Quote from: Anon Adderlan;926986Which is what concerned me about the latter books and ultimately led to me cancelling my pledge. Because it's somewhat dishonest to claim stripping out 'pastiche' make things more authentic to R.E.H.'s vision when you're engaged in creating your own.

Well, the thing is, Howard wrote very little about a whole lot of the Hyborian Age before he killed himself.  If you want to run a campaign with Hyboria as a detailed setting, you have to make shit up.  Now, what's the difference between the Pastiche writers making shit up, and Modiphius? Well first, the line editor, Jason is kind of a amateur Howard scholar himself, reading a lot of things like Amra Magazine, etc... and they have as consultants, two A-listers when it comes to Literary Criticism of REH, and some of the writers coming up with the plots and adventures aren't Modiphius staffers, but "Howard guys" like Vincent Darlage (mentioned below).

So, specific example...one of the pastiche writers decided to name some cities in Brythunia.  Well, Brythunia exists roughly in the area where Poland is now, so...here's what Pastiche can get you as city names.
Charnina - Czarnina(Polish Duck Soup)
Kelbaza - Kielbasa(Polish Sausage)
Pirogia - Pierogi(Polish Dumplings)
Potrebia - The Trebbia river is one of the tributaries of the Po river.
etc..

When Vincent Darlage, another recognized name in Howard studies, wrote stuff for Mongoose Conan, he (probably due to Mongoose) started from the baseline of all Pastiche, even slapped together, ridiculous pastiche like the names above...and built from there.  Marvel, TSR, GURPS, Mongoose, every Conan game up to now has given the pastiche sources the same authority as Howard himself.

Modiphius is rewinding everything back to Howard's published writings, unpublished writings, synopses, fragments, letters, and non-Conan stories for insights into his interests and beliefs about different people in history.  They are building from that point, and then having everything signed off on by two different Howard scholars to make sure nothing really stupid goes in there.

It's like something about Middle Earth written by Christopher Tolkien vs. Homer Simpson.

Continued below...

Quote from: CRKrueger;926753Hmm.  It's currently 66 pages of setting material based only on original works, fragments and synopses, not counting stuff in other chapters like Character Creation and Magic.  If you were going to run a Conan campaign, I'd say it wouldn't be a bad purchase as a research pdf even if you knew you were never using the system.

I backed the PDF Master level just on that assumption: not sure if I'll use the system, but the material looks like it's worth reading on its own.

..so, you may be asking, if I am such a raving Modiphius fanboy, why am I always going aggro on them?  Well, I do appreciate their stance with regards to the lore of the setting.

However, my concern was that they were focused more on "Playing in a Howard Book" than "Playing in a Howard World".  The use of OOC mechanics to reinforce literary genre is evidence of this.  If this is true, then what they write will be more focused on supporting an episodic, "short-story" based campaign, and the world details will be focused on what is in immediate range of the characters in tabletop detail, but very little to support a campaign that would be served with a good depth of larger-scale detail.  Posts on forums talking about this has been nearly always responded to in a dismissive fashion with the phrase "annual grain output of Aquilonia" used by more than one person to depict the request for details to the setting to be a demand for a Harnmanor like economic simulation.  However, a simple map of Aquilonia showing the rough placement of cities, rivers, mountains, baronies (ie. the places referred to in Howard's own books)is not Phoenix Command level of sim.

Now, having read this chapter, they do include, in some areas, exactly some of the kinds of details that I was worried that they would omit.  Now granted, the Gazetteer chapter is, at this point, very light on maps, and most entries are basic overview of culture, people, etc...but you really would expect that to be light in a main book.  

The fact that they did dig down in the main book, leaves me hope for the specific supplements, hence the apology.

I still have yet to see decent geographical mapping, however, although the adventure did have a well-drawn area map, even if he was abstract.

So the best part of Modiphius' Conan book is the part they cut and paste from REH's books?

Shocking.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927126It's like something about Middle Earth written by Christopher Tolkien vs. Homer Simpson.

Bart would have totally pwnd Sauron.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927129..so, you may be asking, if I am such a raving Modiphius fanboy, why am I always going aggro on them?  Well, I do appreciate their stance with regards to the lore of the setting.

However, my concern was that they were focused more on "Playing in a Howard Book" than "Playing in a Howard World".  The use of OOC mechanics to reinforce literary genre is evidence of this.  If this is true, then what they write will be more focused on supporting an episodic, "short-story" based campaign, and the world details will be focused on what is in immediate range of the characters in tabletop detail, but very little to support a campaign that would be served with a good depth of larger-scale detail.  Posts on forums talking about this has been nearly always responded to in a dismissive fashion with the phrase "annual grain output of Aquilonia" used by more than one person to depict the request for details to the setting to be a demand for a Harnmanor like economic simulation.  However, a simple map of Aquilonia showing the rough placement of cities, rivers, mountains, baronies (ie. the places referred to in Howard's own books)is not Phoenix Command level of sim.

Now, having read this chapter, they do include, in some areas, exactly some of the kinds of details that I was worried that they would omit.  Now granted, the Gazetteer chapter is, at this point, very light on maps, and most entries are basic overview of culture, people, etc...but you really would expect that to be light in a main book.  

The fact that they did dig down in the main book, leaves me hope for the specific supplements, hence the apology.

I still have yet to see decent geographical mapping, however, although the adventure did have a well-drawn area map, even if he was abstract.

Your concerns as you have detailed is EXACTLY why I won't pick the Mophy Conan books.  I don't want to recreate the short stories or novella, I want to recreate playing IN that world, and the mechanics, as you state (at least from what I read and tried in the Quickstart rules) fight me against that.

The thought that in Conan there's a city named after Pierogies is hilarious.

Quote from: CRKrueger;926730But as far as the Gazetteer goes, so far you guys are doing good work.  So, I was full of shit up to my eyebrows and I offer Jason an apology.  It's good stuff.

Thanks, man!

A compiled PDF of the core book is out for proofing by backers. It looks to be a solid book and reasonably pretty (art is sparse but consistently good).

Just skimming the compiled pdf and I can´t seem to find any chapter about religions/gods/demons/outer dark etc. Am I missing something?

Quote from: RPGPundit;928280The thought that in Conan there's a city named after Pierogies is hilarious.

Check out a map of Europe. There are places called Hamburg, Wien, Champagne, Cheddar, etc. It's more menu than map sometimes.

The final Jewelled Thrones of the Earth is out to backers and it's also good. One adventure is clear Red Nails homage and there are six others and a few pages of story seeds. The adventures seem good with none seeming to be a dud on a skim through. The look of the book is also good too, art has a consistent feel and in plentiful, as are the maps. The book also has 30 more pages than promised.

All in all, along with the rulebook, I am very pleased and pleasantly surprised. I am now looking forward to the next four books in Wave 1 even more.

The rulebook and Jewelled Thrones of the Earth go on sale in PDF on Tuesday.

Test product pages are up on Modiphius' site:

https://www.modiphius.net/collections/conan/products/robert-e-howards-conan-roleplaying-game-core-book-pdf
https://www.modiphius.net/collections/conan/products/robert-e-howard-s-conan-jeweled-thrones-of-the-earth-adventures

You can also see the cover of Jewelled Thrones of the Earth.

And this is now out on PDF from Modiphius. It will hit DTRPG tomorrow.

Preview of Conan the Thief is up. Looks pretty good. Nice balance between a sourcebook for the relevant Conan stories and a usable RPG sourcebook for the region and campaign type.