Quote from: Darrin Kelley;978457I'm seeing the same obnoxious behavior from Mythras fan community as I do from Runequest fan community. The treating of Runequest/Mythras as the "one true way". And preaching that from a pulpit.

That behavior only serves to repulse me further from said game system and its community.

As someone who came to the system late this is so not my experience. Very friendly and helpful and overall the least contentious group to have a gaming discussion with. I'm sorry that some bad experience with some other gamers has put you off what I'm hoping will be my core gaming choice but everyone having the same tastes would suck.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;978457OGL Conan worked. Because it was based on the most popular game system in the world. That's why it sold at the level it did. Because the public largely knew what they were getting into.

Could it have been better? Yes. Because no game is perfect.

You could argue any game can work but d20 for Conan was never a great idea. My favourite doesn't need repeating but you have BoL, the mophidius game even HeroQuest.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;978457Would a version based on 5th Edition D&D sell? Yes. Because the market is absolutely starved for 5th Edition supporting material.

I'm not saying D&D 5th Edition is better than Runequest/Mythras. Simply that it is more visible and profitable.

Would sell easily, WotC's barren plains have people parched for settings and campaigns but like AiME even if it's good doesn't mean it'll be the best choice.

That's my opinion anyway.

Quote from: HorusArisen;978480Would sell easily, WotC's barren plains have people parched for settings and campaigns but like AiME even if it's good doesn't mean it'll be the best choice.

Selling is what determines the best choice. Not the arbitrary opinion of a fringe part of the gaming community.

Runequest/Mythras will always appeal only to a thin fringe part of the RPG audience. The 600 pound gorilla in the room is D&D. That's why Mongoose had their sales tank when they converted every one of their licensed games over to Runequest and Traveller. And it is something they have never recovered from.

The Tolkien fans are not going to like me for saying this. But Conan has far and away, always been the more popular fantasy property. It's sales speak for itself. And the RPG products based on it have always outsold those based on Tolkien's work by a large margin. That's the reality.

The true father of modern fantasy has been and always will be Howard.

Quote from: Premier;978313It's been awhile, but isn't he fighting off armoured men while wearing no armour himself, all in the enclosed quarters of his bedroom? I'm sure he could handle a lot more with armour parity.

Not to mention that he was awoken a few moments earlier by these same assassins?  Yeah.

The old Savage Sword magazines weren't actually far off as to how Howard used to portray the skill and cunning of Conan.  They usually had him facing off on barely clad men like himself.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;978522The Tolkien fans are not going to like me for saying this. But Conan has far and away, always been the more popular fantasy property. It's sales speak for itself. And the RPG products based on it have always outsold those based on Tolkien's work by a large margin. That's the reality.

The true father of modern fantasy has been and always will be Howard.

I prefer Howard/Conan over Tolkien/hobbits, but that's just utter nonsense:

Domestic box office gross (not counting video/DVD/whatever):
Return of the King
$377,027,325

Two Towers
$339,789,881

Fellowship of the Ring
$313,364,114

The Hobbit
$303,003,568

The Hobbit 2
$258,366,855

The Hobbit 3
$255,119,788

Foreign box office gross (not counting video/DVD/whatever):
Return of the King
$742,083,616

Two Towers
$583,495,746

Fellowship of the Ring
$555,985,574

The Hobbit
$718,100,000

The Hobbit 2
$700,000,000

The Hobbit 3
$700,900,000

Domestic box office gross (not counting video/DVD/whatever):
Conan the Barbarian (2011)
$21,295,021

Conan the Destroyer
$31,042,035

Conan the Barbarian (1982)
$39,565,475

Foreign grosses not readily available for all the Conan movies.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?id=vs-lotr.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=conan3d.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=conanthedestroyer.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=conanthebarbarian.htm

And you can compare book sales as well if you want further refutation of your assertion. Again, I like Conan better but the world does not. Tolkien's influence on modern fantasy is unfortunately far greater than Howard's. One needs only look at all the knockoffs of Tolkien clogging the bookshelves.

You haven't adjusted for inflation in those movie figures on those Arnold Conan movies.

What would their take be in this day and age?

