Modiphius' Conan TTRPG Is Ending

At the end of this year, Modiphius' license to publish the 2d20-powered Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of is coming to an end. Taking over with a new roleplaying game will be French publisher Monolith Edition, which already produces the official boardgame.

While the license ends on December 31st, you will still be able to buy existing stock until the end of June 2023.

Other Conan games include Mongoose Publishing's Conan: The Roleplaying Game, which used the d20 System back in 2004, TSR's Conan Roleplaying Game in 1985, and even 1984 D&D adventure modules called Conan Unchained! and Conan Against Darkness!

MONOLITH HANDED THE CONAN ROLEPLAYING GAME LINE FROM MODIPHIUS FOR NEW EXCITING ROLEPLAYING STORIES IN THE HYBORIAN AGE!

“When we first started exploring Robert E. Howard’s world of Conan, little did we imagine the full expanse of what was to come. It’s been an incredible journey working with top Conan scholars, talented writers and artists who gave their all to dig deep into the Conan stories and bring them to life in a truly authentic way.” Said Chris Birch, Chief Creative Officer of Modiphius Entertainment. “Now with twenty beautiful hardback books to our name and numerous beautiful accessories, we are ready to call time on our journeys across Hyboria. We’ve reached the point where we feel like we have done justice to REH’s words, delivered some incredible Conan swords & sorcery gaming, and reached the ends of the Hyborian world in every direction we could imagine. It’s time to pass on the mantle to new hands who can tell a new story in the Hyborian age!”

The roleplaying game line, under licence from Heroic Signatures (Formally Cabinet Entertainment), will end on Dec 31st, no more re-stocks are being ordered, and all stock will be sold by June 30th 2023.

If you’ve been waiting to pick up one of the books, now is your chance, either from retail or from the US or UK-based webstores. Get them while you can!

Matthew John, Conan Board Game Developer for Monolith added “For 8 years now, Conan, Heroic Signatures and Monolith have been treading the lands of Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age, finding grand inspiration for our products. Our board game, which rallied tens of thousands of players, was soon joined by a great role-playing game, thanks to Modiphius, who did a fantastic job diving deep into this exciting setting. As fans, we’ll be forever grateful to Modiphius for their work and our collaborations on Conan.

We’ve said it before, Howard's stories are part of Monolith’s DNA, and so we happily accepted Heroic Signatures’ offer to develop our own Conan roleplaying game–one we can infuse with our passion and unique creative vision. While we prepare our next Conan board game project, which will offer new, long-awaited features next year, we wanted to let fans know it is not the only Conan game we’re bringing to the table–or rather, your tables.

So…Monolith will bring back the Conan board game, then an all-new role-playing game! And who knows–it’s certainly possible that our admiration for Robert E.Howard's work will lead us beyond the borders of the Hyborian Age.

Stay tuned, Conan fans; we’re just getting started”.

 

[Campbell]

It's a damn shame. Modiphus' Conan was the closest to the source material of any tabletop rendition. Its protagonists felt like Hyborian adventurers from word go and the lose armor to avoid taking a wound bit really emulated Howard's combat scenes. Also, the supplements were immaculately sourced. That said there is a literal mountain of material for Conan 2d20.

 

[Jaeger]

I wouldn't say that nobody cares, given that we have already seen responses saying no interest if its 5e. Maybe you mean no 5e fan cares or more likely a majority of 5e fans won't care?

For everyone that says they won't buy it if it's 5e, there are at least ten more that will buy if it is 5e. And if they don't want a 5e version, a 3e version isn't going to make them not want to see a "D&D" version of a Conan RPG any less...

5e Adventures in Middle Earth blew away the sales of The One Ring under C7. It wasn't even a contest. People love, love, love, their 5e D&D reskins...

Nobody cares that 5e is descended from 3e. If it doesn't say '5e compatible' on the cover; They will be leaving money on the table.

But there are many publishers that are more interested in making the game they want than just maximising sales, and Monolith have a wider product range to support that may not do as well if they simply tie this RPG to the rules system of WotC. Modiphius obviously formed a similar view.

Then why pull the license from Modiphius?

The Conan IP holder has a limited window to cash in on the Conan IP until it goes public domain for US audiences in 2028.

The whole point is to maximize revenue until then!

Anything less will be leaving money on the table.

 

[Von Ether]

For everyone that says they won't buy it if it's 5e, there are at least ten more that will buy if it is 5e. And if they don't want a 5e version, a 3e version isn't going to make them not want to see a "D&D" version of a Conan RPG any less...

5e Adventures in Middle Earth blew away the sales of The One Ring under C7. It wasn't even a contest. People love, love, love, their 5e D&D reskins...

Nobody cares that 5e is descended from 3e. If it doesn't say '5e compatible' on the cover; They will be leaving money on the table.




