What if Conan leaves d20 for anotehr system?

[Clovenhoof]

One point to consider is that rpg systems can have fundamentally different approaches, and you should ask yourself what basic approach you want in a game.

D20 is moderately simulationist, in that the mechanics involved are supposed to represent the game world. You have a Strength score and a Climb skill, so if you want to scale a wall you roll a Climb check with your Strength modifier.

In many modern systems there has been a tendency towards very abstract mechanics, with no real reference to the game world. These systems remind me rather of German Board-Games than of RPGs. These games are more about "tokens" and "stakes" and "conflict resolution" rather than the good old ability check. It's sort of like doing Stone-Scissors-Paper to see who wins a fight (and I actually do know an RPG that does exactly that), or playing a game of poker to see who has the upper hand in a negotiation.

Personally, I hate this kind of system for a RPG. Since it does not have a real reference to the game reality, it does nothing for your immersion _into_ the game world. Which is my main objective for playing RPGs in the first place.

The other end of the spectrum would be "heavy simulationist" games like RuleMonster and cohorts, which try to simulate every little bit but, in doing so, get so big, cloggy and cumbersome that they also destroy any hint of immersion, because you're too busy looking up Result 55 on Table 63/185b to see whether your mount lost a horseshoe or the saddle belt came loose.
That's why I say: the more realistic a system wants to be, the less realistic it feels in the end.

For those reasons I want a system somewhere in the middle between complete abstraction and complete simulation. And what can I say, D20 does a pretty good job there.

 

[Strom]

Just listened to Matt Sprange on the Continuum 2008 podcast titled "State of the Mongoose". To paraphrase, Matt mentions that although there is a going to be some push to move Conan to Runequest, it's not something Mongoose is looking to do for the next 2-3 years. Have a listen - very interesting:


http://darransims.libsyn.com/

Still looking forward to Matt's annual written State of Mongoose essay in November.

 

[LucaCherstich]

One point to consider is that rpg systems can have fundamentally different approaches, and you should ask yourself what basic approach you want in a game.

D20 is moderately simulationist, in that the mechanics involved are supposed to represent the game world. You have a Strength score and a Climb skill, so if you want to scale a wall you roll a Climb check with your Strength modifier.

In many modern systems there has been a tendency towards very abstract mechanics, with no real reference to the game world. These systems remind me rather of German Board-Games than of RPGs. These games are more about "tokens" and "stakes" and "conflict resolution" rather than the good old ability check. It's sort of like doing Stone-Scissors-Paper to see who wins a fight (and I actually do know an RPG that does exactly that), or playing a game of poker to see who has the upper hand in a negotiation.

Personally, I hate this kind of system for a RPG. Since it does not have a real reference to the game reality, it does nothing for your immersion _into_ the game world. Which is my main objective for playing RPGs in the first place.

The other end of the spectrum would be "heavy simulationist" games like RuleMonster and cohorts, which try to simulate every little bit but, in doing so, get so big, cloggy and cumbersome that they also destroy any hint of immersion, because you're too busy looking up Result 55 on Table 63/185b to see whether your mount lost a horseshoe or the saddle belt came loose.
That's why I say: the more realistic a system wants to be, the less realistic it feels in the end.

For those reasons I want a system somewhere in the middle between complete abstraction and complete simulation. And what can I say, D20 does a pretty good job there.

YES; YES; YES!!!!!
I completely agree with you, Clovenhoof!
I've been playing any kind of system it came to my hands in the last 17 years of play (gosh! I'm so old...) and I think D20 stands very well in that "middle position" you were talking about.
Maybe Runequeste could do the same....but at the end, I'm sure even Runequest will have its own faults.
You could tell whatever you want about Runequest but, after years of playing, I understood that ALL the rpg systems have their own faults which (if you are lucky) are usually surmounted by practice and experience.
Some of them have more faults and other have less faults, but all of them have some.
I'm used to teh faultys of d20 and I surmouted them trhough the experience and the art of improvisation and, at the end, today I see more the good of d20 (especially of Conan d20) than the bad.
I do not want to exchage d20's faults for Runequest's faults.
And, more than anything else, I do not want to invest money to change the system and making obsolete all the books I own.

I am just a casual gamer, and I don't have the budget or time to learn new systems, so the systems I know are the ones I use.

Lately I 'm that kind of gamer too.
Real life rules, so I cannot switch from Conan Rpg (ogl/d20) to any other system.

