Conan RPG from TSR

[The Evil DM]

I just picked up a copy of the Conan RPG from TSR. It looks very sparse but the combat system looks interesting. have any members here played it and if so what did you think of it?

 

[The King]

I just picked up a copy of the Conan RPG from TSR. It looks very sparse but the combat system looks interesting. have any members here played it and if so what did you think of it?

There are interesting ideas and it's fun for intiation purpose. If you're an experienced gamer you probably won't like it.
The three scenarios that were released for the game were quite good, though, and far better than the 2 modules adapted for AD&D.

 

[Samvail1]

Did you get the dice with a free white crayon to colour in the numbers?

I have a copy here next to me as I type. Poor game system but the background information is pretty useful.

Sam

 

[Finarvyn]

Poor game system but the background information is pretty useful.

My thoughts exactly.

For some reason, TSR had this phase where they all seemed to say "let's make a setting that would be perfect in D&D, but let's not do it in D&D because we want it to have product identity" or something. They did Conan, Indiana Jones, Marvel Super Heroes, and a host of other games and many of them would have made good D&D-style sourcebooks (sort of like d20 OGL does today!). Instead, they made totally new rules and the games got funky.

 

[rigante]

I really like the games mechanics.

Rolling everything on the one table works really well.
I have modified it somewhat during years of running it.
Added a fumble system and that type of thing.

I still prefer it to the Mongoose system. But then again I have never liked D&D or it's clones. Much prefer a sensible percentile system.

Anyway back to the TSR Conan game. It has a magic system that is unlike any other game I can think of. The wizard (or whatever) can develop spells by describing what he wants to do and then the GM will arrange a series of requirements that the player has to achieve (i.e. black lotus, bat blood, full moon, sacrifical virgin etc.). There are real risks to the wizards health when casting spells as well.

Magic user are seriously tricky to use in the game, if a pc plays one, it is likely that the rest of the party is going to have to protect him/her for along time, before they become good enough to survive on their own.

The rules are all fairly simple and alot of it is left to the imagination of the GM to pull it off.

Great game poorly supported, sadly missed.

 

[Bregales]

I really liked this game, and put it on my TSR Conan listmania page. [edit NOTE: I also have a Mongoose Conan listmania page] It is very simple to use, uses a resolution table similar to what I remember from the James Bond 007 game with quality results; the ambiguity of magic was bost it's best and weakest point. Actually, I loved the talent pool idea of the game, I tried so many times to get people to use this system. Power gamers just didn't like it though, so I haven't played it in over 15 years.

I hated the 'world' book "by Ervin H Roberts" which was a pathetic excuse for researching the world, lazily done in a style ripoff ala Indiana Jones (which was released about the same time by TSR), but all in all the game was nicely put together.

 

[Thoth Aw C'mon]

But then again I have never liked D&D or it's clones. Much prefer a sensible percentile system.

I agree entirely. I've found that percentile systems tend to be superior to D20 systems. I've found D20 games to generally be clunky and odd, while percentile games tend to be more intuitive with less chart checking.

 

[The Evil DM]

Thanks for the input guys.

I have been toying with the idea of running a Hyborean Play by Email (PBEM) but I wanted a system a little less complex that the Conan D20. I'm thinking the TSR one might translate over well to PBEM. the "everything on one chart" thing is really attractive for an email game, as is the wide -open magic system. I'll still be using all my Mongoose stuff for source material though.

 

[Altantean DM]

But then again I have never liked D&D or it's clones. Much prefer a sensible percentile system.

I agree entirely. I've found that percentile systems tend to be superior to D20 systems. I've found D20 games to generally be clunky and odd, while percentile games tend to be more intuitive with less chart checking.

Somebody needs to play Rolemaster. :wink:

 

[Iron Guardian]

From what I remember when I ran it for a while back in the '80s, my friends and I generally liked the game but thought it could have used more development time before release. The magic system especially could have been done better in my opinion as I thought it was very underdeveloped. Also, the game definitely needed more support...but TSR being what they were then (good creatively, bad business sense) really screwed up a lot of their licenses back then - Conan, Indiana Jones, and Buck Rogers. We eventually switched our Conan campaign over to the Fantasy Hero system by Hero Games.

