I always roll crap, but my son manages the most difficult rolls. As in: you need a 5 or less on d100 "I got a 4 dad". Hard to have an exciting adventure if they don't fail at least a few times
Again, a very fair review Seth - I can't agree with you more. Great though the 2d20 system is, it could be explained with greater clarity. And your description of the system as 'riding arazor's edge between being intuitively simple and dauntingly complex'is perfect.
The law is not to play Basil Poledouris Conan soundtrack during this game. The law is to play it in every fantasy campaign you're doing at least once, when the party travels through wastelands or infiltrate a strange cult.
Excellent review Seth! looks like a lot of fun and can't wait to see you review more from this RPG system. That helm, fur coat and sword was a great touch!
Having GMd Conan 2d20 well over a year I can say it's a great system. Your questions are answered in the core book. Listening you, they should have probably not issued quick guide at all. And Bleeding condition is not in the core book either :)
Yeah, quick guides are tricky. I don't envy anyone who tries to shave an entire system down into 15-20 pages. Even then, I think they did a good enough job to get people interested in the system. But, please tell me that there is an actual rule in the core-book that you must play the Conan Soundtrack during the game....even if it's an optional rule or strongly-worded suggestion.
No, there is not :-) You know why? This is true to Howard's Conan, a treat for the purist, they even had allegedly access to some archives. So movie Conan is off-limits.
Originally, I struggled with Doom as GM finite currency. That's not RPG-like. However, we GMs agreed that Doom is used to adjust an on-going scene abruptly, not the buy the scene premise.
I know this is an old video, but regarding the 'zones' mechanic. I suspect this directly relates to the Modiphius Conan maps which have zones marked on them, as do the maps from the excellent Conan Board Game which has great figures and maps that are just being begged to be used for the RPG.
I tried this session out with my group because I've always wanted to run a Conan Tabletop Game. We all had a lot of fun with it even if we were constantly referring back to the rules. I don't think it involves as much number crunching as some people pointed out. To me this system was less about "did it hit?" and more "Did it hurt?" because I thought Soak was a rather interesting concept even if the Archer was fairly overpowered and I found myself running out of Doom even on tougher enemies just to keep them alive from her wrath. Even the Cult Leader died from a single Arrow. Though she was at Epic Range and the Archer burned through Fortune and Momentum to make this one shot that just so happened to ignore all of her soak and delt just enough damage to one-shot her. It was an awesome thing to have but to see such a prominent character get BTFO'd in a single moment was a little disappointing. The Barbarian burned through all of his Fortune and Momentum at the end to basically one shot Kutallu. Though it was on the 3rd round and Kutallu almost killed one of them with that nasty little savage attack he has if he knocks someone prone. I do like the whole risk/reward system. But I found that it's a little too easy for players to earn momentum and I was struggling just to get Doom. The only reliable time I could get it was when my players were taking too long to do something. I will probably pick up the core rulebook since I thought that this system was unique and once we got the ball rolling the combat moved a lot quicker than Pathfinder or any other version of D&D. As long as you're good at doing math in your head then combat just goes on Easy Street.
Have you checked out the other adventure, "To Race the Thunder," in the regular Conan Quickstart rules? I'd hoped to have run it last weekend, but some last minute schedule conflicts delayed it.
Is there a possibility someone has this PDF to share to a "late to the party" DM who would like to try this out? All the official channels have discontinued even the free versions. It would be much appreciated. Also very nice review Seth. Thank you :)
What is best in life? By Crom free Conan stuff with a dash of Lovecraftian horror has to rate pretty highly! Looks interesting, I'll definitely check it out. Modiphius is producing some interest stuff these days. I'm eagerly awaiting a print copy of their Star Trek RPG...oh & Fantasy Jack is great.
The rules took us a bit to wrap our heads around (mostly in breaking old habits in gaming), but once it clicked it was a blast. I'm really impressed. I'm sure the full-sized rules not only address my complaints, but offer a ton of great options. And Fantasy Jack was fun, but that fur cloak was super hot.
