Get Conan the Barbarian back!

[AKAmra]

Conan, Star Wars, Star Trek and The Lord of the Rings hold a special place in RPGs. They are icon settings and will be repeatedly published. It's just a matter of time before I can say, " I told you so".

Well you can say that now, in part at least. As SnowDog mentioned upthread, Cubicle 7 are going to publish a new LotR rpg soon.

I'm interested to see what Cubicle 7 does with LotR. I enjoy reading the MERP stuff, but the way they jump around the Ages in their products makes it difficult to use as a GM. I'd like a more user friendly approach to Middle Earth. System matters to me too, so I'll have to wait and see.

I'm looking forward to the next Conan rpg. I have no doubt it will be published, I just hope the system is more to my taste.

 

[kintire]

The arguments basically boiled down to d20 diehards that were arguing because they didn't want d20 Conan to end and those that don't understand MRQ(Basic Role Playing). MRQ(BRP) can certainly do Conan, and do it better for fans of MRQ(BRP).

It boiled down to people pointing out that the fundamental assumptions of RQ don't fit Conan, most obvious example being the attitude to numbers vs quality. It was then pointed out that you can solve that problem by either 1) making the characters demigods (150% plus weapon skills and more Legendary Abilities than you can shake a stick at) or making enough rule changes that it started looking more like D20 than MRQ. I suppose that's fair, but I'd rather use a system that fits from the start.

It also involved people whinging about "d20 diehards" despite the fact that no one was claiming that d20 was the only option, just that MRQ wasn't a good one.

 

[Deleriad]

The arguments basically boiled down to d20 diehards that were arguing because they didn't want d20 Conan to end and those that don't understand MRQ(Basic Role Playing). MRQ(BRP) can certainly do Conan, and do it better for fans of MRQ(BRP).

It boiled down to people pointing out that the fundamental assumptions of RQ don't fit Conan, most obvious example being the attitude to numbers vs quality. It was then pointed out that you can solve that problem by either 1) making the characters demigods (150% plus weapon skills and more Legendary Abilities than you can shake a stick at) or making enough rule changes that it started looking more like D20 than MRQ. I suppose that's fair, but I'd rather use a system that fits from the start.

As someone who crunched the numbers, I thought it was fairly axiomatic that RQI could run Conan RAW perfectly well. The numbers vs quality argument was a complete red herring.

I would argue that RQI runs Conan style S&S more effectively than d20 RAW. If you wished to write a version of the rules for Hyperborian role playing then you would naturally customise the rules set: as Mongoose did with their heavily modified version of d20. Given that RQ/BRP has very successfully been used for Elric, Lankhmar & Thieves World each of which has a very different notion of numbers vs quality in S&S terms, I fail to see how it would be incapable of being used for Conan.

As for complaining about making Conan 150% in his best weapons with legendary abilities to model Conan at the peak of his legendary prowess, well, that's how RQI defined legendary characters. Complaining about that would be akin to complaining that you had to make Conan at his peak a level 20 character.

Similarly, if a character is meant to have a mastered one or more weapons then RQ defines that as 90%+ skill. if you want to run a campaign with weapon masters then you start with advanced characters. It's not as if it isn't in the rulebook...

I've recently finished running Blood of Orlanth where I have seen 4 PCs, none of whom are weapon masters mow their way through hordes of decently skilled opponents (looking at my notes they killed or disabled somewhere between 80-100 such people) despite frequently being outnumbered. And they didn't have significant magical support either. Strongest spell they had was Bladesharp 2. I saw one character take out a squad of 12 soldiers by *himself.* (OK, so he was berserk Storm Bull and slept for a day afterwards.) And this was using house rules that slightly tuned down the ability to wade through hordes.

Moving the conversation on, RQII appears to have been written in part with Conan-like settings in mind. Cutting down mooks with one-hand tied behind your back is, to my mind, too easy.

I sometimes think that people tend to forget just how different the two Mongoose editions of RQ are to previous editions. RQ grognards complain that MRQ is too much like d20 in that characters are not as vulnerable as once they were.

It's not even as if I have a horse in this race. I find some of the actual REH writing to be moderately interesting but the pastiches, comics, movies and Saturday morning cartoon cliché fantasy barbarian stuff leaves me cold. I am however interested in exploring rules and uncovering how they interact.

The bottom line is that people have been running all varieties of S&S in BRP/RQ pretty much since the year dot and somehow it seems to have worked. There's probably a reason for that.

 

[ThatGuy]

It boiled down to people pointing out that the fundamental assumptions of RQ don't fit Conan, most obvious example being the attitude to numbers vs quality.

