CONAN LIVES! Info on the new Conan RPG

[aramis erak]

A quick skim shows a lack of research into armor - "platemail" (all one word) is beyond even Gygaxian levels of historically wrong. Brig is nominally better than chain in real world terms (absorbs more energy and spreads the energy over more area), scale is missing entirely (and is used in one of the novels)...

The rules don't look terribly complex.

The author needs to review the rules for possessives in English.

Difficulty 2 is essentially D&D disadvantage...

 

[Water Bob]

Keep in mind that the rules are a playtest and morph from version to version. He's trying to work out the "bugs".

 

[modiphius]

A quick skim shows a lack of research into armor - "platemail" (all one word) is beyond even Gygaxian levels of historically wrong. Brig is nominally better than chain in real world terms (absorbs more energy and spreads the energy over more area), scale is missing entirely (and is used in one of the novels)...

The rules don't look terribly complex.

The author needs to review the rules for possessives in English.

Difficulty 2 is essentially D&D disadvantage...

Playest texts are not usually edited or proof read as they literally change every week.

In terms of the armour:
Our version 1.5 launching soon uses the model that armour is situationally excellent. It has mail (no functional difference between chain and scale) and plate is Aquillonian plate. The point is not to historically model armour, but where REH mentions it, to include it in a way that feels right without getting in the way of story telling

 

[aramis erak]

Playest texts are not usually edited or proof read as they literally change every week.

In terms of the armour:
Our version 1.5 launching soon uses the model that armour is situationally excellent. It has mail (no functional difference between chain and scale) and plate is Aquillonian plate. The point is not to historically model armour, but where REH mentions it, to include it in a way that feels right without getting in the way of story telling

Having been involved in over a dozen playtests of (mostly now published) professional materials, lack of spellcheck is NOT the standard.

FFG - three open betas, two closed. All spell checked, and well edited.
Green Ronin - the weekly drafts lacked significant spelling errors.
Far Future Enterprises - Spellchecked, laid out.
BTRC - all 5 materials I've playtested were consistently spellchecked. Everything was also laid out - and one of those was alpha.
Deep 7 - Alpha test materials spellchecked and well edited. Beta test looked almost identical to release sans art.
Amarillo Design Bureau - Alpha materials B&W, spellchecked, laid out clearnly in 2 col. Beta laid out to publication standard.
Mongoose - Spell checked and well organized. Weekly in alpha. May make lots of other screw-ups, but at least it's consistently spell checked.
SJGames - spell checked, and often laid out in two column.

I say, sir, if you don't meet the minimum standards in a public alpha, there is little to no reason to think you've anyone who CAN spell check it competently later. Which means basic computer literacy failures. (Learning to use spell check utility in a word processor is a basic skill. And given that spellchecking is far more a pain once one gets to using serious layout software... Did I mention I've done some publications work? No? Back in the late 90's, not in the gaming industry.)

Either that or simple inattention to basic communication skills. Again, not conducive to bothering further looks at the game.

Combine that with Gygaxian errors - your first impression is excessively amateurish. Defending non-spellchecked manuscripts looks even more inept.

 

[modiphius]

Having been involved in over a dozen playtests of (mostly now published) professional materials, lack of spellcheck is NOT the standard.

FFG - three open betas, two closed. All spell checked, and well edited.
Green Ronin - the weekly drafts lacked significant spelling errors.
Far Future Enterprises - Spellchecked, laid out.
BTRC - all 5 materials I've playtested were consistently spellchecked. Everything was also laid out - and one of those was alpha.
Deep 7 - Alpha test materials spellchecked and well edited. Beta test looked almost identical to release sans art.
Amarillo Design Bureau - Alpha materials B&W, spellchecked, laid out clearnly in 2 col. Beta laid out to publication standard.
Mongoose - Spell checked and well organized. Weekly in alpha. May make lots of other screw-ups, but at least it's consistently spell checked.
SJGames - spell checked, and often laid out in two column.

