Looking for Conan-specific here, mostly gazetteer material. System isn't important.

GURPS Conan - can get this off Amazon POD. Price isn't bad. GURPS material from that timeframe tends to be useful whether or not you play GURPS.

Mongoose Conan - out of print, hard to find hardcopy. I do have the Stygia book from this line from years back, it seems good. What else is good?

Modiphius Conan - in print, easy to obtain. From what I understand it fastidiously avoids an aesthetic that was omnipresent in the Mongoose books, which makes me question what else they have left off. Is this correct? If it is, it isn't an automatic disqualifier, but would need some direct recommendations for "this book has great stuff."

"Boobs on every page" isn't the requirement, but carefully avoiding it entirely means we may not have the same expectations from a Conan product.

I'm looking for a hard R rating. A PG rating for Conan just ain't right.

There's http://hyboria.xoth.net

TSR's Conan had good suplements even if you hate the system.

Mongoose published several supplements, very good IIRC.

Modiphius avoided the Picts as PCs, they also civilized the savages.

There's a free ebook for true20, conan microlite20 and another for the AGE system (AGE of Conan)

There was also a SWADE supplement, free ebook IIRC.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 29, 2023, 12:46:23 AM
There's http://hyboria.xoth.net

Braten's Xoth setting https://xoth.net/publishing/ is also an awesome Not-Conan setting, I'm running it using Dragonbane right now - (NSFW)  https://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2023/03/sword-sorcery-cultures-for-dragonbane.html
Even if sticking with Hyborea, the Xoth adventures & material are brilliant and easily adapted.

I think the Mongoose Conan d20 core book gives a good comprehensive overview and the tone of the world. But leaves a lot up to you. If you only care about lore then which edition or printing of the book does not matter.

Ruins of Hyboria is pretty good for ideas when creating sites to adventure in.

There is also the Road of Kings/Return of to the Road if Kings( this one was a bit expanded). It is a dedicated gazetteer of the world. It is a bit of a hit and miss,  I think. Some sections are useful,  some  bit bland and there is some cringey pastiche stuff. It's a mixed bag. But if you are familiar with Howard you will have good grasp on what is plausible and fitting, and what is not.

Subversive mophidites can shut it. Their pastich stuff is also cringe and often boring. And has probably  tarnished the term "Howard scholar" forever.

Quote from: Teodrik on May 29, 2023, 08:14:57 AM
I think the Mongoose Conan d20 core book gives a good comprehensive overview and the tone of the world. But leaves a lot up to you. If you only care about lore then which edition or printing of the book does not matter.

Ruins of Hyboria is pretty good for ideas when creating sites to adventure in.

There is also the Road of Kings/Return of to the Road if Kings( this one was a bit expanded). It is a dedicated gazetteer of the world. It is a bit of a hit and miss,  I think. Some sections are useful,  some  bit bland and there is some cringey pastiche stuff. It's a mixed bag. But if you are familiar with Howard you will have good grasp on what is plausible and fitting, and what is not.

Subversive mophidites can shut it. Their pastich stuff is also cringe and often boring. And has probably  tarnished the term "Howard scholar" forever.

Yeah, it drove me nuts how Modiphius crowed about "Howardian purity" then censored some of their authors and added tons of Lovecraft that WAS NOT in the original Howard material.  Yeah, they were pen pals or whatever, but Modiphius went over the top there which was annoying because of their aforementioned purity stance.  So despite their using pastiche material, I'd still go for Mongoose over Modiphius for supplements and a few are still available for decent prices on Internet sites.

I'm somewhat interested in what Monolith will do with their new RPG.  Their Conan boardgame seems to be fairly true to the spirit of Howard and I've seen some whiners on youtube complain about the depiction of women in the boardgame which to me is good, because it means they're hewing close to the original stories.  But I haven't played it.  I will certainly check out the KS or whatever they do to launch the new RPG later this year.

From what I've heard so far it is looking like monolith has this one in the bank,

  I have the monolith board game, and it is MUCH more in alignment with Howard Conan than the Modiphius version was.  If they make the RPG in the same vein as they did the board game it will ring true (the D20 was pretty close to Howard Conan despite some pastiche I always thought they were keeping the spirit there at all times) and the board game seemed to be much more along the lines of the Mongoose version of the game than the Modiphius (I have both).

Quote from: oggsmash on May 29, 2023, 10:49:28 AM
  I have the monolith board game, and it is MUCH more in alignment with Howard Conan than the Modiphius version was.  If they make the RPG in the same vein as they did the board game it will ring true (the D20 was pretty close to Howard Conan despite some pastiche I always thought they were keeping the spirit there at all times) and the board game seemed to be much more along the lines of the Mongoose version of the game than the Modiphius (I have both).

This is good to hear.  I actually have a conversion of the Mongoose version of the game for Castles & Crusades which is really well done that I was thinking of using with some Mongoose supplements, but now I'm leaning towards starting fresh with Monolith because I've got other things I'm playing now anyhow.

D20 Conan definitely has the most thorough sourcebooks on the Hyborian Age.  Possibly too thorough? I'm not sure how many people need two full pages on Stygian marriage practices. But yeah, I would expect you're going to pay through the nose if you want to buy them all.

I don't think the Modiphius Conan books are as bad as some people are saying. Aesthetically, they're probably more influenced by the Conan comics than anything else, but you could say that of the Mongoose books as well. I'd say they're floating somewhere between a hard PG-13 and a soft R. There's a little blood, not much, and plenty of scantily clad ladies, but they never show a woman's nipples. For reference, here are some of the spicier illustrations from the Modiphius corebook.

