Like many others, my choice for this is a clear RQ 6/Mythras. Many good reasons outlined above. I will say that it has a great balance between a combat system that lends itself to visceral, pulse pounding action, severed limbs flying, just like in the REH stories, but that combat can also result in non-death outcomes, through use of things like Compel Surrender, which seems in-genre to me as well. Also, if you like that sort of thing, PCs have Luck Points to do things like upgrade having your skull caved in by that sling stone to just being knocked out. Which again, fits the source material, as discussed.

The magic system, while needing to be dialed to your preference, works really, really well. Sacrifices, places of power, taking Fatigue or Hit Point damage to push beyond your MP resources: it's all in there. I would add the caveat that it works even better if you include the longer casting times and the Bad Things table from Monster Island in the mix. This gives appropriate Ritual casting for most spells, but allows you to risk horrific consequences to cast faster. See also the gods of the colonists in MI and how Propitiation works for good flavourful Clark Ashton Smith religions.

The fact that magic can come from vastly varied sources, demon pacts, spirits, grimoires, hieroglyphs on a stele in a jungle temple, and that each source provides a restrained spell list also works well. And there are good rules for summoning, or the hint that Animism can be used to create Demonologist characters.

Also interesting is the idea of putting together a Mystic tradition that models a preternaturally powerful and panther-reflexed Barbarian. His Meditation could be carousing and wenching, and you could give him the ability to extend his stamina and fortitude using his Mystic abilities, beyond normal human capacities.

So yeah, Mythras for the win, I say!

Quote from: markfitz;884034Also interesting is the idea of putting together a Mystic tradition that models a preternaturally powerful and panther-reflexed Barbarian. His Meditation could be carousing and wenching, and you could give him the ability to extend his stamina and fortitude using his Mystic abilities, beyond normal human capacities.

Heh, that's interesting, especially if you posit that Crom does exist as a deity and you take Conan's words "at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul." in a more literal tone.

Quote from: CRKrueger;884036Heh, that's interesting, especially if you posit that Crom does exist as a deity and you take Conan's words "at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul." in a more literal tone.

Yes, that's the ticket!

I've actually already done it for a Fionn and the Fianna style warrior from Irish legend. Think it could totally work for Cimmerians ...

Quote from: markfitz;884039Yes, that's the ticket!

I've actually already done it for a Fionn and the Fianna style warrior from Irish legend. Think it could totally work for Cimmerians ...

You could also do some stuff with the Aesir/Vanir as well, springing from the argument that Frost-Giant's Daughter proves Ymir is real, thus the Norse Gods as we know them today are probably legends of ancient kings of the Aesir and Vanir who were giant-blooded, etc...

As races rise and fall from Apedom to Humankind again and again, there's certainly suggestions that certain individuals or subraces aren't quite human or have some non-humans somewhere in the family tree.

Hell the fact that Howard's world was loosely based on theories of science we've discarded as false or that he simply didn't know (like Plate Tectonics) puts his world even more firmly into the HPL/CAS fantasic side, no matter how grounded in history his racial, cultural, and nation analogues were.

I think people go a little too overboard in the "no magic in True Howard" side (magic's all over the damn place),  as if the Savage Sword Conan was just something completely and totally different, a difference of kind, as opposed to degree.

Absolutely. The Aesir and Vanir could make for great Mystic warriors too.

And I agree on the magic and non human blood in some of the races. The setting is dripping with the supernatural, as he wrote it.

Forgot to mention, Conan has also been part of some great Brotherhoods, and Cults are also very well deadly with in Mythras ...

Mongoose Traveller. The die mechanic is skill-based, which I like. And you can add any career/skills to the game for any setting. Barbarian is one of the defaults already to work from for a Conan game. 2nd Edition Traveller has more archaic weapons.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Cranebump
I think player and GM running BoL could get together at the beginning and agree to how the player's magic actually works in practice, based on their character conception, and make that the basic rules for the character...

I feel like the skeleton is there to use as one sees fit...

 I feel like an open system might actually be better in the long run, when it comes to genre/setting emulation. Shape to fit, in other words.

I agree.  The tools are there to make it work.  If the GM and player can work together to define the PC sorcerer's magical tradition (Vendhyan hypnotist or priest of Jhebbal Sag or whatever) then it should be pretty easy for a GM to say, OK, here are the basic parameters of what your magic is like, what you are taught, and the kinds of things you can do, and here are the usual/costs consequences.  If you want to do something outside of those parameters then you may need to develop a new career, find an in-game mentor, tutor, ancient scroll or something to attempt it.  Like you said, it is stepping on player agency a bit according to RAW but with a cooperative and reasonable group that is willing to put in a little work, it should work brilliantly - better than most magic systems where magic is codified into a single structure.  Meanwhile, I think the GM should feel less bound with NPC sorcerers and supernatural events which are the primary antagonists and hooks in Hyborian Age stories.

