argo said:
Some people feel that Conan, as a stand alone product, sholuld include everything a DM needs (believe it or not a duplicate of this thread ran a couple of months ago) but me, I think that the entire point of the OGL is that game designers don't have to re-print everything to have a complete and workable game.
You are correct on the OGL allowing for products which are not standalone RPGs in and of themselves, and the majority of products produced under it state that clearly on the cover, along with the name of the other product(s) required to use it.
Conan does not do this, and gives no claim of being anything other than a complete RPG.
The "generic" OGL rulebooks (
Cybernet,
Horror, etc) keep themselves to standalone rules sets without any claim to contain setting-specific information.
The
Judge Dredd and
B5 games clearly state that they're not standalone games, and that other books are required in order to run them. The
Conan and
Lone Wolf games do not state this (and cannot, as they're not d20-licenced), and present themselves as complete combined Player/GM guides with no attachments to the d20 system. I actually prefer the latter approach, and support the OGL system fully.
Any roleplaying newbie picking up wouldn't have a clue they were meant to have any other rulebook in order to have those "missing" rules, therefore I don't believe Mongoose intended players to need any other rulebook, but that these rules simply got overlooked. Other rules, such as the environmental ones, were probably excluded as being inappropriate to the
Conan setting during everyday play. The problem lies in that traps and falling are referred to within the rulebook while not existing in it, or with any indication of where to find them (or even a short statement saying "make up your own rules for these").
A simple fix, therefore, would simply be to add these rules into the
Conan errata available online. They are referred to elsewhere in the book, without any indication that you need to look elsewhere for them, and therefore really ought to be in the
Conan rulebook somewhere. Otherwise the references in the book (in the
Climb and
Disable Trap skill descriptions) should at least tell you where you need to go to get them. Not everyone owns (or should have to) a copy of the D&D rulebooks or knows of the existence of the SRD, and saying "well, they're in the SRD" is not really an acceptable response to a customer who has bought this product (unless the book itself specifically states that so they buy it knowing that fact)
If they were indeed omitted because it was assumed players already had them (and it would surprise me if this is the case), perhaps the statement "the use of the
Pocket DM's Handbook is suggested in order to run this game" should have been added to the back of the book? Or even a reference to the online SRD.
I should add that I don't feel Mongoose are to "blame" for anything here at all. Mistakes happen, errata gets released. Some games (by any company) have confusing text in them that needs explaining.