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<blockquote data-quote="Water Bob" data-source="post: 7125256" data-attributes="member: 92305"><p><strong>FANTASY TO CONAN - CONVERSION NOTES</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>LOW LEVEL ADVENTURE</strong></p><p></p><p>When I'm Conan-izing an adventure that was written for D&D or some other game universe, I look for low level adventures first, and I prefer adventures written for d20 3.0/3.5 or Pathfinder. I like low level stuff because those tend to use less fantastic magic--stuff that I will throw out. And, I'm not just talking about spells. I'm talking about fantastic creatures, lots of humanoids, magical traps, talking statues, mirrors that take you to another plane of existence, jars that trap your soul, and so on.</p><p></p><p>I may keep some of the magic--and I'll make that some unique, powerful thing of sorcery. But, my general goal is to minimize the magic, and the magic-users, in order to get closer to that Hyborian Age feel.</p><p></p><p>Why I prefer d20 3.0/3.5 stuff is obvious. It makes for an easier conversion to the d20 3.0/3.5 based Conan game. But, it's not a 1-1 conversion. There's still work to be done. You've got to come up with Dodge and Parry AC. Convert to Conan classes. Switch equipment, like Conan armor, which has an Armor Value. And, you've got to remove the fantasy. A D&D Ranger will lose his magical abilities and probably transfer to the Borderer class in Conan.</p><p></p><p>My point being: Even d20 3.0/3.5 or Pathfinder source material requires conversion work.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>DO I NEED THIS ENCOUNTER?</strong></p><p></p><p>The next thing I ask myself when Conan-izing an adventure is, "Do I need this encounter at all?" D&D adventures tend to have a lot of encounters just for the sake of having a lot of encounters. I believe a good Conan adventure should have less total encounters and more story-driven encounters. "Does this encounter advance the story?" That's another question I ask myself.</p><p></p><p>If the answer is, "No," then I'll just take that encounter out of the game.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>CAN I MAKE THE ENCOUNTER WORK WITH HUMANS?</strong></p><p></p><p>The next thing I do, if I am keeping an encounter, is see if I can re-imagine the situation at hand as a human-based encounter. If I'm looking at a bunch of goblins in a cave, I might change those into bandits, using the cave as their wilderness base. Maybe there's a hobgoblin or two among them. Maybe the encounter shows a bugbear or an ogre, too. These become the higher level bandits. The leaders. I might even multi-class them. A sole bugbear or ogre might be a champion fighter or an emissary from the band of thieves living in the city--and now, the players discover that the bandits and the city thieves are working together, selling information to each other about caravans, using each other as fences.</p><p></p><p>Take inventory of the types of humans that are likely to populate the part of the Known World where you have set this adventure. My current game is set in Argos. So, I've got all kinds of humans that I can use to replace non-human encounters in adventure modules: Escaped slaves or gladiators. Zingaran spies. Merchants and their paid mercenary body guards. Shemite caravan passing through. Plus there are rival Merchant Houses, rival Nobles, and the Church of Mitra vs. any other cult. </p><p></p><p>Don't forget Commoners. They go up to level 10, and they can serve all sorts of roles in the game. What if those four random skeletons that are supposed to pop out when the PC pass the downed tree become four young Commoners--a group of boys out to have fun by messing with travelers. They decide to shake down the PCs as they pass, asking for a silver a piece. How will the PCs handle this? </p><p></p><p>In a D&D game, the PCs would just set to work on the skeletons and then move on. But now that we've Conan-ized the encounter, it's a much different scenario--more story based. If the PCs kill these boys, how will that set them when the PCs face the rest of the townspeople? What if one boy is the son of the Merchant where the PCs buy and sell equipment? What if the boys are actually being paid by the bandits to scout the road for juicy scores?</p><p></p><p>Isn't that more interesting that just a quick encounter to fight four skeletons?</p><p></p><p>Instead of Commoner boys, make the 4 skeletons become 4 Acolytes from a demon cult, out at night prowling for victims that they can drag back to their sanctuary to be sacrificed--an act that must be done before the moon becomes full.</p><p></p><p>Use your creativity. Consider the power structures in your game. Who makes the world go around in that part of the world? Do that, and you'll change a rather usual D&D encounter into something memorable that fits well in your version of the Hyborian Age.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>MAGIC AND SORCERY AND TREASURE</strong></p><p></p><p>I automatically throw out 95% of the magic seen in a standard D&D adventure. I don't care about +2 swords or boots of levitation. If I do anything at all, which is not often, those will become normal swords and boots made of higher quality. The game has three levels for garments: Base Quality, Merchant Quality, Noble Quality. These things can be sold in the game. The +2 sword can become a normal sword with a polished chrome blade and a jewel in the pommel, making the sword a lot more than a basic sword. The boots are made of Zingaran leather--top quality--and a PC may want these for himself, if they fit.