1985: Conan Role-Playing Game

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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In 1984, TSR, Inc. published CB1 Conan Unchained!, the first appearance of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian in roleplaying. It would be followed the same year by CB2 Conan Against Darkness! And then in 1986 by RS1 Red Sonja Unconquered. All were written for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition—though with some adjustments to accommodate the specific style of Robert E. Howard’s pulp fantasy and all were inspired by, but not based upon the films which had been released in the previous two or three years. Of the back of the strength of CB1 Conan Unchained! and CB2 Conan Against Darkness!, TSR, Inc. would develop the Conan Role-Playing Game. Like CB1 Conan Unchained!, it was written by David ‘Zeb’ Cook, an avowed fan of Conan, and that showed in much of the detail and flavour of the roleplaying game. That said, mechanically, it was a radical departure from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition of CB1 Conan Unchained! and CB2 Conan Against Darkness!, owing more to TSR, Inc.’s other licensed roleplaying games from the previous year—Marvel Super Heroes and The Adventuresof Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game.

Like those other roleplaying games, the Conan Role-Playing Game came as a boxed set, and it is one that nicely appointed. Behind the striking cover, can be found a thirty-two-page ‘Rule Book’, a sixteen-page ‘Reference Guide’, a four-page ‘Master Reference Sheet’, a forty-eight-page ‘The World of Hyboria – A Collection of the Hyborian Studies by Professor Ervin H. Roberts’, a four-page ‘Character Folio’, and a large poster map of Hyboria, plus two ten-sided dice and a crayon to fill the numbers in. The ‘Rule Book’ dives straight into explaining what a roleplaying game is, oddly using ‘cops & robbers’ as an example, when you really wish that Conan was being used instead, and then into Player Character creation.

A Player Character in the Conan Role-Playing Game is defined by Talents, representing his physical abilities, skills, and knowledge. These are divided into six Talent Pools—Prowess, Fighting, Endurance, Knowledge, Perception, and Insight. A tenth of the total value of the Talents in a Talent Pool will define the General Talent value for the Talent Pool, covering every other skill within a Talent Pool that the Player Character does not have. A Player Character can also have one or more Weakness, but will definitely have a Story. This is his background which starts with his Country and his Parents, and the following form that the player has to fill in:

“____________ (Character name), the ____________ (Sex) of ____________ (Father) and ____________ (Mother), was born in the land of ____________ (Homeland). ____________ (Character name) grew ____________ (Appearance). As a youth, ____________ (Character name) learned ____________ (Talents) and ____________.”

The character creation process is simple. A player decides on his character’s name, as well as those of his parents, chooses a Homeland from the given list, and then assigns thirty-five points to his Talents. No more than five points can be assigned to any one Talent, the Player Character must have one Talent from each of the six Talent Pools, and one point must be assigned to his father’s Talent. He can gain another five points to assign for each Weakness he selects.

“Thellius, the Son of Gaenus and Hygira, was born in the land of Iranisatan. Thellius grew up lithe and wiry, but with a broad smile. As a youth, Thellius learned the songs his father taught him and to perform, but fell into what his mother called wicked ways.”

Prowess – 1
Acrobatic – 3, Climbing – 4, Movement – 1
Fighting – 1
Brawling – 3, Sword – 3
Endurance – 1
Damage – 4, Stamina – 3, Will – 3
Knowledge – 1
Lockpicking – 4
Perception – 1
Observation – 3, Minstrel – 4, Pocket Picking – 3,
Insight – 1
Danger Sense – 3, Personal Magnetism – 4

Weaknesses
Gambler, Weakness for women

The Player Character creation process is simple, but underwhelming. There is no example of the creation process, and whilst a sample character is provided, it is in the ‘Character Folio’ and not the ‘Rule Book’, and is of Conan himself and not a starting character. Similarly, the NPCs named and given stats in ‘The World of Hyboria – A Collection of the Hyborian Studies by Professor Ervin H. Roberts’ are extremely experienced NPCs. The primary problem though, is there is no guidance on how to create a character that fits either the setting or any kind of a role. So, no guidance on creating a warrior or a thief or a guide or a healer… In fact, when it comes to the thief, let alone Conan himself, there is no Stealth skill. At this point in the roleplaying game this leaves a fundamental question unanswered and that is, “How do I create Conan in the Conan Role-Playing Game?”