What is best in life? "Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper." -- Cohen the Barbarian in conversation with Discworld nomads (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)
Great review as always Seth! We too have struggled a bit with the rules in Mutant Chronicles (the same 2d20 system). They say its "A d20 based cinematic system with 8 attributes that is fast and furious". But its not. It is rather good BUT its learning curve is not that easy, and it is NOT "fast". Savage worlds rules is fast and furious. This is slow and very number crunching and a LOT of things to keep in mind all the time. All the talents and what they do, if you have focus on skills, in what range zone your in and what range your weapons have, how many successes and momentum you have and modifiers, if you use chronicle points, if you use dark symmetri points, if you use reloads and so on, and the GM has it even worse with all the NPCs different skills, weapons, mods, and to remember using dark symmetri (guess thats Doom in Conan) etc etc. That said, after a few games and you getting the feel for it, it works rather well. It will always be a crunching slow game in comparison to for example Savage Worlds or CoC. But if you dont mind that I think its rather good. There are some things I personally do not care for. For example that there is no money and amunition. Instead there is resources and reloads. And there are few to none examples how much resources is so when the players found something worth money and you say "you find stuff for 2 resources" they always ask how much it is and it is very hard to give examples because there are no examples to give. I never understood the point of that "resource-thing-rules". I think it was to make the rules faster, but instead it became even more slow and difficult. (Why reinvent the wheel??) The abstract ammunition count is also kind of boring. I want to count how much (or how few rather) bullets i have left, it makes things more exciting. ("oh man, im on the last mag!") But that is perhaps more of personal taste rather then lack of rules. Is it the same thing in Conan for arrows and coins? The ranges is also abstract and I agree that it is sometimes hard to figure out how far it is to things on the fly in the game, another thing that they did to make it faster, but ends up taking more time in the end. The Talents is a fun detail, its like feats in dnd. But it quickly gets bogged down because its to much information and you go "Oh crap I missed....or...wait, checking my talents....okey I get a reroll on this...oh no wait it was on damage...hmm was it on melee or ranged...wait now I can choose another target...or...wait...have to check the talent...naw it was for melee, never mind.." Dont get me wrong, I like the talents, but again, it is NOT a "fast and furious" system. That is so far from the truth that I just had to write this little rant. =P I have just bought Star Trek wich also is the 2d20 system and I look forward to read the rules for that with a blend of excitement and horror. =)
No problem with the rant at all. Trust me, I've had my fair share of game-system rants. It's interesting about reloads and money. Those weren't in the quick-guide, but they were trying to cram a lot into 17 pages, so I didn't think much of it. And I can see how keeping up with momentum could get tiring once all the rules and abilities were available. My philosophy on game combat is that I need it to be fast. Combat should be exciting, but some systems start throwing out so many numbers and goofy rules that combat becomes tedious. To me, if combat is tedious, even after everyone is proficient in the rules, then the game-system has failed. All the cool feats and bonuses mean nothing it the combat they're intended for is boring. And I'm the same, i want them to know how many arrows or bullets they have left and start sweating as they get lower and lower.
I thought 2d20's combat in Conan was actually rather good. I think most people experience difficulty in understanding the feats and skill sets thing during the first go around but once we got the hang of it the whole system was extremely smooth. Enemies tended to die in one round but that's what I liked about it. You no longer spent 2 hours on what should be a minute long fight because you have too many people deliberating on what they should do, mapping out options, rolls, re-rolls, declarations, etc. Here it's just "roll 2d20 for a success, game master rolls against it, roll xd6 for damage, discard 3's and 4's(unless you have an ability that lets you re-roll them), 1,2's are damage and 5,6's are effects along with it. Calculate damage, subtract soak(unless you ignore soak) and that's how much Damage you do." It sounds really complicated when you lay it out like that but it all just amounts to about 2 seconds worth of math.
Hey Seth... I've been watching all your Conan reviews in prep for a game im gonna run in Dec. I cant for the life of me figure out if I should use these rules or something else? lol
My players loved Conan, but I never got 100% comfortable with it. Pit of Kutallu was our first game and using only the Quickstart Rules. Later after we picked up the full rules we got better. Sadly, the Conan license ended and the game isn't in print anymore. Despite my complaints wit it, it was a beautiful game and did a fantastic job capturing the Conan world. I'm not the best to ask as far as what fantasy system to use, as I don't play fantasy games all too often anymore and can't say which ones I think would be best for a pulpy Conan game. I've heard Savage Worlds is good (never played it) and I enjoyed the one session I played Dragon Bane. But I recommend looking in to them a bit further before laying down any money.
