Conan: The Roleplaying Game

Overall score:

Conan: The Roleplaying Game is another example that can easily be used in the argument for Mongoose being the best publisher of d20 game products, up to and possibly even including Wizards of the Coast (your personal opinion of setting quality published by Wizards being the determinate there).

I gave a fairly glowing review of Babylon 5 because even after a nasty dirty attempt by someone to make a d20 version of Traveller (leaving you bogged down in so many unnecessary calculations and rule additions/changes that it was like reading all the bad parts of a Hugo Gurnsback novel without even getting the bare traces of plot he gives), no one had done a satisfactory SF d20 game; but Mongoose did one that preserved hard SF but remained exciting and fast to run. Conan manages to do a similar thing for d20 Fantasy.

"What?" you're probably demanding. "d20 is based on D&D, which is fantasy. What do you mean no one's done it right?" Well, let's get this out of the way. You either like the d20 system or you don't. I can't convince you of that. It works pretty well for epic fantasy where people are hacking away at each other and can still drag themselves up to get one last killing blow in. This is, essentially, what you get in Conan (after all, the character hung on a cross for several days before ripping himself down to get revenge; he's not someone who's going down with a simple cudgel blow). While Conan makes a few rule changes, primarily for the better, this isn't how it improves on d20 fantasy.

As I've said before The default D&D settings (all of them: Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Kalamar, all of them.) have some inherent weaknesses that cause me, at least, some serious crises of belief and general balance. You really notice these problems when you read novels set in D&D settings (we'll get reviews for some of those really soon) where magic is so prevalent you have to settle for not understanding some things or being an expert in a game to read the book. None of it makes much sense.

Conan's solution is simple, and perhaps not even intentional. You just copy Robert Howard's setting. The heroes are notorious for losing money, so they can't gain too much material gain, and the magic is scarce at best. Magic is also pretty much evil, and its practitioners tend to end up dying in nasty ways once they start to gain significant power. While skills and combat ability grow still, you don't have all that loot to worry about, and that's easily 75% of the problem with characters being too powerful for the setting. You don't have to devise traps designed specifically for your characters (set by people not expecting them) in order to make the game a challenge.

Supporting this is a revised experience system, which doesn't give xp so much for monster slaying as it does for playing well. Yes, it makes the GM less of a bean counter and more of a judge. For me, this is a good thing. Some may have a hard time finding it fair. These latter people should be playing video games, however, so I'm not concerned about them.

Sorcery is also altered. The magic system is very different, working off power points and choosing known spells as you go. You don't "study" to regain spells, you rest to regain power points. There are also other (universally nasty) ways of gaining extra power points, so you can get off that really killer spell if you're willing to lie around for a bit afterward. The low magic contributes to the possibility of a party that can adventure with no spellcasters or healers at all. Frankly, this gives more freedom to the players to choose what they want to be without changing the effectiveness of the party.

The book contains an excellent history (taken from Robert E. Howard's own writing) and a decent coverage of various locales. It is not complete, but covers most of the places you'd usually go.

The book is far from perfect, starting with the art. The book is full color, and fairly well laid out. No problems there. But while the art exceeds many other RPG works, it's fuzzy in many of the wrong places. Even an amateur like me can easily see a number of anatomical problems. My worst complaint will probably seem a bit prudish to some of you, but it's highly annoying and I make no apologies. The border around each page is identical, and very evocative of the setting. However, there is a completely topless girl (very sketchily drawn) in this border. Having a nude show up on every single page is at once tiresome and a little offensive.

More practical problems include the sorcery rules. I know I just praised them, but they're incomplete. You have to make assumptions about how some of them are applied, and there's no way to be sure. There are no answers to these questions on the Mongoose site, either.

The "races," all of which are human, tend to run together as well. It's hard to choose what you want unless you're already very familiar with the setting and the different nationalities. It's a minor thing, but it's daunting enough to make someone hesitate. On this note, the classes seem to be missing a couple things. For example, there is a Pirate class, but no Sailor class. You can't choose a seagoing character without being a blood-lusting criminal, apparently.

On the whole, though, the system is recommendable. It corrects the problems with the feel of D&D settings and gives some good alternative rules that many will find interesting. Frankly, I would never pay for such a book with the border art (one or two pictures I can tolerate or edit; every single page, well, that's a bit much). Even so, it's a big fat book with lots of good contents, so most people who suffer the hefty price tag and don't mind the art will be very satisfied.

Written by SaintEhlers on April 07th, 2004