</p><p></p><p>I throw out scrolls and potions and magical rings. They either disappear from the adventure (likely) or they get transferred into some form of simple treasure (not often). A +1 pendant of protection becomes a 50 sp value silver necklace with the symbol of Mitra on it. Or, I may present a mystery--the PCs find a key with no markings on it. It leads to a locked door in the city that opens the ancient crypts. But, at this point, the players have no way of connecting the key to that door. It will be a mystery that bugs them for a while. :wink2: </p><p></p><p>I always look hard at the traps, too. Many times, in a D&D adventure, the traps are magical in nature. Get creative about these and turn them into non-magical traps. The <strong>Ruins of Hyboria</strong> supplement book is a great resource to use when converting D&D dungeons. There's an entire section in that book devoted to traps--all of them non-magical. That book can help you in many ways when Conan-izing an adventure written for another game universe.</p><p></p><p>What you want to do is think <strong>MUNDANE</strong>. Turn the magical stuff into its mundane version, or throw out the magic altogether.</p><p></p><p>Reduce treasure drastically. A typically D&D adventure sees a party of characters enter the dungeon penniless and exit it rich enough to buy their own castle. That shouldn't happen in a Conan adventure. People don't get rich by raiding dungeons, and the dungeons of the Hyborian Age don't have piles of coin and treasure sitting around on tables or in chests.</p><p></p><p>You can give your players some rewards in the form of treasure, but keep it light. Don't allow them to get enough to change financial circumstances. Just give them enough so that they can have the coin for the next night's stay in an inn, or to have their armor repaired. Give them a bronze bicep band or a bolt of cloth. Maybe a single ear-ring. Try to give them "things" rather than coins. People don't leave money lying around in the Hyborian Age. It's like the Dark Ages--there's not a lot of wealth to be found.</p><p></p><p>If you don't give them a lot, your players will fond over every little thing they get (after an adjustment period if they just came from a D&D game). The book I just mentioned, <strong>Ruins of Hyboria</strong>, has a section of unique and interesting treasures that the characters can discover during their travels. And, the book <strong>Barbaric Treasures</strong>, has pages of mundane items that Conan characters can find, here and there, to keep them in wine and song. (<strong>Barbaric Treasures</strong> is also an excellent resource for creating caravan loads--use this in conjunction with the caravan rules presented in the <strong>Shem - Gateway to the South</strong> supplement.)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>WHAT DO I KEEP?</strong></p><p></p><p>It sounds like I totally delete everything that a D&D adventure brings with it. So, why use published adventures at all? Why not just make everything up from scratch for your game?</p><p></p><p>Well, first, I don't delete <em>everything</em>. But, I do change a lot of the adventure. Conan-izing often requires a lot of work. But, I find that interesting D&D scenarios can still be quite valuable. First, there's site maps. And, the ideas in the adventure serve as a spring board for creativity. It is easier to edit something that it is to create from scratch. Like writing stories, it is easier to take a story already written and alter it to your tastes than it is to stare at a blank page and fill it up with interesting detail. So, D&D adventures serve as short-cuts and GM time-savers, in that respect, even though the conversion process can take a great deal of time.</p><p></p><p>I'll keep anything that fits my sense of what should "be" in the Hyborian Age. Everything else is either changed or deleted.</p><p></p><p>I keep sorcery to a minimum, but I do keep some sorcerous stuff, if the adventure calls for it. Think of the sorcery you saw in any of the three Conan movies. It's there. It's powerful. But, its not in each scene. Low level Sorcerers don't walk the streets of the city and throw small spells for no reason. Conan sorcery is not about Web, Magic Missile, and Levitate. The sorcery section in the Conan rulebook shows a different kind of power. So, I endeavor to stay true to the Conan sorcery rules, using the spells in core rulebook and other books in this rpg series as examples. I may make a new spell that works something like Web, Magic Missile, or Levitate, but it will be a unique spell that only that sorcerer has learned. You won't find it scrawled on scrolls and left for anyone to find.</p><p></p><p>The same goes for creatures. Conan has fought his share of heinous beasts. I will leave some of the monsters provided in the conversion module intact. But, I'll throw out those that don't fit the Hyborian Age. I'll keep a wyvern, but I'll throw out an gelatinous cube. I'll keep zombie, but I'll nix a piercer. I might replace a hell hound with a regular wolf. I might allow a dragon, even, but I'll describe him as a dinosaur and remove his wings and spells (and it won't be able to speak, of course). </p><p></p><p>I try to thin out the monster encounters, deleting them altogether or changing them to human encounters. Or, replacing them with mundane animals. A big umber hulk might be replaced with a large mastodon that is pissed off it is changed to a column. Or, a Dire Wolf might become a saber-toothed tiger.