If by this you mean that MRQ2 is a more realistic system, I can see that point. MRQ2 is not the system where one warrior takes on an open plain of 50 enemies and emerges victorious. The system is not geared to make the absolutely improbably impossible commonplace. If the system the copyright holders are going for is more heavily fantasy than realistic fantasy, MRQ2 may not be the best choice.

But for me, the thing I always liked about Conan (books, comics, etc) were the failings and vulnerability of even the most powerful characters. To me MRQ2 does mimic this aspect of the stories, and I think the magic (probably minus the common magic) works very well with Conan's magic poor, yet magic rich tapestry (The reworked Spirit Magic and Sorcery would be spot-on). Demi-gods are cool...but outside of some really nasty beasts and summonings, they are a bit rare in Conan's world (maybe rare isn't the right word, but they never seem to last that long- evidence of their vulnerability!), and the human characters always seemed very rooted in some realistic motivation (with even the most powerful sorcerer being vulnerable, ultimately, to the most mundane assault).

As far as d20 vs. d100...I personally think that matters less as opposed to the system and how well it reflects the roleplaying opportunities. I think MRQ2 is almost uniquely tailored to make for the cultural differences and adjustments that come into play when talking of Aquilonia vs. Cimmeria vs. Khitai vs. Punt. I think Pete and Loz would knock that one outta the park.

But that's just my opinion, and I don't hold the rights. Too bad though...

 

[kintire]

As someone who crunched the numbers, I thought it was fairly axiomatic that RQI could run Conan RAW perfectly well. The numbers vs quality argument was a complete red herring.

I would argue that RQI runs Conan style S&S more effectively than d20 RAW

Where I come from, RAW means Rules As Written. It is, of course, axiomatic that RQI cannot run Conan Rules As Written, because it is a different ruleset. Further, running Conan RAW is exactly what the proponents of Conan RQ do NOT want to do! I am forced to the conclusion that that is not quite what you meant?

As for complaining about making Conan 150% in his best weapons with legendary abilities to model Conan at the peak of his legendary prowess

Oh, but thats not what this modelled at all. Conan at his peak would be way more powerful than this. This level is where PCs had to START.

Strongest spell they had was Bladesharp 2

2 points more than Conan ever had. Sorcerers have spells, non sorcerers do not.

I saw one character take out a squad of 12 soldiers by *himself.* (OK, so he was berserk Storm Bull and slept for a day afterwards.

Berserk as in the Divine Magic spell? My experience is quite clear: if you run out of combat options and the enemy still has one, you are in dead trouble unless you're a walking tank. And that means magic.

The bottom line is that people have been running all varieties of S&S in BRP/RQ pretty much since the year dot and somehow it seems to have worked. There's probably a reason for that.

I daresay there is. If the last thread was anything to go by, its that they modified the rules until they bore about as much resemblance to RQ as they did to d20. But why bother? why not use one of the systems that you don't HAVE to modify? If you don't like Conan d20, there are others.

Incidentally, I played RQ3 for five years, and MRQ since it came out, so i think I can compare those two editions pretty well, thanks.

If by this you mean that MRQ2 is a more realistic system,

Not quite. In MRQ2 numbers beat quality (even more so than in 1 in fact). You have a certain number of combat options and once they are run out, you can have a parry of 200% and the next guy to swing is still going to hit you. In d20, your difficulty to hit for the first guy is your difficulty to hit for the 20th. There for a d20 Conan can wade into a ship full of veteran corsairs or the King of Koth's finest swordsmen (yes, don't let anyone go on about "mooks") and win, whereas a MRQ Conan could not. Unless you give him about as many legendary abilities as a d20 character would have feats, beef up his hit points to d20 levels and waive the limits on parries (possibly through one of those legendary abilities). In which case the only difference between your RQ and d20 is that you're rolling a different dice...

 

[Deleriad]

As someone who crunched the numbers, I thought it was fairly axiomatic that RQI could run Conan RAW perfectly well. The numbers vs quality argument was a complete red herring.

I would argue that RQI runs Conan style S&S more effectively than d20 RAW

d20 SRD -> Conan RPG
RQ(I or II) -> Hypothetical RQ-based Conan setting.

My hypothesis is that RQ straight out of the book runs a Conan-style S&S rpg better than d20 SRD.

Furthermore, my argument is that there would be a lot less modification needed to RQ to run a Conan-like S&S than there was needed to turn the d20 SRD into the Conan SRD.

As for complaining about making Conan 150% in his best weapons with legendary abilities to model Conan at the peak of his legendary prowess

Oh, but thats not what this modelled at all. Conan at his peak would be way more powerful than this. This level is where PCs had to START.

