A Crunchy Take On Conan From Modiphius Entertainment

With the latest in their string of popular games based on licensed properties, Modiphius Entertainment has released their take on the character of Conan in their latest game for their 2d20 System of rules.

View attachment 95751​

Conan in An Age Undreamed Of is based up Robert E. Howard's world of Hyborian and iconic anti-hero Conan the Barbarian. Players will be creating characters immersed in the unique lands of Hyborian, as Conan provides a fully gameable setting, derivative of Howard's fiction.
Character creation is an involving and crunchy ten step process. I made a character to get a better feel for this review. There's a lot of room to create pretty much any character theme. The game offers ten Archetypes (something like character classes), but each are very customizable as players determine the background, caste, skills and whole host of other features. How you create character is left to your group, be it by random roll (traditional D&D method) or player selection, and every choice has mechanical as well as roleplay significance.

The mechanics for Conan involves a number of different elements, but use only two die types: d20 & d6. The most common roll will be a skill check, which is a roll under, sometimes variable (1d20 - 3d20), but typically 2d20 dice system. The Target Number of a skill check is derived from the characters ability; and success is the result if the player rolls equal or under that target number. The GM can option to increase or decrease the overall Difficulty Rating of a skill test (based on conditions) by increasing or reducing the amount successes required on a specific roll.

The target audience of the game will likely be those who like some mechanical crunch. The basic mechanics are light, but combat tactics have slightly crunchier options than Savage Worlds. One of the interesting features is Doom and Momentum, which are essentially meta-mechanics, which accumulate point pools. Momentum points are acquired by player characters whenever they gain more than one success on a given check and can be later spent by any member of the group for a variety of advantageous purposes. Doom works with similar fashion for GMs and is used to ratchet up tension, by creating inconveniences and complications within the story.

The PDF digitizing in before my screen is a full color behemoth at 440 pages and includes a separate PDF of character sheets and a color map detailing part of the Hyborian world. A starter adventure and a heaping handful of NPC foes or potential allies are included. The Table of Contents is minutely detailed, including individual page and chapter hyperlinks and a three page Index. There is nothing left to want in visual representation and art. Text is in standard two column format. Did I mention the PDF is gorgeous? It is.

The setting elements are well done, the combat mechanics look intriguing. One place where the game succeeds is in presenting Howard's work in a thorough manner. That said, while grammar is respectable, I thought the writing could have been tighter in a few spots. I think that GMs will occasionally find themselves hunting for things. Especially as when referencing rules and such and especially if this is your first delve in Modiphius' system.

Conan Adventures in An Age Undreamed Of is well put together. If you're a fan of Howard's work, most certainly this is the RPG you've been waiting for, if in fact you are still waiting.

Disclosure: This review includes affiliate links. The PDF of Conan Adventures in An Age Undreamed was provided at no cost, for the purpose of this review.

contributed by Jeff Duncan

 

[Caliburn101]

@Elfcrusher

I am not engaging with you any more. I don't see the point of communicating with someone who thinks a fake news "hostility and aggression" accusation (your words) doesn't equate to a de facto accusation of a personal attack.

You still want to 'win' the argument - have it with yourself.

 

[Caliburn101]

Anyway - back to the point of the thread for those of you rolling your eyes at the interim time wasting.

The game is good, and evocative, and whilst naturally not flawless, is the best iteration of Conan so far in rpg'land. THAT is an opinion by the way, not a fact, just to be doubly clear...

It is a shame that the 2d20 system gets such poor press from a vanishingly few overly vocal detractors who spend disproportionate amounts of time on large numbers of forums because they don't like the Doom mechanic in particular, metagame mechanics more generally or the fact that they think the 2d20 system was not specifically designed for Conan (it was originally developed for Mutant Chronicles, albeit adapted significantly from that to Conan).

I cannot recall seeing such criticisms of GURPS when it crowbarred it's own high fantasy spell system into it's sourcebook for Conan, or the Mongoose d20 hauled over the coals for, well, being an OGL d20 iteration...

I personally think attacks these smack of a crass false flag statement - trying to find a 'legitimate' way of criticising the Conan version of 2d20 for reasons other than the real reason it is disliked. They all say pretty much the same thing too, and boy, do they go on and on about it.

