GM Responsibility Toward the Conan RPG

[Dpetroc]

Running a Conan game to the utmost 'conanish' almost requires an episodic game, rather than an extended campaigh. While I think that the 'end of episode' can be used as a great transition, it might not be satisfactory on the whole for players. A few compromises should be made, while maintaining the Sword and Sorcery feel. I admit, I can't imagine too much of a Hyborian game without some element of sorcery, otherworldliness or dark horror.

As long as the game works towards an...dare I say..."unnatural" conclusion, then I think you can extend or take liberties with the prologue.

 

[quigs]

Just to throw in my 2 cents, I ran a Conan RPG game but used a series of DUNGEON magazine adventure called the Age of Worms campaign arc. At first it went ok, but it didn't feel very Conan-ish. Then the problems started as my PC's began to get harder and harder to convince to put their lives on the line and follow the adventure plot. This eventually led to the end of the campaign as the players were expecting something a little bit more hyborian, and a little less greyhawk.

So I would advise DM's or GM's (whatever you call yourself) to be very careful about the adventures you use when running your Conan games, and how closely you tie each one into the next. For instance, the typical "save the villagers from the raiders" plot simply doesn't fly in Conan, unless your group is composed of knights or soldiers who's sole responsibility it is to defend said village. More than likely, your group will be playing the raiders, not the defenders, or simply waiting to steal some valuable spoils from the raid, and take off down the road.

 

[rgrove0172]

I admit, I can't imagine too much of a Hyborian game without some element of sorcery, otherworldliness or dark horror.

Seems there was a thread on this subject before and now, as then, I couldnt agree less. There were only a dozen or so Howard Conan stories that spanned a lifetime of adventure for the character. Perhaps these were the only times he experienced supernatural elements. Even if there are many other such stories unprinted its safe to say he had lots of adventures of the more mundane variety. In fact, In my opinion, the "spooky" stuff was probably a rarity, which explains why he responds so strongly to it in the tales. If it happened everyday, as some GMs seem to indicate, then it would lose is mystery and sense of dread, so prominent in the stories.

 

[Kargush]

My 2 cents:

Any Conan game should try, as much as it can, to be true to the world created by REH. I'm not saying you should play it out like a REH story, but keep it "real". The villains are true villains, not misunderstood types. Unlike modern villains, they kill and rape without thought, not because of some psychological babble, but because they feel like it. This isn't a pastiche of the modern age where even the vilest of villains can justify himself or get off on a psychological basis. The Conan villains are bad. Truely evil. And even in the most civilized and comfortable palace there is evil. The corrupt official, the mad king, the ambitious general. Everywhere.

And so with the supernatural. I'm not saying that the supernatural is there all the time, but IMO, sooner or later the players should encounter it. Even if it's just the sorcerer the king has hired to help against the enemy. If the characters are on the move all the time and actively go out of their way to explore dungeons and ruins with tales of supernatural things about them, then let them encounter the Thing That Cannot Be Named or the lycantropic rat-thing that kidnap old woman and small children.

So in a way I'm with Strom. On the other hand, I agree with the others. The game is supposed to be fun. If the players want a little less darkness and grit, let them have it.

In short: what ever floats your boat.

 

[Damien]

I couldnt agree less. There were only a dozen or so Howard Conan stories that spanned a lifetime of adventure for the character. Perhaps these were the only times he experienced supernatural elements. Even if there are many other such stories unprinted its safe to say he had lots of adventures of the more mundane variety. In fact, In my opinion, the "spooky" stuff was probably a rarity, which explains why he responds so strongly to it in the tales. If it happened everyday, as some GMs seem to indicate, then it would lose is mystery and sense of dread, so prominent in the stories.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Conan, throughout his entire life, is confronted with the supernatural only about two dozen times. On the other hand, Howard alludes to a lot of Conan's 'normal' life. He was a pirate for quite a long time - the scourge of the ocean. So if you're playing a game where your characters have assumed control of a pirate vessel and are doing the same thing Conan did -how is that NOT Howardian in style? It's exactly what he described.

If you're injecting the supernatural into a game just to make it feel like Hyboria, then you should probably consider other ways. The visceral feel of Hyboria can be had without a sorcerer at every turn. To me, that becomes a Greyhawk game. When players start to -expect- magic and supernatural beings are at work, then you've already lost the Hyborian feel.

Of course, elements of horror should always play a part in Conan games. But this can be accomplished with more mundane oddities like giant snakes, vile but otherwise normal baddies, and man-apes, or even non-spellcasting scholars that dabble in lotus extracts and try to lure your party into committing attrocities in the name of his cult.