</p><p></p><p>The whole idea, of course, is for your players to never suspect that they are playing any game other than one set in the Hyborian Age.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Water Bob, post: 7125256, member: 92305"] [b]FANTASY TO CONAN - CONVERSION NOTES[/b] [b]LOW LEVEL ADVENTURE[/b] When I'm Conan-izing an adventure that was written for D&D or some other game universe, I look for low level adventures first, and I prefer adventures written for d20 3.0/3.5 or Pathfinder. I like low level stuff because those tend to use less fantastic magic--stuff that I will throw out. And, I'm not just talking about spells. I'm talking about fantastic creatures, lots of humanoids, magical traps, talking statues, mirrors that take you to another plane of existence, jars that trap your soul, and so on. I may keep some of the magic--and I'll make that some unique, powerful thing of sorcery. But, my general goal is to minimize the magic, and the magic-users, in order to get closer to that Hyborian Age feel. Why I prefer d20 3.0/3.5 stuff is obvious. It makes for an easier conversion to the d20 3.0/3.5 based Conan game. But, it's not a 1-1 conversion. There's still work to be done. You've got to come up with Dodge and Parry AC. Convert to Conan classes. Switch equipment, like Conan armor, which has an Armor Value. And, you've got to remove the fantasy. A D&D Ranger will lose his magical abilities and probably transfer to the Borderer class in Conan. My point being: Even d20 3.0/3.5 or Pathfinder source material requires conversion work. [b]DO I NEED THIS ENCOUNTER?[/b] The next thing I ask myself when Conan-izing an adventure is, "Do I need this encounter at all?" D&D adventures tend to have a lot of encounters just for the sake of having a lot of encounters. I believe a good Conan adventure should have less total encounters and more story-driven encounters. "Does this encounter advance the story?" That's another question I ask myself. If the answer is, "No," then I'll just take that encounter out of the game. [b]CAN I MAKE THE ENCOUNTER WORK WITH HUMANS?[/b] The next thing I do, if I am keeping an encounter, is see if I can re-imagine the situation at hand as a human-based encounter. If I'm looking at a bunch of goblins in a cave, I might change those into bandits, using the cave as their wilderness base. Maybe there's a hobgoblin or two among them. Maybe the encounter shows a bugbear or an ogre, too. These become the higher level bandits. The leaders. I might even multi-class them. A sole bugbear or ogre might be a champion fighter or an emissary from the band of thieves living in the city--and now, the players discover that the bandits and the city thieves are working together, selling information to each other about caravans, using each other as fences. Take inventory of the types of humans that are likely to populate the part of the Known World where you have set this adventure. My current game is set in Argos. So, I've got all kinds of humans that I can use to replace non-human encounters in adventure modules: Escaped slaves or gladiators. Zingaran spies. Merchants and their paid mercenary body guards. Shemite caravan passing through. Plus there are rival Merchant Houses, rival Nobles, and the Church of Mitra vs. any other cult. Don't forget Commoners. They go up to level 10, and they can serve all sorts of roles in the game. What if those four random skeletons that are supposed to pop out when the PC pass the downed tree become four young Commoners--a group of boys out to have fun by messing with travelers. They decide to shake down the PCs as they pass, asking for a silver a piece. How will the PCs handle this? In a D&D game, the PCs would just set to work on the skeletons and then move on. But now that we've Conan-ized the encounter, it's a much different scenario--more story based. If the PCs kill these boys, how will that set them when the PCs face the rest of the townspeople? What if one boy is the son of the Merchant where the PCs buy and sell equipment? What if the boys are actually being paid by the bandits to scout the road for juicy scores? Isn't that more interesting that just a quick encounter to fight four skeletons? Instead of Commoner boys, make the 4 skeletons become 4 Acolytes from a demon cult, out at night prowling for victims that they can drag back to their sanctuary to be sacrificed--an act that must be done before the moon becomes full. Use your creativity. Consider the power structures in your game. Who makes the world go around in that part of the world? Do that, and you'll change a rather usual D&D encounter into something memorable that fits well in your version of the Hyborian Age. [b]MAGIC AND SORCERY AND TREASURE[/b] I automatically throw out 95% of the magic seen in a standard D&D adventure. I don't care about +2 swords or boots of levitation. If I do anything at all, which is not often, those will become normal swords and boots made of higher quality. The game has three levels for garments: Base Quality, Merchant Quality, Noble Quality. These things can be sold in the game. The +2 sword can become a normal sword with a polished chrome blade and a jewel in the pommel, making the sword a lot more than a basic sword. The boots are made of Zingaran leather--top quality--and