Not yet. Though there is one coming. I wanted to get several adventures and sessions under my belt, and see a lot of the game at work before formulating a full opinion. I will say that the concerns I had when doing this Quickstart remain concern areas. But also, my players LOVE the system.
@@SSkorkowsky It looks like it'd be fun and pulpy, and I'm kinda tired of people being so agonizingly serious about fantasy games. Am I in the right ball park?
I find it fun and pulpy. However, in my experience, players who take a game too seriously can do that to almost anything. Sometimes, just changing the game to any other system is a hard enough reset on them that you can steer the game a more light-hearted direction before their over-seriousness has time to fully set back in (I hope that makes sense.) The big plus with Conan that I've seen is the Momentum Pool. My players REALLY worked together in building up Momentum for one another, and it made their teamwork much stronger than it had been in previous systems. Some reviews I've seen have blasted that aspect as being too Meta, but for us it really increased the teamwork.
The full review will be weird. The problem is that I enjoy the game and the work they did to make it feel like Howard's world is very visible. It feels like a different kind of world than most other Fantasy games. But it's also weird and has some definite awkward spots. The book is laid out poorly for finding rules quickly and much of it is written as if they assume you already know the rules. They could have used more examples. I've never simultaneously loved and hated a game this much. My final opinion on it is pretty much that people should try the 2 quickstart adventures to see how they like it before spending money on it.
That’s because Robert E Howard, who created Conan, was a contemporary and , I believe, friend of H. P. Lovecraft. So some lovecraftian elements found their way into the world of Conan.
Modphius is really bad about introducing fairly nebulous concepts and then not giving you very many examples to clarify what they mean in actual play. The Star Trek version has focus and determination. Both concepts are pretty important mechanically but there are very few examples of what they mean in concrete terms. Focus is an area of expertise but there's not many examples of how broad or narrow this should be. Should it be very narrow like xenogenetics, more broad like xenology or very broad like biology? Focuses come up a lot in play and have a substantial mechanical effect so the lack of examples is a problem. Determination is like a moral principle or central aspect of your character but there are almost no examples of what these should look like. The terrible organization of their game books does not help.
It's just different. Some depends on how you like to play and what you're looking for. Conan is lower magic with only human races (that I've seen. It's only a 17-page quick guide). The rules systems are extremely different. They put a lot of effort into really getting the "feel" of the old Conan stories. So if you're wanting something like that, then it's definitely worth checking out.
I've been running it for a few months and really enjoying it. Once you're up to speed it's way faster than Pathfinder and personally I prefer it but I'm not a fan of standard d20 mechanics.
Is anything not superior to Pathfinder? That game has just jumped the shark with rules bloat and options. The monster stat blocks and abilities are just out of hand.
My biggest challenge with running Conan is getting my players to switch from a methodical D&D mindset to a seat of your loincloth pulp approach.
A few moons at the Tree of Woe should do the trick
"It's these stupid dice! They keep rolling twenties!"
I wish I had that problem.
I always roll crap, but my son manages the most difficult rolls. As in: you need a 5 or less on d100 "I got a 4 dad". Hard to have an exciting adventure if they don't fail at least a few times
Run my first session ever using this module. Your advice and insight was invaluable! We had a blast!
Again, a very fair review Seth - I can't agree with you more. Great though the 2d20 system is, it could be explained with greater clarity. And your description of the system as 'riding arazor's edge between being intuitively simple and dauntingly complex'is perfect.
The law is not to play Basil Poledouris Conan soundtrack during this game. The law is to play it in every fantasy campaign you're doing at least once, when the party travels through wastelands or infiltrate a strange cult.
Excellent review Seth! looks like a lot of fun and can't wait to see you review more from this RPG system. That helm, fur coat and sword was a great touch!
Thanks.
Just purchased this! So excited to run it with my table
Industry, grant me a Robert E. Howard Conan RPG. And if you do not listen, then the HELL with you!
I Kickstarted this game. I love it. I've never had a chance to play it.
