem is, I've never touched anything Conan related in my life.

I know enough that it's "swords and sorcery" and that I think D&D's meticulous tracking of resources won't fit the feeling the game should have if it's Conan. I'm looking at systems like Dungeon World to potentially create the "Conan" feeling.

But that leads me to a question: what exactly is a "Conan" style adventure anyway? Does Conan dungeon crawl like D&D? Or is it something different? What would a typical session of a Conan themed game look like?

Basically I am trying to figure out how it's different from regular old D&D as a system and its adventures. (5e to be specific.) In both feel and content.

Suggestion #1: read (or listen to) some Conan stories. As in the originals, by Robert E Howard.

Among the best:

Red Nails

Rogues in the House

The Tower of the Elephant

There is no reason to think Conan needs to 'win' in a game where Conan is the PC. There are plenty of points in the original stories where he meets his match. Really, the correct way to think of Conan adventures is like Call of Cthulhu with a crabby MMA fighter as the protagonist. They are closer to horror than high fantasy (or even low fantasy).

https://librivox.org/red-nails-by-robert-e-howard/

If you prefer audio.

Conan D&D

rule stuff

I'd consider using AD&D 1E.



Barbarian (yes, the arguably overpowered  UA class--barbarism producing stronger men than civilization is a Howardian theme)
Fighter
Thief
Assassin (they don't all belong to a single, worldwide sect)
Magic-User (NPC/optional)
Illusionist (NPC/optional)

No paladins. I'd also say no rangers.
Clerics and druids are either absent altogether or else present but rare (which does not mean religion isn't important-- but spell-casting clerics who derive their powers from higher or lower sources are not something one meets often)

All PCs should be human.

No demihumans and few humanoids (ape-men, winged apes, weird troglodyte dudes, etc are cool, though--as monsters encountered in strange places)

Shift prices so that silver pieces take the place of gold. No insane dungeon-loot driven inflation.


Use lots of human baddies. Pirates, slavers, thugs, savage raiders, mercs, etc.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1043620There is no reason to think Conan needs to 'win' in a game where Conan is the PC. There are plenty of points in the original stories where he meets his match. Really, the correct way to think of Conan adventures is like Call of Cthulhu with a crabby MMA fighter as the protagonist. They are closer to horror than high fantasy (or even low fantasy).

Well, true. But he does always survive. If a player thinks "conan" means their character won't die, they don't want an RPG.

Can't there be RPGs where the stakes remove death as an option? Imagine D&D where everything is the same except you just never finish off the players and enforce other consequences instead. Or is that storygame?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1043955Can't there be RPGs where the stakes remove death as an option? Imagine D&D where everything is the same except you just never finish off the players and enforce other consequences instead. Or is that storygame?

The primary reason for death in non-story games is that it is a convenient (and usually realistic, given the genres most represented) way of adjudicating failure, which is the real goal. You have to be able to win or lose based on your actions, decisions, and occasionally luck. All the rest is just details. If you can come up with other forms of losing/setbacks (those 'other consequences' you mentioned), then you have accomplished the same goal.

Ghostbusters is an excellent TT RPG where death is really not on the table. There are plenty of other genres that one could explore where death is really not the normal consequence of the happenings (perhaps you are playing a game vaguely like En Guarde, but with boxing, and call it Rocky, in which case the one and only death in the campaign is a pretty damn big deal). You could also make a game where the world works on A-team/4-color comics physics and people do absolutely fight with lethal weapons, but only ever succeed in knocking each other out.