Converting 1st Edition D&D to Conan

[red_herring]

I've started converting a few AD&D modules to the Conan setting. It's no easy task to keep the REH feel, but my first sizable project is the Scourge of the Slave Lords. I thought I'd try to set it in Vendhya and tie things into the People of the Black Circle. The biggest challenge has been keeping the supernatural unusual--necessitating a lot of changes in the random encounters and even more changes in the fixed encounters.

Am I reinventing the wheel? Has someone else already converted the Slavers series? What other 1st/2nd Edition modules have potential for Conan plotlines?

-RH

 

[ahzad]

I will probably dip into all my past modules and reuse some of them for conan. i like a bit more of the 'weird' in my conan game definately not pure REH, more of a conan/cthulhu/thieves world/lankmahr mix would be the closest.

i planned on using the slaver's series as well sometime down the road

what else would be good

ravenloft touch of death
against the giants (thoughts of using this as one of the remaining outposts of the giant-kings, no drow though or even multiple giant types)
dwellers o/t forbidden city
hidden shrine of tamochan
sinister secret of saltmarsh
final enemy
danger at dunwater
cult of the reptile god
temple of elemental evil (parts of this could be used)
isle of the ape
keep on the borderlands
lost caverns of tsojcanth
forgotten temple of tharizdun
the lankmahr stuff

newer stuff i've been thinking about is gygax's necropolis, green ronin's freeport series i think would fit well into a pirate game, a couple of the kalamar modules could be adapted well.

it all really depends on how much work you want to do in converting like i said i want a bit more of the weird element in my games. that doesn't mean i want fireballs, magic missiles, ready cures, or a bunch of magical items, but if it's snake men, giant-kings, things that make you think lovecraft then i'm all over it.

i'm the type of dm who sets down and figures out what i want to do w/ the players put together a rough outline and go.....i tend to do a lot of fly-by-the-seat-of-my pants dming, and honestly those games i do like that are typically a lot more entertaining than one i've done hours of prep work, b/c envariably my players go off in another direction and i've wasted a few hours i could've been doing something else with. so i won't spend a lot of time worrying over the details if i use any of those things. i'll have an idea what i want to replace, have some handy npc stats close by and wing it

 

[The King]

Am I reinventing the wheel? Has someone else already converted the Slavers series? What other 1st/2nd Edition modules have potential for Conan plotlines?

-RH

Many Ravenloft adventures are suitable for Conan (with some adaptation) as well as Dark Sun (without psionics of course) or even Birthright.

 

[Deadpool]

I am doing exactly that. I took some old modules as a baseline idea and created my own adventure out of it. WOW - after Conanizing it, it worked really well. My adventure is over 100 pages long now but if you have the Scourge of the Slavelords done - I woudn't mind swapping.

 

[bolen]

Please post these somewhere so lazy GM's like me can steal your hard work

 

[Bregales]

There were some TSR Conan specific titles as well. (from the TSR Conan:Role Playing Game, 1985: the CN modules don't use character levels)
*The Tower of the Elephant (short adventure included in boxed set)
*CN1: Conan the Buccaneer
*CN2: Conan the Mercanary
*CN3: Conan the Triumphant
And Conan modules for AD&D 1st ed.:
*CB1: Conan: Unchained! (I wish now I hadn't gotten rid of this one, you could play Conan, Juma, Valeria, or Nestor-lvl 10-14)
*CB2: Conan: Against Darkness (never had this one-lvl 10-14)

 

[MightyCthulhu]

There were also a series of adventures for GURPS: Conan

Conan and the Queen of the Black Coast (#SJG6204) - Out of Print
Conan: Beyond Thunder River (#SJG6201) - Out of Print
Conan: Moon of Blood (#SJG6206) - Out of Print
Conan: The Wyrmslayer (#SJG6205) - Out of Print

 

[slaughterj]

There were also a series of adventures for GURPS: Conan

Conan and the Queen of the Black Coast (#SJG6204) - Out of Print
Conan: Beyond Thunder River (#SJG6201) - Out of Print
Conan: Moon of Blood (#SJG6206) - Out of Print
Conan: The Wyrmslayer (#SJG6205) - Out of Print

IIRC, those were largely play-by-yourself modules based on the books, which might make them less interesting sources. I can look back at my copies and provide more info, if desired.

 

[red_herring]

I'll make sure to post any of the modules (or at least links to them) to the forum. The original TSR Conan has some very good stuff.

The two D&D Conan mods (Against Darkness and Unchained) detail King Conan's struggle against Thoth Amon and a mercenary Conan's fight against a wizard on the Vilayet. The second one is a little easier to convert if you don't want to the players to use Conan as a character.

The three scenarios for the TSR Conan RPG (Conan the Buccaneer, Conan the Mercenary, and Conan the Triumphant) are good to excellent. The first module finds Conan duped into sailing to a mysterious island in search of lost treasure--kinda of a combination Queen of the Black Coast and Isle of the Black Ones. The second is more of a dungeon adventure, if I recall, in Zingara. The third, Triumphant, is easily the best. It's based on the Robert Jordan novel of the same title and puts Conan and his mercenary allies in Ophir as the king is dying. Easily converted and very well written.

As for the GURPS adventures, I spent a few bucks to get them off of ebay for the purpose of converting. These are solo adventures (if you chose this, turn to 83 sort of thing). While there are certainly some excellent ideas contained in these books, it's just too time consuming to convert the whole to OGL Conan.

Which brings me back to converting the old classics. By the way, I never played The Lost City (B-4), but it sounds a lot like Red Nails.

-RH

 

[thulsa]

The two D&D Conan mods (Against Darkness and Unchained) detail King Conan's struggle against Thoth Amon and a mercenary Conan's fight against a wizard on the Vilayet. The second one is a little easier to convert if you don't want to the players to use Conan as a character.

In fact, Alex Johnson made d20 conversions of these adventures a couple of years back. You can find them on my site:

http://hyboria.xoth.net/adventures/conan_unchained.htm

http://hyboria.xoth.net/adventures/conan_against_darkness.htm

Note that you still need the original books to use the conversion notes, but I guess you could get a PDF version of either for a few bucks at RPGNow or DriveThruRPG.

- thulsa