Just getting into Conan as a DM

[rocksalt]

New guy alert!

What books are safe to get now? Or should I wait until 2nd edition hits before picking anything else up?

I have the core book now. What about Road of Kings? I see that it is OOP but I have the opportunity to pick it up. Should I get it or will there be a 2nd edition reprint?

I'm not in a hurry. The campaign won't start until late next year but I can pickup several of the source books on sale now. Is it worth it, or should I wait?

Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated.

 

[Majestic7]

What you need depends on what kind of campaign you are planning to run. You don't really _need_ any other book than the core rules - the others just support the game. The trouble in waiting for new realeases is that they might take a long time to come out and while waiting, the older versions might be sold out.

My personal favorites are Free Companies and Road of the Kings, although the looting rules in Free Companies are foolish.

 

[Krushnak]

all the source books will be fine and any rules changes in them are apparently going to be covered by pdf's on the mongoose site. definately get Road of Kings.

 

[MGBM]

I have the core book now. What about Road of Kings? I see that it is OOP but I have the opportunity to pick it up. Should I get it or will there be a 2nd edition reprint?

Well, Matt said there were no plans to reprint Road Of Kings. Of course, now with the 2nd edition coming that may have been changed.

However, one way or the other, I say pick RoK, it's one of the best sourcebooks for Conan, and since it's mostly a description of the various nations of the Hyborian Age, it's fundamental if you're going to GM.

 

[Mythos]

As with the others here I have to 2nd getting RotK. The amount of information presented makes it worth getting.
The other books that I got the most use from were, The Scrolls of Skelos and The Free Companions.

With these three books you cover the majority of adventure styles that most groups are likely to encounter.

 

[slaughterj]

Road of Kings is a definite. Ruins of Hyborian should be considered as well.

 

[Bregales]

When Vincent791 asked this question, here's how I responded:

*snip*

For other supplements, I think the greatest release so far has been the h/c The Road of Kings, which is a more detailed gazeteer of the Hyborian World. Scrolls of Skelos is great if you will have a Scholar PC in your group; Pirate Isles if a Pirate (this is a really cool book IMO); Free Companies if you'll run a military campaign or a mercenary band; [edit 11/30/06] The three Hyboria's F-books for character building plans, advice on how to use them and et cetera; if you have a certain part of the word you want to base the group within, or adventure exhaustively in, I'd recommend an appropriate regional book; and adventures are both standalone publications and written out in such as the city boxed sets and Conan Compendium, which lists articles published in Signs & Portents magazine as well as wholly new adventures.

Lastly, MightyCthulhu posted a link to Iron_Chef's thread about creating adventures, which is great to look at. Several of us have been posting adventure breakdowns of our groups' adventures in this forum [edit 11/30/06] which can be found in the sticky thread Conan.com, as well as the link within it Conan blogs and campaign journals and reading them may help both give more adventure ideas or maybe learn from our mistakes. ~I thought maybe I'd link several threads similar to yours asking general questions about getting started, so:
*Conan campaigns - advice sought
*Some newbie questions
*A couple rules questions
*Conan Campaign?
*First post here, health question...
*Adventure Generation
*Instant Campaign Starter
*The First Session
*New to Conan - Quick Question
*New to the game...
--At present there's [58] pages of threads on the Conan forum; for example while putting this list together (took 10 minutes) I found 7 posts on Great Swords. So odds are if you are trying to figure something out, odds are someone's already asked it. :wink: So you can also use the search button at the top of the screen.

So in closing (I tend to write long posts ) reply if you have any specific questions, and I hope this helps.

 

[Sutek]

I say the main Atlantean Edition (AE) rulebook is sufficient, but the next step would be to get the "Hyboria's F__est" books and Scrolls of Skelos. ROK may be difficult to come by, but it clears up the world of Hyboria for people not totally familiar with REHs works.

 

[Ganconer]

I second Sutek's comment. I love RoK as well as the Hyboria's F__est series. Excellent works in my opinion with lots of information

 

[slaughterj]

I don't care much for the F_ series personally, just not particularly useful to me, but I'm not much into "character" books.

 

[rgrove0172]

Just do what I did. Sell enough of your other gaming junk on ebay to afford to buy them all. (plus a couple extra of the smaller core books for your players) Youll never be happy till you have it all anyway!

 

[Lord Jolly the Scribe]

rgrove has a point. That's kinda what I am doing.

Also, this may sound a little off but if you buy any of the stuff for the current Conan setting and the new edtion comes out and you get a chance to, page through it before buying it. If too many old rules that you enjoyed are changed in the new one or they got rid of things you enjoyed, put it back and ignore it.

I have done that to other games I've played and it's not disrespectful to the company it's the fact that stuff has been so changed and scrambled, it doesn't seem right to rework and reteach your players all new stuff and make your old stuff obsolete. You went through all that money and time to get the first rules down, why mess around and waste more.

 

[Sir Hackalot]

Wow, Conan must be a really tough GM......

 

[Netherek]

Actually, from a numbers stand point, it's much easier. There are fewer variables, less Magic munchieness, and not even near the volume of spells to worry about.

You really only need the Atlantean Edition to run a good game, the supplements just help make it a great game. And the supplements are far more useful to the game than practically any WotC supplement does for D&D.

 

[Evil_Trevor]

Last time I ran a tabletop game the books that got used the most were

Core rule book
The F___ series character books
ROK
Messantia box set

It also helps if you decide where to setyour games, if you want to set all your games in the hyborian nations then you wouldn't need to look at Stygia, Tales of the black kingdoms etc.