Conan the Confessor

[Mog Elffoe]

Anyone interested in a new take on the Conan stories may want to check this out;

http://www.conan.com/f_issue1.shtml

It looks FANTASTIC!!!

Oooh!! They also mention that they're putting out more re-colored reprints of the old Marvel Conan comics! Awesome!

 

[d4]

If there's one thing I dislike about D&D it's the "Shiny Happy" Magic as technology mechanics, that leave things about as mystical and dangerous as carpentry.

that's probably my main complaint about the new Eberron setting. i never understood wanting to take the magical and fantastical and making it mundane.

i've only read a handful of Conan stories and never really had much interest in them. however, if the game has lots of good, generic ideas and rules for running a low-magic high-action swords & sorcery type of game, i'll never be interested in taking a look at it.

 

[Krieg]

that's probably my main complaint about the new Eberron setting. i never understood wanting to take the magical and fantastical and making it mundane.

Ironically enough I don't have a problem with this at all, I just don't want it to be the accepted "default" setting.

i've only read a handful of Conan stories and never really had much interest in them. however, if the game has lots of good, generic ideas and rules for running a low-magic high-action swords & sorcery type of game, i'll never be interested in taking a look at it.

Do you remember who wrote the stories you read? Howard's original stories are very different than the later (and lesser) Conan tales.

 

[d4]

Do you remember who wrote the stories you read? Howard's original stories are very different than the later (and lesser) Conan tales.

i "think" they were REH stories, but to be honest it's been decades.

 

[Iron_Chef]

I just reread (first time since 1983) Robert Jordan's CONAN THE INVINCIBLE and CONAN THE DEFENDER (his first two Conan books). I think they're top-flight; utterly fantastic and gripping as far as the non-Howard stuff goes. IMO, with these two novels Jordan did a wonderful job of recapturing the spirit of Howard's Conan. He started to slip with his third Conan novel, but they're still decent, fun reads.

I went Conan shopping at the used bookstores today and picked up Karl Edward Wagner's CONAN: THE ROAD OF KINGS and his anthology PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE (reprints of four original Howard Conan stories from Weird Tales---before L. Sprague deCamp and Lin Carter got out their butcher's knives). How are Andrew Offut's Conan novels?

BTW: The new Conan comic from Dark Horse is amazing; Issue #0 is only 25 cents; the series continues with #1 in February.

 

[Swoop109]

... How are Andrew Offut's Conan novels?

BTW: The new Conan comic from Dark Horse is amazing; Issue #0 is only 25 cents; the series continues with #1 in February.

His Conan pastiches are, IMHO, some of the better ones written for the series. As a long time fan of the character I can say that there have been some rather bad stories written by authors who have never been able to look past surface of the character. While it is only my opinion, here are some of what I feel are the better Conan pastiches;

Conan the Liberator
Conan and the Emerald Lotus
Conan and the Spider God
Conan and the Road of Kings
Conan the Swordsman

This is not an all inclusive list. There are others that I liked, I just cannot remember there titles at the moment. Also, anyone wanting to talk with other fans should check out the following sites;
www.conan.com and www.conan.no

 

[The_Gneech]

OK, to do my part to get this thread back on topic, about the game itself, Does anyone here plan to use it for anything BESIDES playing Conan? Perhaps as a resource for their own grim or low-magic high-action games, or for the homebrew that never quite fit D&D?

Homebrew, here; my favorite gaming world was created for use in Fantasy Hero and has little in common with the D&D standard. Imagine if Robert E. Howard had written Lord of the Rings instead of Tolkien, and you might have something not too far from my setting. There aren't dwarves, but there are elves, rather otherworldly and sinister compared to D&D. Most magic is small-scale and subtle, rather than big booms ... and there aren't big populations of humanoids under every hilltop.

-The Gneech

 

[ledded]

I personally think that Darkness Weaves is an unrecognized masterpiece of the genre.

Amen, brother.

And ya know, one of the best parts about seeing the movies was watching all of those people who said they "read all that tolkein in school" then were shocked, open mouthed, when the story didnt end at the end of the first film (my wife being one of those). You can usually tell who those people were by them saying "Yeah, I read tolkein in 9th grade, I liked it alright..." instead of those who really read it saying "Yes, I sufferred through tolkein in the 9th grade, then later read the Belgariad for a little mindless fun".

I read Tolkein. Even read the Silmarilion. I liked it at times, I slogged through it wearily at others. I put the Silmarilion down about 75% of the way through it and seriously considered therapy.

I've read a ton of Conan. Liked most of 'em, at least the ones where the author seemed to 'get' what Conan was like and didnt just spout one tired Conan cliche after another.

I'm intrigued by this new RPG though, and may just have to check it out.

 

[Wraith Form]

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.

Me too, on everything you just said--cut my teeth on Howard's fantasy, never finished Tolkien (god, he gets long-winded), played D&D in the hopes of re-experiencing my Howard literary endeavors, and read as much Conan as I could get my grubby little paws on, including the cheesy '70's comic books. I remember seeing adverts for "Conan the Barbarian" in my Spidey comics at the age of seven and not having a clue what a barbarian was, let alone why they'd want to make a comic about one.

(Except the Conan the Movie part. It takes a brave man to confess he saw that movie. ...However, it could have been worse if you'd said it was the D&D movie from a few yeras ago...YEEEEECCHHH.)

*snff* Thanks for putting some things in perspective for me. [ /tear wiping ]

 

[Wraith Form]

Man, that's pretty much everything I was going to write

If there's one thing I dislike about D&D it's the "Shiny Happy" Magic as technology mechanics, that leave things about as mystical and dangerous as carpentry.

TB, I never doubted that we'd agree on something--I'm just really glad to see it's this.