Of course you can play however you want - if you're having fun, that's what matters. But to my mind, if you take your cues just from the saga itself and your players encounter the supernatural in every adventure, then you're emulating the Conan stories themselves, and not necessary the actual feel and style of the setting.

A good example is Tolkien. If you follow your cues from the main story and make all of your main bad guys greater angelic creatures accompanied by fallen Wizards, and the party on every adventure comes into contact with evil creatures from the depths of the Earth and from the days of Darkness, then the Tolkien feel is gone, even though you're playing a game set up exactly as the saga is set up. Emulating the stories themselves doesn't always equate to emulating the style and specific intent of the setting, if that makes any sense.

 

[slaughterj]

I admit, I can't imagine too much of a Hyborian game without some element of sorcery, otherworldliness or dark horror.

Seems there was a thread on this subject before and now, as then, I couldnt agree less. There were only a dozen or so Howard Conan stories that spanned a lifetime of adventure for the character. Perhaps these were the only times he experienced supernatural elements. Even if there are many other such stories unprinted its safe to say he had lots of adventures of the more mundane variety. In fact, In my opinion, the "spooky" stuff was probably a rarity, which explains why he responds so strongly to it in the tales. If it happened everyday, as some GMs seem to indicate, then it would lose is mystery and sense of dread, so prominent in the stories.

Yes, we already had that thread, and as I noted there, sure, there are plenty of mundane events that occur in Conan's life, but all of the adventures have elements of the supernatural, fantastic, etc.. The point is that you play the adventures with those elements, because that is what Conan adventures are about, and are the most interesting. However, most adventures should start out in the mundane, so that when you build up to the supernatural, it does stand out.

Further, you can reinforce the uniqueness of the supernatural, etc. occurring in each adventure by starting out with a description of the mundane events of the characters' past before the adventure, e.g., "since our last session, where your characters fled Shadizar after the events in the temple of Zath, your characters spent some time wandering the deserts, banditry in Turan, some mercenary work in Zamboula, and now find yourselves guarding a caravan crossing the desert toward Shem, when suddenly you are set upon by desert raiders!" Then you go on to run the adventure, which starts out with desert raiders fleeing with the caravan master's daughter, tracking them back to the ruined city in which they dwell, seeing her about to be sacrified before a statue of some scorpion god, and when they run in to rescue her, have to do battle with the priests, guards, and giant scorpions released from hidden pits! Yeah!!!!!! Now that's Conan-style adventure!!!!!

Or instead, you can waste your time as a GM and your players time, meeting every two weeks, and playing mundane adventures 4 out of 5 sessions, thus only seeing exciting stuff every couple of months real-time, and in between, playing sessions like "well, your character finished his daily job at the blacksmith, so now he has a couple of drinks at the tavern, gets in a brawl, and sleeps exhausted through the night, only to wake up and do it again the next day." Yay. :roll: Might as well just go to your day job if you're just going to play mundane stuff.

 

[Dpetroc]

I admit, I can't imagine too much of a Hyborian game without some element of sorcery, otherworldliness or dark horror.

Seems there was a thread on this subject before and now, as then, I couldnt agree less. There were only a dozen or so Howard Conan stories that spanned a lifetime of adventure for the character. Perhaps these were the only times he experienced supernatural elements. Even if there are many other such stories unprinted its safe to say he had lots of adventures of the more mundane variety. In fact, In my opinion, the "spooky" stuff was probably a rarity, which explains why he responds so strongly to it in the tales. If it happened everyday, as some GMs seem to indicate, then it would lose is mystery and sense of dread, so prominent in the stories.

I'm not saying you can't have wars, street fights, or other 'normal' dark age activity. I (and others) are saying that the culmination should be something otherworldly -- I had this conversation with my wife (an 8th level pirate). We agreed that most folks in the Hyborian world go through their lives being 'normal' -- Soldiers, farmers, merchants, nobles even. It is the extraordinary adventure -- the ice worm, the man-apes, the sorcerous creations and summonings, that make this game something other than a historical simulation. In short, to go where no man has....well, you get the picture....

The genre is called sword and sorcery, not sword and geo-political intrigue.