One of the largest advantages of Class/Level Games is that you can adjust encounters easy, compared to classless systems like GURPS, RuneQuest or similar. I played both and a lot other classless systems a very very long time and creating fair encounters without adjusting them on the fly while playing is nearly impossible.

I definitively agree.
I have no time to spend creating NPCs statistics and when I play I want to focus on creating the story & the background, rather than wasting time creating npcs.
D20 books (and Conan d20 books) with their tons of pre-set npcs at different leveles are a very good help for me and, even when I want to create an important NPC from nothing, using the race/class/level system helps a lot.

Yes!
I really appreciate Conan more because of the setting than because of the rules. But I have also to face practical money problems: whether to spend money on un-necessary stuff (as Rpg books).
There are books which, even if you like the background material, are less useful if you do not use d20.
I'm speaking of Pirates Isles or Free Companies.
About 70% of the books are useless for non-d20 players.
Every book in the Hyboria's F series is for 60% useless for non-d20 players.

Sorry for the late answer. I don't agree with you on this point. The mechanics in Pirate Isles and Free Companies are suitable for almost any gaming system with a little work.
On the contrary the Hyboria's F series is totally dedicated to the actual system and of little use for another system.
Anyway it shouldn't be hard to convert the material between Conan D20 OGL and Conan RQ because there aren't much difference between a base-20 and a base-100 gaming system.

What I also wanted to underline when I wrote Conan fan's would play in this setting whatever the system is that most of the fans playing with the actual (OGL rules) also possess the older gaming adventures made for miscealanous systems (GURPS, AD&D 1st edition and The Conan RPG released by TSR in the 1980's).
Even Thulsa modified older AD&D modules to make them playable with the actual system.

I believe a gaming system isn't a fixed matter even if it may have its fan circles. So if Mongoose offers a system which is beginners friendly as well as still keeping up with the ambiance of the Hyborian Age and of Sword & Sorcery, then I think most Conan fan's will also adopt the new system or will still buy new books to adapt and convert to the older D20 (OGL) system.

Think whatever you want but for me, as a Mongoose customer and a gamer with real-life (other than Conan Rpg) and real problems with both time and money I will NEVER buy any non-d20 Conan books because:

1)
Not enough time in my real life to convert any Conan Runequest (or whatever non-d20 system) to my own system (d20).
I want to spend the little time I have for actual play with my good old friends and telling good Hyborian stories rather than making stupid prortions between d20 & d100 to know how strong is that bloody Stygian demon or that Vanir berserker.
I'm no more a 12-years-old freak with plenty of spare time but a 30-years old married archaeologist which has to work and survive in the real world, before than in the Hyborean Age.
If you can spend all that time in the RPG-world you are I lucky: I simply cannot!!

2)
I do not see why I have to spend money and give it to Mongoose for something which, at least in part, I cannot use.
After all my first concerns should be to pay the rent and the food, rather than Conan Books.
If Mongoose wil leaves d20 I will simply have more money to spend for my real life, rather than rpgs.

 

[warzen]

Personnaly, I'm using Reign to play Conan and the fights are shorter than that.

W.

I fear I don't know this game. What does it propose?

At last I have few minutes to answer you.

Reign is a fantasy RPG based on the One Roll Engine (aka ORE), aslo used in Wild Talent.

As I'm not that fluent in english, I'll first point you to one review on rpg.net that is may be a bit too positive:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13162.phtml

ORE is working like that:
Each characters has 6 stats and around 6 skills per stats. To evaluate the success of an action, you thrown a number of ten-sided die based on stat + skill. The goal is to get double, triple ...etc
Example: you have 3 in Body (a stat) and 2 in Parry (a skill) => you throw 5d10 to do a parry.
A roll of 3, 5, 6, 8, 0 would be a miss. A roll of 1, 1, 4, 7, 8 would be a success (you have a double "1").

The "height" of the roll: this is defined by the number rolled in your double (or triple...). In the last example, the height would be 1 (I rolled a double "1). This represents the quality of the success (ie not that good ! )

The width of the roll: this is defined by tha mount of duplicate die. A double "1" has a width of 2, a quintuple "9" has a width of 5. This represents the speed of the action.

A roll is writen like this <width> x <height> (2x1 for a double "1")

Of course, some actions don't need a great width where in some only the speed is important.
Example:
- archery contest : a 3x1 will barely hit the target where a 2x10 will be in the center
- catch-the-flowers-at-a-wedding contest: 3x1 beats the 2x10 because the goal is to be the first to get the flowers, even if you half stumble after that.