I can count on one hand the individuals putting so much effort into trying to burn it down, and it is that disproportionate effort I respond to online. I playtested the frack out of this game early on and very much from a 'try to break it' point of view, and have my criticisms certainly. But, overall it is pretty damn good, even though my personal taste doesn't run to meta-game tokens etc.

I don't go around singing it's praises much it has to be said - I comment on other people's threads now and again and try to debunk those blowing hot air about it clearly never having played, or having read half the book and acting like they digested the whole thing.

The OP isn't one of these I hasten to add, but they get some basic facts wrong, and that's a clear indication they reviewed it on a read-through with some mistakes, not any kind of significant playtest.

That's what the game needs, as, as I stated already, it's wordy, and sometimes clarity in explanation is lost in the verbage of the rules. That all drops out in play though, and like any game, the forums about it answer some of the kind of things people are not entirely clear on. Much like D&D or any other game...

Ultimately guys and gals - just try it yourself - use the free basic rules available or drop into someone else's game.

If you don't like it then - then of course it isn't for you. It may be you don't like meta-mechanics, or the crunchy bits, or you prefer a different flavour of fantasy. Maybe you like rules-lite (in which case you really should try Barbarians of Lemuria...).

All good reasons to move onto something else.

But if you want to run a game in the Hyborian Age because you like S&S, and you like it gritty, thematically spot-on and close to the source material, this is the best rpg so far to make that offering.

Don't take my word for that of course... you know that saying about the proof of the pudding...

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oh, darn, he blocked me. I read his response on my phone, where I'm not logged in, so didn't realize I was blocked until now.

(The irony is that continuing the argument with myself will actually be less surreal than continuing the argument with him.)

Funny that he kept accusing me of not proving my point (given that I was arguing something was absent from the game I'm not sure how you prove absence...but then again he claims to have a very high IQ so maybe it's some kind of quantum physics thing) but when I asked him to simply give me an example that would disprove my claims he bolted.

I honestly had no idea there was this cabal of people going around flaming Conan on the forums. I think this is the second time I've commented on the game since it came out. But maybe that's why he came out swinging. Baggage.

Not a very good ambassador for the game, really.

EDIT: It did just occur to me that during the Kickstarter playtest I tried to voice some of these same concerns and was dismissed/ignored in a similar way. So now I really do wonder if he's with Modiphius...

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Making out like the game is a fail due to the fact it doesn't have rules binding GMs and players into the tropes you personally argue are 'essential' to the 'Conan experience' is myopic reasoning.

I think you are completely wrong there.

If a Conan game is not binding players into the tropes of the Conan genre then it's not actually a Conan game - it's a generic game where the PCs happen to be called Conan, Juma and Bêlit.

If you are going to stick "Conan" (or "Star Trek" or "Sherlock Holmes" or any other specific genre) on the front of your rules system then enforcing, or at least strongly encouraging, the tropes of the genre is the minimum you have to do.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I think you are completely wrong there.

If a Conan game is not binding players into the tropes of the Conan genre then it's not actually a Conan game - it's a generic game where the PCs happen to be called Conan, Juma and Bêlit.

If you are going to stick "Conan" (or "Star Trek" or "Sherlock Holmes" or any other specific genre) on the front of your rules system then enforcing, or at least strongly encouraging, the tropes of the genre is the minimum you have to do.

Exactly. Thank you.

 

[Caliburn101]

I think you are completely wrong there.

If a Conan game is not binding players into the tropes of the Conan genre then it's not actually a Conan game - it's a generic game where the PCs happen to be called Conan, Juma and Bêlit.

If you are going to stick "Conan" (or "Star Trek" or "Sherlock Holmes" or any other specific genre) on the front of your rules system then enforcing, or at least strongly encouraging, the tropes of the genre is the minimum you have to do.

Unfortunately you have quoted a very specific comment I made about two pointed examples used and treated it as a general comment.

It isn't.

