Tales of the Hyborian Age thread

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Just goes to show the difference between reading a system and actually running it. I got the John Carter on Mars Bundle of Holding so I'm looking forward to running that if I can convince my group. My wife, the sweety she is, is always willing to play a game with me but I assume the game isn't designed for one-on-one play?

Now I will give the Conan game a try next time I get a chance, I was tempted to grab the recent Humble Bundle but was just able to resist.
John Carter is the only 2D20 game I've run, and it was a blast. None of the players were familiar with the literature and I had them all play earthers. The first combat was probably in the 4th or 5th session (they were overly cautious) but when they leapt into action against raiders it was a sight to behold.
 
If you used Mythras you would need to be Pulp or Paragon type stuff from the Companion

For my Mythras Conan game, the characters rolled 4d6 drop lowest (3d6+6 drop lowest for SIZ and INT), making them a little tougher, but I didn't use the rest of the Pulp rules. I wasn't going for Conan like characters though, rather just a little tougher than average adventurers exploring the Hyborian Age. We're five sessions in and they've easily handled all the enemies so far: bandits, Hyperborean slavers, and a chaos hybrid. I hope they don't get overconfident. The Cimmerian did get beat up in a fist fight by a pig farmer, though.
 
Hey guys I would love to know more about running Conan in Mythras. Now I am gonna sound ignorant but is Mythras related to the Call of Cthulhu system? Could I import CoC sorcery into Mythras?
 
Yep. I do. I also bring in Seidr and Galdr from MRQ2 Vikings and Runecarving from Mythic Iceland.

Looks back at his shelf at Mythic Iceland. Remembers he has MRQ2 on PDF. Smiles.

I don't have any Call of Cthulhu though.
I recommend The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic to get the imagination going with many examples of Mythos sorcery.
 
Hey guys I would love to know more about running Conan in Mythras. Now I am gonna sound ignorant but is Mythras related to the Call of Cthulhu system? Could I import CoC sorcery into Mythras?

Call of Cthulhu and Mythras share a common ancestor in RuneQuest. They are both percentile skill based systems.

For my Mythras Conan game, I am running the adventures in Book of Quests, which was released for Mythras’s previous version, RuneQuest 6. As is, they are sword & sorcery adventures. I changed the names, and it feels Conan enough to me. To make it feel more so, I could tinker with the magic, make culture and career skill lists for the different Hyborian peoples, and build the religions and other organization as Mythras cults & brotherhoods.

This board’s own Raleel Raleel has provided some great Mythras/RuneQuest 6 Hyborian Age resources here: https://sites.google.com/site/raleel/campaign-ideas/rq6-hyborian-age

Someone has also put together a great list of Hyborian Age combat styles for Mythras here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j3mgxvtzrklpxj5/Sample Combat Styles.pdf?dl=0
 
Call of Cthulhu and Mythras share a common ancestor in RuneQuest. They are both percentile skill based systems.

For my Mythras Conan game, I am running the adventures in Book of Quests, which was released for Mythras’s previous version, RuneQuest 6. As is, they are sword & sorcery adventures. I changed the names, and it feels Conan enough to me. To make it feel more so, I could tinker with the magic, make culture and career skill lists for the different Hyborian peoples, and build the religions and other organization as Mythras cults & brotherhoods.

This board’s own Raleel Raleel has provided some great Mythras/RuneQuest 6 Hyborian Age resources here: https://sites.google.com/site/raleel/campaign-ideas/rq6-hyborian-age

Someone has also put together a great list of Hyborian Age combat styles for Mythras here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j3mgxvtzrklpxj5/Sample Combat Styles.pdf?dl=0

I like the inclusion of extract heart, which I thinking an example of what was originally a Mythos spell ported over to “swords snd sorcery” Mythras. If my CoC recollection is correct.
 
