Burgonet's page

Nice work!

Something I keep forgetting to ask: am I correct in thinking there's no real government in Numeria? I know it has a king but he's a drug addict and doesn't seem to really care about his duties as king.

I was under the impression that this Priest clique was using the drugs to keep Kull under their sway and thus they are the ones in charge.

Anyone can test a Test to become a God.
But the path to Enlightenment is littered with the bones of failure.
Your bones in all likelihood if you're a betting sort.

Your imagination is a Dimension.
So arguably any imaginary place can be visited!

And still plenty of time for Tea.
Cake, anyone?

A nation ruled by a Barbarian King kept drugged by a clique of High Priests?
Who sadly aren't Serpent People?
But is partly named 'Kull'?

Don't stop the car.
This is Bob Howard country.

So look to his Hyborean Age essay if you're looking for inspiration.
Howard only took to writing 'fantasy' when his regular gig writing historical fiction for pulp publication fell through.
So all he did was take the now very dated notions of History from the 1920's and slap on a fantasy veneer.

One he partly borrowed from his venomously bigoted, yet somehow still compelling pen pal.
You Know The One - he mistook Jazz Music for the Music of the Sphere (and thus, Madness).
And wrote some of the most over-wrought descriptions ever in horror fiction!

You can thank his doting wife for her efforts in bringing his fiction to become a permanent fixture of Nerd culture.
Which makes HP Lovecraft's naked anti-semitism and racism (who was racist even by 1930's standards) even more stark given he loathed the identity of not just his wife (she was Jewish) but also many fellow Jews in publishing who helped build his writing career.

So, Bob Howard with some HP Lovecraft!
Plus the science-fantasy genre trappings of the 1970s and 1980s - mostly as that's when Howard and Lovecraft enjoyed their popular publishing resurgence.

Feel free to take out, or play with, the weirdly dated notions of Civilisation vs. Barbarism (Howard), and the Supernatural As Science Fiction (Lovecraft) to personal taste.

And maybe some Chris Voss (artist) for your spaceship inspirations.

177. He stopped believing in Himself.

Over The Edge had a third edition?
I guess I CAN hire Baboon security for my next corporate function - as planned!

To some extent, it's what Path of Exile is to Diablo 3.

So Pathfinder is the New Zealand dry comedy of tabletop gaming?

It’s honestly not a a Conan game unless someone does an Ahnuld, James Earl Jones or Mako impression.

To be fair you've forgotten the inclusions of key phrases like "My Mitra!" "Crom!" or the inclusion of a seductive vampire or witch, a giant snake or a tribe of Killer Apes that try to murder the group.

I know the few times I ran one-off stories with the older incarnation of Conan I managed all of those and more in "The Chalice of LIfe" and "The Tomb of the Ancestor" adventures.

I have just purchased the existing P2nd ed rules as I was looking for a 'D&D like' game and since this new edition has only recently come out?

I thought I'd give it, and putting a group together in 2020, a shot.

I'm pretty old-school when it comes to gaming.
Pen and paper, rules in nice deluxe edition with ribbons, markers, cheat sheets for rules, maps, miniatures and props.

That said I'm going to try to run the game with the following in mind:

- If the game isn't fun for the players (and by that virtue, myself!)? You're doing it wrong.

- Try to play with RAW but never be afraid to fudge a result if it spares the group a result that isn't fun. Sometimes defeat and even character death can be fun, but best if meaning can be derived from play.

- Never punish a player for not knowing the rules. But over time the group should expect you capture the essence of the game. Hit rolls, damage rolls, skill resolutions. Don't insist on game knowledge but try to encourage your players to pick things up.

- No consumption of Other Media while you're at the table. Don't sneak in NCIS with your head-jack in, no reading of work not related to the game itself we're playing, no podcasts. It's just polite to actually engage with the other players, and the GM, at the table.

- If there is player conflict (as opposed to character conflict) then it's fair to ask those parties involved to tone a rivalry down. If they cannot, as GM I'll have to play it by ear. If you are going to be excluded from the game it will be for out of game reasons, not in game ones.

- I'll help shape and create the narrative. Even if the story is about going into a dark hole to kill monsters. But players need to be interesting to me, and the other players. While I don't expect improv theatre (I tend to run from such social invitations!) try to make your character interesting to us-as-audience.

- Have fun. That's the point of all of this.

I imagine I'll need a few weeks, or perhaps months, to digest the P2nd ed rules. It's been some years since I've run a game (5? 6? years?) but I've run D&D in all its incarnations since the Basic/1st ed days. Rolled too many d10 during the 1990s (Vampires drool, Mages rule) as well as loved my copies of the Mekton line (from I-II-to Zeta) to death.

Not sure if there's any wisdom here, apart from the "If the game isn't fun, it's not on" maxim. I really feel a lot of DMs lose sight of the art of making a game fun for its players. I'll do my best to bring some of that back with P2nd ed