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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 1298343" data-attributes="member: 1757">Hyborian Age adventuring is nice for D&D gaming because, as others have said, it encourages a "kick-in-the-door" style of play, allows for PCs that honestly embrace the motivations that many D&D players already find near and dear to their hearts (kill the monsters! get their stuff!), and, to be honest, doesn't require particularly much scripting. I'd be rather aghast at a sincere argument that REH's Conan stories involve better writing than LotR. To begin with, REH's villains just aren't so interesting; evil wizard/evil priest, ho hum. Thoth-Amon, Xaltotun, or Nemeas don't have any real background or motivations, and don't have any particular metaphorical context. Sauron, OTOH, represents absolute Evil, the reflection of all that is dark within the hearts of Men, the personification of cunning, careless industrialization, despair, cynicism, pitilessness. JRRT likewise imposes a universe of serious and subtle thematic and logical interaction, where characters are motivated by deeds and words thousands of years in the past, where the landscape itself reacts to the presence of Good or Evil, and where even the smallest person can change the course of history, not by force of arms, but by a willingness to prize love, friendship, and compassion over Power. None of this is to say that I don't like the Conan stories; rather, I think that they sometimes make better fodder for D&D adventuring than stuff like LotR because it's easier for DMs to spin adventuring ideas out of them. IOW, and to bring us back to the beginning post, it all boils down to gaming philosophy. The fact is that I quite enjoy combining elements of pulp fantasy, Tolkienesque subtlety, language, and world-building, and Moorcockian plane-hopping and meddling godlings into my campaign. [Incidentally, Iron_Chef, my (non-ME) campaign occurs in the Realms, and I've never had a problem with Fzoul, Manshoon, and Elminster acting as "obstacles" to the PCs' achievements; given that the first two are arch-villains, and the third is a sort of narrative Macguffin, I don't really see how they're anything but campaign tools rather than obstacles.)</blockquote>

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