Nope. Starting characters skills are specific to a campaign. If you wanted to start with young runaway slaves they would start with low skills. If you wanted to start with world-renowned heroes they would start that way.

I daresay there is. If the last thread was anything to go by, its that they modified the rules until they bore about as much resemblance to RQ as they did to d20.

My estimate is that you can play S&S Conan style with no changes to RQ at all. I ran Thieves World for 3 years with zero changes to RQ3. Yes, that means magic only for specialists.

Not quite. In MRQ2 numbers beat quality (even more so than in 1 in fact).

Nope. Go back and read the thread. In RQI, reaction attacks against oncoming attackers evened the balanced. in RQ2 you Outmanoeuvre them. My experience in playing plus looking at the numbers tells me that you're wrong. I'm not going to rehash the entire argument again. Feel free to disagree.

Now sure, if Conan-a-like stands motionless like an idiot in the middle of a featureless plain and simply swings his sword at whoever comes near, he'll get overwhelmed by the time he's killed a few people. If on the other hand he moves, uses terrain, fights smartly and ferociously and outskills his opponents then he may be able to break their will or fight for long enough for some other event to occur.

My point is, once again, that you could run a Conan-like campaign straight out of the RQII core rulebook with no mechanical changes needed. You could do the same with the big gold BRP rulebook. In fact someone has. You could do the same with RQI Deluxe Book. People have done. People do.

When I started my first MRQI campaign, before blood of Orlanth, 3 of the players were D&ders who had turned up for another game that got cancelled and had not played any form of BRP before. They enjoyed the system because, to quote one, "it felt like Conan." [/i]

 

[kintire]

Furthermore, my argument is that there would be a lot less modification needed to RQ to run a Conan-like S&S than there was needed to turn the d20 SRD into the Conan SRD.

I'm certainly not convinced that its "a lot less". It looked comparable to me. But that's irrelevant, because somebody has already done the work for us with d20 whereas with RQ you'd be starting from scratch. Why bother?

Nope. Starting characters skills are specific to a campaign. If you wanted to start with young runaway slaves they would start with low skills. If you wanted to start with world-renowned heroes they would start that way

Point missed. This was (someones effort at) the lowest level you would need to be to fight multiple foes effectively.

My estimate is that you can play S&S Conan style with no changes to RQ at all. I ran Thieves World for 3 years with zero changes to RQ3. Yes, that means magic only for specialists.

My estimate is that you CAN run S&S Conan style using Bunnies and Burrows if you really want to, but you would be better off using D20 Conan, Savage Worlds, Fudge or similar. From what I know of Thieve's World (which is admittedly very little) it is much grittier than Coan. More like Lankhmar (which people keep quoting as if it is a good comparison).

Nope. Go back and read the thread. In RQI, reaction attacks against oncoming attackers evened the balanced. in RQ2 you Outmanoeuvre them. My experience in playing plus looking at the numbers tells me that you're wrong. I'm not going to rehash the entire argument again. Feel free to disagree.

I do. Reaction attacks evened the balance only if the attackers were so rubbish that they never parried anything, reaction or main attacks.

Now sure, if Conan-a-like stands motionless like an idiot in the middle of a featureless plain and simply swings his sword at whoever comes near, he'll get overwhelmed by the time he's killed a few people

Or if he stands with his back to the mast on a flat deck, or his back to a dead horse on an open battlefield. My point exactly.

If on the other hand he moves, uses terrain, fights smartly and ferociously and outskills his opponents then he may be able to break their will or fight for long enough for some other event to occur.

This just isn't how Conan fights when outnumbered at all. He charges in there and mows people down, beating aside or dodging their counterattacks with pantherlike speed. The Grey Mouser fights like this when outn umbered: Conan does not.

When I started my first MRQI campaign, before blood of Orlanth, 3 of the players were D&ders who had turned up for another game that got cancelled and had not played any form of BRP before. They enjoyed the system because, to quote one, "it felt like Conan."

Compared to unmodified 3rd Edition, I'm sure it did.

 

[Deleriad]

Furthermore, my argument is that there would be a lot less modification needed to RQ to run a Conan-like S&S than there was needed to turn the d20 SRD into the Conan SRD.

I'm certainly not convinced that its "a lot less". It looked comparable to me. But that's irrelevant, because somebody has already done the work for us with d20 whereas with RQ you'd be starting from scratch. Why bother?

A good reason would be if, for example, you had played BRP based games all your life and not played any d20-based. It would be far easier for me to run Conan in RQ than to pick up the Conan rulebook and learn it. yes I know the rules because I'm interested in rules but I would make a far better job of running it in RQ. Another good reason is that the core components of d20 (classes, levels, expanding HPs, feat trees and so on) leave you cold.

