you do realize that Conan is not the only S&S literary hero, right? Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser were literally all about going on adventures to get treasure so they could live decadently.
As I posted upthread, I don't know those stories as well as I know REH.
But you postd: "S&S, whether Howard or Lieber, is all about grand adventures, defeating your enemy, and living in decadence off of the riches you took from said enemies."
Conan
aspires to defeating his enemies and living in decadence on the riches taken from those enemies. But that is not what the REH Conan stories are actually about. And a game of classic D&D, driven by the XP rules (especially XP-for-gold) and playedi in the style advocated by Gygax in the closing pages of his PHB (plan, choose equipment and spell load-outs wisely, scout, map, return for a commando-style raid) won't play much like a REH story. It will play like a squad-level wargame. Which is probably not a great surprise, given the sort of games Gygax and friends enjoyed.
Um, Conan kills a king and takes his throne.
In which story does that happen? That's right - none of them. As I posted, at the moment I can recall only one story in which Conan actually keeps the treasure, and it's not one of the better ones.
Yes, but to say that D&D has antecedent roots in wargaming is an observation roughly on par with, "Water is wet."
But to say that D&D, played as Gygax advises us to, plays like a squad-level wargame rather than like a Conan story, is (i) to say something true, and (ii) to say something that contradicts the contention that classic D&D plays like S&S.
Can you drift classic D&D into Conan-esque S&S if you want? Probably - a spell point system that doesn't require memorisation of spells, ignoring encumbrance rules, and some sort of formal or informal "second chance" system to reduce the likelihood of PC death when risks are taken all might help.
Likewise you can drfit the game into Tolkienesque play if you want.
Well, the RPG part is from focusing on individual characters rather than units, which is the creative quantum leap.
I think the other aspect of RPGing vs wargaming is the extent to which the fiction matters to adjudication. The players are expected to directly engage the fiction in their play of their characters, without looking to have this mediated by express mechanical rules.
EDIT:
I agree that Conan stories were all about "go on grand adventures, kill everything in your way, live like a king off the loot".
Now, it never really worked out* for him. Which is good because without his get-rich-quick schemes there wouldn't have really been a basis for Conan. But that doesn't mean getting rich quick wasn't his goal.
<snip>
*Until he strangled Numedides, of course, but his usurpation of the throne is referenced but isn't actually the subject of any of the stories, and all (?) the stories in which he is already King were completed/written by other writers.
This was cross-posted with my own post just above, and is at least a partial ninja.
Of course Conan
aspires to riches. But the Conan stories don't involve planning, scouting, 10' poles, etc. They involve risks, random guesses, and choosing honour and loyalty over money and safety. There are RPGs that will produce a game that involves such events, and doesn't lead to repeated and near-certain PC death, but classic D&D isn't one of them.
And as far as stories of Conan being king are concerned, the first published Conan story - The Phoenix on the Sword - has Conan as king. The Scarelt Citadel and Hour of the Dragon are the other two I can recall at the moment.