I was commenting directly to an individual who thought frequent weapon loss & swapping and the barbarian/civilised dichotomy as they put it should be somehow codified with a 'rule' rather than explored as narrative tropes. I made it clear that far from these things being missing or inappropriately dealt with, the game explores these subgenre elements perfectly well, but does not bind a GM to express these elements in a particular way.

If you are motivated to do so, please contextualise the comments I made and perhaps read the core rules yourself. You will find plenty of subgenre-specific advice, rules and flavour...

This is done through extensive exploration of what makes up a Conan story but delivered as advice to the GM to make the game feel authentic.

A far, far better approach than having rules which break your weapons, lose all your gold between adventures or forces you into chains at the start of every other game. What it does is tell you what the Conan stories were, how they played out and even breaks the supplements down into the phases of activity of Conan's adventuring days.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oh, my...now that is cheeky. Block a guy, and then intentionally and egregiously misrepresent his argument.

I've said repeatedly and clearly that I was just throwing out two examples to illustrate my point, but rather than address the real point he ridiculed those two specific ideas as bad ones. Or, more accurately, he took a general idea, chose an overly simplistic way to implement it, and then attacked that.

He could have simply said, "I don't think what you are suggesting is practical, it would overly constrain the game" and we could have had an interesting discussion about RPG design. Or not, if he wasn't interested. (I am.) Would that be so hard? Why the knee-jerk attack mode?

Because instead he went after my logic and articulation, with denigrating/dismissive language ("utterly wrong", "myopic", "wrong-headed", etc.).

Then when I punch back...because that's what people do when attacked...for his inability to understand a simple point he plays the victim, as if I took a gentlemanly debate and made it personal. It reminds me of this old favorite New Yorker cartoon, circa late 80's:

View attachment 96199

I am so sick of that all-too-common forum tactic.

(As an aside, you know when somebody starts defending the honor of IP lawyers that they are out of arguments.)

He never did respond to my conjecture that he is connected with Modiphius. I guess we are left to draw our own conclusions about the company they keep there.

In any event, his argument that the themes and tropes of a fiction should NOT be codified in the rules, and instead left to the GM to narrate/improvise is ridiculous. Otherwise why release a whole new Conan game? Or a game for any genre?
You'd just take your favorite system and reskin it...oh, wait. That's exactly what they did.

How 1990's of them.

 

[Caliburn101]

Always interesting how much more honest detail comes out when you block someone and then unblock them a few days later.

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

― Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Never heard of the fellow until I watched a program a couple of days ago in which he was mentioned and thought immediately of this thread and your statements.

So here are some undeniable truths about our discourse with each other Elfcrusher.

It is not a fact that your examples demonstrate what is missing in the game.

It is not a fact that I work for or promote Modiphius in any way.

It is not a fact that I didn't tell you the above already. Anyone reading back through the thread will see it clearly.

It is a fact that I know the game in far more detail than you as I playtested it and run it often.

It is a fact that you still haven't proven that a rule on weapon changes/breakage and enforcing the barbarian/civilised dichotomy is viable or even possible as I claim it isn't.

Let's look at a strawman argument in that last post of yours. You said;

"He could have simply said, "I don't think what you are suggesting is practical, it would overly constrain the game""

But I DID say that your rules suggestions were not workable and would take away player agency over what are best dealt with as narrative tropes. I'd have been delighted if you had then engaged in "an interesting discussion about RPG design." But no, preferable by far it would appear for you to characterise my disagreement as "knee-jerk attack mode".

Admittedly however, it is a fundamental thing in people, myself included, to make a gut decision on whether we like something and only then come up with rationales as to why we had that feeling in the first place, after the fact. It is a basic human characteristic (and indeed primate characteristic) explained very well in Richard H. Thaler's et al work on the subject. I see this played out in the few tirelessly vocal detractors of this system who post so vociferously on sites like these.

Truth be told, I didn't like the idea of a Conan rpg with meta-mechanics when the idea was first floated, and I was on forums stating that I thought a system like RuneQuest 6/Mythras would be better deployed to represent this IP I am so fond of.

But as I hold to a personal principle of actively challenging my own pre-judgemental bias, I became a playtester. I got a group together to 'break the system' and gave feedback, and I even got confirmation that some rules changes were brought in because of that feedback. I did all of this for free, simply because I hadn't liked any of the previous iterations of Conan in rpgs and couldn't see another attempt being made in some time, so why not see if this one could represent the world and subgenre the right way!?

