CONAN

Honest question: are you retarded? Are you a millenial who recently started with roleplaying? None of this is significantly more complicated than a wide range of well-established, successful traditional role-playing games, such as but not limited to: WoD, Shadowrun, Runequest, 40K RPGs, GURPS, Star Wars FFG/Genesys. Not to mention 3.PF.

You're not going to bring this hobby down to your mental capacity level, no matter how hard you try. Get with the fucking program.

Isn't there more to the metacurrency? Can you explain how it works, user?

Not that user but;

There is also Fortune. Each player starts a session with 3 points, and can gain more through good roleplay and completing objectives to a maximum of 5 points in the pool. Fortune is spent on things like bonus actions, automatic successes and introducing new story elements (similar to FFG light side points). It's the more powerful but rarer currency.

All of these are meant to be spent and not hoarded, in keeping with the pulpy fast-paced feel of the stories. Most Momentum will be spent in the turn it is generated, Fortune as needed because there will be opportunities to gain more. Live in the moment and worry about Doom when it comes back to bite you later.

Yes, I am retarded to the point where I find Rolemaster easier to deal with than 2d20.
You have good crunch and bad crunch. Conan is topped off with bad crunch. It isn't by any means unplayable crunch, provided you're fine with spending your time bending your head around metamechanics and rolling dice until your wrist hurts only to end up with "GM, may I?".

As an aside, 2d20 is much like FFG's Genesys without the funky dice, double the page count and quadrupled wonk.

Do Momentum, Fortune and Doom interconnect?

>bending your head around metamechanics
So for it seems pretty straight-forward. What's not to get?

>2d20 is much like FFG's Genesys
So like a popular system? That doesn't sound like harsh criticism.

>without the funky dice,
Good.

>double the page count and quadrupled wonk.
Can't comment.

Not directly in the sense of trading one for another. As the other guy said Doom is the GM's resource that the players can add to as payment for certain effects (bonuses now in exchange for trouble later). It can be used to make the PC's lives more challenging in a number of ways, including being spent on activating effects for NPCs that the players would use Momentum for. Momentum and Fortune are spent on seperate things though.

The other main way Doom and Fortune connect is that a PC can elect to fail a test with GM permission, which gives the PC a Fortune point and the GM another Doom point.

Two player resources and one GM resource is not hugely taxing to keep track of and is a doddle is you've played any games with metacurrency before. Other things add to the Doom pool such as crit fails and if NPCs would generate Momentum on a test, but with those players are not choosing to give GM Doom in a metacurrency transaction.

It's the 2d20 system, which is a steaming pile. It revolves alost entirely around passing around three different kinds of plot tokens. The game constantly tempts you to act out-of-character for non-diegetic reasons.

For example, taking defensive reactions like dodges or parries adds more doom tokens to the pool, which is the primary indicator of how fucked the party is and fuels almost all the NPCs' actions, so you very often want to just stand there and let an enemy hit you rather than increase the GM's supply of doom.

For another example, excess successes on any skill check add momentum tokens to the pool, which any player can spend for free successes later. This means that the players are constantly trying to roll easy but inconsequential skill checks, and the GM has to keep that shit under control if he wants to keep things challenging.

>It revolves alost entirely around passing around three different kinds of plot tokens.
So?

>so you very often want to just stand there and let an enemy hit you rather than increase the GM's supply of doom.
Alright, assuming this is correct, it sounds counter-intuitive, I'll admit.

>This means that the players are constantly trying to roll easy but inconsequential skill checks, and the GM has to keep that shit under control if he wants to keep things challenging.
Yeah, but this is easy to control for any GM beyond the beginner's stage.

>So?
So it's not built correctly to be that kind of game. If there were no momentum or doom tokens (and maybe no fortune tokens as well,) it would be a serviceable but unremarkable medium-crunchy RPG. If it didn't have its long character sheets, complex combat mechanics, and traditional GM role, it'd be a relatively weak but passable rules-lite narrative RPG like Fiasco or something. As it stands, it's those two kinds of RPGs crashing into each other at high speed and annihilating each other.

It tries to split the difference between a narrative RPG where you're writing a story together with the rules for guidance and a more traditional D&D-style game where you're trying to make your character succeed and can only control your character's actions. As a result, it fails on both fronts.