Oh I didn't know he moved to MeWe I used to follow his blog back in the day. Thanks, I appreciate all the new info on Mythras Conan.
Yeah, probably the only reason I have to check in on mewe. I think he said he's finished uploading all his old G+ content to the group there.
 
Fate Core has been my Hyborian system of choice of late, playing GMless via Mythic with my wife (although we're going to try it with MUNE).

It's been pretty darn good. Aspects like "Sudden Sandstorm" and "Spider-Haunted Ruins" have kept us on our heels, and it's been working very well for our 2-character party. We've spent a lot of time on the run, from slavers, giant scorpions and minions of the Turanian noble who have been sent to capture my wife's Brythunian swordswoman.
 
I like the inclusion of extract heart, which I thinking an example of what was originally a Mythos spell ported over to “swords snd sorcery” Mythras. If my CoC recollection is correct.
I actually pulled it from Legend’s Arcadia of Blood, but also written by Pete Nash Pete Nash iirc.

that game was one of my very favorites. I am sad it ended. It was very conan. I pulled spider gods bride for the plot arc and a bunch of resources from Xoth.net. The weapon styles doc was made by Ranger Dan on the TDM board. We led with breaking into the temple of the ape god (using a technique from black seven, a stealth rpg). They found a slave woman tied up and ready to be sacrificed. She was Stygian, just like one of the characters. Poor player was targeted. She was really a thief. She went on to betray them several sessions later by leading them into an ambush searching for a gem held by a bat god cult, and they burned down a drug lord’s (her ally) stash and tavern in the process of chasing her down for revenge. This then caused the ire of the general in the city who was an addict who then chased them across the Susrahnite plains. They get to a new city and get captured by the cult of a rat god who kept a small army of sultry priestesses. They managed to escape and ended up breaking the arm of the rat god with a manacle and chain then killing him with stolen weapons.

I had a streak there of several good campaigns and this was the last one. It was really great stuff.
 
CoC is actually a great starting point for a Hyborian Age game; most people's exposure to Conan is through movies and comics and pastiche novels, but most of the original stories are more like Lovecraftian horror.
 
I actually pulled it from Legend’s Arcadia of Blood, but also written by Pete Nash Pete Nash iirc.

that game was one of my very favorites. I am sad it ended. It was very conan. I pulled spider gods bride for the plot arc and a bunch of resources from Xoth.net. The weapon styles doc was made by Ranger Dan on the TDM board. We led with breaking into the temple of the ape god (using a technique from black seven, a stealth rpg). They found a slave woman tied up and ready to be sacrificed. She was Stygian, just like one of the characters. Poor player was targeted. She was really a thief. She went on to betray them several sessions later by leading them into an ambush searching for a gem held by a bat god cult, and they burned down a drug lord’s (her ally) stash and tavern in the process of chasing her down for revenge. This then caused the ire of the general in the city who was an addict who then chased them across the Susrahnite plains. They get to a new city and get captured by the cult of a rat god who kept a small army of sultry priestesses. They managed to escape and ended up breaking the arm of the rat god with a manacle and chain then killing him with stolen weapons.

I had a streak there of several good campaigns and this was the last one. It was really great stuff.

That's an amazing campaign, and sounds like it really captures the Howard Hyperborian S&S aesthetic.

Why did it end?
 
That's an amazing campaign, and sounds like it really captures the Howard Hyperborian S&S aesthetic.

Why did it end?
Players needed something different. Towards the end I didn’t hold the wheel as well as I should have. There was some dark world fatigue too.

I would have been a little stricter with some of the magic that made it in later, I think, but I still have an arc that I’ll happily do with it.

being Conan, I started off by giving everyone free basic proficiency with either Sushranite or another language if they were already Sushranite. It was a good choice.

They were also EXTREMELY bitter about the lady thief.
 
CoC is actually a great starting point for a Hyborian Age game; most people's exposure to Conan is through movies and comics and pastiche novels, but most of the original stories are more like Lovecraftian horror.
CoC’s not bad, Mythras is way better, gives more teeth to the combat. Raiders of R’lyeh has a more Howardian approach to the Mythos and the Supernatural...