I thought being a round the table playtester was better than being a armchair critic.

I understand the 'tireless detractor' point of view you see, I once thought similarly. But ultimately those arguments always boil down to the same 'I don't like the 2d20 mechanics' mantra and they usually try to rationalise this dislike by saying it was developed for another game world (Mutant Chronicles) and so 'doesn't fit' anything else, or that meta-mechanics are inappropriate for the sub-genre. They then usually (although not absolutely always) demonstrate fundamental misunderstandings of the rules or a significant lack of working knowledge of the system as it has been deployed in the Conan iteration. This is clearly demonstrated when they mis-explain rules or in making non-factual statements, clearly show they didn't read the whole book, and certainly didn't play it.

In contrast, I know the fellow responsible for Red Dice Diaries, and he is not a fan of the 2d20 system either, despite being a big fan of meta-mechanics. He and I disagree about this, but not once have we had an argument about it as he clearly read the rules and digested the content before he came to a decision about it. His reasoned approach has earned the respect it garners on pretty much all the systems he reviews.

I would recommend it to you, because, frankly, if you are going to wax lyrical about why you don't like something, surely that is the only credible approach with which to do so!

I don't mind people disliking a game, or system, or even a games company for that matter. But if they do so without having bothered to understand what they are disliking, or in extreme cases hating, then I feel entirely justified in countering their arguments, and usually, because they haven't done their homework, when we get into the details, they make doing so straightforward from a logical point of view.

So stop with the labelling Elfcrusher - you and I disagree, and you haven't backed up your critique of the system with anything I think is remotely objective. Dislike it all you want, but don't please pass off your subjective opinions as facts, and certainly don't drag the discussion down into a exposition of how you are 'under attack'. That's as subjective a claim as the other stuff you have posted.

Let me quote you;

"Because instead he went after my logic and articulation, with denigrating/dismissive language ("utterly wrong", "myopic", "wrong-headed", etc.)."

The first part of that is exactly right - I DID go after your logic and articulation. I didn't go after you! I called your 'facts' "utterly wrong" from an informed point of view; I called your argument "myopic" because you didn't see what was right in front of you in the rulebook; and "wrong-headed" because you argued that your opinions were actually facts.

As for your claims that I played the victim - well that's pure theatre - and your tactic throughout the latter stages of this debate. In psychological terms that's called Psychological Projection. To use your words, "I am so sick of that all-too-common forum tactic."

Indeed!

Now, lets tackle your issue with me evoking the R.E.Howard Society and it's involvement with the game. Since when has... and let me use your perjorative expression... "defending the honor of IP lawyers" been either (a) an automatically bad thing, or (b) proof positive of being "out of arguments"?

Again, I call Psychological Projection here - and that you are the one out of credible arguments and trying the old switcheroo behind a smoke and mirrors routine. I might be wrong about that of course - you may just be a conspiracy theorist when it come to lawyers, but that seems far less likely to me.

Finally, you last strawman my argument...

There is actually a great deal of the Conan subgenre flavour that is codified in the rules - the grittiness of Combat, the extensive Skills-system, the pulp-fiction Momentum and Fortune token system for handling Challenges, the utterly debased nature of Sorcery and the psychological impact of Displays. If you had wanted to use REAL examples of Conan 'codification' in the rules, you could have mentioned these. But see, there's the problem for you isn't it. These are all really good rules, and so don't support your argument. So your only recourse was to fabricated the need for codified rules for narrative elements of the genre, and when I said that wouldn't work and was effectively dealt with as narrative advice, you couldn't come up with a single idea on how to do it yourself - and I did ask.

You looked for a reason to explain your dislike of the game and found nothing credible, so you came up with an explanation that got challenged. If you don't like having your opinions challenged, why post on boards like this?

I have been GM'ing for 40 years now, and have an in-depth and informed point of view what is best dealt with in the narrative and in the rules for the games I run, and for the games my many players enjoy. I think Modiphius got it right on this occasion (although I don't think so for Star Trek so much btw...), and you think they got it wrong.

