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OK, so I decided to run some games at http://www.kublacon.com/">KublaCon, and ended up deciding on a HERO System Star Trek game and a Conan RPG game.  (I feel a twinge of guilt since neither of these are indie, but I figure I'm doing my part in other ways.)  So I wanted to talk about the Conan game since I'm a little wary of it.  It's very much a test run, which can be bad.  I put up a skeletal http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/brawnythews/">web page with the event description.  

QuoteCenturies after Conan was king, the Aquilonian Empire collapsed and Hyrkanian hordes descended upon the west sweeping over the ruins, even into the harsh land of Cimmeria. This was the twilight before darkness for the Hyborians. This is the tale of a band of Cimmerians who came to face the empress of the Turanian Empire. It tells of the indomitable spirit of the Cimmerians deep in the unfamiliar lands of the easterners, in the teeming city of Aghrapur. There is intrigue and action within the forbidden city of the Turanian Empress, as the band seeks to free not only themselves, but their country.  

So my first principle with this was that I wanted strong doses of sex and violence, and it should be fun to play out.  In particular, I wanted to have a central monster-fighting bit.  Now, as in all myth and fantasy, monsters are very important for the story.  Monsters are inevitably symbolic, and the terrific creativity of their strangeness should reflect the issues at work.  I'm still struggling over what the monster should be.  

But while it has surface similarities, there are core differences from Howard.  Conan was a lone figure representing a sort of liminal balance between civilization and barbarism.  Here the issues are more social: a band of equals, with concern for their country and culture which is currently under attack by the Hyrkanians.  In many ways, I want this to be a more modern tale: where the barbarians are in a more thoroughly civilized city, and women are empowered (at least as represented in the empress).  

I'd prefer to talk about principles rather than specific plot much, partly for avoiding spoilers.  Things I'm worried about:

[*] I want a group of 6 characters who are all pretty similar on the surface: all tough, cool, and sexy Cimmerians.  So I'm going to have to struggle with nuances to make them each distinct.  It's a challenge I've faced before, but still a tough challenge.  [*] I'm concerned about sex.  It'll be tough in a crowd that I expect will be hardened male gamers, but I also consider it vital.  I dealt with this some in my James Bond 007 game -- which has a system that looks good but I found was rather dull in practice.  Ideally, I'd like system to take the edge off of the embarrassment but still give it more flavor than JB007's approach. [*] My players may well know the system better than me.  I've never GMed a d20 game; I just played in a D&D3 game for a few months.  I figure I just need to study and in particular run through the combats.  [/list:u]

Quote from: John Kim

[*] I want a group of 6 characters who are all pretty similar on the surface: all tough, cool, and sexy Cimmerians.  So I'm going to have to struggle with nuances to make them each distinct.  It's a challenge I've faced before, but still a tough challenge.  

It's going to be a tougher challenge for your players, I'd say - and potentially a not very enjoyable one.
You're planning on running this at a Con with pregen PCs, yes? With a bunch of players who don't know each other and have to find their feet as to their play styles during a few hours' worth of game?  Chances are that fiddling with the niceties of char nuances created by someone else will prove too much for some, of not all of them.  

I'd suggest using pregens with clearly defined differences - backgrounds, races, if not classes.  You'll make your players' job easier and have a better chance of an un-disgruntled game.

Quote from: John Kim[*] I'm concerned about sex.  It'll be tough in a crowd that I expect will be hardened male gamers, but I also consider it vital.  I dealt with this some in my James Bond 007 game -- which has a system that looks good but I found was rather dull in practice.  Ideally, I'd like system to take the edge off of the embarrassment but still give it more flavor than JB007's approach.

I'm not familiar with the JB007 rules set, so ...
You want rules mechanics for sex?  I'd run stuff like that freeform, focus on the flavourful descriptions of NPCs, and Veil any actual physical activities going on (which is exactly what Howard did in his stories btw, although as I hear some of the pastiche authors didn't).   Much easier to play things by ear and avoid embarrassment that way.

