Conan the Cimmerian in Roleplaying Games Part 1: The Beginning

Greetings Adventurers! I’m a big Conan fan. To say that puts it mildly.  I’m not just a Conan fan- I really enjoy almost all of Robert E. Howard’s work but more on that another time. Today’s post is about Conan and RPGs. 

A little history about me and the big barbarian. I first came across Conan as a fantasy character amidst the comic books of Marvel, DC, Archie, Key and so forth. It was in the form of The Savage Sword of Conan magazines. As a child it seemed very adult to me and a little beyond my fantasy interests, which were mostly in the likes of Robin Hood, King Arthur and onward to the Lord of the Rings, etc. Forward to the 80’s and my love for all things related to Dungeons and Dragons. As a young teen I came across the Conan the Barbarian (1982) film by John Milius in VHS (sadly I missed the theatrical release). I was taken by the character and the whole theatrical experience. For the first time I saw Dungeons and Dragons as I imagined it. Swords and Sorcery at a “realistic” level…well at least at a realism that wasn’t campy, low budget, or schlocky to me. I was entranced by it all and shortly learned that there were a whole slew of books written about the character. I managed to find a copy of the Ace Publishing  Conan Book 1 and I was hooked. The rest is history.

Of course, it didn’t take me long to find my favorite barbarian in roleplaying games. I’m not going to go into the “Barbarian” Class or various mentions of “Conan like” depictions in RPGs I’m only going to explore the actual licensed versions. I’ll start historically and not in the order that I came upon the various gaming publications of my favorite savage hero.

To my knowledge the first appearance in a roleplayingish sense in gaming was with Fantasy Games Unlimited’s Royal Armies of the Hyborian Age (1975). Although it doesn’t specifically have any rules for roleplaying in Conan’s world it does include wargaming information (and rules) for battling armies during the Hyborian Age. Conan is but mentioned as a Superhero commander and little much else. I found my copy in a dusty RPG discount bin at some gaming convention I attended in the late 1990’s. I’m lucky that mine contained the original map and cardstock reference sheet. I know I paid less than $5 for it. The rules are dry and typical of wargames of the 1970’s and very similar to TSR’s Chainmail. The section of Appendix II about Magic Users is interesting and worth a read just for the bit about Thoth-Amon (who garners three rather large paragraphs, far more than Conan himself!) 

 

The first licensed ability to play Conan came about in 1984 with the publication of TSR’s AD&D Conan Modules: Conan Unchained! (1984) and Conan Against Darkness (1984). Both are rather dry affairs, the first a high-level adventure with players taking the roles of Conan! (Why the exclamation point I do not know.) Valeria of The Red Brotherhood, Juma The Warrior and Nestor The Gunderman as they proceed to fight along Kozaki’s in the Free Companions and delve a Wizard’s Tower. The Second is another less inspiring high-level adventure with Conan (no exclamation point this time), Pelias, Prospero and Nzinga taking on the feared Toth-Amon in and Shem and Stygia. The world of the Hyborian age for AD&D adds a Fear Factor, Luck Points, and some unique healing rules. In my opinion David Cook and Ken Rolston tried too hard to appeal to all the movie goers, comic fans, and book lovers and failed to capture the “Howard Feel” of adventure. 

A year later these were followed by the very first standalone Conan RPG simply called Conan Roleplaying Game by TSR (1985). Coming off of the very successful Marvel Superheroes RPG of 1984 TSR (the beloved FASERIP system) attempted to use the same style of color-coded action charts (read Universal Table) to resolve tasks. The system was targeted at beginning roleplayers and it wasn’t the best fit for Conan fans. It contained many clerical errors and lacked the dangerous feel of the Howard Stories. Three adventures came out for it in 1985 but the momentum of a less than ideal system doomed the project. I only played this system once yet I treasure my copy as I was gifted this boxed set by a dear friend of mine who I worked with at Crescent City Con (we organized the gaming events) who knew of my love of Conan. Within a year I had acquired the other three adventures at various gaming conventions. Alas, the color-coded table system was a bit too simplistic for my gaming tastes. A unique note to this part of the story is that this rare game and its adventures go for very high prices on eBay now. 

Next Steve Jackson Games would acquire the license and produce GURPS Conan: The World of Robert E. Howard’s Barbarian Hero (1989) for its popular Generic Universal Role Playing System. Previously in 1988 SJG began producing GURPS solo adventure modules then in 1989 releasing the full sourcebook followed by even more solo adventures. Far better than the TSR version as GURPS was designed for the fantasy genre (SJG’s Man-to-Man became GURPS) and plugging the world of Hyboria into the system worked very well. I found my copy at a FLGS for $15 at a time when copies were being sold on eBay for hundreds of dollars. Since 2021 SJG has been able to sell this product again both as a pdf and print on demand and old 80’s copies have plummeted in value since. As are SJG’s other GURPS world/sourcebooks this one is great and I highly recommend it for the lore, monsters, and the gazetteer chapter alone is worth the purchase, at least for the pdf. Even though I own all of the “solo” adventures they play pretty much like an old “choose your own adventure” book and are not my favorites. 

Conan took a downturn after 1989 and his time in the roleplaying spotlight began to fade. It wasn’t until the release of the OGL that brought life back into Conan’s roleplaying career. We continue this into the next post. Until then adventurers I hope you enjoyed the beginning of my little trip into the past.