I think there's better games for this than vanilla D&D. There was a d20 Conan, for one.
I agree with Obryn. I would have given him XP, but it says I need to spread some around first.
Actually, I'd go a step beyond what he said and say that my personal opinion is that you'd be better off not using a d20 game for Conan. Using D&D or a d20 inspired game certainly can work; as said, there was a d20 Conan. However, it is my belief that there are a lot of nuances to the setting, combat styles, and various other things which are far better suited to other systems. I'm not convinced that D&D 5th Edition is the best choice for a Conan game. Again, it can work, but I suspect that using a different game would work better.
Two of the main reasons I feel that way are core parts of D&D: D&D style levels, and D&D style HP.
Yes I have that one but that's not really the point. I mean the Conan modules I have are written for AD&D so I could use that system but that's not what I'm looking for at the moment. If Next is supposedly going back to it's earlier roots, then I expect to be able to play low magic types of campaigns.
It's interesting to see a post which says this. Interesting to me because I recently made a few posts in a different thread in which I said I had better results converting some of the old D&D modules to games which weren't D&D compared to when I tried to convert some of the old D&D modules to D&D 3rd or 4th Edition. It makes me feel a little less crazy to hear that there are some similar (not necessarily the same, but similar) thoughts held by others.
I'm not sure what I think of 5th Edition's style yet. In some ways I think it might be better suited to the type of games I want to run, but, in other ways, I think it may be further away. For example, I think tactics such as using choke points against superior numbers should be a valid tactic which works well. In a different thread (and on twitter,) it was revealed that at least one of the designers feel that 'hoses monsters' who rely on numbers. While that seems like a very minor detail (and maybe it is,) I think it reveals something about some of the mentality about the design and what kind of game D&D 5th Edition will evolve into. Obviously, I can't say for sure what the game will look like without a finished product in my hands, but I do think some of the design statements are revealing when comparing what kind of game I want to play versus what kind of game 5th Edition is intended to be. While that choke point comment is a minor detail, I think (as said already) it reveals an underlying mindset behind the game which is at odds with how I think a game should work, and how I believe a game should be designed to support something similar to the world that Kull and Conan lived in. If it's only one minor detail that needs to be changed, that should be easy. If many of those minor details are weaved into the fabric of the game, it becomes a lot more work to get the style of game I want.
There will be modularity. Maybe that will help. In theory, it should. However, I personally haven't seen anything during the public playtest which indicates that 5th Edition's modularity will address aspects that I want addressed when trying to set the tone for my game. Honestly, now that I think about it, aside from choosing to use feats or not and similar options, I'm not sure I've seen an example of what I'd call modularity in a rpg.
Now, it may very well be that the finished product gets released and proves me completely wrong. That's very much a possibility. That being said, I do think there is at least some merit to looking at the comments made about the design of the game and looking at them in the context of what I've seen so far. I believe that gives some idea about the mindset and mentality about 5th Edition's design and what kind of game it is intended to be. My beliefs may be completely wrong, but, until I see something which makes me believe otherwise, those are the beliefs I have.
