Like it says.  There's way more than 20 options to pick from, so if you didn't see your favorite, make your own poll.

EDIT: Goddamn it, I forgot GURPS: Conan.  Oh well.
EDIT: Forgot Crypts and Things too, sorry Newt.

Like I said elsewhere, I'd love a CoC-compatible Conan game, so BRP/CoC would be the most perfect option for me.

I haven't actually done any Hyboria-based gaming, though.

Barbarians of Lemuria and Crypts & Things would probably be my next-best choices.

My pick was MRQII/RQ6/Mythras

Pros

• Pure Skill System.  You are what you do and can move from role to role by learning new skills and deciding what to emphasize.  There is zero niche protection, which I think is important in a Sword and Sorcery game of any type. You could argue that Howard has clear niches between Sorcerers and everyone else, but even Conan has learned the Symbol of Jhebbal Sag.
• Sorcery is based on the revelation of secret and alien knowledge, and a Sorceror is going to have different Invocation skills: one might be used to cast the spells learned from the Dark Man, or Kalanthes of Hanumar, Priest of Ibis, others might be gleaned from the Scrolls of Skelos or runes carved into the skull of a great ape, stolen from a witch doctor in the jungles of Kush.  How a Sorceror pieces his knowledge together is very Conanish and the system gives rules for dialing up or down magic power to fit the magic level of your world.
• Combat is quick and brutal, and the number ranges give enough room to fit in all of Howard's unique weapons in addition to all the weapons and armor you would expect.
• You don't like Fortune, Passions, or optional rules for Minions, erase them and you're not undermining anything about the core mechanics.
• The Chargen is very detailed and in phases, one of which is the phase where you get skills based on your Cultural Background.  This perfectly fits Howard's world as race and culture contributing to your abilities and identity are important - perhaps moreso than modern sensibilities of some are comfortable with.  In any case, if you want to give Cimmerians a bonus to Strength and Climbing, or Picts to Stealth, or Shemites to Archery and Deceit, or Brythunian women to Seduction, the system has a perfect way to structure this in.  Also the phased nature makes it easy to bolt in your favorite Lifepath stuff, which I always do, being perhaps a bigger Lifepath Whore than Butcher.
• It's d100 compatible, so toss in anything you want from Cthulhu, BRP or Magic World spells, to Khitai flavor from Dragon Lines or Celestial Empire to alchemy from Cakebread and Walton.

Cons

• Fairly crunchy, which always means a bit of work in the NPC creation dept.  But if you don't mind just assigning important skill ranges without going through character creation for everyone, it's not a problem.   Also the craziest SOB in Runequest fandom, Hkokko, has a website that has roughly 12 zillion entries in his encounter creator.
  
• The combat crunch also means doing a 20 vs 25 encounter isn't going to be as quick as Savage Worlds for example. While there's a great supplement called Ships and Shield Walls, it isn't Conan specific and is more Unit v. Unit rather than Skirmish level.  You can do battles with the Tigress, but integrating Belit firing from the deck while Conan leads the Red Corsairs in the boarding action will take some doing.
• While it was made so that you could do Conan, it isn't licensed, and thus the spell are Runequest spells, not skinned for Howard sources at all, as a result, the flavor isn't as Conanish as the Mongoose spells were or the Modiphius spells are likely to be for example, but I'd have to reskin those anyway with any system that wasn't designed with that in mind.
• It's a toolkit system, which means nothing is really licensed for Conan, or pre-dialed in, so you're making your own Total Conversion Hyborian Hack.
  

Barbarians of Lemuria.

TSR Conan. Pretty good really. Magic has a price and the more you delve the worse it gets.

Call of Cthulhu via the Dreamlands supplement. Like TSR Conan. Magic has a heavy price.

BX D&D would be another choice for the overall lower magic power and system.

And of course Red Shetland/Equine the Uncivilized RPG, Because I wrote it. so nya! aheh. Drop out the parody aspects and the Disney animal people and there you go.

While I love Conan's tales, I don't find his world to be remarkably interesting as a RPG setting, especially compared to Elric's Melnibone and Young Kingdoms. As such, I've played in several Conan campaigns, but as a GM, my S&S game of choice is Stormbringer.

As for the "best" Conan RPG - FOR ME - its been all about the GM making the game play feel like the Conan stories, but don't believe the individual systems used (AD&D, original Conan RPG, Fantasy Hero, Gurps Conan, Conan D20) were particularly useful.

As for Modiphius' KS, we will see how well Conan the Forge-arian does. ;0

One of my groups had a LOT of fun years ago with my Man vs. Monsters 4e campaign where all the PCs were humans with martial classes (Fighter, Thief, Ranger, Warlord) so if I had a group who liked minis who wanted to play Conan, I'd probably break that out again. Maybe modify out 13th Age with Icons for Hyborea.

Barbarians of Lemuria. Because it is quick, easy to learn, fast in play, cinematic, gives lots of space for narration and improvisation, but still are a very traditional rpg. Fairly easy to convert stuff from other systems. Previously used BRP+CoC. Also working on my own D&D/OSR hack with Blood&Treasure, Mongoose Conan, 13th Age and Age of Conan(OD&D) by Grey Elf as foundation.

Assuming we're talking about actual Hyborian Age Conan roleplaying rather than the slightly more nebulous "Conanesque", I'd say:

- AS&SH: The setting is chock-full of great S&S inspiration, but it's not specifically the Hyborian Age. Still, might be good for idea mining. As for the system itself, I think it's not necessarily the best choice, but certainly not the worst, either.

