Influence of Conan on D&D

[Ahzad]

His happenstance use of the magical belt in "People of the Black Circle" does suggest the possibility of detect magic, although I think it is sometimes implied in REH that anyone might detect magic if they have the sharpness of instinct.

I would agree with that I seem to recall some other examples of folks other than Conan being able to sense magic to some effect.

 

[Puggins]

It's been a long time since I read that particular story, and I'm not sure I've ever read it in a non-expurgated edition. But my memory of this particular story is that it's told from the POV of a female character who views the world through the assumption that all men are misogynistic and dark-skinned people are beasts. This POV, however, is explicitly criticized through the words and deeds of Conan (who treats the black-skinned men as equals and wasn't actually going to do all the misogynistic things she assumed he was going to do). In fact, the entire point of the story seemed to be about how wrong-headed her POV. In many ways, I felt that it could be read as a direct critique of similar wrong-headed ideologies being portrayed in pulp fiction.

Definitely re-read the original story- there are several editions of Howard's work that have come out over the past few years that even include unfinished manuscripts, character notes and the like. Great stuff.

I agree with you in terms of criticizing the character's POV, but you see the same criticism (though not from the POV character) in many of Howard's stories. My bet is that you haven't read the original version of that story. There are several remarks made explicitly by Conan that are... troubling.

I'm going to bow out of this thread. I don't want to give folks the impression that Howard was more racist than the norm back then or that his work is not worth reading. He remains one of my all-time favorite writers, and I think D&D would be better off if the designers were as hell-bent in paying tribute to Howard in their work as they've seemed to be to Lovecraft over the past decade.

 

[amerigoV]

All this has got me reading Conan for the first time (a sin, I know). I love the tone! Much more edgy and enjoyable than LoTR (which, IMHO, ruined fantasy with all that singing and talking about food all the time). I've not gotten to some of the more contriversial stories (but then again, may mother occassionally says things from "back in her day" that is not socially acceptable (and she knows it) - so its not going to throw me off the good stuff).

 

[ssampier]

What does Conan have to do with Gaming?

Oh you mean, the other Conan.

Sorry, but this thread needed some levity.

But back to the point: I have only read a few of the Conan stories. Conan isn't the muscle-bound simpleton.

As for the racism/sexism, I figure that each author has their own outlook on life and I take their viewpoints using a lens of culture/history.

 

[Zevious]

I'm a huge REH/Conan fan. Read most of the stories back in the 80's, and recently picked up the 3 volume set that came out a few years back and am re-discovering the original tales all over again. They really are great.

Anyone looking for a Conan story that seems to be an almost direct inspiration for D & D should check out The Scarlet Citadel. A fair part of the story involves Conan escaping an underground complex that is essentially a classic dungeon crawl. At one point his torch has gone out and he's crawling around in the dark along a corridor when he comes to the edge of a pit in the floor. As he feels around looking for a way to go he senses "something" floating up out of the pit in the darkness in front of him. Creepy!

The story also features a great little undead servant sequence.

As far as issues of racism and sexism, yeah...theres some stuff in the stories that is a little problematic viewed through a contemporary lens, but I think ftmp the stories are not bad in that regard. I think the group that takes the real beating in the tales is "civilized society" more than any other.

 

[David Howery]

one of the best 'dungeon crawl' adventures from the Conan stories is "Red Nails"... it has it all... an entire city roofed over and cut off from the outside... 'dragons' (actually a dinosaur of some kind) outside the walls... feuding clans inside the city... wizards, warriors, priests, scouts... catacombs filled with magical treasures... monsters in the dark... I based a short series of adventures for one of my campaigns on this one. Had the PCs get shipwrecked on a big tropical island with a 'lost city' just like this one on it, had the PCs get involved in the feuding, railroaded everything so that at the end, the PCs were the only ones left standing Can't remember how they got away... I think I had them find a one-use folding boat/ship, and they sailed away with a load of treasure...

 

[Raven Crowking]

There are actually a lot of good models in REH for D&D adventures, both in Conan stories and otherwise.

 

[Bleys Icefalcon]

I created Falstaff Grungaard an immense loincloth wearing, superstitious two handed sword weilding tribal berserker some years ago and a direct omage to a young Conan. Falstaff died drowning a Jackalware, turns out our low level group didn't have the requisite magical weapons to kill the damned beast, so by brute strength alone Falstaff held it underwater in the Plyn river near Specularum untill it stopped struggling. The downside, it almost tore poor Falstaff in two fighting for air with it's talons. As a fun sidenote, the two who survived the encounter (we lost Falstaff and 3 others) were so descriptive of his valiant sacrifice, that years later in that region of the world of our game "Falstaff's Balls" lives on as a invective for insane courage.