You didn't even mention the take from the Jason Mamoa Conan movie.

You are refuting nothing by producing incomplete figures.

You would have to be blind not to see the huge amount of novels, pulps, and comics put out since Conan was created. Which is far in excess of whatever other books directly based on Tolkien's properties that have been produced.

Tolkien has never been pastiche'd. It's not an ongoing property. It is what it is. Finite.

Pretenders and copycats don't count. They have produced nothing specifically for that property.

Conan. However. Is an ongoing property. With new material being produced for it every single month. Nonstop.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;978522Selling is what determines the best choice. Not the arbitrary opinion of a fringe part of the gaming community.

Runequest/Mythras will always appeal only to a thin fringe part of the RPG audience. The 600 pound gorilla in the room is D&D. That's why Mongoose had their sales tank when they converted every one of their licensed games over to Runequest and Traveller. And it is something they have never recovered from.

The Tolkien fans are not going to like me for saying this. But Conan has far and away, always been the more popular fantasy property. It's sales speak for itself. And the RPG products based on it have always outsold those based on Tolkien's work by a large margin. That's the reality.

The true father of modern fantasy has been and always will be Howard.

Ah you mean best from marketing viewpoint whereas I'm thinking gaming. Fair enough I can't say your wrong on that.

I'm more a Howard than Tolkien fan but it's a slimmer margin. Only problem with your film argument and inflation though is that a true like for like comparison would require they be released at the same time, I suspect that the, by today's standards, poor quality would put off the MTV crowd.

Overall I'd suspect with the books and comics closer than people realise.

*shh we don't talk about the Momoa film

Quote from: oggsmash;977526Any opinions on the New Conan RPG?

If it's the 2D20 system Conan, buy a Frazetta coffee table book instead. Better art, better written.

To those whining about the system. Have you played it? What happened to justify your opinion.

Quote from: Biscuitician;978670To those whining about the system. Have you played it? What happened to justify your opinion.

I have played with the 2d20 system a bit - with the Star Trek playtest and the Conan quickstart. It's meh. Justified?

Quote from: Biscuitician;978670To those whining about the system. Have you played it? What happened to justify your opinion.

I ran the Conan Quickstart, it did not capture the 'feel' we were looking for and felt very 'fiddly', with the bargaining for momentum.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;978522The Tolkien fans are not going to like me for saying this. But Conan has far and away, always been the more popular fantasy property. It's sales speak for itself. And the RPG products based on it have always outsold those based on Tolkien's work by a large margin. That's the reality.

??
I'm a fan of both, and I still don't get what you mean. As far as fantasy property goes, it is of course plain wrong, since Tolkien stuff (books, movies) tends to outsell Howard stuff by a huge margin, with the exception of comics, but I suppose you mean gaming specifically? But I also highly doubt that the TSR Conan RPG outsold MERP in the 80s, judging from the lack of supplements etc. If you mean D&D, then well, that's not exactly a Conan game is it? It has inspiration from both.

Quote from: Trond;978723??
I'm a fan of both, and I still don't get what you mean. As far as fantasy property goes, it is of course plain wrong, since Tolkien stuff (books, movies) tends to outsell Howard stuff by a huge margin, with the exception of comics, so I suppose you mean gaming specifically? But I also highly doubt that the TSR Conan RPG outsold MERP in the 80s, judging from the lack of supplements etc. If you mean D&D, then well, that's not exactly a Conan game is it? It has inspiration from both.

Here's the thing, Conan hasn't been left to stagnate as a property, there have been comics and magazines from various companies for the past 80+ years, with movies sprinkled in there as well various forms of pastiche works.

However, Tolkien's works, despite not being able to be modified, has never been forgotten.

Quote from: Dumarest;978478I thought it was axiomatic that all fan communities are obnoxious.

Oh man, when speaking about hardcore fans you're right (joking or not). I've had D&D fans who simply would not touch any other game, or ruin other games because they could not stop talking in terms of D&D-isms. I also remember groups a good while back who thought that the only cool RPG ever was VtM.

Quote from: Biscuitician;978670To those whining about the system. Have you played it? What happened to justify your opinion.