Mechanically, the Conan Role-Playing Game is a percentile system used in combination with a ‘Resolution Table’. A ‘Resolution Table’ that looks more like a graph. The vertical axis of the ‘Resolution Table’ runs from one to one hundred and represents a player’s dice roll. The horizontal axis is the ‘Talent/Differential’ row and runs from thirty to minus thirty. The results are banded from top to bottom, White, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red, each band representing a complexity. A result in the White band is a failure, Green is easy complexity, Yellow is moderate complexity, Orange is hard complexity, and Red is difficult complexity. To have his character undertake an action a player rolls the dice and compares the result of the roll on the vertical axis of the ‘Resolution Table’ versus the value of the Talent his character is using on the ‘Talent/Differential’ axis. If the rest is in the right band, his character succeeds.

The colour band into which the result of a test falls can also be used to be determine the quality of the outcome. Examples suggested include NPC reactions, degree of a language understood, damage inflicted in combat, advantage gained in combat, damage blocked in combat, falling damage, the effects of poison, and more. Although the ‘Resolution Table’ looks complex and more like a mathematical exercise, in combination with the various modifiers for the different situations and just a single roll for all of them, it is actually surprisingly flexible in its application.

For example, Thellius is performing in a tavern and wants to impress the daughter of a merchant. This will use his Personal Magnetism Talent. His player has already made a Talent Test using Thellius’ Minstrel Talent. The result was Orange, so the Referee grants a +2 bonus to his Personal Magnetism Talent. This will shift it along on the ‘Talent/Differential’ axis of the ‘Resolution Table’ from four to six. The Referee has already decided that the situation is ‘Friendly’ on the ‘NPC Reaction Result Table’ as it is in a tavern. Thellius’ player rolls the dice and gets a result of eight which is in the Red band! This is a very good result. This is a Red result and on the ‘NPC Reaction Result Table’ indicates a ‘Generous’ rection. The merchant’s daughter definitely catches his eye and raises a glass to him.

Combat also uses the ‘Resolution Table’. Before it begins, the participants roll to determine if anyone is caught off-guard using either their Animal Reflexes Talents or General Prowess rating. The better the roll, the more Advantages a player generates, either one, two, three, or four. These are compared against their opponents and the combatant who has the most left over afterwards gets a free combat action for each one. Combat takes place in five-second combat rounds and initiative is determined by rolling a single ten-sided die and adding the highest of either the Animal Reflexes or Movement Talents or the General Prowess value. It is possible for a Player Character to take multiple actions in a round, but this requires a test against his Animal Reflexes Talent or General Prowess value and a Red result. Otherwise, he cannot take multiple actions and is at a penalty to his actions for this round and the next! So, in general, a combatant will either attack, defend, move, cast a spell, or wait, at least until either Animal Reflexes Talent or General Prowess value increases. When his character makes a mêlée attack, the player declares an Aiming Point on the body of his character’s opponent. Combat modifiers shift the ‘Talent/Differential’ up and down, and then the Fighting Talent of the defender is deducted from that of the attacker. The subsequent roll will determine not only if the attacker successfully strikes, but if he does, how much base damage is inflicted. This can be modified by the weapon used, for example, a javelin or tiger claw has a ‘-1’ penalty, whilst a flail has a ‘+1’ bonus. In most cases, weapons that inflict more damage have a penalty to Initiative.

Damage inflicted then, is roughly on a scale of between one and seven points, is deducted directly from a Player Character’s Damage Talent. If the Damage Talent is reduced to zero or less, each time the character takes damage after this, his player must test his character’s Damage Talent using its current value. If the result is Red, the Player Character remains conscious, but falls unconscious if the result is Orange, Yellow, or Green. If the result is White, a failure, then the Player Character dies. However, armour does stop damage, the amount depending upon what is being worn on each location and whether a shield is being carried. In addition to inflicting a base four points of damage, a Red result on the attack also inflicts a specific wound to the location targeted, typically a stun effect against which the player will need to make a General Prowess Test.

