Marvel Conan

An Interest is Born
My introduction to Conan The Barbarian came in 1973 thanks to Marvel Comics. Stan Lee and his comic empire have enriched the lives of many over the decades and I am certainly not alone. I had read many other comics prior to discovering Conan The Barbarian, with stories based on history and weird horror tales among my favorite. The above pictured Conan comic opened a new chapter in my reading interests. To be brief, reading Conan The Barbarian comics lead to the Savage Tales and Savage Sword magazines, and eventually to the collected Conan stories edited by L. Sprague DeCamp and published by Lancer/Ace in a cheap paperback form that was affordable even to a teenager of the 1970's.

I happened onto Conan The Barbarian in the middle of a multiple issue Roy Thomas adaptation of the story Hand of Nergal, which I later found in one of the Conan volumes edited by Mr. DeCamp (Lin Carter authored the short story Hand of Nergal from a Howard fragment). Drawn by John Buscema and Ernie Chan the images I found in those early issues of Conan The Barbarian helped me to imagine the world of Conan. The dynamic action depicted in those illustrations of course appealed to my teenage restlessness. The 1970's was a long-hair decade (my favorite band was Led Zeppelin) and the long black main of the Conan character made him someone I could identify with.
The Hand of Nergal story involves a decadent monarch manipulated by evil advisers, a captive princess, and demonic forces not meant for human understanding - all tropes that would form the impressions I have of swords & sorcery and fantastic adventure. My infatuation with heroic fiction, swords & sorcery and high adventure stories taken from Conan comics and pulp era fiction primed me for the next step to come, adventure gaming.

Four to five years later I had joined the ranks of growing D&D enthusiasts, thrilled to be playing out some of the ideas that I borrowed from those comics and stories. However you come to this hobby, whether through the stories involving a certain dark elf ranger or through a green-clad digital avatar, those early experiences probably continue to influence what you enjoy. My preference for dark fantasy and grim tales has continued to this day. Fortunately I have found many games that focus on the kind of stories I enjoy best. Through the hobby I have also met other players who share my interests and many have become life-long friends. That is a lot of value from a 20-cent comic.

Building a Sandbox

Start Small
One of the primary joys of being a referee or judge in a game is the design aspect where the game becomes a creative outlet. Creating a scenario, drawing maps, building a world, these are creative pastimes and the excitement and satisfaction of sharing my creation with others is a big part of what has kept me involved in the hobby for 40+ years.
The sandbox is my favorite method of world building. The term "sandbox" in adventure gaming refers to a setting where players can explore and interact with the imaginary world through maps, dialogue with the referee and the application of game/campaign rules. A referee map and good mental concepts of most aspects of the world is all that is really needed to get started. At first, the map can be of a relatively small area.

Remembering how far a group of adventurers can travel in a few days will inform the referee about how many miles ahead need to be planned. I usually like to have a vague idea of the "bigger picture" map so that NPCs may talk about the sea over there, the mountains that way, etc., but spending time drawing detailed maps of areas the players may never any show interest in can be wasted effort, effort better spent on thinking about the nature of your world - what kind of climate does it have?; what creatures inhabit it?; what is the society like?; religions?; technology and magic?.
Do you need a big bad? Not necessarily, especially not at first. I try to anticipate all the questions players may ask about the world and its inhabitants and drawing on memories of everything I have read, watched heard about or imagined, I work toward a mental picture of this bold, new world, this "sandbox". I listen to the players and try to incorporate what they are interested in.

Do not dump all this information on the players in the form of a long monologue or pregame document for them to read. Let the world information flow naturally as the players explore and ask questions. That is part of the sandbox experience - discovery! Instead, put a small map in front of them. The above image is a tactical map lifted from The Strategic Review (v1 no5) and shows a castle, small village, underground entrance/exit and an unexplained misty area. There is lots here to explore, should the players wish.
I like to start with a village, partly because there are NPCs to interact with and learn from in a village and partly to establish a relatively safe home-base, should the players desire one. Describe what they see, what kind of day it is, etc. Reveal to the players a few rumors including information leading to two or three adventures you have semi-prepared. Let them learn about one or two "good" deities that have local worshipers and perhaps the existence of one "evil" deity and one or two "monster" types that may pose a threat.
Conflicts are fuel for adventure and a good sandbox needs at least two or three factions that are in conflict. The presence of factions may offer the player characters certain opportunities. It's always up to them in a sandbox. Encourage the players to be creative. Once they have become acquainted with the new sandbox, ask them what they want to do. In a sandbox, the players often lead, the referee follows. It may be helpful, especially for players to whom the sandbox style game is new, for the referee to offer a starting encounter/ adventure, just to get things moving. And remember those rumors, wanted posters and job notices.