”Silver and Fire!” - The Black Stranger
 
For people using CoC as a base for a Hyborian game, how do you handle Sanity?
 
Brock Savage Brock Savage I am really digging Conan 2D20 at present, it ticks alot of boxes. So far it has managed to feel both pulpy and gritty at the same time, and is very Conan-esque. The resources are extensive, and it is really immersive for anyone getting into a classic sword & sorcery setting like the Hyborian Age.

However if you are thinking of getting Mythras then I also heartily recommend this choice as well. BRP is my favourite system anyway, with Mythras pretty much at the top of that pile.

I don't think you can go wrong with Mythras, and it is a perfect fit for the Hyborian Age.

The combat system is really great for a gritty tactile flavour, which works really well for this setting.

I think there are enough of us here who can give advice on how to customise Mythras specifically for the Hyborian Age, such as where the different cultures fit, what specific weapon and skill traits they have, how to pulp the mechanics up to Conan level etc.

I know that between my Mongoose Conan books and my Modiphius Conan books there is a lot of lore that can be easily ported to Mythras mechanics.

Could be a fun project here at the Pub, given that Mythras may be becoming the lingua franca in this community.

So if you want to do Mythras Conan, by all means go for it

I think Crom would approve :thumbsup:
 
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I actually pulled it from Legend’s Arcadia of Blood, but also written by Pete Nash Pete Nash iirc.

Silly me, I was thinking of the Dreamland's spell Explode Heart. Which has slightly different effects, but the same end result (at least for the target) :grin:
 
Silly me, I was thinking of the Dreamland's spell Explode Heart. Which has slightly different effects, but the same end result (at least for the target) :grin:
that would have been popular with my player too. he ended up really liking Bone Dance spell from SGB
 
“Crom, I have never played Mythras before. I have two d10’s for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we had good GMs or bad. Why our PCs fought, or why they died. All that matters is that a few PCs stood against many NPCs. That's what's important! Mythras combat pleases you, Crom... so grant me one request. Grant me a critical! And if you do not listen, then to D&D with you!”

I recommend reciting this before your first Mythras game. It has a d100 percent chance of working.
 
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The full version goes something like this:

“Crom, I have played Mythras before. I have d10’s for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we had good GMs or bad. Why our PCs fought, or why they died. All that matters is that a few PCs stood against many NPCs. That's what's important! Mythras combat pleases you, Crom... so grant me one request. Grant me a critical! And if you do not listen, then to D&D with you!”
That’s beautiful. I’ll weep for you.
 
Well it took us about four afternoons of gameplay over three months (we usually only meet once a month), but we finished the CONAN free rpg quickstart scenario 'The Pit of Kutallu'. It could have easily been completed over three afternoons, but we bantered so much that it took us four, heh heh.
It had a great opening hook, although it turned out to be only a pretty average scenario, it really needed much more meat on the bone, especially some maps would have been helpful. However it still was an okay introduction to the CONAN 2D20 system.

We had alot of fun with the Momentum Pts generating cool cinematics, and the group is up for more Hyborian Age adventures.
So I need to read the thru the Downtime mechanics now, and browse a few official scenarios to find one that fits for the next part of our tales - I am getting into the groove of the CONAN 2D20 system, but need to run a few more sessions before I do a homebrew.

One thing I will do next time is to present the standard NPCs in the 'Toughened Opponent' format as a default, and only switch to 'Minions' format when I really want to pulp things up a bit. The player-characters really have alot of odds in their favour, and running NPCs as Minions as a default looks like it won't challenge my players too much. This way the characters still have the odds weighed greatly in their favour, but not as much as I initially did with them - I ran most of the pirate slavers and the primitive natives as Minions in the last scenario, and they were just wal-to-wall fodder, so I now know that is just a dial for when I want it, but I would like things to feel a tad more gritty a bit more than I did with this last session.