Ok this adventure module sounds so cool! I'm gonna have to pick it up and try this game finally (been on the fence for months)
Having GMd Conan 2d20 well over a year I can say it's a great system. Your questions are answered in the core book. Listening you, they should have probably not issued quick guide at all. And Bleeding condition is not in the core book either :)
Yeah, quick guides are tricky. I don't envy anyone who tries to shave an entire system down into 15-20 pages. Even then, I think they did a good enough job to get people interested in the system.
But, please tell me that there is an actual rule in the core-book that you must play the Conan Soundtrack during the game....even if it's an optional rule or strongly-worded suggestion.
No, there is not :-) You know why? This is true to Howard's Conan, a treat for the purist, they even had allegedly access to some archives. So movie Conan is off-limits.
Complication can be cashed in as 2 Doom btw
Originally, I struggled with Doom as GM finite currency. That's not RPG-like. However, we GMs agreed that Doom is used to adjust an on-going scene abruptly, not the buy the scene premise.
I concur with Jack's assessment. Poledouris' soundtrack is mandatory.
7:45 - Someone else has probably already mentioned it, but that's the exact start of the Conan MMORPG ^^
+1 on the soundtrack rule
Great review, as always. it sounds like your group had a blast with the scenario. And is that a Melnibonean chaos symbol on Jack's helmet?
Thanks, man.
Yes it's a chaos symbol. :-)
I know this is an old video, but regarding the 'zones' mechanic. I suspect this directly relates to the Modiphius Conan maps which have zones marked on them, as do the maps from the excellent Conan Board Game which has great figures and maps that are just being begged to be used for the RPG.
I tried this session out with my group because I've always wanted to run a Conan Tabletop Game. We all had a lot of fun with it even if we were constantly referring back to the rules.
I don't think it involves as much number crunching as some people pointed out. To me this system was less about "did it hit?" and more "Did it hurt?" because I thought Soak was a rather interesting concept even if the Archer was fairly overpowered and I found myself running out of Doom even on tougher enemies just to keep them alive from her wrath.
Even the Cult Leader died from a single Arrow. Though she was at Epic Range and the Archer burned through Fortune and Momentum to make this one shot that just so happened to ignore all of her soak and delt just enough damage to one-shot her. It was an awesome thing to have but to see such a prominent character get BTFO'd in a single moment was a little disappointing.
The Barbarian burned through all of his Fortune and Momentum at the end to basically one shot Kutallu. Though it was on the 3rd round and Kutallu almost killed one of them with that nasty little savage attack he has if he knocks someone prone.
I do like the whole risk/reward system. But I found that it's a little too easy for players to earn momentum and I was struggling just to get Doom. The only reliable time I could get it was when my players were taking too long to do something.
I will probably pick up the core rulebook since I thought that this system was unique and once we got the ball rolling the combat moved a lot quicker than Pathfinder or any other version of D&D.
As long as you're good at doing math in your head then combat just goes on Easy Street.
Have you checked out the other adventure, "To Race the Thunder," in the regular Conan Quickstart rules? I'd hoped to have run it last weekend, but some last minute schedule conflicts delayed it.
Is there a possibility someone has this PDF to share to a "late to the party" DM who would like to try this out? All the official channels have discontinued even the free versions. It would be much appreciated. Also very nice review Seth. Thank you :)
What is best in life? By Crom free Conan stuff with a dash of Lovecraftian horror has to rate pretty highly! Looks interesting, I'll definitely check it out. Modiphius is producing some interest stuff these days. I'm eagerly awaiting a print copy of their Star Trek RPG...oh & Fantasy Jack is great.
The rules took us a bit to wrap our heads around (mostly in breaking old habits in gaming), but once it clicked it was a blast. I'm really impressed. I'm sure the full-sized rules not only address my complaints, but offer a ton of great options. And Fantasy Jack was fun, but that fur cloak was super hot.
What is best in life? "Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper." -- Cohen the Barbarian in conversation with Discworld nomads (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)
Don't forget: the original quickguide and adventure has a bunch of pregens also! So you have even more options!!!!
"Barbarian straw" also missing from the equipment list! :-/
Don't you hate it when people grab your dinghy?
Great review as always Seth!
We too have struggled a bit with the rules in Mutant Chronicles (the same 2d20 system).