That does sound shit.

I really like what I read of the first Conan game. It used only d10s, however it relied too heavily on referencing a table to resolve all die rolls.

I liked the way you built characters but I hate having to reference a table for EVERYTHING.

From playing a demo at a game store, I can say that it's weird how shields and armor are so good in a game based on pulp fuction where men and women alike are famous for being almost-naked all the time. The guy with a shield and talents that make his shield better was practically unkillable.

To be fair, in the stories Conan is wearing armor all the time. It's just that often by the end of the first chapter he's been Samus'ed hard and has all his stuff taken away.

>Iranistan

Conan means Arnie or Frazetta pin-ups to most people. The idea that the most famous hero of Pulp Fantasy frequently wore Nemedian mail or even a set of full plate fit for a king is hard to swallow.

>Alright, assuming this is correct, it sounds counter-intuitive, I'll admit.
It's not my favorite mechanic, but there are multiple ways including shields, talents and parrying weapons (including most swords) to reduce the Doom cost of defensive reactions which can make them free. If you are getting mobbed then you either deserve to spend Doom to extricate yourself from the tricky situation or the GM needs to use Minion squads that attack as one instead of a clogging things up with lots of individual foes.

Momentum is pretty easy to gain, can't be hoarded easily and as GM I'd just give the character an automatic pass if they were test-mongering on trivial stuff to build up Momentum. Tests are for things that matter.

Also Zembabwei. Time has not been kind to Hyboria in some respects, both were obscure names in the US when REH was writing in the early 30's. Then Persia asked the world to use Iran in 1935 instead of the name the Greeks made up two millenia prior and Zimbabwe (hitherto a collection of interesting ruins) was adopted by Independance movements in the 1960s as the name for a future state in preference to then-Rhodesia.

First of all, if you do genre simulation, meta currency is a must. To begin with, because heroes depend on luck a lot in fiction.

>a serviceable but unremarkable medium-crunchy RPG
This is not a dig at the game. A solid medium-crunch RPG with metacurrency to make it play more like ficiton is a valid concept.

>As it stands, it's those two kinds of RPGs crashing into each other at high speed and annihilating each other.
Only because you want to play one or the other but not a fusion of it. This is not an objective criticism but rather an expression of taste.

>It tries to split the difference between a narrative RPG where you're writing a story together with the rules for guidance and a more traditional D&D-style game where you're trying to make your character succeed and can only control your character's actions. As a result, it fails on both fronts.
That is not the mandatory result. FATE fuses traditional game mechanics with metacurrency, giving the players selective agency over the game world beyond their character's actions. The same applies to FFG's Genesys. It's no coincidence that it too relies on metacurrency and limited agency over the game world to simulate fiction. That, my friend, is a path into the future.

>If you are getting mobbed then you either deserve to spend Doom to extricate yourself from the tricky situation
I have to tell you: that doesn't sound right. Conan characters (not Conan himself but at least fighters) should be able to jump right into the thick of it without fear nor consideration, relying on their PC's instincts alone.

>praising FATE and Genesys
You stumbled into the wrong board, friend

>or the GM needs to use Minion squads that attack as one instead of a clogging things up with lots of individual foes.

You accidentally revealed another flaw in 2d20. Large numbers of weak opponents are vastly more useful to the GM than swarms or mobs treated as a single creature because they make your doom supply grow. Strong enemies can never show up in the middle of an adventure to make things interesting because their special abilities cost doom. It costs the GM doom to set up certain situations that aren't worth the doom (for example, NPCs literally never win initiative unless the GM spends doom for it each round.) The whole game has this weird players-vs-GM theme built into it, more so than other games with a GM, and it's hard to ignore. It becomes a weird betting game with doom as the currency instead of an RPG about Conan.

Out of interest, did you run the game or play in it?

All I can say is that I've never felt there was a player-vs-GM theme, and I hope the players felt the same way. Metagame currencies don't bother me as I tend to lean towards the more narrative-side, I don't mind taking sub-optimal routes as GM because I'm not trying to win.

Doom never became the fixation during play, so I disagree about things devolving into a weird betting game instead of thew-slapping action. I'm not trying to convince you to enjoy it, just providing a second opinion to anyone thinking about trying the game.