Quote from: John Kim[*] My players may well know the system better than me.  I've never GMed a d20 game; I just played in a D&D3 game for a few months.  I figure I just need to study and in particular run through the combats.  [/list:u]

Yup.  Also if there's still time, maybe get your DnD group together to test play your Conan Con game before the actual event.

Just some thoughts.

Hello,

John, I guess I don't understand your concern about sex in the game. Meaning, I can't tell from your post exactly what you're concerned about, out of the many possibilities. Can you clarify for me?

Best,
Ron

Quote from: StalkingBlueI'd suggest using pregens with clearly defined differences - backgrounds, races, if not classes.  You'll make your players' job easier and have a better chance of an un-disgruntled game.

Well, that's OK as a rule of thumb, but as I see it, the characters are absolutely central to what the event is about conceptually.  It is about male identity, and informed by the Conan mythology as its center.  That's what interests me about the adventure in the first place.  I'm starting to come up with who the PCs are, and I may post more about them.  

Quote from: StalkingBlueYou want rules mechanics for sex?  I'd run stuff like that freeform, focus on the flavourful descriptions of NPCs, and Veil any actual physical activities going on (which is exactly what Howard did in his stories btw, although as I hear some of the pastiche authors didn't).   Much easier to play things by ear and avoid embarrassment that way.  

(This also is to Ron's question.)  Player embarrassment is the key problem that I'm concerned about.  In my experience, it's very different playing an RPG than reading a book, because the RPG is a social situation.  For example, listening to a male GM flavorfully describe a naked woman before them does involve embarrassment, moreso than privately reading the exact same description.  A similar principle applies to systemlessly role-playing out scenes where a PC is trying to seduce an NPC or vice-versa.  I don't necessarily want to put the players on the spot to come up with romantic dialogue.  

The end goal that I want is to minimize embarrassment without cutting the sex out or completely abtracting it away -- with the particular case that this is liable to be a group of all men, who don't know each other, and are relatively hardened gamers of the d20 type.  I'm not expecting a whole lot since I consider it a tough sell in the first place, but I just want some element of it in there.  Note that in the adventure, seduction isn't necessarily an unrelated side bit -- it may be a key step in success or failure.  (I would cite, for example, "Queen of the Black Coast" where the only reason Conan survives the pirate attack is because he appeals sexually to their leader.)  

My thought was that to ease potential embarrassment, there should be known limits on what is played out, what is abstracted, and how it is abstracted.  Systemless by definition means that the player doesn't know how things are going to work, and it is negotiated on the spot.  The system I'm looking for doesn't have to be anything particularly complicated -- but I want to have something system-wise.  For example, the James Bond 007 RPG handles this with five levels of Seduction skill rolls, each with increasing difficulty: "The Look", "Opening Line", "Witty Conversation", "Beginning Intimicies", and "When and Where".  As with all skill rolls, there is description at each stage.  In principle this seemed good, but there are some drawbacks in practice.  For example, in JB007 the Seduction skill roll of the character determines the Ease Factor for the NPCs Willpower roll to resist.  This makes the final roll in the hands of the GM, so there isn't a lot of impact to the player's roll.  

I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle it, but it's something I'd like to prepare the players for in some way.  The end might be just some qualitative principles which doesn't involve any numerical mechanics, or it might be a combination of rolls and description like JB007.  I'm not sure yet.  

Quote from: StalkingBlueAlso if there's still time, maybe get your DnD group together to test play your Conan Con game before the actual event.  

Actually, I don't have a D&D group.  The D&D3 campaign I briefly played in was three years ago and I'm no longer in contact with the people there.  No one among my current groups play D&D3 or D20 games, so they're not much use for testing mechanics-wise.

Quote from: John KimWell, that's OK as a rule of thumb, but as I see it, the characters are absolutely central to what the event is about conceptually.  It is about male identity, and informed by the Conan mythology as its center.  That's what interests me about the adventure in the first place.  I'm starting to come up with who the PCs are, and I may post more about them.  

