D&D General Reassesing Robert E Howards influence on D&D +

[Reynard]

You make a good point, but Conan is perhaps a bad example, despite his traditional descriptor. He's your classic polymath character - raised as a warrior, learned thievery on the streets, went on to become a mercenary, a pirate and a king. He was never going to be a single-class character.

Most of his fellows who didn't leave home would probably have been perfectly adequately served by a Barbarian stat-block.

It's weird that a class based system is such a bad fit for the character that essentially inspired the game built around said system. Conan doesn't have rage because of his race or his class -- it is a quality of the specific character (bought with build points or a talent or whatever).

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Rage was a 3E addition to the barbarian that turned the class into a DPR berserker. The 1E and 2E versions played very different to the version we have now. Gygax's 1E version played a lot closer to the Conan of the books. The class morphed according to what players wanted from the class and away from its origins. I don't think you could pull it back to the original version without major outcry from the player base these days.

You know, I've played D&D since 1e (and a LOT during 2e) and I don't remember how Barbarians played. (Actually, I don't remember Barbarians existing in 2e, nor Monks! But maybe just nobody I know played one.) What was their schtick, aside from lots of HP?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't know if I'd call Howard's magic "flashy". I think it's more of the opposite. A lot of mysticism, hypnotism, and subtlety (touches of death).

Until you got to the summoning.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's weird that a class based system is such a bad fit for the character that essentially inspired the game built around said system. Conan doesn't have rage because of his race or his class -- it is a quality of the specific character (bought with build points or a talent or whatever).

When you simplify things down, things fall off the edge.

 

[Reynard]

When you simplify things down, things fall off the edge.

It's the fault of building the system on wargame rules, where "class" is a specific thing with important mechanical distinctions. It didn't initially mean archetype. It meant classification.

The thing in regards to Howard's work.(and most other Appendix N authors) is that D&D has been eating it's own tail and been involved in an incestuous relationship with video game RPGs for so long that it no longer has inspirational media. It is it's own inspirational media. There are no Conans, only various iterations of D&D specific barbarians.

 

[MGibster]

It's weird that a class based system is such a bad fit for the character that essentially inspired the game built around said system. Conan doesn't have rage because of his race or his class -- it is a quality of the specific character (bought with build points or a talent or whatever).

D&D being an ensemble game, it's been designed for extreme niche protection. Conan is a polyglot (including dead languages), has a good knowledge of history & geography, and is a thief, warrior, and sailor. You don't need most other classes when you've got a Conan in your party.

 

[Reynard]

D&D being an ensemble game, it's been designed for extreme niche protection. Conan is a polyglot (including dead languages), has a good knowledge of history & geography, and is a thief, warrior, and sailor. You don't need most other classes when you've got a Conan in your party.

I'm saying you don't need classes at all. I'm saying you can design your band of mercenary ne'er do wells with personalities and motivations plus one or two "schtick" talents to differentiate them. It's not like Conan never traveled with allies or companions.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm saying you don't need classes at all. I'm saying you can design your band of mercenary ne'er do wells with personalities and motivations plus one or two "schtick" talents to differentiate them. It's not like Conan never traveled with allies or companions.

Yeah, you sometimes get this odd idea that just because you don't have a class system, other games don't have characters filling niches. It can be argued (though I don't really see it) that its easier to fall into redundancy, but even in modern games you see things like the medic, the close combat specialist, the intrusion specialist and the face.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hmm. I think Conan is less of the model for D&D than Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser are -- I remember being shocked at how much those books felt like D&D when I first read them -- but Conan, thanks to the comics and movies, is vastly better known.

The elaborate thieves guild, the petty wizard rivals (who are definitely quadratic in nature), the ramshackle and corrupt-but-lovable city with a whole underworld full of adventuring opportunities below them, and the now obligatory temple quarter full of dozens (or hundreds) of gods -- that's all from the Lankhmar books.

In contrast, I have a harder time drawing a line between Conan and anything in D&D. He's not the model for the barbarian (as has been said, he's a fighter/thief, as is Fafhrd). The magic level is far lower. The priests don't match how clerics behave or function in most games. I don't think there's even any monsters* that make the jump, beyond the general idea of snake people, but even then, the Yuan-Ti function a lot more like something from the Lovecraftian mythos.

* Maybe Howard's take on frost giants, but that's debatable.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, you sometimes get this odd idea that just because you don't have a class system, other games don't have characters filling niches. It can be argued (though I don't really see it) that its easier to fall into redundancy, but even in modern games you see things like the medic, the close combat specialist, the intrusion specialist and the face.

Even beyond that, different types of stories lean into different types of "niche protection." I'm specifically think of Abercrombie's The Heroes here: pretty much all the characters are "fighters" but you would do the characters and the story a disservice by playing it in B/X or PHB 1E. Those characters all have quirks and skill sets and personalities that suggest either a AD&D 2E game or something like GURPS. Mechanically, they should be differentiated in subtle ways, not the stark differentiation of classes.