 

[Damien]

Further, you can reinforce the uniqueness of the supernatural, etc. occurring in each adventure by starting out with a description of the mundane events of the characters' past before the adventure

I'm not sure that actually works. In my experience, players tend to gloss over the stuff that they don't actually play. -SAYING- they have mundane adventures in between is all well and good, but it doesn't mean much to them when every adventure they do have includes those other elements. To the players, everything they do involves the supernatural. Like I said before -- that means that the supernatural ISN'T weird or unexpected anymore. If your players fully expect that the BBEG is a sorcerer or is controlled by one, or that the mysterious disappearances of citizens is caused by a supernatural being, then you've already lost the Hyborian feel, because players shouldn't be -expecting- that. And if every adventure includes it, they will expect it.

I can only speak from my own experience and my own group. I know for a fact, because we've talked about it, that if I included the supernatural in every adventure, they would elect a new GM. None of my regulars (all Howard fans, except for one) feel that using sorcerers or monsters in every adventure is appropriate to the setting. They want to be surprised when it happens. And no matter how much I -tell- them that life is generally mundane, if they don't experience things without the supernatural involved, everything I -tell- them will be meaningless.

One of my players came to my table from another where he had gotten his old group to play Conan. He described this problem to me very specifically. It had gotten to the point in his old group that whenever something bad happened, the party immediately starting looking for some clue as to who the sorcerer or demon was, because it was inevitable that in every adventure, there was one or the other lurking around somewhere. He made it clear that he didn't feel like it was Hyboria anymore, because the supernatural was too commonly occuring.

"well, your character finished his daily job at the blacksmith, so now he has a couple of drinks at the tavern, gets in a brawl, and sleeps exhausted through the night, only to wake up and do it again the next day." Yay. Might as well just go to your day job if you're just going to play mundane stuff.

That's ridiculous. So if you're not using monsters and sorcerers, your games are about being a blacksmith? Please. What about getting trapped deep in Pictland and having to cut a swath of death through their ranks to get back to civilization? Or what about maneuvering politically among the Merchant Houses to play them against each other? Or raiding merchant vessels off the Western coasts? Or getting embroiled in a tribal war in the Black Kingdoms?

One of the games I ran that my players still talk about was almost entirely mundane. The characters found themselves lost in a swamp just off from the border of Stygia, and got attacked by giant snakes and (regular-sized) leeches. Then they came across a group of men led by a Merchant-adventurer that were attempting to harvest lotus blossoms to sell. Players got attacked and left for dead, but followed the group (largely for retribution). Ended up making it to Argos where they fell afoul of the guard of Messentia after killing said Merchant-adventurer. Spent some time on a stolen merchant vessel (they stole it, that is). Got attacked by Freebooters and washed up on the shores of the the Southern lands. Finally ended up in Kush where one of the players made himself a king, and was then killed by a rival Kushite. The other players (and that player's new character) killed a bunch of sacred shamans, fled Kush and ended up battling a sorcerer back in Stygia that, turns out, had been the reason they were disoriented and lost in the swamplands from way before.

That's a Conan adventure, and it went for about 25 sessions before the sorcerer showed up.

If you only find games exciting when sorcerers and monsters are around in force, there are plenty of settings for that - like Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. The great thing about Hyboria is that there are so few beings of the supernatural (comparatively), that the world can just be visceral.

That's how I play it, at least - and that's how my group likes it.

 

[Dpetroc]

That's a Conan adventure, and it went for about 25 sessions before the sorcerer showed up.

And there is NOTHING wrong with that. Hell, my wife has spent the last 4 game nights running around Messantia, making friends and enemies -- looking for information on an Acheronian treasure map. To date, the most magical thing she's had to deal with is watching her money disappear.

I don't think anyone advocates that every game night has a demon, sorcerer or ice worm in it. However, I think much of the fun for Conan (for me and my friends who play it) is not knowing if/when something otherworldly will show up. I put in lots of red herrings, and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But the influence of sorcery and Cthuloid outer gods is an undercurrent.

Conan can be played episodically (and as I mentioned earlier, lends itself to such play), but one can go through the mundane portion of the campaign without meeting significant 'sorcerous' elements. But the crescendos should have that Howardesque element.

Frankly, I think your description of your game dovetails exactly with what I said. The sorcerer WAS behind an earlier, mundane happening. Because gaming is not as neat and packaged as a short story, the arc must be longer.

 

[rgrove0172]

Or instead, you can waste your time as a GM and your players time, meeting every two weeks, and playing mundane adventures 4 out of 5 sessions, thus only seeing exciting stuff every couple of months real-time, and in between, playing sessions like "well, your character finished his daily job at the blacksmith, so now he has a couple of drinks at the tavern, gets in a brawl, and sleeps exhausted through the night, only to wake up and do it again the next day." Yay. Might as well just go to your day job if you're just going to play mundane stuff.