Yes, I have given it an honest try with my group. My biggest complaint is with the momentum/doom economy which forces players to play out of character and manipulate the widgets of the game rather than playing their characters.  Unlike FATE, it is a narrative game that cannot be played IC as a traditional game.  There are other problems.  The Doom mechanic, in one stroke, pits the GM in an adversarial role against the players while giving the the players the power to decide how much power the GM has. The whole game has a Karmic cosmic balance kind of feel in that the characters can accomplish almost anything they want by manipulating the cosmic economy, but the consequence is that they unleash the GM to screw with them in doing so.  So you have this feel of "my success will bring trouble or suffering later" - and that just has nothing to do with Howard.  Other minor problems are ubiquitous range band abstractions and mook rules that needlessly complicate the game and make it feel distinctly like a game.  In the whole bauble economy, you can also borrow other people's success, so if your thief sneaks well in one scene, I can barrow the point off of that success and increase my chance to hit with a sword.  I've been game mastering since the late '70s and I have run almost everything out there, and run into all kinds of players and play styles. I've run numerous successful Hyborian Age campaigns using GURPS, Mongoose d20, BoL, and BRP.  I desperately wanted to like this, but this 2d20 system is a bad fit for Conan, and it is a bad excuse for an RPG overall.  I don't expect everybody to agree with me, but I think my opinion is well justified.

I think 2d20 Conan is an example of a company with money buying a famous IP and trying to shove their crappy proprietary Jay Little system down buyers throats with shiny covers, and big industry names. It's just like what Fantasy Flight did to WFRP.  Now, Modiphius learned a few things from WFRP 3.  They got great artists, REH scholars like Jeff Shanks, and Jason Durall to run the show. They made "the one and only official REH's Conan game." I respect a these guys that Modiphius hired. But Shanks isn't a gamer.  He doesn't know how mechanics interact with setting or can define a game's semblance to the literature.  He's an REH scholar, he oversees the purity of the fluff to make sure there is no influence from pastiche (which was a common complaint about Mongoose Conan).  He has no influence over the mechanics. Neither does Jason.  He's the line developer, not the game designer. He is a fantastic writer who "gets it," and who gets Conan, and he's a hell of good guy to boot. He came here to the RPGsite and debated 2d20 Conan mechanics with us for days.  But the game was already designed by Jay Little for Mutant Chronicles and his hands are tied.  I have no doubt that Jason, Jeff, and a whole stable of artists and writers will deliver some great material - but the game still sucks.

End of rant

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;978573You haven't adjusted for inflation in those movie figures on those Arnold Conan movies.

What would their take be in this day and age?

You didn't even mention the take from the Jason Mamoa Conan movie.

You are refuting nothing by producing incomplete figures.

You would have to be blind not to see the huge amount of novels, pulps, and comics put out since Conan was created. Which is far in excess of whatever other books directly based on Tolkien's properties that have been produced.

Tolkien has never been pastiche'd. It's not an ongoing property. It is what it is. Finite.

Pretenders and copycats don't count. They have produced nothing specifically for that property.

Conan. However. Is an ongoing property. With new material being produced for it every single month. Nonstop.

Dude, are you serious?  If so, you might want to check your meds. I mean who uses pastiche'd as a verb?

He did quote the Conan 2011 film and it wasn't a drop in Galadriels mirror.  "Did you adjust for inflation?" C'mon.  Oh yeah, TOR Conan Novels by great authors like Maddox-Roberts or Bjorn Nyberg outsell Tolkien, sure.
And lets not forget Carter and de Camp.  Or what about Poul Anderson, Karl E. Wagner, and the great Robert Jordan. Roy Thomas! Some of it is great stuff, but it is not even in the same financial ballpark as Tolkien.

Right, Conan is a brand that makes money, and Howard really was the father of fantasy in my mind.  I prefer his brand of fantasy. Conan may even be as popular as Middle Earth in some gaming circles.  There is a definite niche. But - Tolkien is a modern pillar of western civilization.  The Lord of the Rings is in the running for the most popular and influential book of the 20th century. With Pete Jackson's movies winning at the academy and breaking box office records, forget about it. Your nuts if you think Conan as a property comes anywhere close.