The important consequence, as you may haev noticed it, is that to resolve important contest, especially fights, everybody is rolling the die then you resolve the round. This is far different that the usual rpg way where you roll, resolve, roll, resovle...ec for each PCs/NPCs.

Combat:
these are quiete deadly, but not as much as Runequest. Still you can die in one well placed blow if you're unamoured in the head for example.
The system is also including rules to manage mooks (the guys that are dying like flies). These rules perfectly fit in the combat rules.

Magic:
the one proposed has some parts far from Conan but it's a powerfull but difficult magic (so not that far here). As you can find D&D to Reign magic convertion rules, it's not that difficult to convert spells from Conan d20 to Reign.

The crunch:
* Combat rules are splitted in 3 or 4 layers of complexity (imagine the first layer being just "roll the die" and the last level being all the maneuvers available in Conan d20). You can start light and add complexity as your group feel confident with the system
* esoteric discipline and martial path: each skill can be developped up to a point where you master specific use (ex: draw you weapon is free, one free parry..etc) or where you have a second chance in case of mistake. this is not just for combat but also for the usual skills.

On top of that, you have company rules that are used to manage big organization. I'm not using them in Conan but DM putting the PCs in mercenary companies, trade guild, pirate fleet...etc could put that to good use.

One funny thing:
to create a PC, you can use a point system or a one roll character creation system. It's even available online:
http://rpgs.mapache.org/reign/ore-character-generator
(just press "Generate")

The official web site:
http://gregstolze.com/reign/

The character sheet:
http://gregstolze.com/reign/downloads/REIGN_Sheet.pdf

For Conan:
the "+": Reign has really a Conan feel. Fast combat but not too deadly for the PCs.

the "-" : the magic to adapt if you have spellcasters in your PCs. the time to adapt to the "roll, roll, roll, resolve" system.

I'm sorry as my review seems akward but it's not that easy for me to describe the strenght and weakness of Reign.

As a side note, I think it is (or will soon) available in pdf, so you don't have to pay the printed book to have a look at it.

W.

 

[Clovenhoof]

I played MRQ a couple of months ago and didn't like it. After this game (and experiences with other % games like MERP, UA and whatnot), I have decided I don't like percentile systems at all. They're all the same in that you usually start out with very low values across the board, and even your single most important main skill is below "50%", whatever that means. So you'll usually fail at even the most basic tasks twice out of three times.
Secondly, there is absolutely no niche protection, nothing that really sets the characters apart in the long run. A barbarian can cast spells, a scholar shoots a longbow, and a bard can follow tracks.

Partly my bad experience is owned to the GM, who threw me and my friend with "level 1" characters into a group that had been playing their characters for over two years. So even in our key skills we were outperformed by everyone else in the group, although they were just fringe skills for them. That sucked big time. That's the problem with level-less systems, cuz seriously dudes, what D20 gamemaster in their right mind would throw a first-level character into a party of 10th level vets?

But even if he did, a Level 1 Rogue would _still_ be better at disarming traps than a level 10 Barbarian, a level 1 Ranger would be better at tracking a quarry than a Cleric, and a level 1 Wizard wouldn't be out-magicked by a Fighter.

My main concern with Runequest is definitely the non-existant niche protection. Everyone can learn everything, and nobody can do anything special. That's just stupid.

So, for that matter, should Mongoose ever choose to switch Conan over to MRQ, I'd definitely never, ever buy any of it, neither core rules nor supplements, nothing, and that's a promise.

 

[warzen]

So, for that matter, should Mongoose ever choose to switch Conan over to MRQ, I'd definitely never, ever buy any of it, neither core rules nor supplements, nothing, and that's a promise.

Funny but I don't trust you a second. :wink:
Nearly all people posting here are Conan fans. We may be as vocal as we want about the system but in the end we'll buy the books if the quality is here whatever the system used, as a lot of us already do.

W.

 

[Clovenhoof]

@warzen: I'll just quote myself on what I wrote on page 3:

As opposed to many users on this board, I am not playing "Conan" in the Hyborian Age, I just use the Conan system because, while not perfect, it offers what I want in a sword&sorcery game. The main advantages being firstly, indepence from magical gadgets (as opposed to D&D) and secondly, attractive and exclusive special abilities (as opposed to classless systems, where everyone can learn anything).

 

[warzen]

Hehehe
Sorry Clovenhoof, I forgot your post before opening my big mouth !!

W.

 

[Oly]

I have decided I don't like percentile systems at all. They're all the same in that you usually start out with very low values across the board, and even your single most important main skill is below "50%", whatever that means. So you'll usually fail at even the most basic tasks twice out of three times.

