Conan the Confessor

[Vigilance]

I have a confession to make. I have never read the LOTR in their entirety. As a GM of D&D for almost 20 years, I have *literally* had people gasp when I told them that. Not one of those literary device figurative gasps. I have said that and had people from the next room come in and say "what did Chuck just say?" Like I had broken the law or something.

Conan got me into fantasy. I read it all. The Howard classics, the good pastiches, the bad pastiches, the comic books. I skipped school to see the Conan movie. And I ran D&D games set in Hyboria.

Here I am after all this time, and Im still fanboy over this game and this world. I have written a dozen games in the past couple of years, and am, in some ways, very jaded about role playing products.

I tend to read them more from a standpoint of "I would have done that differently".

This is the first rpg I have ever preordered.

Close confession.

Chuck

 

[Swoop109]

Your not alone!!! I've never been able to finish the LotR series. thanks to years of friends telling me about and the movies, I now know thhe basic story line by heart.
Like you I started my fantasy reading with Conan, moved on to the Elric series and finished my introduction with Karl Wagner's Kane stories. These three sets have influenced my running of fantasy settings in every way possible.
Magic needs to be a dark a dangerous force, no magic idems smaller then short sword, non human races are feared and mistrusted, and no happy little "wee folk".
I need my settings to be as realistic as possible, combat does kill players, monsters need to make sense, and magic always has a price.

Not only do I have Conan on preorder, I'll most likely end up getting a second copy.

 

[Henry]

A few years ago (like 20), it wouldn't have been an uncommon confession to make. For every Tolkien fan who states, "I read the trilogy at least once a year", there is another person who says, "I couldn't get past page 100." Count me in that latter group, because I loved the movies and STILL can't finish the trilogy. I tried again about a month ago, and couldn't even get to them leaving the shire!

Conan, however, and Leiber, is the stuff D&D is made of - at least old D&D. Gary Gygax has confessed to being more a fan of Howard than Tolkien. Conan d20 I may have to pick up just because I still haven't seen a good take on Conan that I've agreed with.

I wrote this also to let you know you aren't alone.

 

[Vigilance]

We should start a support group! "Tolkien anonymous" lol

Chuck

 

[Wombat]

I'm the opposite.

I was never able to finish Conan

 

[jaerdaph]

I've read LOTR many, many times in the last 25+ years, but I have a far more embarrassing confession:

I've only seen the Conan movies with Ahhhnold, and I liked them. I actually liked them!

 

[blacksagelobo]

I was in the playtest. This game is the best. I'm going to buy a copy on top of my free playtest copy. I may even buy two.

This is better than all previous incarnations of Conan in RPG form. I would know I have them all.

 

[Iron_Chef]

I am so stoked about this new Conan game!!!

I couldn't get halfway through reading The Two Towers without falling asleep, but that's never something I experienced while reading a Conan story (regardless of the author or quality). I didn't have that sleepy problem reading LotR rip-offs like Sword or Elfstones of Shannara... John Norman's GOR series (Books 1-5, anyway) were the same; action packed, sword-swinging pulp adventure in the style of ERB's John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Thieves' World was good for the first two books, then started making me sleepy in 3, only to become started unreadable by books 4-5. Elric started off good but got boring real fast for me after book one (or two).

I never heard of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane books, though I'm familiar with Wagner as the editor of the Year's Best Horror Stories for many years. I'll have to check the Kane books out!

I never read Howard's other hero pulps either, like Solomon Kane, Kull, Bran Mak Morn. Any good?

 

[teitan]

I have to confess, I use LOTR to put me to sleep that is how much I can not stand the books. SHannara? Same way... hell, most fantasy bores me to tears. What got me into DnD you ask??? Excalibur, King Arthur and RObin Hood. After I got over that period though, Moorcock and Lieber and Conan and the COnan comics kept me going...

Jason

 

[comrade raoul]

I have to confess, I use LOTR to put me to sleep that is how much I can not stand the books. SHannara? Same way... hell, most fantasy bores me to tears. What got me into DnD you ask??? Excalibur, King Arthur and RObin Hood. After I got over that period though, Moorcock and Lieber and Conan and the COnan comics kept me going...

Jason

Right -- I'm wondering whether it's even more unforgivable for me to admit that, categorically, I don't really like fantasy or science fiction at all! (There are exceptions -- I liked Ender's Game and respect Phillip K. Dick, and so forth.) Can one still be a geek if one's fiction tastes run exclusively to "literary" fiction?