Other than that, our initial few sessions of Modiphius Conan has gone pretty good, with the main issue being the vague core rulebook whenever I want to clarify something.

I really missed my opportunity to run the Hyborian Age here with my favourite version of BRP (Mythras), but I figured that I had all these Modiphius Conan books, so I might as well run them RAW. It has been a bit fiddily at times, but I also find it is hitting alot of similar beats to Mythras, and the game does feel very much in keeping with the flavour of CONAN, so I'm pretty happy all the same.

Looking forward to where I take these tales in another month or so, wish me luck Dog-Brothers! :thumbsup:
 
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Well it took us about four afternoons of gameplay over three months (we usually only meet once a month), but we finished the CONAN free rpg quickstart scenario 'The Pit of Kutallu'. It could have easily been completed over three afternoons, but we bantered so much that it took us four, heh heh.
It had a great opening hook, although it turned out to be only a pretty average scenario, it really needed much more meat on the bone, especially some maps would have been helpful. However it still was an okay introduction to the CONAN 2D20 system.

We had alot of fun with the Momentum Pts generating cool cinematics, and the group is up for more Hyborian Age adventures.
So I need to read the thru the Downtime mechanics now, and browse a few official scenarios to find one that fits for the next part of our tales - I am getting into the groove of the CONAN 2D20 system, but need to run a few more sessions before I do a homebrew.

One thing I will do next time is to present the standard NPCs in the 'Toughened Opponent' format as a default, and only switch to 'Minions' format when I really want to pulp things up a bit. The player-characters really have alot of odds in their favour, and running NPCs as Minions as a default looks like it won't challenge my players too much. This way the characters still have the odds weighed greatly in their favour, but not as much as I initially did with them - I ran most of the pirate slavers and the primitive natives as Minions in the last scenario, and they were just wal-to-wall fodder, so I know that now is a dial for when I want it, but I would like things to feel a tad more gritty a bit more than I did with this last session.

Other than that, our initial few sessions of Modiphius Conan has gone pretty good, with the main issue being the vague core rulebook whenever I want to clarify something.

I really miss my opportunity to run the Hyborian Age here with my favourite version of BRP (Mythras), but I figured that I had all these Modiphius Conan books, so I might as well run them RAW. It has been a bit fiddily at times, but I also find it is hitting alot of similar beats to Mythras, and the game does feel very much in keeping with the flavour of CONAN, so I'm pretty happy all the same.

Looking forward to where I take these tales in another month or so, wish me luck Dog-Brothers! :thumbsup:
I look forward to hearing more!

I found the same issue with minions in our first large battle in John Carter 2D20. The party was not challenged at all by the NPC minions and then they basically were able to all focus on the toughen opponent NPC lieutenant. However, the vehicle/airship combat was actually more harrowing to them. "Wait! We're going to crash!!!"
 
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2d20 minions are very low-powered, the party will cut through them like a Lightsaber through butter. A good Rule of Thumb is double the minions or kick them up a step.
 
Yeah I think I should just be running most NPCs as 'Toughened' by default. All it means they have two Wounds instead of one, and they operate more or less like the PCs, they roll 2D20 for their ability rolls instead of 1D20, so they feels much more in keeping with the system.

They can still be weak with abilities etc, but it just means they are not useless. They are still in the shadow of the PCs, so the 'pulp' flavour is still present. If the situation requires running through large mobs etc where the objective is for the NPCs just to slow the PCs down, then that's a good time to dial the opponents down to Minions,

Looking at the system, it actually feels like it is designed to do it this way, but the scenario I was using had the majority of opponents statted as Minions by default, with the Deep Ones as 'Toughened' just to highlight them of prominent challenges. Again the core rules could be a bit more clear at times

It's no dramas, I guess I am experienced enough to see it now, and we have only played the quickstart anyway.

I feel that the system is quite a mixed bag, but the overall experience was pretty good for us.

