CONAN Is Finally Here!

After appearing three years running in the 10 Most Anticipated RPGs of the Year list, it seems that Conan's streak has come to and end - because Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of has been released! You can get it right now from Modiphius' web store, and will be able to get it elsewhere from tomorrow. PDF only, for the moment. You can also grab a book of six adventures, Jewelled Thrones of the Earth. Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed of is based on Modiphius' own 2d20 system (which also powers their upcoming Star Trek Adventures game). The book is now available for review in the reviews area.

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[Water Bob]

Why is it so controversial?

It's meta-game aspect.

Player Fred can generate a lot of DOOM at Monday night's game when he decides to charge a group of bad guys single handed.

The GM scoops up all these DOOM points and keeps them.

Three game sessions later, a different player, George, has his thief try to sneak into the enemy compound. And, this is where the GM decides to use all of his DOOM points. Breaking into the bad guy's temple is harder than it was originally because the GM can activate more guards with the extra DOOM.

In effect, player George is having a harder time of it because of player Fred's actions.



And, from a very meta-game perspective, player George may decide to refrain from breaking into the bad guy's temple--simply because he sees the amount of DOOM points the GM has to work with. Why try something risky when you know the GM has a lot of ammo to use against you?

This is totally meta-game and has nothing to do with roleplaying or events that the character can see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or otherwise consider inside the game universe. The player's actions are totally guided by the number of points the GM has.

Yuk!

Also sounds very easy to just not use.

From what I've seen in the Quick Start and other materials, the DOOM mechanic is central to the game. The game is designed around this interaction of the players generating DOOM and the GM being able to use that DOOM against the PCs at a later point.

If you took it out, a lot of extra abilities and things would no longer be available to the players.

 

[Morrus]

It's meta-game aspect.

I know it is. Lots of games have them. Dozens, maybe hundreds.

So I ask again: why is it so controversial?

 

[Water Bob]

I know it is. Lots of games have them. Dozens, maybe hundreds.

So I ask again: why is it so controversial?

I explained it--at least my dislike of the game--in that same post under that sentence that you quoted.

It's controversial because A LOT of people don't like the mechanics. Then, again, A LOT of people also like the system.

Thus, controversy.




EDIT: I did a quick Google, and here's someone who explains what he doesn't like about the game (this is for Star Trek). CLICK HERE.

 

[Morrus]

I explained it--at least my dislike of the game--in that same post under that sentence that you quoted.

It's controversial because A LOT of people don't like the mechanics. Then, again, A LOT of people also like the system.

Thus, controversy.

Metagame mechanics are common. That's the opposite of controversial.

So I ask again: why is it controversial?

 

[Water Bob]

Metagame mechanics are common. That's the opposite of controversial.

So I ask again: why is it controversial?

I don't seem to be making any sense to you, so I'll allow someone else to answer.

(Maybe it's controversial because a lot of people really want to like this game. I know I do. But the mechanics are so bad that I won't play the game. So, massive disappointment has set in. Which angers people. They gripe about it. Discussion seen as controversy.)

 

[Tush Hog]

It's meta-game aspect.


Three game sessions later, a different player, George, has his thief try to sneak into the enemy compound. And, this is where the GM decides to use all of his DOOM points. Breaking into the bad guy's temple is harder than it was originally because the GM can activate more guards with the extra DOOM.

Can't happen.

Doom doesn't transfer from session to session. It's obvious that it isn't the system for you, but my group has absolutely loved it!

the momentum/doom mechanic has helped drive the story in very compelling ways and makes the game as fun for the GM as for the players. Every game relies upon a good GM. This is no different. A good GM (me ) can get a lot of drama from this system!

 

[Morrus]

I don't seem to be making any sense to you, so I'll allow someone else to answer.

(Maybe it's controversial because a lot of people really want to like this game. I know I do. But the mechanics are so bad that I won't play the game. So, massive disappointment has set in. Which angers people. They gripe about it. Discussion seen as controversy.)

Couldn't resist the edit, huh? The post was better when it did what it said -- "I don't seem to be making any sense to you, so I'll allow someone else to answer."

Your should have resisted the compulsion to come back and edit it.

You're just repeating that it's controversial. I understand that definition of "controversial" is "many people think differently". My question was why is a common mechanic happily accepted in dozens of popular games suddenly controversial?

Which angers people.

If you're angry about the choice of rules in a tabletop roleplaying game, game forums are not your solution.

I'd be interesting in hearing from people other than you, as you are known for stalking 2d20 threads across multiple websites and ranting about how awful it is. The fact that there's a person out there who obsessively hates a system to the extent of following it around the web and condemning everywhere they see it is not useful information to me.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I know it is. Lots of games have them. Dozens, maybe hundreds.

So I ask again: why is it so controversial?

Because meta-gaming is bad. It is definitionally the opposite of role-playing, which is the reason why many people choose to play an RPG in the first place. Just because other games have done it, that doesn't make it good or acceptable. Since you seem to have missed the memo about meta-gaming being a bad thing, consider an analogy.

For a significant period in the eighties and nineties, it was not uncommon for a game to present stat modifiers based on the gender of the character. More often then not, men would have a bonus to Strength and women would have a bonus to Dexterity or Charisma or something. Some particularly egregious examples would just give women penalties across the board.