Then why pull the license from Modiphius?

The Conan IP holder has a limited window to cash in on the Conan IP until it goes public domain for US audiences in 2028.

The whole point is to maximize revenue until then!

Anything less will be leaving money on the table.

I'd even go further to say they love their "current incarnation" of D&D, whatever it is at the time.

 

[MGibster]

Then why pull the license from Modiphius?

Did they pull the license or is it simply expiring? Modiphius has printed something like twenty Conan books, it could be that they've simply decided they've ridden that horse about as far as she can go.

As for 5E, I don't personally care. I probably won't get the new Conan game either way because I'm likely to have a hard time finding anyone interested in playing. But if they make a good game, I wish them all the success.

 

[Skywalker]

For everyone that says they won't buy it if it's 5e, there are at least ten more that will buy if it is 5e.

Thank god that there are RPG publishers that don’t use this as the only factor to determine what system to use. Otherwise, we wouldn’t get such a wide variety of systems out there other than 5e. This line was old 20 years ago when it was that all new RPGs should be 3e reskins

For what it’s worth, Monolith don’t seem all that motivated to capture the 5e dollar as it’s not been mentioned with the Batman or Conan RPG plans. They haven’t even claimed any familiarity for 5e fans, that was was an observation I made. The system they are using has been popular in their home country form over a decade and they seem keen to do more with it. It is likely as simple as that.

Then why pull the license from Modiphius?

The press release doesn’t say the licence was pulled. It sounds more like Modiphius decided not to renew it, most likely as they have already released plenty of books for their RPG.

The Conan IP holder has a limited window to cash in on the Conan IP until it goes public domain for US audiences in 2028.

The whole point is to maximize revenue until then!

Anything less will be leaving money on the table.

Monolith already has a big presence in the Conan IP with its successful board game. No doubt, they will be continuing to build on that. As Call of Cthulhu RPG shows, an official licence and market presence can lead to a more successful product regardless of the status of the copyright.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If I am not wrong the current owner of the Conan IP is Funcom, and this by Tencent, the Chinese megacorporation.

I thought Hasbro would try something for the licence, because TSR published something, but also there was a cartoon.


I guess today Hasbro would rather to create a totally new IP starting from zero, at least to enjoy the complete creative control, and this added to the Magic: the Gathering+D&D Multiverse.

* Today lots of players would rather to use d20/5e or a variant of this, becuase they don't want to learn from zero new game systems.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I got two bumper stickers on my truck

"Better Dead than Red"

"Roll High or Die"

I can't get excited about rolling a 1.

Mod Note:

That first one violated this site’s policies on politics, so I removed it.

 

[lyle.spade]

I'm bummed that 2d20 Conan is coming to an end, however, given the aforementioned heap of books, and the fact that Modiphius, through them, covered pretty much all of Howard's canon, outside of adventures I don't think there was much else for them to produce.

I love the system, and I think that version of 2d20 fits Conan well. That book does suffer from some poor explanation of rules, especially sorcery, which is a shame because Modiphius has greatly improved their writing in subsequent games. There are a lot of 2d20 Conan fans who were hoping for a revised edition, with better writing, but that's not going to happen now.

2d20, in its earliest incarnations (Mutant Chronicles 3e, Infinity, and Conan) was quite crunchy and the writers did not do a great job of explaining, providing examples for, and organizing their rules. They've grown tremendously over the last few years, and it would have been nice to see how they could apply that experience to these older properties.

If you gave 2d20 Conan a look when it came out and were put off by how the rules were presented, or were confused by them (I think most of us were), you might want to give the system, in general, another look via Achtung! Cthulhu. That's a more streamlined version of the rules, but would be a gateway into getting Conan's rules.

 

[schneeland]

Did they pull the license or is it simply expiring? Modiphius has printed something like twenty Conan books, it could be that they've simply decided they've ridden that horse about as far as she can go.

If I'm not mistaken, they had another source book about the Picts upcoming. So to me it didn't feel like they simply let the license lapse. But maybe negotiations about renewal were unsuccessful.

 

[Ringtail]

5e Adventures in Middle Earth blew away the sales of The One Ring under C7. It wasn't even a contest. People love, love, love, their 5e D&D reskins...

This was a huge shame too as AiME sucked. It was literally just 5e with the magic ripped out. Classes were nearly identical to 5e but with different names and no magic, so martial classes were easily twice as good as those based on spellcasters like the Warden or Scholar.

 

[Von Ether]

I think that a large part of the reason for this comes from the IP holder.

R.E. Howard's Conan goes full tilt public domain in 2028. (It's already public domain in some European countries, I know that Chuck Dixon is doing new Conan stories for a Italian based webcomics publisher.)