I can't answer for MGRQ but all percentage systems are not the same in that respect, Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer (both BRP variants) allow you to start much higher than 50%. Stormbringer in particular recommends that you start with a main weapon skill in excess of 100%.

Also in D20 if you're starting out as a fighter with a fairly low BaB and meet another fighter don't you have roughly a 50% hit chance? It's not far off that.

Secondly, there is absolutely no niche protection, nothing that really sets the characters apart in the long run. A barbarian can cast spells, a scholar shoots a longbow, and a bard can follow tracks.

Not having niche protection isn't "just stupid" it allows for flexible characters. Niche protection isn't there for any practical reason, it's there to promote game balance and to give everyone their unique place in the party. Why shouldn't a barbarian be able to learn magic (if the game world allows it)? Why shouldn’t a scholar have spent years studying the longbow as a hobby? When can't a bard have spent time in the wilds and learned how to track?

It's also true that in most systems you can't just learn everything, you don't have the "experience points" (or whatever) to do that. Therefore most parties do develop into niches anyway.

Even Conan D20 allows for such flexibility, to an extent, by allowing pretty free multi-classing.

Partly my bad experience is owned to the GM, who threw me and my friend with "level 1" characters into a group that had been playing their characters for over two years. So even in our key skills we were outperformed by everyone else in the group, although they were just fringe skills for them. That sucked big time. That's the problem with level-less systems, cuz seriously dudes, what D20 gamemaster in their right mind would throw a first-level character into a party of 10th level vets?

That's not the fault of a level-less system, that's the fault of a bad GM and it can happen regardless of the system.

In level-less systems it's often far easier to bring in a newly created starting character who eclipses all the others in a certain key area than it is with D20. In CoC, for example, you just give the character the % skill that you want. So even if the party has been adventuring for two years the Professor of Egyptology will rightly shine when he joins the party, but overall his skills will be worse, unless the GM allows him some boosts.

Strangely enough the Star Wars saga version of D20 (and possibly D&D 4.0, not sure) makes such outclassing of beginning characters inevitable as all skills have a major level based modifier to them whether you want it or not.

I'm not saying "level based systems suck", I am as I've said before a big fan of Conan D20. However I'm also a big fan of other systems and your criticisms of them just don't hold.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Alright, I should be more specific and say that all percentile systems _that I tried_ suck. If there are others that do it better, more power to them.

Of course the power curve in D20 is very steep, and there's no contest between someone with skill 14 and one with skill 4. But talking in percentages seems to limiting to me, as if all tasks were exactly the same difficulty. Here I think the more abstract way of a dimensionless modifier is better, because it lets you determine the success chance independently from the skill value via DC.

In practice, if a character has, for instance, a skill of 10 and attempts a certain task, and I mentally figure this character should have about 50% success chance, I set the DC at 20. Of course this also means that the same task would be much easier or more difficult for other characters with higher or lower skill. But long story short, it's easy to adjust the DCs so even level 1 characters succeed at appropriate tasks.
While that's technically certainly also possible in % systems - you might allow a "15% circumstance bonus" - I've never experienced that in actual gaming; the GMs always just let you roll the % dice in unmodified checks and then you most certainly fail.

Not having niche protection isn't "just stupid" it allows for flexible characters. Niche protection isn't there for any practical reason, it's there to promote game balance and to give everyone their unique place in the party.

For me that in fact is a practical reason. Where's the fun when all characters in a party are the same and can do the same stuff? Multiclassing in Conan works because for everything you pick up, you have to give up something else, permanently, so you think twice about it. Sure your Barb can get Sneak Attack and Evasion, but then he'll never get Wheel of Death and Triple Threat Range. The same holds true for D&D in non-epic games.
In classless systems, you don't give up anything by sidetracking, you just delay it, but you'll get everything eventually. As it was the case with those MRQ players I witnessed.

 

[warzen]

For me that in fact is a practical reason. Where's the fun when all characters in a party are the same and can do the same stuff? Multiclassing in Conan works because for everything you pick up, you have to give up something else, permanently, so you think twice about it. Sure your Barb can get Sneak Attack and Evasion, but then he'll never get Wheel of Death and Triple Threat Range. The same holds true for D&D in non-epic games.
In classless systems, you don't give up anything by sidetracking, you just delay it, but you'll get everything eventually. As it was the case with those MRQ players I witnessed.

Clovenhoof, your point of view is biased by some really bad experience. You may never like the % system or the classless system because of this but what you describe is not the reality.