Overall, great license, flawed execution of a potentially good alternate game system different from the AD&D model. :?

 

[rigante]

Somebody needs to play Rolemaster. :wink:

Been playing it for years and love it!

Also play Call of Cthulhu, Runequest and Stormbringer - all percentile systems.

 

[rigante]

Thanks for the input guys.

I have been toying with the idea of running a Hyborean Play by Email (PBEM) but I wanted a system a little less complex that the Conan D20. I'm thinking the TSR one might translate over well to PBEM. the "everything on one chart" thing is really attractive for an email game, as is the wide -open magic system. I'll still be using all my Mongoose stuff for source material though.

Sounds great, if you are interested, send me a private message and I will let you have the modified versions I have done (fumbles and stuff like that). They still all work around the nice simple mechanic.

At the very least, let me know when you want to run the game as I would love to play it.

David
ironmammoth AT tiscali DOT co DOT uk

 

[The Evil DM]

Sounds great, if you are interested, send me a private message and I will let you have the modified versions I have done (fumbles and stuff like that). They still all work around the nice simple mechanic.

At the very least, let me know when you want to run the game as I would love to play it.

David
ironmammoth AT tiscali DOT co DOT uk

Thanks David, I will take you up on the offer for the tables.

As to the game, I'm thinking maybe five players, using the TSR rules and the Mongoose source material. if there is any interest amongst the folks here send me a private email, and i'll put together some groundrules.

 

[Bregales]

This sounds great, I hope you guys have good experiences with this product. I used to love a character sheet where 4/5 of the space was meant for character story & background info (oh the days before being acquainted with power gamers ).

I see in my copy of the game book, I had created Stealth for the Perception Talent Pool; Riding under Knowledge Talent Pool. Now, you could just use Animal Handling and Observation, but back in high school I wanted them different.

I remember, the main reason I couldn't get friends from college to play was because the game grants 2 fame points for killing Black Men, and no matter how much I tried to describe the source story to them, of the demons on the isle, they refused to look at the game. Hope you guys enjoy it.

 

[The Evil DM]

This sounds great, I hope you guys have good experiences with this product. I used to love a character sheet where 4/5 of the space was meant for character story & background info (oh the days before being acquainted with power gamers ).

I see in my copy of the game book, I had created Stealth for the Perception Talent Pool; Riding under Knowledge Talent Pool. Now, you could just use Animal Handling and Observation, but back in high school I wanted them different.

I remember, the main reason I couldn't get friends from college to play was because the game grants 2 fame points for killing Black Men, and no matter how much I tried to describe the source story to them, of the demons on the isle, they refused to look at the game. Hope you guys enjoy it.

I've been reading the rules the last couple of days and putting together the threads for an adventure. the mechanics are very simple. given the rules it looks very difficult to "powergame". the system seems very gritty. in no way a high fantasy trek. I'm thinking of new talents to add already. such as soldiering I notice Siegecraft is on the list but not in the description. Too bad this game was never given a serious treatment it could have been beefed up into a pretty solid system with some care and attention.

 

[Lando The Archmagi]

Also play Call of Cthulhu, Runequest and Stormbringer - all percentile systems.

Ah! Where were you when I was recruiting for my Stormbringer game?

I'm a fan and player of Rolemaster, Stormbringer, Conan and others too.

 

[Thoth Aw C'mon]

Somebody needs to play Rolemaster. :wink:

Been playing it for years and love it!

Also play Call of Cthulhu, Runequest and Stormbringer - all percentile systems.