They say its "A d20 based cinematic system with 8 attributes that is fast and furious". But its not. It is rather good BUT its learning curve is not that easy, and it is NOT "fast". Savage worlds rules is fast and furious. This is slow and very number crunching and a LOT of things to keep in mind all the time. All the talents and what they do, if you have focus on skills, in what range zone your in and what range your weapons have, how many successes and momentum you have and modifiers, if you use chronicle points, if you use dark symmetri points, if you use reloads and so on, and the GM has it even worse with all the NPCs different skills, weapons, mods, and to remember using dark symmetri (guess thats Doom in Conan) etc etc.
That said, after a few games and you getting the feel for it, it works rather well. It will always be a crunching slow game in comparison to for example Savage Worlds or CoC. But if you dont mind that I think its rather good.
There are some things I personally do not care for. For example that there is no money and amunition. Instead there is resources and reloads. And there are few to none examples how much resources is so when the players found something worth money and you say "you find stuff for 2 resources" they always ask how much it is and it is very hard to give examples because there are no examples to give. I never understood the point of that "resource-thing-rules". I think it was to make the rules faster, but instead it became even more slow and difficult. (Why reinvent the wheel??) The abstract ammunition count is also kind of boring. I want to count how much (or how few rather) bullets i have left, it makes things more exciting. ("oh man, im on the last mag!") But that is perhaps more of personal taste rather then lack of rules. Is it the same thing in Conan for arrows and coins?
The ranges is also abstract and I agree that it is sometimes hard to figure out how far it is to things on the fly in the game, another thing that they did to make it faster, but ends up taking more time in the end.
The Talents is a fun detail, its like feats in dnd. But it quickly gets bogged down because its to much information and you go "Oh crap I missed....or...wait, checking my talents....okey I get a reroll on this...oh no wait it was on damage...hmm was it on melee or ranged...wait now I can choose another target...or...wait...have to check the talent...naw it was for melee, never mind.."
Dont get me wrong, I like the talents, but again, it is NOT a "fast and furious" system. That is so far from the truth that I just had to write this little rant. =P
I have just bought Star Trek wich also is the 2d20 system and I look forward to read the rules for that with a blend of excitement and horror. =)
No problem with the rant at all. Trust me, I've had my fair share of game-system rants. It's interesting about reloads and money. Those weren't in the quick-guide, but they were trying to cram a lot into 17 pages, so I didn't think much of it. And I can see how keeping up with momentum could get tiring once all the rules and abilities were available.
My philosophy on game combat is that I need it to be fast. Combat should be exciting, but some systems start throwing out so many numbers and goofy rules that combat becomes tedious. To me, if combat is tedious, even after everyone is proficient in the rules, then the game-system has failed. All the cool feats and bonuses mean nothing it the combat they're intended for is boring.
And I'm the same, i want them to know how many arrows or bullets they have left and start sweating as they get lower and lower.
I thought 2d20's combat in Conan was actually rather good. I think most people experience difficulty in understanding the feats and skill sets thing during the first go around but once we got the hang of it the whole system was extremely smooth.
Enemies tended to die in one round but that's what I liked about it. You no longer spent 2 hours on what should be a minute long fight because you have too many people deliberating on what they should do, mapping out options, rolls, re-rolls, declarations, etc.
Here it's just "roll 2d20 for a success, game master rolls against it, roll xd6 for damage, discard 3's and 4's(unless you have an ability that lets you re-roll them), 1,2's are damage and 5,6's are effects along with it. Calculate damage, subtract soak(unless you ignore soak) and that's how much Damage you do."
It sounds really complicated when you lay it out like that but it all just amounts to about 2 seconds worth of math.
I am not y.
Ever plan on doing another Conan 2d20 session? This was great!
Hey Seth... I've been watching all your Conan reviews in prep for a game im gonna run in Dec. I cant for the life of me figure out if I should use these rules or something else? lol
Seems to be a running theme with this system.... If its not ideal what would you recommend to capture the feel?