PCs can all reach 100% in every skills, as they can be Barbarian 20/Pirate 20. You can't blame a system for the GM fault. Sure, some systems are easier to prevent the GM from doing mistake but anybody can cripple even the most strict rule set.

W.

 

[Oly]

that's technically certainly also possible in % systems - you might allow a "15% circumstance bonus" - I've never experienced that in actual gaming; the GMs always just let you roll the % dice in unmodified checks and then you most certainly fail.

That depends on the system, the ones that I can think of usually have fixed (e.g. +20%) or variable (e.g. double your skill) modifiers.

Not having niche protection isn't "just stupid" it allows for flexible characters. Niche protection isn't there for any practical reason, it's there to promote game balance and to give everyone their unique place in the party.

For me that in fact is a practical reason. Where's the fun when all characters in a party are the same and can do the same stuff? Multiclassing in Conan works because for everything you pick up, you have to give up something else, permanently, so you think twice about it. Sure your Barb can get Sneak Attack and Evasion, but then he'll never get Wheel of Death and Triple Threat Range. The same holds true for D&D in non-epic games.
In classless systems, you don't give up anything by sidetracking, you just delay it, but you'll get everything eventually. As it was the case with those MRQ players I witnessed.

In level-less games you will only have a certain number of advances/skill points/features that you can get your hands on. Taking some will deny others by choice rather than by being fixed into something by a level advancement chart.

Characters in a level-less system party won't end up all the same any more than characters in a level-based system will.

Sometimes I really enjoy the "lock in" of D20 with it's special abilities that you will only get if you reach level X in class Y.

However I also enjoy the freedom of level-less games for players to create exactly the sort of character that they're after.

I've never seen a level-less party that's made up of identical characters any more than I've seen a D20 group where everyone picked the same class.

Both are possible but in any decent, and sensible, gaming group players will move into a niche of one kind or another so as to spread the skills and abilities of the group and to also give everyone something "special".

 

[pasuuli]

My main concern with Runequest is definitely the non-existant niche protection. Everyone can learn everything, and nobody can do anything special. That's just stupid.

I agree, but think that's a setting issue, not a core mechanics issue. In short, if Mongoose ports Conan to RQ, it ports the setting, which preserves the class differentiations and the magic system, for example.

I agree that it's quite stupid for Conan, and can be stupid for other settings as well (Traveller for instance), while being perfectly reasonable for still other settings (like whatever RQ's default setting is).

I think of RQ the same way I think of d20: it's how the task system fits together with characters, skills, and equipment. It has little to do with what the classes are and how they are differentiated from each other.

So, when I think of Conan using RQ, I can't help but think that the classes and specializations in Conan must be preserved. And this is not difficult at all -- character creation seems in some way to be more part of the setting and not the system.

 

[Clovenhoof]

The % systems I tried so far were MERP, Cthulhu (some 15 years ago), MRQ and Unknown Armies; I think that's it. I didn't really like any of them, and in fact it was only after the most recent experience, Unknown Armies, that I decided I don't like percentile systems in general.

There are a few level- and classless systems that I've enjoyed, for instance Star Wars d6 and Shadowrun 2/3. Although especially SR eventually is a class system after all, because the jobs are pretty clearly defined (Rigger, Decker, Streetsam etc.). But anyway.

By and large, I have developed a personal preference by genre: medieval/fantasy: class and levels; scifi/modern: classless, levelless.

And by the way: unless they changed it in the 2nd ed, you can't have more than 20 character levels in Conan.

 

[Trantor]

I can't answer for MGRQ but all percentage systems are not the same in that respect, Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer (both BRP variants) allow you to start much higher than 50%. Stormbringer in particular recommends that you start with a main weapon skill in excess of 100%.

Not only do different d% systems vary widely, even different brp-based games vary, when it comes to magic/combat etc. Imo, f.i., Cthulhu sucks totally at combat (still love it and play it twice a month, but combat is never played after the rules), while RQ3s Magic system is nice to read but horrible to play (Sorcery, the other two magic systems are a bit boring).

The advantages and disadvantages of class or non class/level games are often and widely discussed, I think that every (ok, most) system has it's niche, where if works best - Cthulhu and brp work very good hand in hand, as do Conan and D20. Conan and GURPS works, too, but the kind of game is another - i think not so howardesque as I hoped when I started playing it.

-

This morning at breakfast, I found the passage in ons of Howard's stories, where the "drink a flask of wine for 1 Hit Point" Rule is described - excellent!