Hmm... playing mundane adventures is a waste of time. Only games with supernatural content are exciting. Games without supernatural content are automatically boring and uneventful. Playing such games is no more fun than performing your usual job. Hmm..

I gotta think you have a lot to learn about gamemastering if this is really true in your game. I dont want to offend you but constantly involving only the most extreme, dynamic and over-the-top events in your sessions is like feeding your kid nothing but chocolate icecream every day. In time the treat loses its appeal, you gotta have some meat and potatoes now and then to appreciate the treat. By providing your players a steady diet of what should be rare and ghastly, it becomes less rare and less ghastly, I dont care how much time you say was spend between the last session and this one. (My players would have my head by the way if I allowed months or even weeks of gametime to pass without their input)

This is an endless argument as there are obviously a lot of opinions out there and indeed it is all about how YOU want to play YOUR game - but Ill support the notion totally that for the most part we are gaming in the Hyborian setting, not emulating the Conan stories. Your games may occasionally resemble one of the tales but should also resemble the many grand adventures experienced between them.

 

[Damien]

And there is NOTHING wrong with that. (Snip)

Okay, I got'cha now. My apologies - I misunderstood what was being said. It looked to me like the contention was that any session you run without something horror/supernatural happening is violating the spirit of the game.

S'all good in the hood. . or whatever the young kids are saying these days.

 

[Dpetroc]

Okay, I got'cha now. My apologies - I misunderstood what was being said. It looked to me like the contention was that any session you run without something horror/supernatural happening is violating the spirit of the game.

S'all good in the hood. . or whatever the young kids are saying these days.

Supernatural in every game session= D&D
Supernatural sneaking in and biting you on the ass= Conan


As long as the players DO get bitten on the tuchas, I'm not so worried about the 'when'.

 

[slaughterj]

Or instead, you can waste your time as a GM and your players time, meeting every two weeks, and playing mundane adventures 4 out of 5 sessions, thus only seeing exciting stuff every couple of months real-time, and in between, playing sessions like "well, your character finished his daily job at the blacksmith, so now he has a couple of drinks at the tavern, gets in a brawl, and sleeps exhausted through the night, only to wake up and do it again the next day." Yay. Might as well just go to your day job if you're just going to play mundane stuff.

Hmm... playing mundane adventures is a waste of time. Only games with supernatural content are exciting. Games without supernatural content are automatically boring and uneventful. Playing such games is no more fun than performing your usual job. Hmm..

Further, you can reinforce the uniqueness of the supernatural, etc. occurring in each adventure by starting out with a description of the mundane events of the characters' past before the adventure

I'm not sure that actually works.

Actually it works just fine. The nature of the supernatural event varies significantly in each adventure, whether it is a sorceror (rarely, but more often now that they are higher levels), exotic beasts (man-apes, Black Ones, giant snakes or scorpions, etc.), magical creatures (demons, animated statues, etc.), or other phenomenon, so there isn't the roteness found in D&D ("oh, it's a Adult Red Dragon, and so it has XYZ characteristics, and I need to do XYZ to deal with it").

You two are way overreading the situation. Just because every adventure I run (sometimes weeks or months apart in game time from the previous session) has an element of the fantastic / supernatural (which includes things like man apes, giant scorpions, etc., not just magic), doesn't mean it is overusing such. I'm just running the games like the written Conan adventures. Show me a written Conan adventure that is purely mundane.

 

[rgrove0172]

You are welcome to run your game however you like, certainly. How many games are you planning to run though, in your current campaign? Conan only experienced the supernatural a score or so times, at least in such a case as to warrant a tale written about it. So I suppose if your campaign spans the lifetime of each character, beginning with them as teens and ending with them in their 60s, and you include only about 20 scenarios maximum, Id say youve followed Howard's format pretty well. I wouldnt think most players are looking for this type of game experience though. I could be wrong, perhaps thats exactly what your players are asking for. The game for them just recaptures the times in their character's lives when they confronted the supernatural. They arent interested in anything else their character expienced or participated in. Thats cool I guess.

 

[The King]

I am not sure I understand the thread. Are you trying to differentiate between good old RPG and the (not so) new tendancy called Storytelling games?

Almost all RPG adventures are run with a certain amount of violence. There are some high level ADD adventures that are very grim (Labyrinth of madness, Tombs of horror) with deadly traps.

