That said, STA is rather cinematic, and due to the high similarity, I'd expect Conan to be similar.
Here's something I worry about, from past experience with game systems that declare story effects.
I'll use a game system that I love, as an example--WEG's Star Wars D6. After the 1st edition of the game came out, a Wild Die was added to every task throw. I think this change came with Second Edition. I played with the Wild Die for years.
The effect of the Wild Die is this: One of the die rolled in a task is considered the "Wild Die". You'll want to use a different color of die than the others to distinguish it from any other dice thrown. When the WD shows a "6", then the die explodes. You get to roll it again to increase your total (higher is better), and you get to keep re-rolling it as long as you roll sixes.
When the WD showed a "1*", the GM could totally ignore it as anything special and just count it as a "1" to the total of the roll. The GM could also declare that the WD 1 and the highest other die in the roll be subtracted from the roll, thereby lowering the total. Or, the GM could declare a "complication".
* This is the 2E R&E version of the WD rule (and the WD 1 is considered only on the first roll for a character during a turn--not on any subsequent actions during that same round). In straight 2E, the rule is a bit different. I cite this one because I ran an awesome 7 year Star Wars campaign using R&E. Today, my favorite version of the WEG D6 rules is straight first edtion--where there is no Wild Die at all.
The complication is a story element. One example given in the book is the scene in Return of the Jedi where Han attempts to stealthily approach the scout troopers on Endor's moon. He steps on a branch. It cracks. The noise alerts the trooper and allows him to backhand Han and jump on the speederbike to escape--starting the speederbike chase.
In 2E R&E terms, Han rolled a Sneak task, but ended up rolling a "1" on his Wild Die. The GM decided on a complication--Han snapping the branch and alterting the trooper.
Note that WEG's D6 system, 2E, does what the 2d20 lovers scream is so innovated about the system. With the Wild Die, the D6 system also has results where a task succeeds but there is a complication (Total of task beats target number, but a 1 on the Wild Die is deemed to be a complication story element). Also, a character can fail a task because of a complication (as probably was Han's roll--he probably didn't roll high enough so that the trooper wouldn't hear him).
This sounds like a neat idea. And, it can be, sometimes. But, I found that the "complication" started more discussions, wasted more time, and ruffled more feathers than what it was worth.
1. The "1" on the Wild Die happens often. Every one out of six task throws on a single player's turn results in a "1" on the WD. This is often enough that we started repeating ourselves--and that wasn't fun. Since Star Wars is a combat oriented game, and I strived for a lot of swashbuckling action, just like the movies, it was often that the WD "1" would occur on a task to shoot a blaster.
We started running out of ideas on what could go wrong with a blaster shot. The game suggested that the weapon ran out of tibanna gas and could no longer fire. Fine. But, how often does this happen? Certainly it doesn't happen as often as the complications that occurred.
2. Then, as GM, I tried to be more story oriented and come up with something more exciting than just a blaster pistol running dry of tibanna gas or having its power cell used up. I decided one time that the "complication" was that the weapon jammed, and the powercell overheated and blew up in the character's hand. Pretty cool, huh? The player didn't think so. He wanted to know why I was picking on him.
The last guy who had a complication slipped on an oil patch that jarred his shot and made it go wild. The player before that had a complication where his stray bolt blew out the lights, and everyone had to fight in the dark. I decided to that it was "cinematic" to blow up the blaster. I mean, at least it wasn't another, "Oh, your blaster gas cannister in your weapon is dry."
But, the player didn't think this was cool at all. He felt he was being picked on. Now, I've got a disgruntled player because of a game mechanic.
I also found that I didn't like to "have" to come up with complications just because the dice said so. Sure, I could add up normally or just reduce the task total, as stated above, but when I did implement a complication, the player would feel singled out and picked on if others didn't get complications.
It was a mess, so I added a die roll--leaving it to luck--for when complications showed up. That stopped the "picked on" feeling somewhat, but I didn't select a complication when I could have gone with one of the other options. But, players still felt slighted and sometimes got argumentative if they perceived a creative complication to not be fair to them.
Finally, I just threw out the possibility of complications all-together. Yeah, on the package is sounded like a neat thing to have in the game. In practice, it didn't work so well.
This situation is one of my fears about the 2d20 system. The dice say COME UP WITH A COOL STORY MOMENT! But, I'm out of ideas at the moment. Or, worse, a player sees that the dice say COME UP WITH A COOL STORY MOMENT! And, the player does--but it's something that I think, as GM, is too much. And, now, we're in a debate, rather than playing the game.