a PC may want these for himself, if they fit. I throw out scrolls and potions and magical rings. They either disappear from the adventure (likely) or they get transferred into some form of simple treasure (not often). A +1 pendant of protection becomes a 50 sp value silver necklace with the symbol of Mitra on it. Or, I may present a mystery--the PCs find a key with no markings on it. It leads to a locked door in the city that opens the ancient crypts. But, at this point, the players have no way of connecting the key to that door. It will be a mystery that bugs them for a while. :wink2: I always look hard at the traps, too. Many times, in a D&D adventure, the traps are magical in nature. Get creative about these and turn them into non-magical traps. The [b]Ruins of Hyboria[/b] supplement book is a great resource to use when converting D&D dungeons. There's an entire section in that book devoted to traps--all of them non-magical. That book can help you in many ways when Conan-izing an adventure written for another game universe. What you want to do is think [b]MUNDANE[/b]. Turn the magical stuff into its mundane version, or throw out the magic altogether. Reduce treasure drastically. A typically D&D adventure sees a party of characters enter the dungeon penniless and exit it rich enough to buy their own castle. That shouldn't happen in a Conan adventure. People don't get rich by raiding dungeons, and the dungeons of the Hyborian Age don't have piles of coin and treasure sitting around on tables or in chests. You can give your players some rewards in the form of treasure, but keep it light. Don't allow them to get enough to change financial circumstances. Just give them enough so that they can have the coin for the next night's stay in an inn, or to have their armor repaired. Give them a bronze bicep band or a bolt of cloth. Maybe a single ear-ring. Try to give them "things" rather than coins. People don't leave money lying around in the Hyborian Age. It's like the Dark Ages--there's not a lot of wealth to be found. If you don't give them a lot, your players will fond over every little thing they get (after an adjustment period if they just came from a D&D game). The book I just mentioned, [b]Ruins of Hyboria[/b], has a section of unique and interesting treasures that the characters can discover during their travels. And, the book [b]Barbaric Treasures[/b], has pages of mundane items that Conan characters can find, here and there, to keep them in wine and song. ([b]Barbaric Treasures[/b] is also an excellent resource for creating caravan loads--use this in conjunction with the caravan rules presented in the [b]Shem - Gateway to the South[/b] supplement.) [b]WHAT DO I KEEP?[/b] It sounds like I totally delete everything that a D&D adventure brings with it. So, why use published adventures at all? Why not just make everything up from scratch for your game? Well, first, I don't delete [i]everything[/i]. But, I do change a lot of the adventure. Conan-izing often requires a lot of work. But, I find that interesting D&D scenarios can still be quite valuable. First, there's site maps. And, the ideas in the adventure serve as a spring board for creativity. It is easier to edit something that it is to create from scratch. Like writing stories, it is easier to take a story already written and alter it to your tastes than it is to stare at a blank page and fill it up with interesting detail. So, D&D adventures serve as short-cuts and GM time-savers, in that respect, even though the conversion process can take a great deal of time. I'll keep anything that fits my sense of what should "be" in the Hyborian Age. Everything else is either changed or deleted. I keep sorcery to a minimum, but I do keep some sorcerous stuff, if the adventure calls for it. Think of the sorcery you saw in any of the three Conan movies. It's there. It's powerful. But, its not in each scene. Low level Sorcerers don't walk the streets of the city and throw small spells for no reason. Conan sorcery is not about Web, Magic Missile, and Levitate. The sorcery section in the Conan rulebook shows a different kind of power. So, I endeavor to stay true to the Conan sorcery rules, using the spells in core rulebook and other books in this rpg series as examples. I may make a new spell that works something like Web, Magic Missile, or Levitate, but it will be a unique spell that only that sorcerer has learned. You won't find it scrawled on scrolls and left for anyone to find. The same goes for creatures. Conan has fought his share of heinous beasts. I will leave some of the monsters provided in the conversion module intact. But, I'll throw out those that don't fit the Hyborian Age. I'll keep a wyvern, but I'll throw out an gelatinous cube. I'll keep zombie, but I'll nix a piercer. I might replace a hell hound with a regular wolf. I might allow a dragon, even, but I'll describe him as a dinosaur and remove his wings and spells (and it won't be able to speak, of course). I try to thin out the monster encounters, deleting them altogether or changing them to human encounters. Or, replacing them with mundane animals. A big umber hulk might be replaced with a large mastodon that is pissed off it is changed to a column. Or, a Dire Wolf might become a saber-toothed tiger. The whole idea, of course, is for your players to never suspect that they are playing any game other than one set in the Hyborian Age. [/QUOTE]
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