The Conan Role-Playing Game does allow Player Characters to use magic, whether that is as a sorcerer, witch, wizard, or shaman. However, it is not recommended as it takes a great deal of time and effort to learn and it can have deleterious effects upon the practitioner. Simply have a magic-related Talent, whether that is Alchemy, Information (actually being a seer of some sort), Mind Control, Natural Magic, Physical laws, Summoning, or Transformation, only indicates an aptitude. The would-be practitioner has to spend months of game time in study. Then, there is a cost to pay, but the cost is not necessarily financial, it can be personal. Every time a Player Character magician gains a magical Talent or a Spell, he gains one or two continuing effects. One is a magical Weakness, including Animal Aversion, Disfigurement, Endurance Loss, Madness, and Nocturnal. The other is Obsession, a Weakness that is treated like a Talent which when the practitioner is tempted by even greater magic, is forced to test and if the result is Red, he must do everything in his power to obtain the new magic. The Conan Role-Playing Game does not include any spells by design, intending the Referee and her players to create them and define their effects and where they can be learned. For experienced roleplayers, this is unlikely to be an issue, but new players will find this unhelpful. On the whole, much like the source material, magic is intended to be used by the antagonists rather than the protagonists.

In addition to the rules for magic, the ‘Rulebook’ also covers movement, hazards such as falling, fire, and drowning, gives details of what life is like in Hyboria, interaction with NPCs, and rewards for the Player Characters. The latter includes Fame Points, which can be earned for heroic and savage deeds, annoying a major NPC, improving a Talent above twenty, and so on, but can be lost through acts of cowardice, stupidity, betrayal, and so on. Successful Talent use during an adventure will earn a Player Character up to ten Talent points to assign, and for originality and good roleplaying, the Referee can award Luck Points. These can be used to reroll a dice roll, to reduce the damage taken from an attack, and as means to perform incredible feats of luck. This works by the player expending as many of his character’s Luck Points as he wants, the number determining the column on the ‘Talent/Differential’ axis of the ‘Resolution Table’, and then rolling. If the result is Red, he succeeds. There is no mention of Luck Points before this.

The advice for the Referee on creating and running adventures in Hyboria is decent and there is also an adventure included at the back of the ‘Rulebook’. This is ‘The Tower of the Elephant’, based on the short story by Robert E. Howard. As in the story, it starts in a tavern where there is chance for some revelry and a fight before sneaking into the nearby tower to steal the ‘Heart of the Elephant’, a fabulous jewel in the possession of the evil sorcerer, Yara. It is a short affair, offering only a single session’s worth of play and its set-up is completely wrong for the Conan Role-Playing Game. The first problem with it is that it follows the plot of the short story fairly tightly and does not give a lot of options in terms of what the Player Character can do. The second problem is  that it is not designed to be played using any Player Character created using the rules in the game and it is not designed to be played by a group. Instead, it is designed to be played using the stats for Conan himself given on one of the character folios, who is a more experienced character. As a one-on-one, short scenario, it is adequate, but given that there is no scenario included for a group of new created Player Characters, it is anything other than fine.

Of the other items in the box for the Conan Role-Playing Game, the ‘The World of Hyboria – A Collection of the Hyborian Studies by Professor Ervin H. Roberts’ is a good gazetteer, introducing Robert E. Howard and Hyboria, the latter as if it was written down in an academic’s notebook, complete with annotations. It includes quite detailed descriptions of the various lands, their peoples, towns, and cities, and there is a decent bestiary too. Several NPCs are also detailed as are various gods, cults, magical items, and ruins and their lore. This is all solid background material that the Referee can develop for her game. The map is good too.

The ‘Reference Guide’ gives explanations for all of the roleplaying game’s Talents and Weaknesses before providing some of its charts and tables, including the ‘Randon Hit Location Table’, the ‘Combat Modifiers Chart’, the ‘Resolution Table’ a second time—the primary one is on the back of ‘Rulebook’ where it is in colour, an ‘Equipment List’, a ‘Specific Wound Chart’, a ‘Jewel Table’, a list of the ‘Principal Hyborian Languages’, and a ‘Talent List’. The tables are all useful, but they seem placed in a random order which makes their use not as easy as they should be. There are more tables on the ‘Master Reference Sheet’, which covers everything else, including NPC Reactions, a synopsis of the possible results, the combat sequence, and more, including a quick guide to being a Referee.