Then AD&D was a game without any skills (contrary to the Runequest game for instance) so haggling and playing the flute never truly belonged to the AD&D universe.
On the opposite side you have Runequest with skills where you can play at any level (fight and peaceful activities) but it is the sole game with hit location where you can depict such scenes as those which appear in the God in the bowl.
You can also play a grim game with Rolemaster as you have lots of tables to entertain your player when they critical hit.
Even in Warhammer, there are many deeper content that just enable the player to do many thing but this doesn't mean the fights are less violent.

 

[Axerules]

I don't think anyone advocates that every game night has a demon, sorcerer or ice worm in it. However, I think much of the fun for Conan (for me and my friends who play it) is not knowing if/when something otherworldly will show up.(...)but one can go through the mundane portion of the campaign without meeting significant 'sorcerous' elements. But the crescendos should have that Howardesque element.

Sgt Zim, I feel the same. My PC's do not fight otherwordly creatures every game session, but they meet, hear about (or avoid) sorcerous or supernatural things during most scenarios. A big ape or snake can be the only "monster" they will encounter one night (I feel Hyboria should be dangerous, so they will probably also fight against human foes on the same night). Balance should be found so that the players can still be surprised and don't expect the otherwordly or sorcerous things on each street corner during gaming time.

Conan can be played episodically (and as I mentioned earlier, lends itself to such play),(...) Because gaming is not as neat and packaged as a short story, the arc must be longer.

I also feel that adventures in the Hyborian Age should be played episodically. But the key is, IMO, compromise between emulating REH Conan stories (where only the crescendos are told) and an "average" RPG campaign where players don't loose the control of their characters. Some of my players are not REH fans like me (but all play RPG's since a long time). Some habits are hard to forget, not all players will accept such kind of game and a campaign or two is, IMO mandatory to keep their interest. And my players are now 10th-11th level (and started 1th).But this is our way of playing this game, and if others want to play it another way, using the game system with another setting or the setting to play intricate plots with "geo-political intrigue", I have no problem with that. I'm not interested to play with them, but as long as they paid for it I think they can use the product like they want.

 

[slaughterj]

You are welcome to run your game however you like, certainly. How many games are you planning to run though, in your current campaign?

A dozen or more, once every several weeks, a level a session (one guy is going away soon, knew that in advance last year, so planned accordingly).

Conan only experienced the supernatural a score or so times, at least in such a case as to warrant a tale written about it.

But it happened in every Conan adventure written.

So I suppose if your campaign spans the lifetime of each character, beginning with them as teens and ending with them in their 60s, and you include only about 20 scenarios maximum, Id say youve followed Howard's format pretty well.

Thanks!

I wouldnt think most players are looking for this type of game experience though. I could be wrong, perhaps thats exactly what your players are asking for. The game for them just recaptures the times in their character's lives when they confronted the supernatural. They arent interested in anything else their character expienced or participated in. Thats cool I guess.

Works just fine for them, they'd rather spend their gaming time more efficiently as well, focusing on the more significant. Realize, every adventure I run involves encounters with the mundane - humans (guards, soldiers, mercenaries, bandits, thieves, pirates, etc. etc.), occasional animals (panthers, regular snakes, swarm of scorpions, etc.), occasional traps (arrow, spear, pit, poison, etc.), etc. - but culminates with the fantastic, which can be as limited as a giant snake or man ape to milder things like evil wolf spirits, on up to the occasional sorceror, demon, etc.

The players wanted to play in Howard style Conan game, and I told them that I run that fairly episodic, and typically start each game in media res, and try to fit the adventure style to the style of the Howard stories. That might not be what other players want to do, and that's fine, anyone can run their game however they'd like, but I run mine like the stories written about Conan by Howard.

 

[Crisippo]

I just have to comment this post. (I know i'm jumping in a bit late here but i can't help myself...)

I agree with the notion that the GM has a responsibility to stay true to the setting. But i belive his loyalty is to his own interpretation of that setting.

I think that there is no definite interpretation of REH's world. So if my game, or perhaps i should say setting istead, appears to be (perhaps radically)different from yours the problem isn't that i'm not loyal to the setting. Maybe i've just read REH somewhat differently from the rest of you.

The game setting can't duplicate REH's work anyway since the players won't be playing Conan and the GM's adventures won't be the adventures REH wrote. So there must be interpretation.

The game designers have already done much interpretation (and done a damn good job of it IMHO), and many of the general concepts are explicitly defined by REH (the grim amoral world, the supremacy of barbarism and the inherent weakness of civilization) but there will still be many elements in a setting that are left up the GM to flesh out.