Conan PCs eat mooks for breakfast straight out of char-gen and can quite easily grab 1 or 2 doom-free parries per turn. Doom is not that scary and a PC gaining some because he's fighting off multiple Toughened foes at once and needs those parries is hardly signing his own death warrant.

I don't think so, unless you want to go back to /pfg/ now.

>Large numbers of weak opponents are vastly more useful to the GM than swarms or mobs treated as a single creature because they make your doom supply grow.
Doesn't sound too bad. That way the GM has a tool to keep the scenario interesting, ie bringing individuals if he needs doom or bringing hordes if the players seem to be shafted.

>It becomes a weird betting game with doom as the currency instead of an RPG about Conan.
Why should it be mutually exclusive? Sounds more like you can't into metacurrency, user.

>player-vs-GM theme
Adverserial GMing is out. But to provide a CHALLENGE to players a certain GM mindset is indeed required.

>Conan PCs eat mooks for breakfast straight out of char-gen and can quite easily grab 1 or 2 doom-free parries per turn. Doom is not that scary and a PC gaining some because he's fighting off multiple Toughened foes at once and needs those parries is hardly signing his own death warrant.
Doesn't sound so bad, could just need some clarity.

I saw a reddit-post (incidentally rather promtly deleted as spam) in the defence of 2d20, pitting a round-by-round-fight in Conan vs the same fight in Pathfinder
I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. I think I may have failed my SAN-roll.

what was the gist of it?

the riddle of steel
The Riddle of Steel
THE RIDDLE OF STEEL

Is it better than Genesys.

>genre simulation
That's the thing, though. This game is not a simulation of Conan's genre. It uses exactly the same system that Modiphius uses for all its other licensed games. Conan and Star Trek, which are about as different as two licensed properties can be in terms of theme, tone, and outlook, use the same system. That tells you all you need to know about 2d20. The only narrative pattern it's i terested in crearing through its metacurrency is "little guys come at you, and then big guys come at you."

I would fucking love a game that actually tried to simulate the narrative of Conan. Think for a moment about what that would look like. First off, Conan stories are always first and foremost about Howard's conception of civilization and barbarism. Conan is his idea of a perfect man, neither too civilized like the decadent nobles around him nor too barbarous like the monstrous subhumans he fights. So any Conan RPG really needs an alignment axis of savagery vs. civilization, with incentives for staying in that sweet spot between evil wizard and evil ape. Second, Conan is about wild changes in fortune. Conan is a bum who becomes a king on a whim and probably would have lost it all just as quickly if Howard had lived to write more. He's never in the same place twice. The sense of wild social mobility gives it kind of an Arabian Nights flavor. Anyone, especially a hero, is probably not what they seem. This could be reflected in having an extremely, militantly episodic game, preferably one told out of order like the Conan stories themselves. Nothing that happens to a character should last more than one session. After that, all wounds are healed and all treasures and titles are lost. Don't worry; there'll be brand new ones next week.

Well, genre simulation implies you're not just emulating Conan's personal story. So the conflict between civilization and instinct it not very well applicable to creating a setting for an entire party and that must offer many different playstyles to appeal to many gamers. The second part is more relevant but not necessarily tied very much to system.

Finally, GURPS does low fantasy/Sword & Sorcery (Conan) and Sci-Fi (Star Trek) pretty well.

You seem to fail to understand what a narrative RPG is, and even what a genre is for that matter.

GURPS can do anything but it can do nothing well. The fact that it would handle Star Trek and Conan with exactly the same set of core assumptions makes it just as bad as 2d20. Those are not the same kinds of stories except in the absolute broadest possible sense.

Too much dependency on the metacurrency. My players and I gave it a shot but found it tedious.

Instead we're using Shadow, Sword, & Spell.

