Jason and/or ChrisBirch...

1. Is chargen going to cover all the races/nationalities (Hyborian, Nordheimr, Stygian, Zingaran, Shemite, Hyrkanian, Khitan, Vendhyan, Pict etc) or are you going to focus on the Hyborian nations only at first?

2. Any hints as to how Sorcery will be dangerous?  Corruption mechanic, spell backfires, demonic possession?

3. From what I understand, the 2d20 system allows for specific hit locations, what about critical hits and lasting effects?  How crunchy is melee combat going to be?

Quote from: CRKrueger;815979Jason and/or ChrisBirch...

1. Is chargen going to cover all the races/nationalities (Hyborian, Nordheimr, Stygian, Zingaran, Shemite, Hyrkanian, Khitan, Vendhyan, Pict etc) or are you going to focus on the Hyborian nations only at first?

The plan, as far as I know it, is to include all relevant races in the core rulebook. I'm not a big fan of distributing basic character generation choices across multiple books.

We may see regional sourcebooks providing additional cultures, but you should be able to play the obvious choices right out of the gate.

There is talk of a boxed starter set, and that might be more limited in the breadth of character creation options.

But none of this is set in stone yet. We're focused on the system right now.

Quote from: CRKrueger;8159792. Any hints as to how Sorcery will be dangerous?  Corruption mechanic, spell backfires, demonic possession?

Sorcery is one of those systems being worked on now. The goals are "deadly to the body and corrosive to the soul".

Quote from: CRKrueger;8159793. From what I understand, the 2d20 system allows for specific hit locations, what about critical hits and lasting effects?  How crunchy is melee combat going to be?

We're going for something that's visceral yet contains enough detail for specific effects. Once we are happy with the level of abstraction vs. specificity, we'll begin some earnest playtesting and see if we need to refine.

Quote from: Jason D;815193We didn't recruit two Conan/REH experts so we could use Carter/De Camp.

(I'm always torn about those two. Their non-Conan writings are actually kind of enjoyable, if sometimes trashy or derivative, but they're forever going to be defined as "the guys who wrecked Conan".)

Hes the literary equivalent of Asylum movies. I was neutral on Carters Conan books, and then I found out what a dick he was - yeebus does he have it in for Lovecraft.

And its probably for the best that the Thongor movie didnt take off as Thongor himself ended up on another swords-n-science movie. As some fellow named Vader. Wonder how that went? :eek:

Quote from: Jason D;815193We didn't recruit two Conan/REH experts so we could use Carter/De Camp.

(I'm always torn about those two. Their non-Conan writings are actually kind of enjoyable, if sometimes trashy or derivative, but they're forever going to be defined as "the guys who wrecked Conan".)

Hes the literary equivalent of Asylum movies. I was neutral on Carters Conan books, and then I found out what a dick he was - yeebus does he have it in for Lovecraft too.

And its probably for the best that the Thongor movie didnt take off as Thongor himself ended up on another swords-n-science movie. As some fellow named Vader. Wonder how that went? :eek:

Quote from: Omega;816037Hes the literary equivalent of Asylum movies. I was neutral on Carters Conan books, and then I found out what a dick he was - yeebus does he have it in for Lovecraft.

And both Lovecraft and REH were collossally racist pricks, which occasionally poisons their stories. Evaluating the quality of any literary work on the base of the personality of their creators is a dangerous route to travel, because one of its often reached destinations is the "if you like this stuff, you must also be a horrible person, therefore I am so much better than you" moralizing elitist's point of view.

Quote from: Beagle;816049And both Lovecraft and REH were collossally racist pricks.

That's a very broad brush with which to paint these two men.

Quote from: Omega;816037Hes the literary equivalent of Asylum movies. I was neutral on Carters Conan books, and then I found out what a dick he was - yeebus does he have it in for Lovecraft.

That's news to me. How does that square with his writing Lovecraft: A Look Behind The Cthulhu Mythos, which is a fairly positive view of HPL and his work?

Quote from: Jason D;816054That's news to me. How does that square with his writing Lovecraft: A Look Behind The Cthulhu Mythos, which is a fairly positive view of HPL and his work?

The one where he establishes which stories "belong" in the Mythos? Where he all but waxes poetic about Derleth? Ragging on Lovecraft's spelling, bitching about his word count as if it were some sort of literary barometer? yadda yadda.

Mind you, read it ages and ages ago and those are the parts that stuck.

Back on the subject of the new Conan RPG. Any connections or discussions with the folks doing the Conan board game over on Kickstarter? The minis at least would be great for the RPG.

Quote from: Omega;816079Back on the subject of the new Conan RPG. Any connections or discussions with the folks doing the Conan board game over on Kickstarter? The minis at least would be great for the RPG.

From the announcement linked in the first post:

QuoteModiphius is working with other Conan Properties licensing partners including Monolith Board Games, creator of the hit CONAN boardgame which has surpassed $2 million on Kickstarter, and Funcom, creator of the long-running, free-to-play, MMO Age of Conan. Modiphius plans some select supplements including missions designed for the Monolith boardgame, as well as floorplan tile sets allowing you to use Conan miniatures in your roleplaying adventures!