In fact this is IMO the core of GM's responsibility; to interprete and present the Hyborian world (even the parts REH ignored) so that it comes alive for the enjoyment of his players.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Since Crisippo has cast Unholy Thread Revival on this topic, I guess I'll also chime in and add my approach to the matter:

First off, I am not Howard-literate at all. I know what it's about, and I think know what kind of general feeling the world is supposed to convey. And I like it. But as a matter of fact, Hyboria as described in the Core book doesn't go far enough for my liking.

So that's why I have set our campaign in a custom world. In Hyboria, there are civilized kingdoms, even if that civilization is only facade, as Strom points out. In my world, there is no civilization outside the city walls (and very little within, in most cases). My world is supposed to be more barbaric, cruel and unforgiving than even Hyboria. A true survival of the fittest.

All in all I'm trying to keep the tech level more or less homogenous, and different cultures as far apart as they would be in the real world (no stone age land right next to a renaissance kingdom). I have never liked the "everything and the kitchen sink" syndrome of many fantasy settings, cramping all styles of tech levels and cultures in the smallest of spaces. The German jargon for this syndrome is "Fäntelalter",or "The Fantle Ages".

For example, I am removing certain things that IMHO do not make sense or do not fit in well into such a barbaric world. For example, crossbows and plate armour -- that is SO Late-Middle-Ages. I'm having none of that. Tech level in my world is currently roughly early iron age. There have been ups and downs just like in Howard's world, and there are superior weapons/armour to be found as relics of civilizations that fell thousands of years ago.

For simplicity's (and diversity's) sake, I decided to adopt all of the Howardian races for stats, of course their names (e.g. Aquilonian) are just Tokens and will not be used in my world. The world map looks different, too, but is also based on the real world geography (even more so than Howard's -- I'm looking forward to my players finding out).

So to make a long story short, what I'm trying to do is take the basic idea of a "Conanesque" world and taking it further. I've tried to make a game like that years ago, but sort of failed because I did not have the right tool for the job. Now (half a year ago) I found that tool in shape of the Conan RPG. It's perfectly suited for this kind of game. Whereas on the other hand, I don't think it would be a good choice if you want a run-of-the-mill fantasy game; the feeling is all different.

 

[Aholibamah]

Well...I'm of two minds about all this. One part of me says "yes, there are things that are REH flavoured that need to be in the game setting to do it justice." A good example is Shadizar. Elements of corruption, spookiness, a ruthless desire to prosper and survive are key to presenting Zamora well in general. To me the sense that something weird is going on is an important element of REH regardless of whether or not it is supernatural.

On the other hand...I have a female pc playing a female character. Should I make sure her character ends up stripped naked being either whipped or tied to an altar at the end of every adventure? I hardly think so. (well, maybe once ) but seriously...how much fun would that be for her? Let's face it, most women except for possibly Belit and Valeria (who ends up naked on an altar anyway) are eye candy in REH. I want her to have fun, not insist that she play a guy or constantly humiliate her character.

Let's face it--at some point of running a game you're improvising and adding your own ideas to the REH universe. That's part of the fun of it. I think that to do justice to it though you need to do the following:

1. Magic has to be strange, unsettling. Sorcerors are weird creepy people. If pcs are playing them they have to deal with this angle--really, the influence here is less D&D than it is Call of Cthulhu with a touch of Elric. (though less dramatic than Elric)

2. PCs have to work for a living. Either they're going to slave away as apprentices or in someone's shop or they're going to be rich. Being rich means working too--at intrigue and keeping your throat unslit. Being poor means you have to make money or get kicked into the gutter. An easy way to emphasize this is to constantly describe the poverty of the pcs' surroundings and food and drink when they're NOT well off. If they are aristocrats use family obligation, intrigue and duty to their king/country.

3. Passions are raw. As stated above by a few others whether villain or do-gooder people are rarely subtle about feelings in this setting. causes are desperate; lusts are quickly laid bare, vengeance is violent and awful.

4. Powerful people are POWERFUL. You have to be daring and resourceful to risk the wrath of kings. Nobles can have the insolent whipped (or at least try to), warlords and pirate leaders will leave sands and decks red with blood.

5. Travel is difficult in many places. Great wildernesses, vast deserts, perilous mountain ranges. Travel is often epic.

I think the last word is the key. Hyboria is a world of epic adventure. It requires some imagination to bring to life. I hope we can use this discussion as a guideline to help with that.