I'm not sure I can offer any advice that you wont have heard before or already know yourself but here's my two cents anyways.  You want all the characters to be strong Conan-esque super warriors so there stats wont be all that different, where you make them different is in the color and character.  Detail rivlaries and relationships between the characters, histories, character flaws, maybe one's greedy another is a braggart, etc.

Quote
I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle it, but it's something I'd like to prepare the players for in some way.  The end might be just some qualitative principles which doesn't involve any numerical mechanics, or it might be a combination of rolls and description like JB007.  I'm not sure yet.

Sex in Howard's stories often seems to be about power so maybe turn seduction into a system similar to combat.   Use something like charisma rolls for attack and wisdom as hit points.  Let the players roll out the seduction combat and add whatever flavour dialog they like but it all comes down to the rolls so they needn't feel embarassed.  Conan wasn't one for flowery dialogue anyways it's raw animal magnetism that got him the girls.

The final step of course is to reward them as much xp for seducing women as they get in combat against a warrior.  Seducing the queen of course will be worth more than seducing a barmaid.

QuoteSex in Howard's stories often seems to be about power so maybe turn seduction into a system similar to combat. Use something like charisma rolls for attack and wisdom as hit points. Let the players roll out the seduction combat and add whatever flavour dialog they like but it all comes down to the rolls so they needn't feel embarassed.

oooh.  I like that idea.  Sounds suitably Conan-ish.  

I don't have the new Mongoose book; can they have overlooked something like this?  Do they have any advice for seduction situations?  

If not:  50 dollars?  50 dollars?  I say: feh.

Quote from: CaldisSex in Howard's stories often seems to be about power so maybe turn seduction into a system similar to combat.   Use something like charisma rolls for attack and wisdom as hit points.  Let the players roll out the seduction combat and add whatever flavour dialog they like but it all comes down to the rolls so they needn't feel embarassed.  Conan wasn't one for flowery dialogue anyways it's raw animal magnetism that got him the girls.

The final step of course is to reward them as much xp for seducing women as they get in combat against a warrior.  Seducing the queen of course will be worth more than seducing a barmaid.  

Well, the XP isn't terribly relevant in a convention event, though I'll keep it in mind for a possible campaign game.  

As I ponder the issue, I think I disagree with your principle, though.  The seduction rules for James Bond are fitting for the genre because James Bond would actively manipulate to seduce women, and indeed it was one of his primary skills :-).  But Conan in the Howard stories is quite different.  As far as I recall, he never manipulates or forces women to sleep with him in the stories.  Instead, women are attracted to him because of his strength, spirit, and honor.  There is no guile in his relationships.  In an RPG, the PCs may be different than Conan and have such guile -- but it shouldn't be an implicit part of the system.  

Setting it up as a combat system casts things in a different light.  This implies that sex is defeat and loss for the object of a PC's attention.  On reflection, I think I would want this to be more than zero-sum.  i.e. Sex could be a mistake for both parties, or a victory for both parties.

Quote from: John Kim
As I ponder the issue, I think I disagree with your principle, though.  The seduction rules for James Bond are fitting for the genre because James Bond would actively manipulate to seduce women, and indeed it was one of his primary skills :-).  But Conan in the Howard stories is quite different.  As far as I recall, he never manipulates or forces women to sleep with him in the stories.  Instead, women are attracted to him because of his strength, spirit, and honor.  There is no guile in his relationships.  In an RPG, the PCs may be different than Conan and have such guile -- but it shouldn't be an implicit part of the system.  

Setting it up as a combat system casts things in a different light.  This implies that sex is defeat and loss for the object of a PC's attention.  On reflection, I think I would want this to be more than zero-sum.  i.e. Sex could be a mistake for both parties, or a victory for both parties.

I think you misread me there.  I wasnt intending for it to be a form of manipulation or to signify using force, rather it's sheer animal magnetism. A contest of his barbaric natural power of life versus the womans socialized desire to sleep only with an acceptable mate that will provide for her, which wins out.  He always sleeps with the woman, and she always wants to sleep with him  he never has to put any effort into wooing the woman, the combat is purely an abstraction it's not meant to signify anything actually taking place.    

