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Author Topic: Conan Literature  (Read 7670 times)

oggsmash

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #30 on: February 19, 2022, 05:16:05 PM »
Seeing "ejaculated" used unironically in REH's stories never fails to amuse the hell out of me.

Incidentally, I remember using "ejaculated" in one of my essays when I was still in school, inspired by Howard's prose. I got heavily penalized for that lmao.

  It still shows up as a definition for the word via the interwebs.  It does have dated beside it...so maybe your paper grader did not know it was a meaning for the word?

Yes, it's one of those words like niggardly, that most illiterate morons today don't recognize or know the actual meaning of.

   Well that one got a guy in trouble big time years ago, I can not remember if it was congress or on a city council of some big city.  I laughed on that one at the outrage.

Pat
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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #31 on: February 19, 2022, 07:38:55 PM »
Seeing "ejaculated" used unironically in REH's stories never fails to amuse the hell out of me.

Incidentally, I remember using "ejaculated" in one of my essays when I was still in school, inspired by Howard's prose. I got heavily penalized for that lmao.

  It still shows up as a definition for the word via the interwebs.  It does have dated beside it...so maybe your paper grader did not know it was a meaning for the word?

Yes, it's one of those words like niggardly, that most illiterate morons today don't recognize or know the actual meaning of.
It must have been a gay time for intellectual discourse when vocabulary wasn't limited to the modern idiom.

Cat the Bounty Smuggler

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #32 on: February 19, 2022, 10:03:58 PM »
They add all kind of stuff, including tons of Lovecraft that was not in any Howard story.

I can go along with adding in Lovecraftian stuff. Howard and Lovecraft were friends and borrowed from each other more than once.

mudbanks

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #33 on: February 19, 2022, 11:29:43 PM »

Persimmon

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #34 on: February 20, 2022, 09:51:37 AM »
They add all kind of stuff, including tons of Lovecraft that was not in any Howard story.

I can go along with adding in Lovecraftian stuff. Howard and Lovecraft were friends and borrowed from each other more than once.

Of course; everyone knows this. But Modiphius takes it to the extreme, putting cultists all over the place and adding tons of Lovecraftian stuff while crowing about their "Howardian purity," which they also crap on with their sensitivity-based rewriting of certain supplements to virtue signal.

jeff37923

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #35 on: February 20, 2022, 06:21:33 PM »
They add all kind of stuff, including tons of Lovecraft that was not in any Howard story.

I can go along with adding in Lovecraftian stuff. Howard and Lovecraft were friends and borrowed from each other more than once.

Of course; everyone knows this. But Modiphius takes it to the extreme, putting cultists all over the place and adding tons of Lovecraftian stuff while crowing about their "Howardian purity," which they also crap on with their sensitivity-based rewriting of certain supplements to virtue signal.

Hence why I don't buy Modiphius.

There is nothing that any other fantasy RPG can do for Conan-esque adventuring that Modiphius does any better.
"Meh."

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #36 on: February 22, 2022, 09:56:02 PM »
Goodman Games recently had a nice, and informative article on this:

https://goodman-games.com/blog/2022/01/23/the-best-of-the-conan-pastiche-novels-2/

Persimmon

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #37 on: February 23, 2022, 10:30:57 AM »
Goodman Games recently had a nice, and informative article on this:

https://goodman-games.com/blog/2022/01/23/the-best-of-the-conan-pastiche-novels-2/

Thanks; that's not a bad take on the pastiches.  For the past couple years I've been intermittently reading all the Conan stories in chronological order of his life, following the William Galen Gray timeline: http://www.barbariankeep.com/galen.html

And it's interesting to see the widely varying takes.  Some of them are decent enough stories, but don't really feel like Conan.  And in general, I think stretching them out to be full-length novels was a mistake (and clearly just a cash grab by the publishers, notably Ace/Tor).  Because I think a good Conan yarn should be fast-paced, short & visceral.  Then move onto the next.  The novels tend to be spend way too much time with often cookie cutter villains and side characters ripped right out of other 80s-90s fantasy fiction. 