Mythic Britain

How important is setting?
If you are like me, it's very important, perhaps more important than system or characters because setting defines everything. The setting is the framework on which everything else hangs. Setting defines various aspects of who the characters will be. Setting describes the laws of physics and magic if any. Setting establishes the geography and nature of the place where the action of play will take place.
What happens when not enough attention is paid to setting? For me it is a loss of verisimilitude and enjoyment. Inconsistencies in the setting tend to result in a surreal feeling, which may be the goal in a dreamland, but otherwise it just feels disjointed and random (in a bad way). Decisions made with regard to the setting can greatly influence system choice as well. Some systems work best under certain assumptions and produce certain kinds of results during play. Matching the setting and rule systems can greatly aid play.
There are many published settings. Some claim to be system neutral, although I still argue that they work better with some rule systems than with others. Like most in this hobby, I have my favorite published settings. The Design Mechanism published Mythic Britain during their RuneQuest 6 days and have made minor adaptations to fit their current system, Mythras.

Mythras is a d100 roll under skill-based role-play system. It has similarities (and differences) with other popular d100 systems including Basic Role-Playing, Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. The Design Mechanism publishes a number of setting books for Mythras and has more in the works. Among the historic (Mythic) settings currently available are Constantinople and Rome.
Mythic Britain is set in a dark age fantasy Britain with Merlin, Arthur, druids and Saxons. Mythic Britain is divided into two parts, the setting material proper and a series of adventures that can be run separately or combined campaign play. As with the other setting books in the Mythic series, care is taken to present a believable world with much that seems familiar and expected. But this is "mythic" history so the fantastic and supernatural also plays a significant role in the setting. In Mythic Britain the authors draw heavily on folk tradition and the Camelot, King Arthur legends, making use of the unknown nature of the dark ages and occasionally borrowing from the fictional Arthurian traditions to weave a rich tapestry that is both familiar and surprising.
The legend of King Arthur and his knights of the round table has inspired imaginations for centuries. The Arthur presented in Mythic Britain is more Celtic war chief than high medieval king. Roman Britain is a memory allowing for a renewal of many of the old Celtic ways and the new Saxon invaders bring yet a different pagan belief than the one that existed before the Romans brought Christianity to the isle. The druids, long suppressed by the now-absent Romans, have re-emerged and the mythic spirits and forces of the land, fey, dragon and demon, have found renewed strength in their struggle to fill the power vacuum.
The stage is set. The cast is assembled. It is up to you to determine what dramas will play out in your Mythic Britain.

Advanced Dungeons &... Conan!

Sword & Sorcery AD&D
There are no elves in Conan's Hyborean Age. The world R. E. Howard created for his barbarian hero is very similar in most ways to our historic Earth Europe, Asia and Africa. Superimposing the fictional map of Hyborea onto the globe of Earth one can easily see the similarities. Howard seems to have used various ancient cultures as the model for his Hyboran Age civilizations. As a result, the Advanced Game rules require a bit of tweaking in order to reflect the sword & sorcery setting of  Howard's Conan.
The licensed Conan modules that TSR put out for AD&D in 1984 included a few pages that suggest modifications to the official rules in order to better enjoy the feel of the Conan movie world depicted on the module cover. All characters are human and there are no alignments. Clerics are not included because as the module states, priests in the Conan stories are more like the game's magic users and the gods are basically uncaring so there is no magical healing.
Howard's setting is a scary place and mechanics for fear are suggested. Certain horrific creatures, sinister magic effects and supernatural forces can trigger a fright check, which if failed will result in the character becoming immobilized with fear and unable to act. Heroism and luck are considerably prevalent in the Conan stories and the module introduces rules for using Luck to fuel acts of heroism that may seem beyond our human capacity - forming the stuff of legend, as it were.

Each of the two modules in my collection offer pre-generated characters of levels in the teens. The named characters include Conan, the Cimmerian and other characters who appear in one or more of the stories found in the Lancer/Ace Conan collections. CB2 - Against Darkness includes the only magic user and it is interesting to note the absence of fireball and lightning bolt in the character's spell list. Magic in Howard's Conan stories is more illusion, summoning and divination and this is reflected in the modules.
Playing a fighter, thief, assassin, or magic user in these Conan modules, using the AD&D rule modifications gives players of the world's most popular role-playing game a solid taste of sword & sorcery style heroics. The adventures are for high level characters and therefore have the superheroic feel one would expect when battling demonic forces, diabolic serpent men and the evil manifestations of an ancient godling.
Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created a masterpiece of versatility in their original game. A major strength of D&D/AD&D is its ability to used to successfully play so many different worlds and its modularity lends itself to modifications and houserule changes which may be used to further tailor the rules to a specific setting. The Conan modules illustrate this strength well.

Conan Role-Play

The Long Reach of Conan
Having recently discovered some older volumes of the Conan stories, collected and added to by L. Sprague De Camp in the Lancer/Ace paperbacks printed during my youth, I have been rereading these edited versions of stories including those penned by original Conan creator Robt. E. Howard, those "finished" by either De Camp or Lin Carter, and those Conan stories written by De Camp and Carter featuring a version of the Conan character somewhat different (more morally ambiguous?) than Howard's depiction of the noble savage.
The influence and impact of the Conan character and stories on the role-playing hobby has been immense. Gary Gygax mentions "Howard's Conan saga" in his 1973 Foreword to the original edition fantasy role-playing game and he and co-creator Dave Arneson are both known to have enjoyed the character. Conan is mentioned on the back cover of first edition of RuneQuest published in 1978. Conan is noted in Tunnels & Trolls as the inspiration for the warrior class in that system.