I say, sir, if you don't meet the minimum standards in a public alpha, there is little to no reason to think you've anyone who CAN spell check it competently later. Which means basic computer literacy failures. (Learning to use spell check utility in a word processor is a basic skill. And given that spellchecking is far more a pain once one gets to using serious layout software... Did I mention I've done some publications work? No? Back in the late 90's, not in the gaming industry.)

Either that or simple inattention to basic communication skills. Again, not conducive to bothering further looks at the game.

Combine that with Gygaxian errors - your first impression is excessively amateurish. Defending non-spellchecked manuscripts looks even more inept.

Aramis simply check our other books such as the Achtung! Cthulhu line which is excessively spell checked and well presented - and has won Ennies and UK Games Expo awards for it's layout, art and writing. Mutant Chronicles is going through the same stringent spell checking, grammar correction etc with several thousand error reports already handled for the core book alone. We don't layout playtests. Our intention with alpha's is to give people raw material to test out specific scenes - and we often remind people that these are not edited and proof read. Our intention is not to give people 'almost identical to release sans art' material but working documents that are changing sometimes weekly with some projects. Mutant Chronicles went through around 12 phases. Conan is on it's 5th iteration and there will be more. The first Conan playtest documents were rushed out and the obvious errors corrected in the second pass. However our works stands for itself and ask anyone who has a Modiphius RPG book and you'll know our work surpasses most other publishers out there.

In fact, regardless of whether other publisher's Alpha's look nice, our retail copies look gorgeous. As will Conan - with major name art gracing EVERY single book cover. Major name art inside, major writers on all sections of the books. Two scholars are overseeing the written content (not the playtest rules but the actual core book background being written), and it has several editors on board who are reviewing core book content. Conan will be one of the best looking RPG books ever and we'll delay it's release to ensure it's about as error free as we can get (as we often do with other titles). So you can be sure there's nothing to worry about there.

 

[Water Bob]

Everything about the new Conan RPG sounds exciting. Then, I saw the cover, and my first thought was, "This is dynamite, major name art?"

Then....the rules...

The game has a meta-game mechanic where, as players roll poorly, points stack up (bookkeeping for the GM....never a good idea), all players know that things are about to get tougher because the GM can use these points to activate more obstacles. It's a big, blinking light that screams, "Players! Make more conservative choices and expect the worst because things are about to get rough!" And, how to the characters know that? Well, there is no real reason. It's a meta-game mechanic. Characters (or even players) shouldn't know, but they do, because they know about the point total that has built up against them.

It's gimmicky.

I don't like it at all.

 

[modiphius]

The game has a meta-game mechanic where, as players roll poorly, points stack up (bookkeeping for the GM....never a good idea), all players know that things are about to get tougher because the GM can use these points to activate more obstacles. It's a big, blinking light that screams, "Players! Make more conservative choices and expect the worst because things are about to get rough!" And, how to the characters know that? Well, there is no real reason. It's a meta-game mechanic. Characters (or even players) shouldn't know, but they do, because they know about the point total that has built up against them.

When you say 'tougher' what the GM is about to do is make the story more interesting, Threat points as they're called, accumulate when players buy extra d20's on top of the 2 they get to roll normally (wanting to push their luck) or when they roll a 20. The GM doesn't have to take the points then if he can think of a cost to the player - they drop something, step out of cover to get the shot, inadvertently insult the wrong person etc. So those points are then used to add more drama. If you think of it as a blinking light that warns the players to be careful I don't think you've actually played the system. Yes they can see the mounting Threat, but that's fun of it, they know COOL stuff is going to happen - the story is going to unfold and the universe is going to push back.

I don't know about you but I want my characters to be surrounded, to be captured, to be arrested for something I didn't do, to be ambushed, for steam to jet out of age old pipes at the wrong moment, for something big we didn't expect to come lumbering in to the room - because that's where the adventure is. When I see that Threat accumulating I know my attempts at trying to screw the laws of reality by using extra dice are going to bite, but it's gonna be fun.