Persimmon

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #38 on: February 23, 2022, 10:38:40 AM »
And, on a slightly related note, despite their recent forays into virtue signalling, it's really too bad that Goodman didn't get the Conan license instead of Modiphius.  DCC would seem to be inherently a much better system for Conan than that God-awful 2d20 crap.  And Goodman has done a credible job with IPs like Lankhmar.  It will be interesting to see their upcoming take on Dying Earth, which I backed as a KS last year.

oggsmash

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #39 on: February 23, 2022, 11:19:53 AM »
And, on a slightly related note, despite their recent forays into virtue signalling, it's really too bad that Goodman didn't get the Conan license instead of Modiphius.  DCC would seem to be inherently a much better system for Conan than that God-awful 2d20 crap.  And Goodman has done a credible job with IPs like Lankhmar.  It will be interesting to see their upcoming take on Dying Earth, which I backed as a KS last year.

  I agree with that a hundred percent.   I have a couple of Modiphius books (Conan and Mutant Chronicles) Conan because I am a fan and inclination to snatch an iteration of the setting, Mutant Chronicles I was interested in as a setting.   That 2d20 might play much better than it reads, but even after watching videos of people playing it, with meta currency as such...it seems to suck.

  I would have snapped up a Savage Worlds Conan as well.

Zirunel

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #40 on: February 23, 2022, 11:48:16 AM »
It will be interesting to see their upcoming take on Dying Earth, which I backed as a KS last year.

I wasn't aware of this. Yes I'll be interested to see it too. could be a difficult setting to do justice to.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2022, 11:49:48 AM by Zirunel »

Persimmon

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #41 on: February 23, 2022, 04:47:07 PM »
It will be interesting to see their upcoming take on Dying Earth, which I backed as a KS last year.

I wasn't aware of this. Yes I'll be interested to see it too. could be a difficult setting to do justice to.

It's going to be pretty big, like the initial Lankhmar set because they hit a ton of stretch goals.  So it's slated to be a hefty boxed set.  The funy thing is, I hadn't actually read Dying Earth before backing, though I had read other stuff by Vance.  After backing I read the Dying Earth [ trilogy and frankly, I must say that I'm not crazy about Vance as a writer, but there's definitely stuff I like about the setting.  I like having alternate settings and worlds for dimension hopping campaigns.    So I've got something pretty interesting that will get my players to Dying Earth.

Zirunel

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #42 on: February 23, 2022, 05:06:26 PM »
The funy thing is, I hadn't actually read Dying Earth before backing, though I had read other stuff by Vance.  After backing I read the Dying Earth [ trilogy and frankly, I must say that I'm not crazy about Vance as a writer, but there's definitely stuff I like about the setting.  I like having alternate settings and worlds for dimension hopping campaigns.    So I've got something pretty interesting that will get my players to Dying Earth.

I guess we'll differ on that. For me, Vance was the best writer in the genre , and he is almost the only genre writer I still re-read on a regular basis. Dying Earth was I think his first fantasy novel, over 70 years ago, and for me it's still a fun read. Anyway, like you I'm interested to see what comes out of this.

Persimmon

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Re: Conan Literature
« Reply #43 on: February 23, 2022, 06:29:17 PM »
The funy thing is, I hadn't actually read Dying Earth before backing, though I had read other stuff by Vance.  After backing I read the Dying Earth [ trilogy and frankly, I must say that I'm not crazy about Vance as a writer, but there's definitely stuff I like about the setting.  I like having alternate settings and worlds for dimension hopping campaigns.    So I've got something pretty interesting that will get my players to Dying Earth.

I guess we'll differ on that. For me, Vance was the best writer in the genre , and he is almost the only genre writer I still re-read on a regular basis. Dying Earth was I think his first fantasy novel, over 70 years ago, and for me it's still a fun read. Anyway, like you I'm interested to see what comes out of this.

Yeah, I prefer the Planet of Adventure books to Dying Earth.  But even those get a bit tedious by the end.  I appreciate the artistic vision, but not crazy about the style.  That's actually how I feel about many, maybe most of the Appendix N authors.  I've been reading lots of them lately because I think you should, but I'm not sure I'll keep re-reading them like I do with Tolkien.