- Barbarians of Lemuria: For a quick, short campaign of a limited length, I could see doing this.

- Some kind of RuneQuest: the idea appeals to me on an intellectual level, but I'd need to tinker with the ruleset and pare it down to something lighter; and if I'm going to do that, I might as well do it with the generic D&D paradigm as a base, as I'm more familiar with that.

- Ultimately, "other": most likely a fusion of Gabor Lux's Sword & Magic and a whole bunch of stuff from Kevin Crawford's Sine Nomine games, with a heavily reworked magic system and a good bit of tinkering to erode all this into some sort of semi-class-based or unclassed sort-of-kind-of-D&D-ish thing.

I am more likely to choose to play Hyborian inspired campaigns than one set in in the actual world. I would choose Atlantis 2nd Age as the system covers the genre as a whole include the individual source material that REH would draw on. The RPG is comprehensive without being book heavy. The mechanics are fast playing, supportive of genre, and kind on the GM.

All of them and none of them. I would focus on figuring what I think Hyboria is and list out the details. Whatever system I pick I would whack until it if that list.

Quote from: Spinachcat;883490While I love Conan's tales, I don't find his world to be remarkably interesting as a RPG setting

Ok first the obligatory

Spoiler

Just curious, why Young Kingdoms as opposed to Hyborian Age?  For me I got a better sense of the world and what was going on in Howard's tales, then I did of the Young Kingdoms in Moorcock's writings.  Maybe because the nature was more episodic, they seemed more exploring the world through Conan then telling this epic tale of Conan.

Quote from: Spinachcat;883490As for the "best" Conan RPG - FOR ME - its been all about the GM making the game play feel like the Conan stories, but don't believe the individual systems used (AD&D, original Conan RPG, Fantasy Hero, Gurps Conan, Conan D20) were particularly useful.

I can totally see that.  My players loved playing Conan d20 when I was running it, but when the players almost resent leveling rather than looking forward to it, kind of time to move on.

Quote from: Spinachcat;883490As for Modiphius' KS, we will see how well Conan the Forge-arian does. ;0

Maybe modify out 13th Age with Icons for Hyborea.

How is 13th Age not Conan the Forge-arian?

Quote from: CRKrueger;883500Ok first the obligatory

Dude, the tea drinking peace weenie? Really.

There is but one Captain and his name is James Tiberius Kirk!!!

And he is played by the Almighty Shatner!

Quote from: CRKrueger;883500Just curious, why Young Kingdoms as opposed to Hyborian Age?

More magic.  I like my S&S more fantastical than historical in feel.

Same reason I prefer D&D to Pendragon. But I'm happy to play Pendragon.
 

Quote from: CRKrueger;883500How is 13th Age not Conan the Forge-arian?

Because the designers didn't yammer on about "player agency" and "narrative gameplay".

But yeah, 13th Age - especially the adventures - have plenty of narrative wank in them, but I like the idea of Icons & how they play into the lives of the PCs from afar.

I'm not sure any system can do Conan. There isn't any singular "feel" IMHO. They range from historical to horror to mythic fantasy.

In 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.

Though with that said, I use an OSRed version of Mongoose's Conan.

Quote from: Spinachcat;883503Dude, the tea drinking peace weenie? Really.

There is but one Captain and his name is James Tiberius Kirk!!!

And he is played by the Almighty Shatner!

True, in the Hyborian Age, Kirk would have made a drinking cup from Picard's skull, had Riker nailed to the Tree of Woe, tossed Ro Laren, Crusher, and Yar in the Harem for later, fucked 7of9 and T'Pol into an orgiastic coma before retiring to the main event...Queen Uhura.

It's still a funny meme though.

Quote from: Spinachcat;883503More magic.  I like my S&S more fantastical than historical in feel.

Same reason I prefer D&D to Pendragon. But I'm happy to play Pendragon.

Oh yeah, I gotcha.  I just feel like when I put down the unmitigated awesome of the books, I turn to one of my players who says "I want to make a guy from Tarkesh" and not only do I have no idea what that's like, I'm not sure I care (if that makes any sense at all).  I never got all the Chaosium supplements though so there might be some great stuff in there.

Quote from: Spinachcat;883503But yeah, 13th Age - especially the adventures - have plenty of narrative wank in them, but I like the idea of Icons & how they play into the lives of the PCs from afar.

If you ever come up with Hyborian Icons, post 'em up, would be interesting to see.

Quote from: JeremyR;883504I'm not sure any system can do Conan. There isn't any singular "feel" IMHO. They range from historical to horror to mythic fantasy.

In 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.

Though with that said, I use an OSRed version of Mongoose's Conan.

Yeah, it's back to the "Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so Precise." thing.

Although, there was a really cool article I read which makes the argument (backed by descriptions from the story) that Conan really was dying, that really was Heimdall he fought, and in essence, the whole story is like a Hyborian HeroQuest, but because the beings in that place weren't his gods, and weren't known to him, they had little power over him which allowed him to win his life back.  Interesting read.

Also you're right, Conan was more of a way to express the different types of stories Howard liked to write, so the Conan stories themselves are all over the map genrewise, even though you have the overarching mythos of the "Writer's Bible" he wrote to keep himself honest.

That's why I think the WHY of the system people choose is always more interesting than the what.