As I say, pick up the RQII core rulebook, remember to use the Outmanoeuvre rule and go do some barbarianising. I mean it's not as if the RQII combat rules weren't written with Conan in mind after all...

Point missed. This was (someones effort at) the lowest level you would need to be to fight multiple foes effectively.

What can I say. I've run a lot of MRQ and I've seen PCs with skills in the 70% range survive being outnumbered providing the opponents are lower skilled.

Or if he stands with his back to the mast on a flat deck, or his back to a dead horse on an open battlefield. My point exactly.

sounds awful like using whatever terrain he can to outmanoeuvre his opponents to me.

If on the other hand he moves, uses terrain, fights smartly and ferociously and outskills his opponents then he may be able to break their will or fight for long enough for some other event to occur.

This just isn't how Conan fights when outnumbered at all. He charges in there and mows people down, beating aside or dodging their counterattacks with pantherlike speed.

You mean moving so fast that few opponents can get an attack in, parrying those that don't, using terrain to his advantage and outmanoeuvring his enemies. Sounds like someone fighting like a PC.

When I started my first MRQI campaign, before blood of Orlanth, 3 of the players were D&ders who had turned up for another game that got cancelled and had not played any form of BRP before. They enjoyed the system because, to quote one, "it felt like Conan."

Compared to unmodified 3rd Edition, I'm sure it did.

You mean RQ out of the book feels more like Conan than d20 out of the book does?

 

[kintire]

A good reason would be if, for example, you had played BRP based games all your life and not played any d20-based. It would be far easier for me to run Conan in RQ than to pick up the Conan rulebook and learn it. yes I know the rules because I'm interested in rules but I would make a far better job of running it in RQ. Another good reason is that the core components of d20 (classes, levels, expanding HPs, feat trees and so on) leave you cold.

Apples and oranges. I'm talking about how innately suited the systems are: there might be any number of other reasons why you want to run RQ.

Even if you don't like d20 I still think you'd be better with SW or Fudge...

What can I say. I've run a lot of MRQ and I've seen PCs with skills in the 70% range survive being outnumbered providing the opponents are lower skilled.

If the opponents have more effective attacks than you have effective parries, you're sunk. of course, low skills reduce the number of effective attacks, but Conan was NOT just mowing mooks. Neither Belit's corsairs nor Strabonus' elite swordsmen had "low skills".

sounds awful like using whatever terrain he can to outmanoeuvre his opponents to me

Except he isn't moving...

You mean moving so fast that few opponents can get an attack in, parrying those that don't, using terrain to his advantage and outmanoeuvring his enemies

I mean piling into groups of 10 enemies and not dying. Melees, with loads of people and not much terrain.

You mean RQ out of the book feels more like Conan than d20 out of the book does?

Yes. D20 is too magic and stuff dependent to do good S&S

 

[andakitty]

Whatever. Some of us think MRQ would be about perfect for Conan. Including me, and I have run a LOT of swords and sorcery, as apparently has Deleriad. He knows what he is talking about.

I would not touch SW or fudge for s&s, if I were running. I might play a SW s&s game, at least once. However, I don't think it would be a good fit.

 

[SnowDog]

I once had my players create d20 Conan characters (using the very first edition) but the game never got further than that. Still, I had a chance to read the rules and see what kind of characters came up.

1st level characters were almost unplayable or so they seemed to me Without any experience with d20 system games there were no way in hel* that I would have allowed them to create higher level characters.

As an opposed argument I wanted to test the MRQI character generation back then when it had just come out. It took me about half an hour (without gearing up) and when I took a look at the skill levels the character was immediately playable if not a Conan himself. But that was not what I was looking for, anyway.

It is not often when you can actually create a character that even after a lot of playing is even close to the main hero of the (licensed) setting. For example I have all 3 different Judge Dredd games and I would not even start to dream on being able to play a character that was so capable as an old stony face. Ditto for Elric, Aragorn, Slaine and Conan (in particular). That's one of the problematic parts in licensed settings.

I have to admit that once d20 system characters get past a certain level the game is getting much more heroic than RQ game (without magic). d20 Conan characters just can take huge amounts of punishment and still keep on going. Is this a good thing? I don't know. It is getting sort of ridiculous after certain level.

What comes to skill levels the talk was about lower skill levels not low skill levels. So, even when those elite NPCs have comparatively high skill levels (at least when compared to other NPCs) the PCs will probably have even higher skill levels at the point they come across those as opponents (same as in d20 version).