>Conan is about wild changes in fortune. Conan is a bum who becomes a king on a whim and probably would have lost it all just as quickly if Howard had lived to write more. He's never in the same place twice. The sense of wild social mobility gives it kind of an Arabian Nights flavor. Anyone, especially a hero, is probably not what they seem. This could be reflected in having an extremely, militantly episodic game, preferably one told out of order like the Conan stories themselves. Nothing that happens to a character should last more than one session. After that, all wounds are healed and all treasures and titles are lost. Don't worry; there'll be brand new ones next week.
That bit at least is pretty much what the game does. The book says multiple times that episodic, possibly out of order, adventures that see the characters catapulted from being slaves turned pirates on the Black Coast to scouts in the Pictish wilderness is the default type of game. Gear is transitory and Gold is for spending freely on month-long benders instead of being saved for a rainy day. There is an entire section for how you pissed away the treasure, what scrapes you got into and how you ended up in the next fine mess.

Whether you can fit an entire adventure in a single session depends on the length of those sessions and your group but a new exciting location every 2 or 3 sessions is not unreasonable. The metacurrency naturally lends itself to wild swings in fortunes before the tables turn yet again which is pretty in keeping with the stories.

The fuck is Genesys?

FFG Star Wars genericized.

So, lets make a character.

First Roll 2d20: 9+16=25 You are from Zingara. You have the Sea Raider Talent (All Sailing and Swimming tests are -1 dificulty), and speak Zingaran.

Your attributes all start at 7, and to keep things easy, we're not messing with that. Roll 2d20: 4,15 You get Attribute Aspects; Acute and Aware/Dexterous. So we have to assign +3,+2,+2,+1 to Awareness, Intelligence, Agility, and Coordination. I like the idea of a thief, so we'll go Agi, Cor, Awa, Int. Then we get to add +1 to Agility or Coordination, and +1 to Awareness or Intelligence (these two sets are kinda similar) So, I'll go all in on Agi and Awa. So our stat line now looks like:

Agility - 11
Awareness - 10
Brawn - 7
Coordination - 9
Intelligence - 8
Personality - 7
Willpower - 7

And we have the Sea Raider Talent.

Next we are going to determine which caste we came from. Roll a d20: 17 Preist. Hmm this is going to be interesting for a thief, maybe he's more of a con. Anyway, we get Preist Talent and Subject Talent, the Lore Skill, and a 2 for Social Standing (that's the highest at character creation).

The Priest talent says you're connected to a particular cult, and can get help from them if they are in the area.

Subject gives you a discount on Upkeep in your homeland.

You then roll on a backstory table (12):
You didn’t join your faith with battle in mind, but your potentates were wrathful in the extreme and soon all your order wore blades. Your battlefield was in the streets, and many fell to your blade. You tried to be merciful when you could afford it, and deep within the home of one of your faith’s enemies, you found someone who could be brought to your faith. Did you help this person escape, or were you prevented somehow? What became of this potential follower?

Then I guess you could say 2d20 better because it uses real, non-proprietray dice. It has more metacurrency, which sucks, but it doesn't require you to constantly look up talent trees, which is good.

>real, non-proprietray dice
The Combat Dice are technically proprietary, but they're carefully designed to be basically interchangeable with regular d6s.

So now we got a an archetype to roll for (I should note that most of these tables say you can just choose): (3) So that's a barbarian, which with what we have so far doesn't seem fun, so I'm just going to take pirate. So I get: Career Skill(+2): Observation
Career Talent: Sharp Senses
Mandatory Skills(+1): Melee, Parry, Resistance, and Survival
Elective Skills (+1)[choose two of three]:Stealth and Thievery. Skipped on Sailing.

I get whatever Melee weapon I want,
A padded Jerkin,
A share in a small boat, or the proceeds from it's activities.

Then I roll to determine my Nature: (9) Practical This gives me +1 to Coordination, +1 to Discipline, Craft, and Healing, and +1 to Observation and Animal Handling. Chose not to take Alchemy. I also get a talent in any skill from that list. I'm going to take the Bind Wounds Talent, cause I figure this guy's had to do his own doctoring.

Alright, So next we have this guy's education: (16) On your own terms. Basically "I chose the life I've lived"
+1 to Acrobatics, Athletics, Stealth, +1 to Lore and Survival (skipping Craft), and another talent (I'm taking Agile[Reroll a die on my acrobatics check])

We get a war story: (7) Gained the favor of a noble +1 to Persuade and Society.