Great. You really have brought this all together well and good to see publishers working with eachother instead of against.

Reminds me I should some day try a reprint of the Equine and Red Shetland RPG based on the Conan parody comics.

Though dont think would try with so much Conan stuff coming out all at once.

Quote from: beeber;814921http://www.modiphius.com/conan.html

using something called the 2d20 system that appears in Mutant Chronicles.  anyone know that one?

I checked out MC3, and only have one comment: This is what happens when you try to make an RPG a wargame, you get an RPG that feels more like a wargame and less like an RPG. It's PLAYED like an RPG but doesn't really FEEL like one. This idea of attribue +skill=target number rolled on 2d20 vs number of successes to BE successful is like playing D&D:
GM: "Okay, you need a 12 to hit AC2"
PC: "I hit!"
GM: "Great! Now roll again to see how successful you were. You need 3 successes, so roll 2-more times and be successful, otherwise you fail."
PC: "No way! Why am I rolling again? I hit!"
GM: This is a new Idea I'm borrowing from Modiphius' 2d20 system."
PC: I hate it. I'm gonna go play GURPS. C-ya!

Quote from: hellraezer;870249I checked out MC3, and only have one comment: This is what happens when you try to make an RPG a wargame, you get an RPG that feels more like a wargame and less like an RPG. It's PLAYED like an RPG but doesn't really FEEL like one. This idea of attribue +skill=target number rolled on 2d20 vs number of successes to BE successful is like playing D&D:
GM: "Okay, you need a 12 to hit AC2"
PC: "I hit!"
GM: "Great! Now roll again to see how successful you were. You need 3 successes, so roll 2-more times and be successful, otherwise you fail."
PC: "No way! Why am I rolling again? I hit!"
GM: This is a new Idea I'm borrowing from Modiphius' 2d20 system."
PC: I hate it. I'm gonna go play GURPS. C-ya!

This is pretty much the exact opposite of how the demo games have gone.

Quote from: Larsdangly;814926Why can't someone figure out how to do what everyone obviously wants: a Conan game for Runequest or some other major, well supported system that is well suited to the genre. We seem to find a way to fuck up nearly every licensed setting.

Both TSR and SJG did take swings at Conan.  Both, eventually, failed.  NO license has been through more hands than Conan, and the record of failure's impressive.

Writing for licensed properties is bearish. The property owners don't want you creating anything that will restrict their freedom of maneuver, and in some cases inexplicably so -- WTF, it wasn't as if by the time MERP was in production that Tolkien was doing any more writing save through a Ouija board, and there are times where I was convinced certain license holders shot things down for the sake of shooting things down.

These things seldom make money. Especially with TV/movie properties, contracts are signed at the peak of the buzz ... and then the show goes out of first run and the movie's out of the theaters. The audience for the likes of Buffy, Firefly, TMNT and Babylon 5, for instance, have dwindled over time. Seriously, can anyone think of a licensed property that became a major, permanent player in the RPG industry other than CoC?

It's also a truism that a lot of hardcore fans will hate with a hot heavy hate any licensed product on the ground that it's not the work they would themselves have written. They hate it when a certain plot element gets included, they hate it if a certain plot element doesn't get included, they hate it when their favorite/hated characters are/are not featured, they hate it when the writers make a presumption about characters or events they themselves wouldn't have made.

Finally, the audience just isn't as large as people think it is. We're not (say) peddling Conan just to gamers. We're not (say) peddling it just to gamers who like pulp fantasy. We're not (say) peddling it just to pulp fantasy gamers who happen to be Conan fans. We're not (say) peddling it just to pulp fantasy gamers who happen to be Conan fans and don't mind this indy system. We're (say) peddling it to pulp fantasy gamers who happen to be Conan fans, don't mind this indy system, and think the writers did a good job. That is not an easy sell, and that breakdown applies to pretty much any licensed game.

My problem with licensed settings is that I generally don't want to run, or play in, anything like a precise recreation. I don't want to play Star Trek I want to play something LIKE Star Trek... positive future, organized exploration, weird aliens and diplomacy. I really don't give two craps if the space elves are called 'Vulcans' or not (though the Star Fleet Battles alt-verse would suit me fine).
The Star Wars games I've played in were all hamstringed by expectations we would be recreating the same stuff as the movies... which ended up feeling like some crappy Ed Wood remake of A New Hope.
With a Conan game I'd want the brutal combat and weird horrors... serpent people and exotic ancient civilizations. I don't really need or want it to have Conan in it... or any of the other stuff that's likely protected as IP. So yeah, RQ6 seems like it would be ideal for that, for me.

My experiences over time are the same as Simlasa's. I have more fun running Conanesque games with Atlantis: The Second Age than with any official Conan RPG (of which I tried many).