 

[flatscan]

http://darransims.libsyn.com/

Still looking forward to Matt's annual written State of Mongoose essay in November.

I'm a huge fan of Conan and what Mongoose has done with the RPG, in fact I've bought every single title released so far in the Conan RPG line, but switching systems after years of OGL products is ridiculous. Mongoose may gain some benefit from the people that want to see it converted to Runequest, but I'd rather they released Vincent Darlage's conversion as a Flaming Cobra product or something instead of converting the whole line. Of course it may be a strategic move to boost Runequest sales as well, but they'd be doing it at the cost of loyal customers (at least 5 just between me and my group). :evil:

 

[Ichabod]

As to niche-protection, I'd also argue that this isn't something that should be established by mechanics but by the GM/play group.

BTW, I don't feel a strong niche-protection in Conan or really any D&D game. I constantly lament that the level system in D&D (specifically, Conan has much better flexibility) overrides all other character features to such an extent that you can just define a character by their levels, which means any two characters with the same levels are virtually the same character. Feats should fix that problem but don't because the feats are wildly imbalanced and are organized into feat trees to where everyone takes the same ones. And, really, mostly what feats do is provide some sort of plus to a die roll which is hardly any different from getting a plus to a die roll for some other reason. At least in Feng Shui schticks ooze flavor and more of them seem to open up new abilities rather than just modifying existing ones.

4E D&D is an incredibly blatant example of railroading characters into a limited number of options, but really, it's only institutionalizing something that happens anyway. Sure, two characters of different classes are going to be different. Weeee! Unless you want to introduce a billion new classes - oh wait, that's what D&D does - you end up with only so many different character constructs ... mechanically. Of course, you can always *gasp* roleplay a character different from its mechanical clone, but I actually care about a character's "numbers" as it helps to define the character as much or more than personality, at least for genres like fantasy where what you can do is more important in fiction than what your Myers-Briggs type is.

Then, take a look at your typical superhero system. Let's say Champions. There's absolutely no niche-protection built into the game at all, it's entirely play group dependent. Yet, it's extremely important to the genre to have unique abilities.

Really, it comes down to how the group will play a game and how much a GM will go beyond the rules to establish individual identity. I think that it should be a requirement for any character that the character have some ability or, at least, facet that is completely unique and can never be encroached upon by anyone else. If saddled with d20, I'd require that every PC have their own unique "feat" which provides some ability that cannot be duplicated in any way, something at no time do I ever feel the game encourages.

What really draws people to fictional characters? Something that is unique to that character. It may not be any one thing - there are plenty of Kryptonians, but some combination of powers, personality, background, enemies, or whatever creates a memorable identity. While that can happen over time in a campaign where experiences give depth to a character or bring out particular traits that didn't exist initially, why not start with somebody special? So, screw the system - get the GM to buy into the idea that a concept matters and part of that concept entails some unique aspect or blend of aspects that won't get duplicated (without good reason) by any other character in the game.

 

[Clovenhoof]

I constantly lament that the level system in D&D (specifically, Conan has much better flexibility) overrides all other character features to such an extent that you can just define a character by their levels,

Actually, I feel that what really does override all character features in D&D is the abundance of magic items. There's an item to emulate virtually anything, any feat, any ability. In the end, everybody can do the same things. The absence of such equalizer items is indeed one of the huge plusses of the Conan system.

If saddled with d20, I'd require that every PC have their own unique "feat" which provides some ability that cannot be duplicated in any way, something at no time do I ever feel the game encourages.

I think that's an _awesome_ idea!

 

[Ichabod]

But, everybody has interchangeable magic items, another problem that D&D has always been prone to. I just no longer can even fathom the concept of a +2 _. It's just so gamey. Besides, the whole idea that a character is determined by their equipment is just so pathetic to begin with. So, I see how magic items tend to homogenize characters, but at the same time, strip away the ubiquitous +1-5 this/that and you still end up with class/level being what a character is rather than any sort of unique element.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Besides, the whole idea that a character is determined by their equipment is just so pathetic to begin with

Totally with you there. I like to say: a high level D&D character is not a hero, but a mobile platform for magic items. Strip a high-level D&D char of his trinkets and he's doomed; the player can take the character sheet and make a paper airplane out of it or shove it up his ass, but he effectively can't play the character anymore. And that's what I love about the Conan game - although it's certainly the case with many other systems as well - that it reflects so well that you can be stripped of everything you have, you just have to grab table leg for a club and you're good to go again. ^^