Inspired by this post (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=833173&postcount=79).
In my Savage Worlds Conan/Hyborian Age campaign PCs were the typical murderhobo mercenary squad who got involved with a macguffin hunt across the realms of the Hyborian Age, racing against a cult of the spider god, Atlach-Nacha, led by a sorcerer who was confident he could use the god as a living weapon to rule the world. Conan didn't get involved, though a few NPCs from the stories such as Pelleas the sorcerer and Count Trocero showed up in younger versions.
It was quite a bit like a D&D game (we even had a PC sorcerer) except, of course, for the scarcity of magic (and near absence of flashy, destructive/elemental or healing magic) and 95% of antagonists being human, with the odd wild animal (modern or prehistoric) and the rare eldricht horror.
I use the Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition (previous edition, Revised, not Deluxe) core plus the old Horror Toolkit for rules, and the Mongoose d20 Conan core and Return to the Road of Kings for setting. It was a short but fun game.
I have played the Mongoose Conan D20 game briefly (very briefly, basically one extended weekend of intensive gaming). It was okay, but I think for my personal taste at this moment, D20 in general is too much foused on small details and character micro-management; I usually prefer more complex systems to simpler ones, but for me, D20 is complex in all the wrong ways. I can clearly see the books as good inspirational material, but nothing I would play directly if not suddenly one of my fellow players absolutely wants to play it and infects me with his enthusiasm.
Otherwise, I would use a Runequest/Legend/BRP version: the classic four cultures (primitive, nomad, barbarian and civilized) seem to fit the hyborian setting quite well, the game is generally good and the mechanics can easily create the right feeling of bloodshed and danger of physical confrontations that the setting demands. It would also allow to freely use all the Call of Ctulhu stuff I like without requiring a lot of work, which makes sense for me especially when it comes to magic.
I am running an Atlantis: the Second Age campaign called the Unbridled Blade. An index of APs can be found here: http://grandexperiment.livejournal.com/278081.html. I am pretty much using the setting and system as written, with no changes (my players chose all human PCs but one).
The PCs come from strong individual backgrounds (thanks to Atlantis' lifepath system) and have come together to face various external threats and other goals. Here's the portrait line up of the PCs:
(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/grandexperiment/10438630/7067/7067_600.png)
Chapter 1 was a lot like Tower of the Elephant, Chapter 2 was a sort of Beyond Thunder River, and Chapter 3 is was a distant cousin of both Pool of the Black Ones and Black Colossus. Chapter 4 is inspired by Rogues in the House.
I'm a Conan fan and I've played the various RPGs, but I've never been happy with the result. I am holding out for the Conan boardgame to provide that experience for me. Maybe its just me.
Hmm, I have never run Conan but if I did I could see having fun with a game of cloak and dagger in the capital of Aquilonia. Ohh or a pirate style campaign. Honestly there is so much you could do with the Hyborian Age as a setting. Huh you know now that brought it up I have an itch to run a Hyborian game using those rule modifications that were put out for OD&D.
I played in a great campaign using the Mongoose Conan rules. We started at 3rd level and all the characters had to have at least 1 level of Thief. We had something like two warrior / Thief multi-class, one nomad / thief, one pure thief and one noble / thief.
We were a band of thieves and bandits, and the pure thief character was a street kid obsessed with becoming the most famous thief in the land; his mouth got us into lots of scrapes! It was great fun. For the most part, opponents were human, with the occasional giant beast (a giant snake, giant crocodiles and great apes were about as monstrous as it got). We did robberies, the odd assassination and eventually got mixed up in the affairs of a circle of powerful sorcerers who controlled things from behind the scenes.
The game world really encouraged strong characterisation and lots of excellent banter was had by all. We still have the character sheets and may return to it in the future.
Quote from: Spinachcat;833227I'm a Conan fan and I've played the various RPGs, but I've never been happy with the result. I am holding out for the Conan boardgame to provide that experience for me. Maybe its just me.
Now that's interesting. What is it do you think about "Conan" that you didn't get out of the RPGs but you think you will in the boardgame?
When the game rules are more solid, I'm likely to run a game of rogues, pirates, and ne'er-do-wells operating out of the Barachan Isles.
Still looking for the right system and players.
I've never actually run Conan. It's not really my favorite version of S&S.
Back in the day, I ran a short-lived Hyborian campaign using either 1st or 2nd edition Stormbringer. Bloody and brutal, and the weird demon magic system was perfect for the setting. Everyone had a great time with it.
I have run Hyborean games in both D6 and Swords &Wizardry.
For the latter game I use custom classes and ritual magic rules out on my blog.
each time was a series of short games. used the oldest trick in the book. Conan didn't exist and the PCs took the place of Conan in the Tower of the elephant and other adventures based on Howard's writings.
it was interesting to see how the stories changed with PC involvement. everyone had a good time and I measure it a success.
Quote from: RPGPundit;833955I've never actually run Conan. It's not really my favorite version of S&S.
Blasphemy:D!
If I run Conan, I'm likely to use Savage World of Solomon Kane or RQ6 with some tips from the Vikings and Mythic Britain supplements, with the PCs likely being mercenaries. Either of these is, however, yet to happen.
