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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bill Zebub" data-source="post: 9131595" data-attributes="member: 7031982">Another spin-off, similar to this <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/musing-on-star-wars-themes-in-rpg.699854/" target="_blank">Star Wars</a> thread.Some themes I would like to see implemented mechanically in a Conan RPG: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Off-screen adventure transitions: Instead of playing out all the plot hooks and travel between adventures, I would want to jump from the end of one adventure to the beginning of the next, with some random tables used to explain what happened to my treasure from the last time (because Conan NEVER manages to hold onto it) and how I got there.  Mechanically, however, I could see that the quantity of lost wealth affects the results of those random rolls.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gear acquisition and loss: in most RPGs you find an awesome piece of gear (that +1 sword) and then you hold onto it until you find something better.  In some games you might lose it before finding a replacement.  But Conan almost never retains the same weapon or other gear from adventure to adventure, and often replaces them during the adventure.  It's a tricky thing to balance mechanically, because finding "magic items" is, for many of us, a big part of the excitement of fantasy RPGs (and honestly one of the things I find lacking, or poorly executed, in most other genres).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Weapon variety: Throughout Conan's travels, local variations on weapons play a big role.  I don't know how exactly I would want this to be represented, but I'd like the uniqueness of local armaments to be more than just fluff.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Civilization vs. Savagery: Conan's superiority is often attributed to his savage nature.  However, in an RPG I would want both options to be viable, for different reasons.  I would like to see one's "Savagery vs. Civilization" be represented on a spectrum, with each direction on the spectrum having pros and cons that get stronger the farther you are from the center.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Magic is Dangerous: other than Pelas (who has his own issues) magicians/sorcerers are almost universally Bad Guys.  (Priests of Mitra get a pass, but the extent to which they can "do magic" themselves is unclear.). Ok, there's the druid/witch character that helps Conan in one of the later novels, but off the top of my head I'm pretty sure that wasn't REH original.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Superstition -> Shenanigans -> Supernatural.  This might be more a matter of how adventures are written than in the rules of the game, but frequently in Conan stories the plot starts off with the assumption of something supernatural, which turns out to have a mundane explanation because what's really going on is the bad guys are masking their misdeeds with superstition, but then in the final confrontation there turns out to be something supernatural after all, surprising both sides. </li> </ul></blockquote>

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