Emirkol, Scourger: the main complaint I seem to be hearing is that you don't like that the Conan RPG differs so much from DnD as to be mostly incompatable with DnD (and I agree that this is true) and that that is a fundamentally poor design decision.
But why is making a game incompatable with DnD a bad thing? How does that make a game "unplayable" or qualify as a "very poor choice" on the part of the designer? Spycraft is fundamentally incompatable with DnD but I dont' think many people consider that to be a poor design choice; ditto T20, BESM d20, Grim Tales and many others. Why is it not a bad choice? Because each of those games is built around a different genre than DnD and needs to be different in order to convey the basic flavor of that genre. Conan is not epic fantasy, it is pulp swords 'n sorcery. In a swords 'n sorcery game I don't want vancian magic, I don't want armor that raises AC, I don't want lots of magic items and a heavy dependance on equipment. If you are going to eliminate those things from DnD then you are going to have to make some prety extensive changes to the game to compensate, which is what Conan did.
Personally I don't think the variant rules in Conan are poorly designed or unbalancing. Quite the opposite, not only are they very balanced once you get to used to them but in my not so humble opinion they demonstrate a very deep and subtle understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the d20 system on the part of the designers (Ian Sturrok and Vincenet Darlage). When redesigning a system like they did with Conan it would be easy to carve too much out and tempting to introduce too many new mechanics in their place. But the variant rules in Conan show great restraint in their pruning of the core rules and the new mechanics intorduced mesh well with the fundamental d20 design concepts. For my campaign I didn't require 40 pages of house rules to explain the changes in the Conan ruleset to my players: it was more like 3 and that is despite the fact that I am the only one in the group with a copy of the rulebook. My players picked up the rules no problem and are having a great time. I dont' think we would be enjoying ourselves as much if we were playing DnD with a few tweaks; the variant rules are absoluetly essential IMO.
And I also don't think that it was a mistake to make the Conan rulebook a complete OGL rulebook. As I said, Conan is a different genre that DnD and it does attract different gamers. Every couple of weeks I see at least on post on the Mongoose board from someone who has never played DnD and doesn't own the core rulebooks but has picked up Conan. Thats new gamers who may now go on to pick up other OGL products but who never would have goten into the game at all if they had had to buy the DnD books in addition to the Conan book. Call me crazy but that sounds like good business strategy to me.
Anyway I have been quite happy with the game I bought and I'm glad Sturrok and Darlage decided to make the game they did as it would not have been so unique and memorable were it different.
Later.
But why is making a game incompatable with DnD a bad thing? How does that make a game "unplayable" or qualify as a "very poor choice" on the part of the designer? Spycraft is fundamentally incompatable with DnD but I dont' think many people consider that to be a poor design choice; ditto T20, BESM d20, Grim Tales and many others. Why is it not a bad choice? Because each of those games is built around a different genre than DnD and needs to be different in order to convey the basic flavor of that genre. Conan is not epic fantasy, it is pulp swords 'n sorcery. In a swords 'n sorcery game I don't want vancian magic, I don't want armor that raises AC, I don't want lots of magic items and a heavy dependance on equipment. If you are going to eliminate those things from DnD then you are going to have to make some prety extensive changes to the game to compensate, which is what Conan did.
Personally I don't think the variant rules in Conan are poorly designed or unbalancing. Quite the opposite, not only are they very balanced once you get to used to them but in my not so humble opinion they demonstrate a very deep and subtle understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the d20 system on the part of the designers (Ian Sturrok and Vincenet Darlage). When redesigning a system like they did with Conan it would be easy to carve too much out and tempting to introduce too many new mechanics in their place. But the variant rules in Conan show great restraint in their pruning of the core rules and the new mechanics intorduced mesh well with the fundamental d20 design concepts. For my campaign I didn't require 40 pages of house rules to explain the changes in the Conan ruleset to my players: it was more like 3 and that is despite the fact that I am the only one in the group with a copy of the rulebook. My players picked up the rules no problem and are having a great time. I dont' think we would be enjoying ourselves as much if we were playing DnD with a few tweaks; the variant rules are absoluetly essential IMO.
And I also don't think that it was a mistake to make the Conan rulebook a complete OGL rulebook. As I said, Conan is a different genre that DnD and it does attract different gamers. Every couple of weeks I see at least on post on the Mongoose board from someone who has never played DnD and doesn't own the core rulebooks but has picked up Conan. Thats new gamers who may now go on to pick up other OGL products but who never would have goten into the game at all if they had had to buy the DnD books in addition to the Conan book. Call me crazy but that sounds like good business strategy to me.
Anyway I have been quite happy with the game I bought and I'm glad Sturrok and Darlage decided to make the game they did as it would not have been so unique and memorable were it different.
Later.