Over the decades since Mr. Gygax wrote that Foreword, Conan has been the subject of a number of supplements and game systems. In 1982 the film Conan The Barbarian was released starring body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role. TSR sought to leverage the popularity generated by the film with the release of a line of playing aids featuring the character Conan.

Once the fantasy role-playing hobby had gained popularity, it was perhaps natural that a game bearing the iconic character's name would appear. TSR released a boxed Conan role-playing game in 1985, and Mongoose published their version of a stand-alone Conan role-playing game as part of the d20 Open Game License influx.

In 1989 Steve Jackson Games acquired a license to produce Conan products for its popular GURPS role-playing system. A setting book and several adventures, two bearing titles borrowed from Howard's stories were published and are still available as dital downloads from Stev Jackson Games.

Currently, Modiphius offers a 2d20 Conan game and several supplements featuring the character and setting created by Robert E. Howard.

The great barbarian's influence in role-playing goes way beyond the games that have bore his name, however. You may indeed play a heroic barbarian by many names. Indeed, there are many fans of the barbarian motif and a number of excellent role-playing games are currently available for those not needing a licensed product.

The muscled, mostly naked barbarian warrior popularized by images of Conan through pulps, comics and films have become an RPG industry standard and are used over and over to market products suggesting to prospective consumers a connection with the heroic adventure and excitement commonly associated with the Conan stories.

Role-playing

It's more than doing "the voice".
The game Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax published as Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 had grown out of their experience with wargames. At first it was man-to-man conflict with a referee or judge to apply the rules and keep the game moving along. Figures received names, and therefore the beginning of personality. Mr. Arneson came up with a mechanism (or three) for advancing the power level of figures who survived battles. Experience with the game Diplomacy had given many of the players practice in "speaking in character", negotiating alliances, making deals and threats, all as part of a game. The self contained dungeon exploration game idea was also circulating at the time, as evidenced by it being talked about in some of the fanzines. Gary Gygax and friends brought these ideas together in the original little brown books and sold them as the world's first published role-playing game. The game quickly gained acceptance and a new hobby began.
Learning to play the game in the mid 1970's is commonly held to be nearly impossible without someone who is experienced with the system acting as teacher for the uninitiated. The rules presented in the original three little brown books are somewhat cryptic and incomplete, requiring additions in terms of both mechanics and insight. Rather than being a completely negative feature, the freedom offered by their being suggestions and guidelines and somewhat incomplete ones at that encouraged the creative enhancement that led to so many new versions of role-playing.
At first conceived of as a type of wargame, original D&D and the many new adventure or "role-playing" games that soon followed mechanically focus mostly on combat. Chivalry & Sorcery (1977), Traveler (1977) and RuneQuest (1978) were early systems that presented the players with something more than fight, loot and level up. Asking the question: "What do characters do while not adventuring in dungeons?" games such as these gave context to the imaginary lives of the PCs by discussing society and the character's place in their make-believe world. Background, social class, birth rank and family ties, grounded the character and formed connections that are then leveraged through role-play, thus adding a new social dimension to the game.
Investigative play, such as that emphasized in Call of Cthulhu (1981), added additional mechanics and brought yet another dimension to playing one's character in the game. Personality and sanity are perhaps more important in Call of Cthulhu than combat skill because many of the "monsters" are virtually beyond the reach of mankind. Solving the mystery and preventing the worst case scenario become the goal of play rather than killing monsters and taking their stuff. Knowledge becomes more powerful than weapons in such a game and connections with NPCs and setting organizations can greatly aid the players in solving mysteries.
Giving the character personality may start with a name, a background and a distinctive accent or vocal tone, but motivation, belief and connections to the social fabric of the setting are what brings the character to life as an entity distinct from the player. Rounding out the character, getting to know who they are and how they think and behave, what they value and believe to be true is getting inside your character and really playing a role. "What does your character know?" "How would your character feel about what is happening?" "What motivates your character?" These are questions that a role-player asks.
A distinctive physical description and a unique voice may signal the character is an individual much like their name does. It is often entertaining to see the character depicted and hear the voice of the character when they speak, but this is entertainment, and not the same as role-playing. We actual humans are more than our name, hairstyle, dress and accent...that is just the superficial aspects that are immediately apparent to any casual acquaintance. Getting to know a person means learning what they are all about, their story, as it were. Real people are complex interactions of their history, beliefs, values, motivations and more.
Whether the character develops as he/she/they are played or appears full blown in the author's mind, knowing who they are and how to portray them through play adds an extra dimension to the shared fiction and helps the players discover a game within the game. Is it necessary in order to have fun? No, of course not. Many have enjoyed the hack-n-slash element of the hobby at its most basic tactical combat level. Killing make-believe monsters is fun. Grabbing imaginary loot and leveling one's character is rewarding play. But the potential exists for the game to be so much more.