The difference is, I am using examples of things that actually exist to prove my point and you are evoking things that you claim should exist, even though you cannot think how that might work to support your point.

My supporting evidence is concrete, yours is pie in the sky.

Now your posts have been challenged, I'll resume where I left of when I said I wasn't going to engage further on this. I am not going to block anyone, so you are always free to PM me to try and resolve our difference of opinion on whether you have been subject to some kind of personal attack or whatever.

However, as I suspect I know what's going to happen next (and with as much flourish and drama as can be mustered no doubt), I will just exit stage-right and leave you the floor.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think you both are doing a splendid job at driving away potential customers from the game.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oh, Hai!

I'm going to selectively quote to get to the meat of it...

It is a fact that you still haven't proven that a rule on weapon changes/breakage and enforcing the barbarian/civilised dichotomy is viable or even possible as I claim it isn't.

But I DID say that your rules suggestions were not workable and would take away player agency over what are best dealt with as narrative tropes.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, it seems you are still basing your argument on my specific suggestions, which I freely admit I made up on the spot, in order to illustrate the kind of thing I thought was missing. My argument does not depend on those two specific ideas being workable.

(The example of weapon loss, by the way, I must credit to a D&D friend in the early 80's: several times in those days he mentioned how cool it was that Conan was always having to pick up a new weapon, and wished there was more of that in D&D. So even though you feel that specific idea is utterly contrary to the spirit of RPGing, there is at least one gamer out there who specifically wants...or wanted...such a rule. Two if you count me.)

And beyond that, as I said above, I offered general ideas. You are the one who filled in with specifics, and then said how terrible the idea was. Strange.

I'll skip all the psychological evaluation and assumptions, as well as all the stuff about meta-game mechanics and what-not. I'm completely ignorant of those debates and don't really have a dog in that fight.

There is actually a great deal of the Conan subgenre flavour that is codified in the rules - the grittiness of Combat, the extensive Skills-system, the pulp-fiction Momentum and Fortune token system for handling Challenges, the utterly debased nature of Sorcery and the psychological impact of Displays.

Excellent. Now we are getting somewhere.

Those are all fine mechanics, but they could be applicable to many settings/genres. Lots of fantasy fiction is gritty, for example. What about those things are...uniquely is probably a lot to ask, but at least iconically..."Conan"?

If you had wanted to use REAL examples of Conan 'codification' in the rules, you could have mentioned these. But see, there's the problem for you isn't it. These are all really good rules, and so don't support your argument. So your only recourse was to fabricated the need for codified rules for narrative elements of the genre, and when I said that wouldn't work and was effectively dealt with as narrative advice, you couldn't come up with a single idea on how to do it yourself - and I did ask.

You looked for a reason to explain your dislike of the game and found nothing credible, so you came up with an explanation that got challenged. If you don't like having your opinions challenged, why post on boards like this?

You seem to be convinced I had already decided to dislike the game, and went looking for reasons. On the contrary: as I said earlier, I had recently started playing The One Ring and was converted to rule systems that are built from the ground up to support a specific fictional setting, and was very much hoping Conan would do the same. I was specifically looking for rules that would make me think, "This could only be a Conan game."

I didn't really find it. Either playing through some of the scenarios in the playtest packet, or reading the tome when it arrived. Sure, there's a bunch of flavor, but nothing that really screamed "Conan rules" (see what I did there?). Maybe part of the problem is that there are so many rules that it's hard for any aspect to stand out. But I found mainly a system that could be used to play Conan, but did not feel designed from the ground up to do so. Which is all I've been saying. Well, then I also started saying that your posts* are obnoxious, but that wasn't my initial purpose.

What puzzles me is that all of this is my opinion, and yet you keep telling me that I'm objectively wrong.

And I will, with apologies, retract my assertion that there must be something in this for you. I mistook your..."personality type"?...for vested interest in the success of the game.

However, as I suspect I know what's going to happen next (and with as much flourish and drama as can be mustered no doubt), I will just exit stage-right and leave you the floor.

Oh, darn. Just when we were becoming buddies.

*but not you, personally, of course!