And then one day, someone realized that it was a bad idea. They realized that most of it was based on out-dated stereotypes, it didn't have a place in modern gaming, and it was better to let female characters be on an equal footing with their male counterparts. Eventually, the rest of the community got on board with that, and now the only games that include gender-based stat modifiers are those old games which we critique for being so ridiculous.

Now imagine that you're excited for this new Conan game that's coming out, and the first thing you notice when you crack open the .pdf is that women are -2 to Thews and +2 to Seduce. How would that make you feel about the game as a whole? Would you just accept it as something common in a lot of other games? Or would you find it distasteful, and be disappointed in the game for including it? Would you house rule it away? Would you be comfortable joining a group that was playing the game, without knowing how they handled the issue? Or would you cringe, every time it came up?

And it's not just the mechanic, itself, that's the problem. It's the mindset that goes along with creating that rule in the first place. I could probably house rule 'bennies' and Fate points out of Savage Worlds and FATE respectively, but the whole books are written to reinforce the tone that those mechanics are supposed to reflect. Stat modifiers for women usually exist to reinforce the idea that they aren't capable as heroes, and are meant to be rescued. Why would I want to support a game that intentionally chooses to do that?

 

[Morrus]

Because meta-gaming is bad.

It's been a while since I've seen a blantant example of badwrongfun. Blimey!

No it's not bad. It's just not to your taste. Why am I defining badwrongfun?

Dozens of very successful games fetaure metagame mechanics. Again, I ask: why is it controversial?

It is definitionally the opposite of role-playing

which is the reason why many people choose to play an RPG in the first place. Just because other games have done it, that doesn't make it good or acceptable.

It makes it *extremely* acceptable. Metagame mechanics are not a moral choice. They are very acceptable.

Since you seem to have missed the memo about meta-gaming being a bad thing

#badwrongfun isn't improved by dripping sarcasm.

For a significant period in the eighties and nineties, it was not uncommon for a game to present stat modifiers based on the gender of the character. More often then not, men would have a bonus to Strength and women would have a bonus to Dexterity or Charisma or something. Some particularly egregious examples would just give women penalties across the board.

And then one day, someone realized that it was a bad idea. They realized that most of it was based on out-dated stereotypes, it didn't have a place in modern gaming, and it was better to let female characters be on an equal footing with their cmale counterparts. Eventually, the rest of the community got on board with that, and now the only games that include gender-based stat modifiers are those old games which we critique for being so ridiculous.

I have no idea why you're trying to equate a game mechanic you don't like with an actual problem like discrimination and sexism.

 

[pemerton]

Marvel heroic: 5 damage steps which may as well be HP... as they do cumulate to death

They're not hit points. (1) There's 3 tracks. (2) They aren't linear in scale - if the effect die is bigger than the current status, it substitute; if small, the current status esdcalates by one. (3) They have a debuff consequence for the character (because can be included as a bonus die in an opposing pool). It's a type of condition tradck.

Hero Wars uses HP - called advantage points - which vary by the stakes of the extended conflict.

It can do in an extended contest. It doesn't have to - there are simple contests that yield debuff consquences. And APs are gained and lost based on an interaction of bids and opposed checks. They're not hp.

BW: the condition monitor has a HP subset... continued minors do overflow in Burning Wheel

You can't die from Superficial Wounds in BW - even if you get 3, and hence a Light, you're still not dying, and no amount of Light wounds will kill you. It's not hit points.

definitely for Duel of Wits.

The Body of Argument is a hit point-type mechanic, yes, in the sense of a pool that must be depleted to win the contest. But it's still not hit points because (i) has nothing to do with being hit, and (ii) is generated anew for each contest (in that respect a bit like the HeroWars APs). Heroes don't have a pool of "argument points" which can suffer attrition over the course of an adventure and which they replenish by resting or drinking potions of glibness.

Rolemaster explicitly uses HP as the default. With heavily armored characters and weak weapons, death by concussion hit loss can and does happen. About 10% of my RM kills were due to hit point losses.

As I posted, concussion hits aren't a metagame mechanic (which hit points are, as [MENTION=100241]slygeek[/MENTION] correctly noted). And at least in my experience death from concussion hit loss is extremely rare, because it occurs only at -CON. (Zero concussion hits is unconsciousness.)

One of the reasons that concussion hits are not a metagame mechanic in RM and HARP is that they are just one component ofthe whole injury system. In RM, you don't knock of the hit points and then narrate (say) a mighty blow that pierces the shoulder and draws blood. That narration is only permissible if yielded by an appropriate crit result. It's primarily a condition/debuff-based system.

Stress in 2d20 is VERY much HP... but HP with a shortcut that can drop you out sooner than "out of HP" - just like RM's crits can. Mōdiphüs' staff's claims that it isn't HP are simply wrong... but I understand why. See, of the games you claim don't have HP, each has a "depletion of the opponent's points wins" condition as a default position, and cumulative damage to them. They all do have a hit point element. So does 2d20. Oh, and then the harms and traumas limits are also a HP mechanic.[/QUOTE]

What I don't understand is why people won't give it a try just because of Doom points. It just seems like a knee-jerk reaction to me.

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] has over 3,000 posts. A good chunk of that has been spent explaining his own (distinctive) views about metagaming and why he doesn't like it. He's not giving you a knee-jerk reaction!

And I'm pretty sure I've seen [MENTION=92305]Water Bob[/MENTION] post in the past on this issue too, especially in the context of this game.

As for myself, I run plenty of games with metagame mechanics (4e, BW, MHRP, AD&D). They don't bother me at all.