Conan & lone wolf

[Ibram]

Anybody else here play in a CONAN campaign?

jh

Well I dont run an campaign set in the Hyborian world the Conan book has virtualy replaced the PHB for my campaign.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I know a bunch of people who play Conan... They love the changes to the system, and think that it fits much better than D&D would. Emericol, Perhaps the reason you didn't like it is that you wanted a D&D/D20 game? (Not an insult - if you like a system, you like a system. And having a system that is similar, but by no means identical can trip you up a lot faster than totally dissimilar systems.)

The Auld Grump, who has read, but not played the rules (both first & second printings) and liked what he read.

 

[Starglim]

Our group playtested CONAN the RPG and realized it's absolutely not compatable with D&D. It's a completely different game system that just happens to use a d20 for attacks. There are so many pointless tweaks that you'd need a house rule book 40 pages thick for your players to have a clue what's up. Completely different combat and magic systems. Weapon damage charts that vary so completely from D&D as to make them unusable. Every player would have to own the RPG to play the game..or else the 40 page house-rules.

Do you suppose this was what turned people off? It certainly turned my group off. Also, after the debacle with the 1st printing, shelling out more $$$ was not in our best interests.

Did anyone else go through this? Does anyone here actually 'PLAY' the Conan RPG.

I was interested in the combat and magic systems for Conan, actually, but there was no way that I could justify the cost.

edit: I've heard good things about The Road of Kings so might have a second look at that. I don't have a particular interest in Lone Wolf.

 

[Krieg]

I was interested in the combat and magic systems for Conan, actually, but there was no way that I could justify the cost.

You might want to take a look at Mongoose's upcoming Pocket Conan D20, it is less than half the price of the full size book:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=788&qsSeries=

 

[Starglim]

Thanks! I'll certainly look out for that.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I know that the chances of me buying Conan AND convincing my group to play it are kind of slim but I would love to play it at a Con or something. Maybe for Origins and GenCon I will check to see if anyone is running it.

 

[MonsterMash]

Yes I'm playing in a Conan RPG campaign and enjoying it. I'm glad that Mongoose are doing one of their pocket rulebooks for it though I do have the original edition of the rules (bought second hand and cheap) and will post a review on ENWorld when I can get back in on the D20 Reviews site.

 

[Psion]

Interesting.

There is something of a schism in RPGs... people who prefer familiarity and "don't sweat the small stuff", and those who prefer their favorite fictional worlds be modeled with loving precision regardless of playability.

And the middle ground on these issues tends to be rather tenuous.

Sometimes authors try to come up with a workable compromise, but you can't please all the people all the time. And considering how finnicky some RPG fans are, considerably less than all the people all the time.

 

[Sir Elton]

I play it and absolutely love it. I'd like to know what you consider "pointless tweaks" though, since I think the game has been customized to Howard's Hyboria beautifully. Straight 3rd edition D&D would never work for a CONAN game - TSR made that mistake already and Mongoose learned from it.

Not to mention that the monsters are straightly adaptable. TSR and SJG did adaptations though, and still GURPS Conan has it's fans. There are probably some GURPS fans who don't know about MGP's work, though.

 

[scourger]

Our group playtested CONAN the RPG and realized it's absolutely not compatable with D&D. It's a completely different game system that just happens to use a d20 for attacks. There are so many pointless tweaks that you'd need a house rule book 40 pages thick for your players to have a clue what's up. Completely different combat and magic systems. Weapon damage charts that vary so completely from D&D as to make them unusable. Every player would have to own the RPG to play the game..or else the 40 page house-rules.

Do you suppose this was what turned people off? It certainly turned my group off. Also, after the debacle with the 1st printing, shelling out more $$$ was not in our best interests.

Did anyone else go through this? Does anyone here actually 'PLAY' the Conan RPG.

jh

Our group had the same playtest experience. I think the only hope for the Conan RPG line is for Vincent Darlage to continue to put out more generic material like The Road of Kings--hopefully modules. Some Conan boxed sets are scheduled and will include adventures, but I fear they will be so specific to the Conan rules as to make it impossible to convert it to D&D. Too bad. It's a great world. I just think the original designer went too far off the mark. I'm hoping for a market correction, and I'm doing my best to make one happen by not buying their products.

Lone Wolf similarly holds no interest for me. Even if I had read the books and loved the world, I think Mongoose has gone too far with bending (breaking?) the OGL rules. Again, I'm hoping for a market correction; and I'm doing my best to make one happen by not buying their products.

On the other hand, MP has also announced a new line of generic D&D d20 adventures starting with a rewrite of the Slaine Teeth of the Moon Sow campaign. I am looking forward to seeing that and reading the reviews. My problem with Slaine was the same as with Conan--too many weird variant rules. Slaine had a particualrly unattractive emphasis on ritual sacrifice, so I got rid of it and never picked up the modules. Same writer as Conan. Go figure. I do hope MP has greater success with this Complete Campaign line, and I will try to push the market in that direction by buying them if they look to be top quality. I mean, they have to compete with Dungeon, Necromancer and Goodman; so the adventures have to be excellent to merit purchasing and keeping.