[Possibly NSFW] https://i.postimg.cc/wjfxk74z/2d20-Conan1.jpg



   

Content-wise, the Modiphius books don't devote anything like the the page-count that Mongoose does to things like slavery, prostitution or human sacrifice, but they also don't pretend they don't exist. 

Whether or not the Lovecraft inclusions bother you is kind of a personal thing. The idea of Conan and Cthulhu having a shared universe is pretty prevalent at this point, especially in games. It's a useful enough way to add a little more fantasy to the Conan setting without breaking the tone, but I get why Howard purists wouldn't like it.

If you're going to play the game inside, I would definitely recommend Mongoose over Modiphius, but if you just need a summary of the Hyborian Age setting, the Modiphius books are completely adequate to the task.

Also, if you want to learn a lot about the Conan setting for free, I would recommend this Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGmQwKrJ10Zc73bXk0J3_yaWyrPjGW_Cw

EDIT: First image was arguably NSFW, so I converted it into a link.

Modiphius made Achtung! Cthulu - but never show a swastika. Everything they make feels weirdly bland and hollow. That's before getting into their much loathed 2d20 system.

Quote from: ForgottenF on May 29, 2023, 11:38:59 AM
D20 Conan definitely has the most thorough sourcebooks on the Hyborian Age.  Possibly too thorough? I'm not sure how many people need two full pages on Stygian marriage practices. But yeah, I would expect you're going to pay through the nose if you want to buy them all.

I don't think the Modiphius Conan books are as bad as some people are saying. Aesthetically, they're probably more influenced by the Conan comics than anything else, but you could say that of the Mongoose books as well. I'd say they're floating somewhere between a hard PG-13 and a soft R. There's a little blood, not much, and plenty of scantily clad ladies, but they never show a woman's nipples. For reference, here are some of the spicier illustrations from the Modiphius corebook.

[Possibly NSFW] https://i.postimg.cc/wjfxk74z/2d20-Conan1.jpg



   

Content-wise, the Modiphius books don't devote anything like the the page-count that Mongoose does to things like slavery, prostitution or human sacrifice, but they also don't pretend they don't exist. 

Whether or not the Lovecraft inclusions bother you is kind of a personal thing. The idea of Conan and Cthulhu having a shared universe is pretty prevalent at this point, especially in games. It's a useful enough way to add a little more fantasy to the Conan setting without breaking the tone, but I get why Howard purists wouldn't like it.

If you're going to play the game inside, I would definitely recommend Mongoose over Modiphius, but if you just need a summary of the Hyborian Age setting, the Modiphius books are completely adequate to the task.

Also, if you want to learn a lot about the Conan setting for free, I would recommend this Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGmQwKrJ10Zc73bXk0J3_yaWyrPjGW_Cw

EDIT: First image was arguably NSFW, so I converted it into a link.

I love grim dark (half off)s channel, alot of good stuff. We've been playing this for a little while and the system isn't without quirks though i picked it because i didnt want to play 3.5 and wanted a bit more customization than barbarians of lemuria. Havnt played a system that i was like "yes this is conan!!" though Mythras or Savage worlds might actually be pretty close.

I can't remember which stage it happened at, but part way through the product line, Modiphius decided they would 'fix' Howard's creation by replacing his nasty old racist views of foreign cultures with new and improved™ ideas. I gave up on the whole line at that point, going from mild interest to zero interest.

I own and enjoy the 2016 Monolith board game of Conan. BoardGameGeek has several files summarizing the rules, that might be interesting if you haven't seen them yet: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/160010/conan/files . Belit is there as a playable character but strangely, Valeria, the most canon female fighter, isn't in the base game.

Explicitly including Cthulhu in a Conan game is straying a little from canon, but "Tower of the Elephant" and a few other stories make it clear that similar things are canon.

I'm told that the Conan MMORPG opens with bizarre character creation like deciding on genital size (why?), then recreating a canon scene with a crucifixion for shock value, then gets heavily into making you enslave people to progress. Doesn't sound fun.

Personally, I don't mind pastiche or Cthulhu mixed with Conan.  What irked me about Modiphius was their hypocritical "Howardian purity" stance.  Don't try to sell your game based on fidelity to the original when you add or subtract stuff at your personal whim and/or to conform to fallacious "modern sensibilities."

Quote from: KrisSnow on May 30, 2023, 11:39:51 PM
I own and enjoy the 2016 Monolith board game of Conan. BoardGameGeek has several files summarizing the rules, that might be interesting if you haven't seen them yet: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/160010/conan/files . Belit is there as a playable character but strangely, Valeria, the most canon female fighter, isn't in the base game.

Explicitly including Cthulhu in a Conan game is straying a little from canon, but "Tower of the Elephant" and a few other stories make it clear that similar things are canon.

I'm told that the Conan MMORPG opens with bizarre character creation like deciding on genital size (why?), then recreating a canon scene with a crucifixion for shock value, then gets heavily into making you enslave people to progress. Doesn't sound fun.

  The taking of thralls is more or less a taming mechanic using the wheel of pain to get hostile NPCs to join your army..so the alternative to getting them to break and serve you is cutting their limbs off or gutting them.   The funny part of the crucifixion is they also list your crimes, which many made me laugh aloud (Cultural appropriation and combo skipping take the cake as capital crimes).