QuoteOriginally Posted by markfitz
The setting is dripping with the supernatural, as he wrote it.

Yeah, the central plot hook of every Conan or Kull story that I can think of is some supernatural event, creature, plot or other strangeness.  The supernatural is critical to the genre, but it is a little tough to put your finger on Hyborian magic and define it as a thing.  It's not "low-magic" or "high-magic." I don't know what you would call it.  

As you clearly know, Howard drew from history, mythology, the occult, and of course his pen-pals and colleagues.  RQ6/BRP has a great framework for reflecting the many facets of Hyborian Age supernatural weirdness.  You and Krueger are throwing out some great ideas here, I'm going to have to read up on my RQ6 cult-fu to catch up and steel some of your ideas.:hatsoff:

QuoteOriginally posted by Caesar Salad

Fantasy Craft.

With the caveat that I'm not running Hyboria per se, but a far future setting inspired by Conan stories as well as Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

As for why: highly tunable, and the classes, skill system, and action dice seem to fit the flow of the action.

hmmm... can't say I familiar with this one, and I like toolkits.  I'll have to check it out.  Is it a d20 SRD thing?

I voted Whatever Else since I use GURPS which has top notch combat, a really really good Conan sourcebook and several solo adventures that are pretty easy to convert to group adventures

When I played Beyond Thunder River back in the 3e days it simply felt like Conan combat should feel.

Quote from: Madprofessor;884074Yeah, the central plot hook of every Conan or Kull story that I can think of is some supernatural event, creature, plot or other strangeness.  The supernatural is critical to the genre, but it is a little tough to put your finger on Hyborian magic and define it as a thing.  It's not "low-magic" or "high-magic." I don't know what you would call it.  

As you clearly know, Howard drew from history, mythology, the occult, and of course his pen-pals and colleagues.  RQ6/BRP has a great framework for reflecting the many facets of Hyborian Age supernatural weirdness.  You and Krueger are throwing out some great ideas here, I'm going to have to read up on my RQ6 cult-fu to catch up and steel some of your ideas.:hatsoff:

I'm tempted to characterise it as something like "esoteric magic" rather than high or low. I agree, the high or low of it is somehow not the point. As I said, I like the RQ approach of there being many ways to magic, with different ways of functioning, different power sources too. Ancient jewel artifacts or skull-relics as sources of Magic Points are nice too. I tend to think that the take on Divine Magic could actually work as well, as there's some nice stuff in there about only being able to regain MP through worship, sacrifice etc in holy/unholy places. I can imagine a lot of propitiating of dark deities, demons and other cult things, but the mainstream gods only providing vague boost-your-confidence type spells, that work more psychologically than supernaturally.
The darker your God, the more likely it is to provide Eldritch powers, and thus corrupt you ....

I'd call it eldritch magic. That's why the CoC magic and pantheon is such a good fit.

Quote from: Madprofessor;884074hmmm... can't say I familiar with this one, and I like toolkits.  I'll have to check it out.  Is it a d20 SRD thing?

Fantasy Craft was based on the OGL. But more like a total rewrite of the entire rules with a big focus on modularity for both DM and players. It changes so much that it is not very compatible with be standard 3.x srd anymore ( but does provide conversion notes). It is more streamlined(but still very crunchy) and introduces different optional setting rules for the DM to switch on/of. I have no real experience with it at the table. But my impession is that you could call it a D20 GURPS. The sals pitch for the system is "Your dungeon! Your dragon!".

The best Hyborian campaign I've run was for GURPS (a big omission from the poll, given that it is a published product line for a major game system!).

The best one that could exist would be some form of BRP, with lots of content from CoC (Conan stories are horror, not heroic fantasy). You can obviously cobble this together from various sources, but it seems like we'll never really get it as a product.

Quote from: Larsdangly;884159... Conan stories are horror, not heroic fantasy...

They got parts of both.

Quote from: Teodrik;884163They got parts of both.

And others. REH liberally took from many genres.

Savage Worlds would be my choice now, as voted.

Before I moved to Savage Worlds for most my games, it would have been Gurps.

Way back when, I actually ran and played a bit of the TSR Conan game and recall having a fair bit of fun, though I recall few of the details as to why.