 

[Water Bob]

Yes they can see the mounting Threat, but that's fun of it, they know COOL stuff is going to happen - the story is going to unfold and the universe is going to push back.

And, that's the problem with the system. It advertises when stuff gets tougher. It's a big, blinking beacon that says that there will be more obstacles, and obstacles, on average, will be harder to overcome.

I don't know how long that you've been gaming, but players don't usually react to learning about more difficulty as "COOL" stuff on the horizon. If they know about upcoming harder difficulty, then that out-of-game knowledge have an effect on the decisions that they make. They were going to do this, but, now that they know the Threat pool is high, they'll instead take the more conservative route and go with that instead.

In effect, the game system is giving each and every character a special ability (call it Sixth Sense?) to know that trouble lurks around the next corner every time that Threat Point Total gets to a certain level.

I really don't want that influence in my game.

 

[modiphius]

And, that's the problem with the system. It advertises when stuff gets tougher. It's a big, blinking beacon that says that there will be more obstacles, and obstacles, on average, will be harder to overcome.

I don't know how long that you've been gaming, but players don't usually react to learning about more difficulty as "COOL" stuff on the horizon. If they know about upcoming harder difficulty, then that out-of-game knowledge have an effect on the decisions that they make. They were going to do this, but, now that they know the Threat pool is high, they'll instead take the more conservative route and go with that instead.

In effect, the game system is giving each and every character a special ability (call it Sixth Sense?) to know that trouble lurks around the next corner every time that Threat Point Total gets to a certain level.

I really don't want that influence in my game.

Except the GM can do whatever he likes with those Threat Points - but it's a mechanic to help increase the sense of dread amongst the players and IT WORKS when you play the game Bob. I don't know if you've tried it yet? We will be posting a play through soon including the epic Howard's Day game filmed around Robert's dining table so you can get a better feeling for this.

Have you ever known a GM to make life easy for the players? It's always about challenges and pushing, and making their game fun. Sometimes it's exceptionally hard for many GM's to get across the impending sense of doom. Not everyone is an actor or a story teller. Threat Points help everyone get across the drama to come. They're as much the same as the GM evilly rolling dice behind his GM screen as a pile of growing Threat - every player knows things are going worse and I don't think there's any difference between secret dice rolling and open Threat - you have NO idea what they're going to be spent on, or in fact if the GM will spend them. I've rarely known players to be conservative either, and if they're scared by a pile of chips then surely they'd be equally scared if you start rolling dice behind the screen? The thing is with Threat is that most of it is there because of their actions, because they decided to push the universe. They can expect the universe to push back and some.

I've been GM'ing since I was 9 years old - I treat threat - danger, calamity, intrigue, betrayal, all of those things are exciting events in which players can shine, in which they can show how great their characters are. It's wrong to see increased difficulty / Threat / danger as a bad thing. The reason players are at the table is to get in to danger and figure out how to get out of it. Threat gives you a structure to make it fair and fun for both GM and players and to help raise the tension.

I strongly suggest you try playing with it, because then you'll see how fun it can be. In all games players are confronted with all kinds of things that remind them they're in a game, dice, pencils, paper. Threat Points are nothing new in the GM tool box and a good GM leads the story and embroils the players in his world. I think you'll find every player has a sixth sense in every game that trouble lurks around the corner - it's no different. And if you think when the Threat Pool is low that there's no trouble coming think again - remember that the GM can have scripted events and NPC's waiting in their droves around the corner. Remember a GM doesn't need Threat to activate NPC's, only to activate them BEFORE the players. So I can write in that there are 10 traps in the next room, that an army of mercenaries awaits through the door and you'll have plenty to wory about without a single Threat being spent.

I think you're seeing Threat as a lock that absolutely controls everything the GM can do and that's wrong.

 

[CapnZapp]

Why not simply drop the Threat mechanic?

It seems a good idea to me that any metagame resources should be positive for the players: action points or fortune points.

Regulating the GM and her monsters, not so hot.