There is a neat, even decent set of mechanics at the heart of the Conan Role-Playing Game, good enough that they were later redeveloped as the ZeFRSRules—short for ‘Zeb's Fantasy Roleplaying System’, as the author is known as David ‘Zeb’ Cook. Yet the Conan Role-Playing Game almost goes out of its way to make the learning and using of the rules as awkward as possible. This begins almost immediately in the ‘Rulebook’ where there is no explanation of the core rules and how they work, the ‘Rulebook’ going from character creation to combat, leaving the reader none the wiser. Instead, there is an explanation of rules, roughly two paragraphs long under ‘Action Succes’ on the third page of the four-page ‘Master Reference Sheet’. What this means is that the Conan Role-Playing Game, which is designed for ages ten and over, an introductory roleplaying game that is effectively hiding its rules. Add to this, the lack of an example of play, no example of character generation, no example beginning characters, and no beginning scenario for beginning characters or even multiple characters, and it is clear that the Conan Role-Playing Game is not giving proper support to either the Referee or the player.

Yet on the plus side, in addition to the very serviceable rules, the means of creating a Player Character using the form on the character sheet is a neat touch as it asks each player to think about his character in terms of his story and tying him into the world of Hyboria. The background description of the world is not bad either and to be fair, the adventure, ‘The Tower of the Elephant’, is actually reasonable enough for a one-one-one, single session’s worth of play. The problem with it is that is either not suitable for the roleplaying game on its own or it is simply not enough.

Physically, the Conan Role-Playing Game is well presented. Everything is of good quality, the layout is tidy, and the internal illustrations, all by Jeff Easley, are excellent.

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The Conan Role-Playing Game was reviewed by Mike Dean in ‘Game Reviews’ in Imagine Adventure Games Magazine No. 29 (August, 1985). He began by saying that, “With the recent influx of RPGs based on specific books, films and TV series, it is not all that surprising that we should eventually be presented with the CONAN® RPG. Along with the trend for this type of RPG has also come the unfortunate tendency for such games to be written in very simple English. CONAN RPG is no exception, and although it can be argued that the style encourages younger players and enables them to grasp the concept of the game more easily, one cannot help but feel that one is being talked down to by the authors.” He was also critical of the magic system in the Conan Role-Playing Game and the effort required both in game and out, adding, “…[I]t is almost as if by making magic difficult to pursue the authors are hoping that no-one will want to.” He concluded, “In conclusion, this game has some interesting concepts but is lacking in certain respects, notably the magic system and the slant towards the younger gamer.

Pete Tamelyn reviewed the Conan Role-Playing Game in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue 69 (September, 1985). He was critical of the layout and organisation, saying that, “I get the impression that there were quite a few bugs in the systems as well because there is a 4 page ‘Reference Sheet’ included which makes several significant changes to the rules. ‘Last minute errata sheet’ might have been more appropriate.” Despite this, he awarded it an overall score out of seven out of ten and finishing with, “It's a great shame. With a bit of care it could have been a very good product. Most of the errors are essentially cosmetic and even with them I still prefer it to AD&D. Hopefully TSR will produce a second edition – after they’ve tightened up on their quality control.”

It was reviewed in ‘Game Reviews’ in Different Worlds Issue 45 (March/April, 1987) by Edwin King, whose initial description was that, “The Conan RolePlaying Game is a great piece of hack & slash fun that can reawaken the enthusiasm of the most jaded role-player.” Although critical of the limitations of the scenario, he was positive in his conclusion. “Essentially, it is worth the effort to overlook the organizational problems and occasional lapses in clarity in the rules. If you can enjoy the freedom of using an easily-learned rules set that leaves plenty of options, Conan is great. It makes a pleasant break from more detailed fantasy campaigning and it is certain to have its players rereading the Conan stories in search of inspiration.” He awarded it three stars out of five.

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The Conan Role-Playing Game has an experimental quality to it in combining a very simple system that gives the players a lot of freedom in terms of what they can create and play with a resolution mechanic that is surprisingly elegant and flexible and can cover most situations. It is unlike any other roleplaying game from TSR, Inc. of its era and as a development of the earlier Marvel Super Heroes and The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game, it could have been the basis of a system suitable for a variety of genres. Yet despite its production values, the Conan Role-Playing Game hides this mechanical simplicity behind a ragged organisation, poor explanations of the rules, and a lack of support for the player in terms of examples and advice. There are moments where the author’s love of Robert E. Howard and Conan the Barbarian does shine through even its poor organisation, primarily in the sourcebook and the rules for magic, but even this cannot stop the Conan Role-Playing Game from failing to live up to its potential.