And, we're to finishing touches: Two more Stat points I'm gonna take Personality up to 9

+1 to any three skills (I'm gonna take Counsel, Ranged Weapons, and Thievery)

+3 to any one skill (Persuade)

And one more Talent: (Thief)

I can take a Language: I'll take Hyperborean

You get three fortune points, which have been discussed earlier, and you can sacrifice them for stat bumps.

Derived Attributes"
Vigor: Brawn + Resistance(skill): 7
Resolve: Willpower + Dicipline: 8
Starting Gold: Personality + Society: 10
There's some personal belonging tables, but I'm gonna skip that.
Name: Dario (There's a full page of names for countries)
Age: 20
Other non stat stuff, like how you act and look.

So, I'm going to be honest. I'm fine with the system overall, but the guy who said there's too much going on isn't completely wrong. I was going to finish this off with a filled in character sheet, but I don't really want to fill all that shit in.

That doesn't seem like much going on. Attributes, Skills, Talents, Fortune Points, Items, HP of two sorts, Gold, and miscellaneous personal gubbins.

>seem like much
Too much, I mean. That qualifier's important.

It's far from the worst I've seen, but it's just right on that level where it's a bit of a chore. I can tell that after the character is made, the game will flow OK. But seriously, this is the char sheet.

>But seriously, this is the char sheet.
Maybe it's just the games I play, but I really can't see anything wrong with that sheet. Can easily tell where everything starts and stops, things aren't squashed together or too far apart, and it all fits nicely on one sheet.

>You seem to fail to understand what a narrative RPG is, and even what a genre is for that matter.
You sure showed me.

>GURPS can do anything but it can do nothing well.
That's opinion, not fact. Furthermore, the more nuanced consensus here is what IO just repeated: GURPS can do certainly genre well, low fantasy in particular. And it does reasonably well with sci-fi.

>You seem to fail to understand what a narrative RPG is, and even what a genre is for that matter.
GURPS simulates genre worlds, not stories.

Stop spoonfeeding newfags.

>It has more metacurrency, which sucks, but it doesn't require you to constantly look up talent trees, which is good.
You cannot simulate genre accurately without metacurrency or a metacurrency-equivalent. If there's any validity to 's criticism of GURPS, then it's due to lack of metacurrency.
Case in point: In the Battle of the Bastards, arrow volley after arrow volley misses Jon Snow. By all reason, this is not due to awesome Dodge rolls but due to pure luck - hero's luck. Metacurrency is the modern way to simulate luck, even though there's older alternatives (Luck stat/skill/special trait). There alternatives have fallen out of favor because metacurrency can be used to model other, genre-specific or cinematic aspects of a protagonist's life.

Without metacurrency, fantasy is stuck as being either OSR "let the chips fall where they may" causing the players to be unheroically cautious OR new school 3.PF-style where the PCs are basically unkillable and you take the threat out of gaming to a large degree.
>inb4 3.PF is very deadly at low levels!
That's not what I'm talking about and you know it.

Or even Mongoose Conan d20 and d6 Fantasy.

>You cannot simulate genre accurately without metacurrency or a metacurrency-equivalent. If there's any validity to 's criticism of GURPS, then it's due to lack of metacurrency.
Wrong. GURPS has multiple metacurrencies available. Including pure Luck. It just most DMs don't use them.

Though it is also true that GURPS is best used with low-magic gritty settings - because they work more or less out of the box. For anything else you need and experienced GM.

>unheroically cautious

I think that what you call unheroically cautious, a halfway sensible individual would call not being a fucking idiot.

>t. virgin neckbeard

>GURPS has multiple metacurrencies available
Oh really? Which ones? How do they work?

>I think that what you call unheroically cautious, a halfway sensible individual would call not being a fucking idiot.
That's fine for certain settings but if you want to emulate Conan (or Game of Thrones or LOTR), you need hero's luck. Heroes are meant to even survive being recklessly brave. In fact, if you want to emulate any cinematic action and/or epic fantasy, that's what you need.

In dark fantasy, that's more debtable, depending on what kind of stories you want to tell. The Witcher? Requires totally metacurrency to recreate.

I can't tell whether you're stupid, ignorant or trolling. Well done, I guess.

Thanks for your non-contribution to this conversation. Well, at least you bumped the thread.