I like the way you can quantify your success rolls by the ammount of Momentum generated, and this can be put directly back into an action to give it more flavour, or partially stored in a pool of points for the entire group to access. This was quite a good mechanic, and it really added to the our session. We found that Momentum Pts stimulated many great cinematic scenes, and it definately was an exciting and fun feature of the game play.

I also like how you roll hit locations - there is no mechanical reason, but it helps drive the narrative and can direct what the characters do with their Momentum spends, so it works a bit different to BRP Hit Locations, yet maintains the tactile flavour.
I made a ruling that any head shot required a character to make a Brawn roll (+ Resistance Skill Bonus) to see if they were Stunned or not, just because that seemed like something reasonable for a head injury.
However most of the time the Hit Locations just provided ideas for the scope of what to do with Momentum spends, such as a leg hit would indicated the PC wanting to knock the opponent down, or an arm hit would direct the PC to do a Disarm spend, stuff like that.
All in all, it felt very gritty and tactile in combat, which I am accumstomed to after using Hit Locations in my BRP games for years.

Doom Pts are a weird thing for a GM to have. Whereas Momentum Pts felt really cool, the Doom Pts seemed a bit restrictive. I can see the game working just as well withoutt them, but I won't be tinkering with them, they seem part of the experience for this game. I am not sold on their validity at all, but they do seem an integral part of this game, so I had best not tinker with the game's DNA. We;ll just have to see how it goes...

The combat dice are not my thing, I greatly prefer the traditional poly dice of D&D and BRP, or just the bonus to success levels like in Fate Core, Rolling these combat dice didn't do it for me at all. However I did like that different weapons can generate different kinds of effects, this was very tactile, and I am used to this kind of thing from RQ and Mythras, so I liked that part of it.

Overall there were more pros than cons running CONAN 2D20, and I am glad I'm finally using all these books - I backed the kickstarter for CONAN 2D20 and have the core book, and get every pdf sent to me upon publication, which often prompts me to order another physical book from somewhere.

My Modiphius CONAN library is more or less up to date, sitting alongside my small Mongoose CONAN library ( I only have a few titles of this previous excellent line), and all this sits in my bookcase next to some volumes of Howard's novellas, and numerous volumes of the CONAN Dark Horse graphic novels and reprinted Savage Sword of CONAN comic anthologies.

So finally running a game in the Hyborian Age is really fun, considering I have so much of the setting collected.

I also ran it with Mythras - I was going to retrap 'The Book of Quests' and 'The Spider-God's Bride' campaigns for the Hyborian Age, which would have been a simple process, considering they are both Howardian style settings.

I still might do so one day, but at present my group is just getting used to the Modiphius CONAN mechanics, and the combat scenes have felt both gritty yet pulpy, which does capture the flavour we wanted for CONAN anyway, so I'll keep going with Modiphius CONAN for some time yet.

The Hyborian Age is often described as a pastiche of the Dark Ages - Fantasy Europe & Mythic Arabia (sometimes with some Lost Continent elements) - very true, but then again Westeros is a Middle Ages pastiche, and people seem to take Game of Thrones seriously - the Hyborian Age is just a really great default setting for running fantasy gaming adventures

I'll post back any updates here in Picaroon Jack Picaroon Jack's thread, and also be checking this thread to see how others may be enjoying running Hyborian Age adventures, regardless of whether is it Modiphius CONAN, Mongoose CONAN, Mythras, BoL, DCC, AS&SH, D&D 5E, SW, whatever, it's all good fun! :thumbsup:
 
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“Crom, I have never played Mythras before. I have two d10’s for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we had good GMs or bad. Why our PCs fought, or why they died. All that matters is that a few PCs stood against many NPCs. That's what's important! Mythras combat pleases you, Crom... so grant me one request. Grant me a critical! And if you do not listen, then to D&D with you!”

I recommend reciting this before your first Mythras game. It has a d100 percent chance of working.
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