How to start a Conan adventure

[Mythos]

Since Conan is not you typical D&D style of adventure, it deserves a different type of set up to get the characters to work together. The following is my concept for starting out my players. Anybody have anything that they would like to share?

My current thinking has the group being survivors of the battle mentioned in the beginning of the story, "The Hand of Nergel".
Any back story will bring them up to the battle and I'll most likely start them off in a mass combat scene where they have to rely on each other to survive.
This will give me a chance to test the mass combat rules, force the players and characters into trusting each other, and allow me to set up a situation where several different types of characters can be thrown together without having to fall back on the standard, "You all meet in a bar and have heard the story about a treasure in the tunnels beneath the old ruins".

The first couple of adventures will be quick "one offs" dealing with them trying to avoid patrols, a few random creatures, and trying to just make it on a day to day bases. This gives both the payers and I a chance to get comfortible with the system and learn the differences for the various character classes. After that I'll start a campaign with some long term travel involved.

Have not quite figured out what the hook will be

 

[Finarvyn]

Since Conan is not you typical D&D style of adventure, it deserves a different type of set up to get the characters to work together. The following is my concept for starting out my players. Anybody have anything that they would like to share?

One of the toughest things about any new campaign world is always trying to figure out how to introduce the characters to the details that make that world different from any other. (Otherwise, they just sort of take over and go the way they want and it won't be Conan but something else.)

Before I start my campaign, I think I'm going to have a reading assignment and ask my players to read one or two of Howard's original Conan stories. I'm just re-reading them now and haven't decided which one is the best, but "best" might depend upon how I want to present Conan's universe. Remember that Howard wrote thieving stories, frontier fort stories, nasty wizard stories, ancient horror stories, and more with Conan as the focus, so which story I select will have a big impact on the direction of the campaign.

I like your idea of having some simple intro encounters of avoiding guard patrols and the like. Hopefully these will help you introduce more of the flavor of the world and set the tone for the campaign.

 

[Anonymous]

Since Conan is not you typical D&D style of adventure, it deserves a different type of set up to get the characters to work together. The following is my concept for starting out my players. Anybody have anything that they would like to share?

One of the toughest things about any new campaign world is always trying to figure out how to introduce the characters to the details that make that world different from any other.

This is true of a campaign that you've created to have an unique flavor from the "standard" D&D fantasy campaign. My Atlantis campaign is unique, combining four unrelated ideas.

 

[slaughterj]

Getting your group together may depend on the exact nature of the characters in it, as well as the desired starting locale. You have many options, including but not limited to:
1. the old stand-by "you meet in a bar" or "you receive a mysterious message to meet in a bar"
2. give each of the characters information on a nearby tomb, particularly of what may be of interest to each therein (e.g., treasure for warriors/rogues, magical knowledge for sorcerors, etc.), and provide information that suggests the need for additional support, allowing the characters to meet more naturally - not all need to meet before, they may meet en route, or within, etc.
3. give each a reason to travel from where they are to somewhere else, and enable each of them to join a caravan to do so (e.g., warriors hire on as guards, etc.)

 

[Jason Durall]

I plan on dropping the characters into the middle of a situation, preferably just after something has happened - such as having the characters being the only survivors of an assault on their desert caravan, and seeing a sandstorm brewing on the horizon and a mysterious ruin in the other direction.

This way, I'll be able to keep them from focusing on stuff like money, possessions, and continuity, and will sort of leap them from one scenario to another.

To me, this seems a bit more in the flavor of the Conan stories, and can also allow for switching out characters if one dies, or for coping with missing and/or extra players from session to session.

 

[Anonymous]

If I do get to run any Conan, I'm thinking of using a 'Usual Suspects' set-up. The PCs will be a collection of barbarians, foreigners, thieves and other undesirables who have been condemned by the courts of a civilised land and sold as slaves to a suitably icky sorcerer. Said sorcerer will put a gruesome curse on them to keep them in line, then send them out to do his dirty work.

This suits my purposes - gives a disparate group of characters a reason to be working together, supplies a reason for characters to go on adventures, provides both a patron and an enemy for the characters (in one handy package) and sets up some nice Conanesque themes from the get-go - namely the innate nastiness of sorcerers and having a clash between barbaric and civilised values.

 

[Yeretach]

I am definately going to start off my campaign with a fight. The players will likely find themselves in a battle, serving as mercenaries.

Depending on what characters my friends create, I will likely stick to a simple mercenary scheme, as that is what they have been discussing.

I'll keep it simple, and open the adventure with fountains of blood.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Excellent idea. Instant bloodshed. I like it.