As to your second comment I can see why you would want to treat sex in that manner though I dont think it holds true of the source material.  Conan never had regrets about anything, least of all sex and rarely was it presented as something that cost him anything.  If anything it was a chance to display his virility as the beautiful woman falls all over him.  Maybe it's just from the film but I seem to recall women trying to use seduction to control Conan, it rarely worked for long, but that is the same type of situation I'm thinking of here and an example of the woman winning the sexual battle.

This may not be what you are looking for I realize.   I see it as a tool for contextualizing the sex, seeing on who's terms the event takes place.  If you arent interested in that then it's useless to you.

Quote from: John KimSetting it up as a combat system casts things in a different light.  This implies that sex is defeat and loss for the object of a PC's attention.  On reflection, I think I would want this to be more than zero-sum.  i.e. Sex could be a mistake for both parties, or a victory for both parties.

I think the idea of sex as abstracted combat is really interesting in its take on the "battle of the sexes."  Another analogy is binding demons in Sorcerer.  A binding roll always succeeds in the sense that the demon is always bound, but whoever won the binding roll comes out with a power edge over the loser.  The problem is that in both the combat and the binding examples, there are pretty much just two possibilities, but its a bit more complicated with seduction.  

I'll try to list the possibilities.  In each there are two important outcomes: whether sex happens and who gets the power advantage.  The power advantage could translate into some kind of system bonus in all future interactions with that character (or at least until something stops it).
So as not to be heterocentric, lets just call the two people A and B.

A wants B, but B wants to resist A.
1)  If A wins, sex happens and gA ets power advantage.
2)  If B wins, sex doesn't happen, and B gets the power advantage, due to A's humiliation in the face of rejection.

A and B want each other
1) A wins, sex happens, A gets power advantage.
2) B wins, sex happens, B gets power advantage.
3) A tie, sex happens, but no power advantage.
4) A tie, sex does not happen, and no power advantage.

I think the combat metaphor works great for the first situation.  The demon binding metaphor works for the first 3 outcomes in the second situation, since if we replace "sex" with "binding" we get exactly the outcomes possible from demon binding in sorcerer.  But you still need some way of splitting ties between type 3 and type 4.

You are using d20, right?  So you could have some cutoff (say 12).  If neither player gets at least a 12, its a type 4 tie (no sex).  If they tie at greater than or equal to 12, its a type 3 tie (sex happens).  If at least one of them rolls greater or equal to 12, sex happens, and the person with the higher roll gets the advantage.  

Or maybe you want something a little more complicated that involves multiple rolls, representing different stages of seduction.  I like the combat metaphor because it gives you this, so maybe you could come up with a way to split the results into these four results that uses a combat metaphor.

Hi John,

Do you consider Conan RPG strongly Gamist (obviously it can be played that way but isn't it inclined towards Setting or Situation Exploration Sim)?

Bifi

Quote from: Caldis

Quote from: John KimSetting it up as a combat system casts things in a different light.  This implies that sex is defeat and loss for the object of a PC's attention.  On reflection, I think I would want this to be more than zero-sum.  i.e. Sex could be a mistake for both parties, or a victory for both parties.

I think you misread me there.  I wasnt intending for it to be a form of manipulation or to signify using force, rather it's sheer animal magnetism. A contest of his barbaric natural power of life versus the womans socialized desire to sleep only with an acceptable mate that will provide for her, which wins out.  He always sleeps with the woman, and she always wants to sleep with him  he never has to put any effort into wooing the woman, the combat is purely an abstraction it's not meant to signify anything actually taking place.

Well, you may disagree -- but I feel that mechanics influence the feel of events.  If it is mechanically treated like combat where the player of the man rolls attack and damage to the Wisdom of a woman, it seems like it gives the impression of force even if it claims that it isn't.  By the book, hit point loss doesn't necessarily represent physical injury, but in practice it strongly gives that impression.  

Quote from: CaldisMaybe it's just from the film but I seem to recall women trying to use seduction to control Conan, it rarely worked for long, but that is the same type of situation I'm thinking of here and an example of the woman winning the sexual battle.