Quote from: Herne's Son;834118Back in the day, I ran a short-lived Hyborian campaign using either 1st or 2nd edition Stormbringer. Bloody and brutal, and the weird demon magic system was perfect for the setting. Everyone had a great time with it.
It's funny, because I've now run adventures or campaigns set in the Hyborian Age for AD&D,
Stormbringer 1st edition,
DragonQuest, Mongoose's d20 version, and
Elric! The last two of these were, I think, the most enjoyable.
Quote from: AsenRG;834125Blasphemy:D!
Yeah, I guess, but I've always been more inclined toward the Lankhmar end of the spectrum.
Quote from: RPGPundit;834473Yeah, I guess, but I've always been more inclined toward the Lankhmar end of the spectrum.
I actually agree on that account, though lately I've been mixing S&S liberally with S&P, C&D, dark fantasy, mythic and swashbuckling influences, and even stuff from some Eastern genres. So I guess I'm no longer a purist.
Of course, being a purist about S&S, given that the whole thing is an exercise in swiping from other genres without the constraints of said genres, is kinda a challenging proposition in the first place:D!
I've been thinking about how I'd run a Hyborean game, and I think it would be more closer to the Savage Sword comic/magazine spectrum than anything truly Howardian, if that's a term we can use.
But I'm also not averse to a City based campaign like Lankmhar.
Quote from: RPGPundit;834473Yeah, I guess, but I've always been more inclined toward the Lankhmar end of the spectrum.
Whereas I find Fafhrd and Grey Mouser unreadable and unlikable. No accounting for the RPG Pundit's depravity.
Quote from: AsenRG;835095I actually agree on that account, though lately I've been mixing S&S liberally with S&P, C&D, dark fantasy, mythic and swashbuckling influences, and even stuff from some Eastern genres. So I guess I'm no longer a purist.
Of course, being a purist about S&S, given that the whole thing is an exercise in swiping from other genres without the constraints of said genres, is kinda a challenging proposition in the first place:D!
S&P? Now you have me envisaging Conan crashing thru Wall Street. Would that be a bullish market? What shall become of poor Dow & Jones?
Sword and Planet?
Quote from: Skywalker;835316Sword and Planet?
OH! John Carter of Mars et al. I was wondering what S&P stood for, which is odd, as I'm a fan of the genre.
...I have no idea what Matt is going on about either.
Quote from: Christopher Brady;835324OH! John Carter of Mars et al. I was wondering what S&P stood for, which is odd, as I'm a fan of the genre.
...I have no idea what Matt is going on about either.
Standard & Poor's? By Crom, man, own ye no stocks?
Quote from: Matt;835339Standard & Poor's? By Crom, man, own ye no stocks?
I'm disabled and on a government stipend for the rest of my life, so no. I don't.
I ran a game heavily influenced by Kull (specifically the Shadow Kingdom) and Conan stories using somewhat simplified Stormbringer 5 rules. It was one of our coolest games ever. Those battles were brutal :D
Quote from: Trond;835496I ran a game heavily influenced by Kull (specifically the Shadow Kingdom) and Conan stories using somewhat simplified Stormbringer 5 rules. It was one of our coolest games ever. Those battles were brutal :D
That sounds magnificent.
Quote from: Matt;835212S&P? Now you have me envisaging Conan crashing thru Wall Street. Would that be a bullish market? What shall become of poor Dow & Jones?
Quote from: Skywalker;835316Sword and Planet?
Skywalker has the right of it.
Conan crashing through Wallstreet is a game that just has to exist, though:D!
Quote from: Matt;835339Standard & Poor's? By Crom, man, own ye no stocks?
That's right, I own no stocks;).
Quote from: Trond;835496I ran a game heavily influenced by Kull (specifically the Shadow Kingdom) and Conan stories using somewhat simplified Stormbringer 5 rules. It was one of our coolest games ever. Those battles were brutal :D
The Stormbringer "Major Wounds" system is one of the best things in any RPG ever. So perfectly captures the feeling of brutal, bloody S&S combat.
Quote from: Herne's Son;835799The Stormbringer "Major Wounds" system is one of the best things in any RPG ever. So perfectly captures the feeling of brutal, bloody S&S combat.
Care to elaborate how it works, and what is different from the Big Golden Book of BRP:)?
I haven't run a straight Conan campaign before, but if I did I'd use Chaosium's Elric! system with Jason Durall's Conan conversion doc for it. Sprinkle in Mongoose's Return to the Road of Kings and some re-reads of some select REH stories for further inspiration, and go.
The closest I've come to this is in 2011 when I did my own conversion of Xoth Publishing's The Spider God's Bride to the MRQ2 system, and ran a number of linked adventures. It wasn't Conan, but it was sword & sorcery as all hell, and my players had a great time. These days, I don't think I'd go for a system as detailed as MRQ2. I'd be more comfortable with the abstractness of the Elric! system.
Quote from: AsenRG;835826Care to elaborate how it works, and what is different from the Big Golden Book of BRP:)?
Same Major Wound Table, and same rules.
I'd definitely run Barbarians of Lemuria, but with my own locales and flavor.