It looks like I may finally get my first Conan adventure off the ground. All it took was me gifiting "Conan the Cimmerian" for Christmas to my players to make them realize how cool the Hyborian Age is.
But the thing I love the most is how I can rely on Howard's writings to smite the more "creative" players.
Case in point, my players are rolling their new characters with the Heroic (8+d10) method for stats. A bit heavy for my tastes, but ti cut down on the incessant rolling of 4d6 and whining about how bad that set sucked.
So, one player makes a Vanir Barbarian with a 20 Str, armed with a couple of shortswords. Then another player decides he is making a Stygian Noble (with plans to multiclass to scholar) with a CHA 18. They quickly realize that the noble is sitting on a small fortune (1500sp) if he raids his yearly stipend. Which he does. In a bit of metagaming, they decide the noble has -bought- the barbarian as a slave (for 60sp), and the noble outfits the barbarian with a Greatsword, chain shirt, and a horse to act as his bodyguard.
Of course, I had to act all upset, but inside I was -smiling-. I guess neither of them had read "Hour of the Dragon" and really knew what to expect. Since the noble was taking scholar at lvl 2, I had planned a quick side jaunt to Stygia for training - and he would take his bodyguard/barbarian. As anyone who has read "Hour of the Dragon" knows, giant snakes wander the streets of Stygia and they have an affinity for the taste of barbarians. It would be the awesome dilemma of "Does the barbarian slave roll over and die so that the noble can be honored" or "Does the barbarian slay the serpent branding his master as a blasphemer".
Of course this got tossed out the window
Another of my players decided that he too would like to play a Nordheimer barbarian (He will be Aesir, he just doesn't know it yet). So the first player decides NOT to play his barbarian, as no one is playing -anything- with thieving skills. So I now have a Zamorian thief on my hands.
But I have decided that the awesome does not stop with that first barbarian slave of the nobles. I (jokingly) warned him in an email that barbarian slaves were not to be trusted (using the Tito's guide). Since he committed to purchasing him, plus equipment, I have decided that the slave has run off - with gear, horses, and everything that wasn't nailed down. And now their is a huge, angry Vanir out there who will eventually realize that he's just not getting over the insult of being enslaved, and is going through the list of anybody who had anything to do with it.
Man, I love this game.
But the thing I love the most is how I can rely on Howard's writings to smite the more "creative" players.
Case in point, my players are rolling their new characters with the Heroic (8+d10) method for stats. A bit heavy for my tastes, but ti cut down on the incessant rolling of 4d6 and whining about how bad that set sucked.
So, one player makes a Vanir Barbarian with a 20 Str, armed with a couple of shortswords. Then another player decides he is making a Stygian Noble (with plans to multiclass to scholar) with a CHA 18. They quickly realize that the noble is sitting on a small fortune (1500sp) if he raids his yearly stipend. Which he does. In a bit of metagaming, they decide the noble has -bought- the barbarian as a slave (for 60sp), and the noble outfits the barbarian with a Greatsword, chain shirt, and a horse to act as his bodyguard.
Of course, I had to act all upset, but inside I was -smiling-. I guess neither of them had read "Hour of the Dragon" and really knew what to expect. Since the noble was taking scholar at lvl 2, I had planned a quick side jaunt to Stygia for training - and he would take his bodyguard/barbarian. As anyone who has read "Hour of the Dragon" knows, giant snakes wander the streets of Stygia and they have an affinity for the taste of barbarians. It would be the awesome dilemma of "Does the barbarian slave roll over and die so that the noble can be honored" or "Does the barbarian slay the serpent branding his master as a blasphemer".
Of course this got tossed out the window
Another of my players decided that he too would like to play a Nordheimer barbarian (He will be Aesir, he just doesn't know it yet). So the first player decides NOT to play his barbarian, as no one is playing -anything- with thieving skills. So I now have a Zamorian thief on my hands.
But I have decided that the awesome does not stop with that first barbarian slave of the nobles. I (jokingly) warned him in an email that barbarian slaves were not to be trusted (using the Tito's guide). Since he committed to purchasing him, plus equipment, I have decided that the slave has run off - with gear, horses, and everything that wasn't nailed down. And now their is a huge, angry Vanir out there who will eventually realize that he's just not getting over the insult of being enslaved, and is going through the list of anybody who had anything to do with it.
Man, I love this game.