This may not be what you are looking for I realize.   I see it as a tool for contextualizing the sex, seeing on who's terms the event takes place.  If you arent interested in that then it's useless to you.  

Well, yes, I think I'm interested in different aspects of it.  Your and Henri's suggestion here cast sex in terms of power relations -- and the use of sex is in trying to gain power over the partner.  That's valid, but it doesn't really fit with what I'm looking for.  I'm not sure what would fit better, though.  

I think I want the system for attraction to imply focus on self more than the other -- i.e. you win over the woman by making yourself more attractive, not by doing anything to her.  (Not sure how that would work, though it probably will be more descriptive than mechanical.)  And that still leaves open the results of sex.  I think that information would be the most immediate reward.  I'll have to see.  

Thanks, it's made me ponder more what I'm looking for.

Quote from: John KimMy players may well know the system better than me.  I've never GMed a d20 game; I just played in a D&D3 game for a few months.  I figure I just need to study and in particular run through the combats.  

if there is ever any doubt - just get them to roll a d20 and call you the result. then you look like you are thinking for a moment, then decide if you think that it's cool for the player to succede, they do.

(that;s how i run it, i been running d20 since it came out...)

Seduction in d20 - in my current campaign one of the PCs is a courtesan; for her seduction attempts I use Performance rolls.  :)

This, or a simple CHA check, works fine for d20 IMO.

I think in the film Conan the Barbarian much of the sex is explictly about power and power relations - not just the actual sex like Conan with the demon-witch; Thulsa Doom's serpent gaze is clearly portrayed as sexual in nature too.  Modelling something like that movie, sex as combat would make sense _except_ for the Valeria-Conan relationship, which is one of equality (unlike Belit-Conan in the books, where he becomes her henchman).

I haven't seen anything comparable to sex-as-combat in the REH Conan stories I've read, unless you count Belit's seduction of Conan in which she, not he, is clearly the active party.  As pointed out above, unlike James Bond, Conan never 'fights' the will of the woman to triumph, he fights the monster.  You could say that mighty sword vs big snake or whatever is actually a metaphor for sex of course, but if anything that just makes the idea of 'combat rolls for sex' _less_ appropriate here than in other genres - by the time Conan has slain the snake and rescued the damsel, he has already won the combat.

I guess in conclusion - a Conanesque hero seeking sex does _not_ make seduction rolls, he makes melee attack rolls.   When the monster is killed, he gets the sex (and the XP) as reward.  By contrast a lustful NPC like Belit or the Witch may attempt to seduce the male PC for her own ends; in that circumstance combat mechanisms are appropriate - the default d20 approach would be a Will save for the PC vs a check DC set by the seductress.  This could be expanded into a full d20 combat system with each party having ablative Will Points instead of hit points, and the winner getting to determine the result of the exchange. Personally I would probably stick to a mix of roleplaying it plus Will saves if necessary, with the DC affected by the player's actions for the PC - a PC who is clearly interested in the seductress will have a lower save DC than one who displays icy froideur.

Sex and violence are very explicitly linked in Conan, even in the edited versions that got published. Generally Conan does not use violence against the woman to gain sex from her, but he does gain sex after committing violence against the world -- and often the more transgressive the violence the hotter the sex.

When he killed the brothers in "The Frost Giant's Daughter" he almost got to have sex with the daughter. (And if that story doesn't have a sexual power dynamic I don't know what does.) In "Queen of the Black Coast" he gets sex from Belit after brutally slaughtering her followers in front of her. (The MS original contained the line "He felt an impulse to lock his iron fingers in his companion's black locks and subject her person to moderate violence" and other gems like "bruise me with your fierce love.") In "Iron Shadows on the Moon" and "The Pool of the Black One" Conan gets not only sex but a loyal companion after he kills her current lover and master. And stories like "The Devil in Iron" are all about Conan seducing a woman who was trying to seduce him for her own reasons. I think the most telling quote is from a letter Howard wrote about "Black Colossus" in which he said:

"My heroes grow more bastardly as the years pass. One of my latest sales concluded with a sexual intercourse instead of the usual slaughter. My sword-wielder grabbed the princess – already considerably stripped down by the villing [sic] – and smacks her down on the altar of the forgotten gods, while battle and massacre roared outside, and through the dusk the remains of the villing, nailed to the wall by the hero, regarded the pastime sardonically. I don't know how the readers will like it. I bet some of them will. The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler."