For some reason I never got the picture of Conan just going against huge hordes of enemies, at least in the books. I could be wrong, though.

So, I am saying that Conan RPG would work very well using MRQII rules with some setting specific rules or without. I'm not dissing d20 Conan, the d20 just isn't my cup of tea even in the Conan form. FantasyCraft seems to be closest to what I can run of all the d20 systems I have seen.

I have not tried SW but at least it seems to work in Solomon Kane RPG.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I'm pretty sure that the RQ2 engine would work to a tee with Conan, but all this talk about system seems to be missing the major point:

If RuneQuest gets Conan, alongside Lankhmar and Elric, then you've automatically got the three most iconic Swords and Sorcery (as opposed to High Fantasy*) titles out there under one system. It effectively becomes THE Sword and Sorcery fantasy game at this point.

* I'd still rank Glorantha as a High fantasy setting, for the most part, even though it shares some similarities with the Sword and Sorcery genre too. Other titles like Deus Vult and Clockwork and Chivalry are more low fantasy/alternative reality settings, respectively. Collectively, though, all these titles together becomes a major selling point of the game. In my view, they are a much more interesting range than what you'd get for D&D right now, and this list could keep getting added to.

 

[SnowDog]

If RuneQuest gets Conan, alongside Lankhmar and Elric, then you've automatically got the three most iconic Swords and Sorcery (as opposed to High Fantasy*) titles out there under one system. It effectively becomes THE Sword and Sorcery fantasy game at this point.

That's a good point. It's too bad that Lankhmar is not supported further and current Thieves' World uses d20 system

 

[djd]

Thieves World is one of my favourite fantasy settings - yes, it would work better with RQ2 than D20 IMHO.

Conan I can go either way on. My biggest gripe with D20 is learning all the feats and special combat options. RQ2 is a lot easier to master. I do object to spending a second fortune on a Conan game though...

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Even if you don't like d20 I still think you'd be better with SW or Fudge...

You're never better off with Fudge, unless you are referring to the confectionary. If you are using dice to generate random numbers to determine success, it makes sense to describe skills in terms of numbers too, rather than using arbitrary words ...

If the opponents have more effective attacks than you have effective parries, you're sunk. of course, low skills reduce the number of effective attacks, but Conan was NOT just mowing mooks. Neither Belit's corsairs nor Strabonus' elite swordsmen had "low skills".

Compared to Conan, they did, otherwise when he was fighting a group of them he would have lost...

 

[TrippyHippy]

Of course, the other factor is that by making Conan RQ2 based, as a BRP related system, you automatically bring the two great pulp writers/colaborators of Weird Tales together in gaming form for the first time. The other being Lovecraft, of course, and his Cthulhu Mythos.

Not only is this a neat thing in itself, but as anyone who has read the two will know, there is some considerable compatibility between the two genres. You could have Mythos creatures in Hyboria, without compromising any of the themes of either game world.

 

[kintire]

Compared to Conan, they did, otherwise when he was fighting a group of them he would have lost

That matters less than you would think. You need them to miss: roll higher than their skill. As soon as relative skills matter your combat options are ticking down.

 

[Pascalahad]

Of course, the other factor is that by making Conan RQ2 based, as a BRP related system, you automatically bring the two great pulp writers/colaborators of Weird Tales together in gaming form for the first time. The other being Lovecraft, of course, and his Cthulhu Mythos.

Not really, Cthulhu D20 has been released some years ago...

And if you count the Cthulhu Mythos in the first edition of Deities and Demigods, plus the AD&D Conan modules, it's even older than that...

 

[TrippyHippy]

Of course, the other factor is that by making Conan RQ2 based, as a BRP related system, you automatically bring the two great pulp writers/colaborators of Weird Tales together in gaming form for the first time. The other being Lovecraft, of course, and his Cthulhu Mythos.

Not really, Cthulhu D20 has been released some years ago...

And if you count the Cthulhu Mythos in the first edition of Deities and Demigods, plus the AD&D Conan modules, it's even older than that...

Cthulhu d20 was released way after the Conan modules. Neither system were compatible with each other - and both systems were flawed applications anyway, frankly. Having a bunch of extra monsters to bash in the Monster Manual doesn't quite cut it.

 

[Pascalahad]

Deities and Demigods (1980) and the Conan modules were both for AD&D.

Cthulhu D20 and Conan D20 are obviously related.

I didn't say the TSR modules were compatibles with Cthulhu D20. :shock:

Call of Cthulhu and RQ2 are not 100% compatible either.

In fact combining the two universes is troublesome. Howard is more like "if it bleeds it can be killed", Lovecraft more in the "you can think you hurt it, but it will eat you nonetheless".