They have a less than a 6 year window to maximize profits for the Conan IP.

So in 2029 we'll get a slasher flick a Conan's name on it? A modern day dude who wears a loincloth when he goes on a murder spree?
(That's is what just happened to Winnie the Pooh and another IP that went public domain this year)

And don't tell the Lorraine Williams and the rest of the Flint family, I think they are still beating that Buck Rogers horse. And that hero is not even remotely on the same level of recognition as Conan.

 

[agrayday]

It's a damn shame. Modiphus' Conan was the closest to the source material of any tabletop rendition. Its protagonists felt like Hyborian adventurers from word go and the lose armor to avoid taking a wound bit really emulated Howard's combat scenes. Also, the supplements were immaculately sourced. That said there is a literal mountain of material for Conan 2d20.

How popular was the 2D20 system with Conan? I know lots of people who purchased the books for information and art more than playing the game. Online reviewers didn't seem to favor the system or how it was presented for play. I saw several games in our area start up but end pretty quick.

 

[MGibster]

So in 2029 we'll get a slasher flick a Conan's name on it? A modern day dude who wears a loincloth when he goes on a murder spree?

<announcer voice>They thought they were in for some live action role playing. Nobody told them, that for one player, it isn't a role.</announcer voice>

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

How popular was the 2D20 system with Conan? I know lots of people who purchased the books for information and art more than playing the game. Online reviewers didn't seem to favor the system or how it was presented for play. I saw several games in our area start up but end pretty quick.

This is my question too. I'm sure 2d20 must be making money or else you wouldn't see so many variations on it.

My personal problem as an Old is that there's only so much energy to burn learning (or attempting) new systems, especially ones that are drastically different from ones you've used before or don't come from designers you know and trust. I've tried looking at 2d20 and it may sound weird, but I just can't grok it (at least when I looked at Star Trek)

 

[grimslade]

Conan as an IP still has legs. FunCom has leased the digital rights for a long time. From the Age of Conan MMO to Conan Exiles (which just got an update yesterday), to the bizarre but fun retro Conan Chop Chop. The R.E. Howard stories are still in print. There is a new show coming out for Netflix. Sadly, King Conan with Arnold will never come to pass, but it would pop up in almost every interview with Arnold.
So while the details of Conan might be fuzzy to younger generations, he is still the archetype of the burly barbarian. I wish Monolith well in their new TTRPG

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Arnold as King Conan would have been amazing. The Marvel Comics, for those who never read them, are, IMO, among the franchise's best stories.

 

[MGibster]

Arnold as King Conan would have been amazing. The Marvel Comics, for those who never read them, are, IMO, among the franchise's best stories.

I read the first issue a few years back. There's a scene where Conan cuts a dude's hand off and notices a large ruby ring on one of the fingers. Conan sees that the hand is still moving, comes to the conclusion that the ring is magical, and despite being flat broke and in severe need of cash, basically says, "%$#@ it! No way in hell am I going to mess with that kind of sorcery" and he just leaves it in the street. Very much an anti-D&D moment for me.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The most of players would rather to learn only one or two game systems, no more three. The little fishes in the TTRPG industry can't allow the risk of game systems hard to be learnt.

If you want to spend your money, earned after days of hard work, to buy crunch (new powers or magic items) then you would rather the most popular games. If you want lore, then you can read lots of fandom wikis.

Conan can't be like the rest of D&D multiverse, because in those stories the main characters don't trust magic, and only the villains are really powerful spellcasters. And there is only humans, nothing about elves, dwarves and company.

Spoiler: in the end of the Hyrborian age the cosmic cataclysm caused some lands and zones appeared in the island of Fortnite: Battle Royal, or within the D&D multiverse.

* The first movie of Conan with Arnold Schwarzenegger was special because there was a contrast between the pragmatism, cynicism and simplicity of Conan and the concerns and spirituality of other characters.

 

[Yora]

I read the first issue a few years back. There's a scene where Conan cuts a dude's hand off and notices a large ruby ring on one of the fingers. Conan sees that the hand is still moving, comes to the conclusion that the ring is magical, and despite being flat broke and in severe need of cash, basically says, "%$#@ it! No way in hell am I going to mess with that kind of sorcery" and he just leaves it in the street. Very much an anti-D&D moment for me.

There is also the scene where Conan is crucified in a desert and when a vulture lands on his shoulder to peck at his throat, he bites the bird in the neck and drinks its blood to survive a few hours more!

The most metal thing ever put to page.

 

[MGibster]

There is also the scene where Conan is crucified in a desert and when a vulture lands on his shoulder to peck at his throat, he bites the bird in the neck and drinks its blood to survive a few hours more!

The most metal thing ever put to page.

I remember that from the movie, but not the comic. I wouldn't doubt it if it had been in the comic first though.