Compare this to stories like "People of the Black Circle" (in which Conan is never promised sex and doesn't end up getting any) and "Shadows in Zamboula" (in which he is promised sex to manipulate him, but ends up not getting it) where the people Conan kills are mostly the enemies and attackers of the lovely maidens of the piece. He wants sex from them, but as he contains his violence to the knightly-protector roll he doesn't get it. In that light it starts to seem like the more violent Conan is, the more he intrudes his barbaric violence upon the world of the woman, the more likely he is to get sex. And when he comes into the woman's world without violence, such as in "Xuthal of the Dusk" or the crypt scene in "Hour of the Dragon" where two nearly identical voluptuous Stygian noblewomen try to seduce him, he becomes the one subject to being preyed on by female sexuality.

So in Conan stories you're either eating or being eaten, and the relative violence of either determines how hot the fire is going to burn.

So I really think that the suggestion that Conan characters (who are following the Conan path, rather than the path of one of the other minor heroes from the Conan stories, guys like Valerius who earn loyalty through loyalty) don't make seduction rolls – they make melee rolls. The more shocking violence they make that rocks the world of the woman in question, the more likely they are to get sex from her. You don't gain sex by seduction, you gain sex by violence with the thin veneer of acceptability because you aren't being violent against the woman. (Though it is worth noting that several times in the stories Conan grabs a semi-willing woman and kisses her until she becomes willing and melts in his arms.)

Otoh, if they allow themselves to become passive then the woman may try to seduce them for her own ends: in which case the Will Save vs Bluff or Performance is a good suggestion.

Now, I'm not sure how this is going to fit in with the comfort level of the players, which I know was a concern. Played to blatantly I can see it causing a great deal of consternation among a lot of con players, as it goes against a lot of the rhetoric around sexuality, and could be even worse than normal sexuality in an RPG. However, if it is played down and put on a level of "accomplishment in feats of arms gets you sex" level that exists in oh so many legends, it may become acceptable. That way the GM doesn't have to have great descriptions of sex or long seduction scenes, because things are focused in other places while still subliminally being about sex. You introduce an obviously desirable sexual partner, give her a situation fraught with the potential for violence, and let the PC slay their way up the ladder, only occasionally bringing the sexuality back in to spur the violence and action higher.

Of course, having the flashing eyed heaving breasted maiden watching from the sidelines, growing more frantic while two men grunt and struggle for their lives could still make some people uncomfortable, but at that point I have to wonder why they are playing a Conan game.

Quote from: Brand_RobinsSo I really think that the suggestion that Conan characters (who are following the Conan path, rather than the path of one of the other minor heroes from the Conan stories, guys like Valerius who earn loyalty through loyalty) don't make seduction rolls – they make melee rolls. The more shocking violence they make that rocks the world of the woman in question, the more likely they are to get sex from her. You don't gain sex by seduction, you gain sex by violence with the thin veneer of acceptability because you aren't being violent against the woman. (Though it is worth noting that several times in the stories Conan grabs a semi-willing woman and kisses her until she becomes willing and melts in his arms.)

Otoh, if they allow themselves to become passive then the woman may try to seduce them for her own ends: in which case the Will Save vs Bluff or Performance is a good suggestion.

Yup, I think that's exactly right - for the male protagonist the slaughter _is_ the seduction.  Whereas if he is on the defensive the Will save mechanic is the obvious one, though I would only require a Will save if the PC had clearly expressed interest in the seductress, I wouldn't take away player choice in the absence of a sorcerous effect.

BTW I think the Con was last year (2004), I hope there's no rule against summoning up an old thread.  :)