I decided to invest my time and money in the Conan 2d20 system by Modiphius Games. I'd already got a fully painted set of the Monolith Conan Miniatures game and all the Expansions so I figured what better way to enjoy more sword and sorcery fun and get to use my miniatures for something else as well.
So for me if Dungeon & Dragons and Lord of the Rings is classified as 'high' fantasy, the I would refer to the worlds created by R E Howard in the Conan stories as 'low' fantasy. This is by no means derogatory, I just feel the setting and worlds of Conan are dirtier, bloodier and gritty in comparison and for me and the way I wanted the Hyborian age to feel for my players. I think this is captured in spades by the Modiphius books and the plethora of source material they have produced, the amount of source material and background available is just awesome.
Character Creation: The character creation offers a great way to build a hero with a history and background story as you create, there are no fancy races to choose from as you are all human but there are a wide range of archetypes with skill trees and you are not tied to a 'one trick pony' character, they will be multi skilled and experienced before they hit the table. Unlike D&D your heroes arrive heroic and ready for action, and although the system uses experience points for development you can build skills and abilities you choose as opposed to a blanket increase, making use of the numerous skill trees.
Damage & Wounds: I'm liking the way that damage is dealt with by this system, and beware as there is a mechanic for mental damage and trauma as well as physical. You have a rating of vigor for physical damage or resolve for mental damage, loses are taken from there until certain criteria are reached and then a wound or trauma is taken. The vigor/resolve scores will automatically heal at the end of a scene, so this kind of represents getting your breath back or shaking of initial shock but wounds which are not prevented are usually healed after longer periods of time, like between games for example and will cause skill check to become tougher...all heroes only have 5 wounds, when 4 are taken its really bad news, so if things go south it can get messy real quick.
Mechanics: The skill checks are really easy to get your head around but the thing that I've found hardest to understand and manage is the use of momentum or doom. If a PC passes a skill check there is the potential to gain momentum, which can be used to do cool stuff such as improve results, cause more damage, take additional actions etc. The momentum pool encourages the team to work together and maybe share in the success, but sometimes it pushes the players to roll more dice and increase chances of a complication happening. Its taken me and the players a few games to get to grips with this, but once they do it almost self manages itself. When running this a a convention game the momentum spends are the thing people used to systems such as D&D seem to struggle with the most.
Negative Stuff: The only thing I could say is that the rule book is a little confusing in layout and I've had to re-read some stuff between sessions and ensure I've got it. There are a lot of moving parts which mesh together nicely but may take a session or two to get to grips with it. Also just the shear amount of information in the core book can seem a little overwhelming, so I would suggest dipping in with the free pdf of the quickstart rules maybe first. So overall not too negative, just may require some work to make sure it all comes together, but when it does I feel it works really well.
I look forward to continuing my campaign, a nice narrative is forming and I think my players are growing into their characters nicely and I'm becoming more comfortable handling the system and understanding how all the bits fit together to create adventures in an age undreamed of.
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