Haven't played Rolemaster before, but mayhap I'll check it out. The original Stormbringer- ( and I mean original, when it came in a big box and the rulebook was one big book) is my fav game of all time. I had great fun playing that game. The magic system was great. Stormbringer was the only game where you could have the most thrilling sessions in between adventures when your mage decides its time to try and summon and bind a fire elemental, or a demon of protection, etc. Man it was fun. And the combat was wicked, too. Great stuff. I loved the world and the setting- being a big fan of Moorcock's Elric series. I loved rolling on the chart to see what nationality my dude would have. "C'mon Melnibonian! Daddy needs a kick a** sorceror!" Heh heh. I remember reading a post somewhere on here that this aspect of the game was a draw back. That in the same party you could have a bad-ass Melnibonian and a begger from Nadsokor(sp?). But that appealed to me. It was a world of oddballs and misfits. Just look at the oddballs Elric chummed around with (and usually ended up killing in one way or another). But no matter what you roled, it was fun (and violent.) Great game.

I certainly remember Runequest. I remember for years it was about the only real competition out there for AD&D, except for some other games such as Melee which wasnt much more than a pamphlet. But while I had always heard that the Runequest system was good, the game never appealed to me, being a young lad, due to its poor aesthetics. I mean, it had some butt-ugly artwork, at least compared with D&D's monster manual, DMs Guide, etc. Those books just drew you in with their great renderings of creatues fair and foul. It was the same with Stormbringer: great effing art. But having matured a tad since then, I wouldn't mind getting a hold of Runequest just to check out its mechanics.

As for Call of Cthulu, love it! The non-D20 version that is. (As an aside I just picked up a game at my not-so-friendly local hobby shop called "The Arkham Horror," which is great. The boxed game weighs about 25 lbs, so its heavy with tentacled, long-named, impossibly angled, other-worldly goodness. Seriously I could curl that thing twenty times a day and see results faster than those stupid rubber band things they sell on TV.) But I'd have to say in terms of game mechanics CoC put the concept of SAN and the lack thereof into RPGs and added a great layer to the games. Now virtually every RPG that comes out has rules for mental illness and the loss of one's sanity. CoC also added the unheard of virtue of running like hell from practically every encounter, or at least considering it strongly whenever you meet something other than some local creepy cultists with weird, unblinking fish-like eyes...Those guys you can handle, its the other ones you gotta avoid. I recall Stormbringer even came out with a supplement a few years after the first edition with some cool SAN rules similar to CoC. Both are Chaosium products if i recall correctly.

But yeah I might have to get on Ebay and get some dog-eared copy of Runequest and/or Rolemaster to check 'em out.

 

[rigante]

Somebody needs to play Rolemaster. :wink:

Been playing it for years and love it!

Also play Call of Cthulhu, Runequest and Stormbringer - all percentile systems.

I recall Stormbringer even came out with a supplement a few years after the first edition with some cool SAN rules similar to CoC. Both are Chaosium products if i recall correctly.

COC, Runequest and Stormbringer (at least the version I played) were all based on the same basic mechanic - with variations.

The sorcery system in Stormbringer was really sweet, loved it.

I still run COC ossasionally and rarely have to open the rulebook nowadays as i know it so well.

 

[High Lord Dee]

Searching through the CoC threads when I found this one. I bought the TSR Conan game new off the shelf when it first came out and still have it. I have the modules as well. I found it to be very playable. Great introductory RPG game. It has many similarities to the Marvel Super-hero RPG that came out at the same time (probably due to the fact that they had the license for Marvel). Fast play, storyline intense. At the time, it was great for comic book guys to make the transition into fantasy. There was really no other Conan sutff out there. I found it much better than the AD&D Conan modules. Good stuff.

It is so limited and lacks any real detail. that it will not compare to the new d20 rules. If you are looking for simplicity, it is fun and easy to learn.

It may be worth picking up on eBay just for more background information. Here is the list:

Conan RPG Boxed Set (Include the Tower of the Elephant scenario)
CN1 Conan the Buccaneer (Argos)
CN2 Conan the Mercenary (Zingara)
CN3 Conan Triumphant (Ophir)

 

[Bregales]

For what it's worth, I have a TSR Listmania List on Amazon.com. Though the list doesn't show the product pictures, if you click the name to open product window, you'll see the pictures for the covers.

Conan rpg-TSR releases