My players loved Conan, but I never got 100% comfortable with it. Pit of Kutallu was our first game and using only the Quickstart Rules. Later after we picked up the full rules we got better. Sadly, the Conan license ended and the game isn't in print anymore. Despite my complaints wit it, it was a beautiful game and did a fantastic job capturing the Conan world. I'm not the best to ask as far as what fantasy system to use, as I don't play fantasy games all too often anymore and can't say which ones I think would be best for a pulpy Conan game. I've heard Savage Worlds is good (never played it) and I enjoyed the one session I played Dragon Bane. But I recommend looking in to them a bit further before laying down any money.
has he done a review of the conan game itself? I'd love to know about it, and I trust him over almost any other rpg youtubers.
Not yet. Though there is one coming. I wanted to get several adventures and sessions under my belt, and see a lot of the game at work before formulating a full opinion. I will say that the concerns I had when doing this Quickstart remain concern areas. But also, my players LOVE the system.
@@SSkorkowsky It looks like it'd be fun and pulpy, and I'm kinda tired of people being so agonizingly serious about fantasy games. Am I in the right ball park?
I find it fun and pulpy. However, in my experience, players who take a game too seriously can do that to almost anything. Sometimes, just changing the game to any other system is a hard enough reset on them that you can steer the game a more light-hearted direction before their over-seriousness has time to fully set back in (I hope that makes sense.) The big plus with Conan that I've seen is the Momentum Pool. My players REALLY worked together in building up Momentum for one another, and it made their teamwork much stronger than it had been in previous systems. Some reviews I've seen have blasted that aspect as being too Meta, but for us it really increased the teamwork.
@@SSkorkowsky then I shall wait in palpable anticipation for a full review! XD
The full review will be weird. The problem is that I enjoy the game and the work they did to make it feel like Howard's world is very visible. It feels like a different kind of world than most other Fantasy games. But it's also weird and has some definite awkward spots. The book is laid out poorly for finding rules quickly and much of it is written as if they assume you already know the rules. They could have used more examples. I've never simultaneously loved and hated a game this much. My final opinion on it is pretty much that people should try the 2 quickstart adventures to see how they like it before spending money on it.
A quick guide that's worse than the Quick DM guide for D&D? Didn't think it was possible 😅
But how could they sell you speciality combat dice if they used just regular d6?
'To roll high not low'
Did that bite you in the butt in Call of cthulhu?
Great reviue :))
Looks to me that it costs 2 Doom if the players ask for it but just 1 doom if the GM wants it
*CROM*
The Phoenix on the D6
Is it me or does this game look very Lovecraftian?
That’s because Robert E Howard, who created Conan, was a contemporary and , I believe, friend of H. P. Lovecraft. So some lovecraftian elements found their way into the world of Conan.
@@docartemis2878 After I've seen how some of the other reviewed games are similar... That's the obvious answer.
Why didn't pcs just spend fortune to avoid characters drowning whom don't have athletics?
The dinghy divers need that boat to get to Britain
The phoenix has a lot to do with Conan Lore though...
Modphius is really bad about introducing fairly nebulous concepts and then not giving you very many examples to clarify what they mean in actual play. The Star Trek version has focus and determination. Both concepts are pretty important mechanically but there are very few examples of what they mean in concrete terms. Focus is an area of expertise but there's not many examples of how broad or narrow this should be. Should it be very narrow like xenogenetics, more broad like xenology or very broad like biology? Focuses come up a lot in play and have a substantial mechanical effect so the lack of examples is a problem. Determination is like a moral principle or central aspect of your character but there are almost no examples of what these should look like. The terrible organization of their game books does not help.
The artist formerly known as d6... is that a Prince reference? My god, how old are you?
Just kidding ;)
Is Conan superior to Pathfinder?
It's just different. Some depends on how you like to play and what you're looking for. Conan is lower magic with only human races (that I've seen. It's only a 17-page quick guide). The rules systems are extremely different. They put a lot of effort into really getting the "feel" of the old Conan stories. So if you're wanting something like that, then it's definitely worth checking out.
I've been running it for a few months and really enjoying it. Once you're up to speed it's way faster than Pathfinder and personally I prefer it but I'm not a fan of standard d20 mechanics.
Is anything not superior to Pathfinder? That game has just jumped the shark with rules bloat and options. The monster stat blocks and abilities are just out of hand.
Of course. It can be proved by simple math: 2d20>d20 ;)