I ran conan for the first time. I think it went well. I must admit it was faster than i had suspected. I had brand new players, and they are kids ranging from about 13 to 15.
They picked up momentum really quickly. They feared the doom pool. Which was great.
We only have a couple of hours so I’m going to start next game with the same doom and fortune we ended this one with.
spoilers
They escaped the ship. Lost the slavers in the jungle after trying to negotiate with them, which didn’t end well, and then running away. We left it as they approached the sunken city of kullatu.
They loved it. I enjoyed running it. Though there is a lot to learn as it is so new.
One of the players had three followers accompany him on the group’s journey. After a round of combat, the player asked why the three followers didn’t a least pick up a rock or something and help out?
After the game it occurred to me that I don’t have to RP those followers in combat; just use mob rules and they assist a player character, so he could’ve added 3 dice to his combat roll, or spread them out and have a follower assist the other players with 1 die each.
I rarely play NPCs that characters have as followers in combat. I prefer to have more screen time for the players, rather than making them watch me playing some NPCs. None of the players is interested in controlling NPCs either.
When combat starts the NPCs engage others in the background and I add situational bonuses due to the availability of the NPCs - removing enemies, adding +Xd20 bonuses in zones where they can help each other or giving morale boost.
There are a few rules i need to check before we play again. I need to know if there is a limit to the number of assists a character can get.
Recovering fatigue was also something i fudged.
How ofter to award fate.
Need to sit down with book.
One to three fortune points per hour of gameplay depending on pace of play per the rulebook. Having only 3 sessions under my belt, things may change, but I can’t imagine giving out multiple fortune points every hour. PCs at initial generation are very competent. My players have no problem generating momentum and starving the doom pool. Fortune is the one piece of that equation I control and a dwindling pool of fortune points adds to the tension. We’ll see as the difficulty of their opponents ramps up.
Best.
M
Mine all have pregen characters. Nobody is really amazing at anything. Except the pirate at spotting.
Their momentum was fairly balanced. They used it quite a bit to reroll damage dice.
They dispatched 8 slavers easy. The sea was a bit harder in terms of challenge. They added doom to survive that.
Crocodiles 1st thing next session. We will see how that goes.
Game 2. Another 2 hours ish.
Kutallu spoilers ahead:
They were ambushed by crocodiles and one was caught in a deadly death roll as he kept trying to stab it.
Then they explored the “dweller’s” huts and fought some and their hybrids.
That is as far as we got. They are all pretty young as players so easily get super excited and distracted. I’ve used doom (adding a point) to get them back on track a couple of times. One player is obsessed with the dweller’s blood, convinced they have some magical venom.
We took our first Harms. And some armour was lost to protect from harms.
I need a better way to remember them as i keep forgetting the penalties. The penalties are really harsh too.
I might make some tokens to remind us. Like i made tokens for momentum.
Sounds like everyone is having a blast! That’s great! I personally loved the Pit of Kutallu one shot as a starter/introduction to the system. I ran it to familiarize myself and my players to the game before they made their own characters and that helped with the system a lot. Penalties are harsh by design. The world of Conan is harsh. That being said… wait until an archer shoots anything. I’ve found the most deadly form of combat in the game is archery. Melee is brutal but Archery is just plain deadly most of the time.
