GURPS Conan Solo Adventures Impression

[Nebless]

I played all 4 over a week and thought I'd give my general impressions. First off I didn't use the included character(s), but recreated my Age of Conan character and used him for all 4.

To play, you'll need the base GURPS rules and the adventures (of course).

You can pick up the 4th editon Gurps LITE rules free, between those and what's in the adventures you'll be able to create a character and run the solos no problem, so no need to buy the full Gurps system book if you don't want to. The Conan supplement isn't really needed, but might have been useful just to expand on stuff for a couple of points.

- Queen of the Black Coast: Not a lot of fighting, basically a search for treasure adventure but it lets you get used to the gurps concepts and the various saving rolls you have to do.

- Beyond Thunder River: I ran this 2 1/2 times and the use of Plot Words made all 3 different. While there are a couple of 'fixed' spots (the stuff you do in the fort and the Pict village), your choices drive the different outcomes. The most fun of the 3 as there's lots to do.

- Moon of Blood: This one's a little different than the others as it focuses more on you as an Army commander. While I didn't really like the mass combat rules, they did work.

Moon of Blood is the follow on sequel to Beyond Thunder River. While you can play it separately, they recommend playing them in order.

- Wyrmslayer: A bit of a plod as you search the ice cavern, but OK.

Over all a weeks worth of fun and adventure for not all that much money.

All 4 says that if you're creating your own character it needs to be a 300-400 pt character (a 'high level if you will) like the Conan one they included. I found my character was never really challenged and you could probably get away with a 200 pt character for more of a challenge.

Problems: Nothings perfect right? These haven't been offered for awhile and now that they're available again a good errata scrub would be nice. Beyond Thunder River has a good one you can download, but for the other 3 all you get is a one liner correcting some background information. The paragraph flows need a good check.

I ended up in a paragraph loop a couple of times; granted the Black Coast one was on me, but the book could have made it clearer on how to advance the plot. For Moon of Blood it's on them. If you get stuck you need to go back through the paragraphs you used (I recommend using a sheet and note down the paragraph number as you do them just for that purpose) and see if you made a mistake and if not, than to try another paragraph.

That's what I ended up having to do in Moon of Blood, go back and try the different paragraphs til I found one that advanced the plot even through it meant having to either use a plot word I didn't have or try the 'you failed your roll' paragraph even though you didn't.

Saving Rolls; The rules are really weak on listing what's what so you end up playing the solo's and see do a Vision roll, a Hearing roll, Will roll etc... except at first glance you won't find what those are very easily (hint they're just rolls against your IQ, why they don't say that I don't know) and waste time having to really read into the rules to find what you need to roll against. Beyond Thunder River was really bad for this, while the others would list 'do a Will roll (IQ -3)' thus telling you right there in the paragraph what you needed to do.

Nit picking. In the Lite rules and the Conan supplement it shows the weapons you can use and what damage they do, but some of the NPC's and enemies you fight list different damage done with those same weapons. I know you add ST in to get the final number, but even doing that, it doesn't balance out. Just kind of strange.

It would be nice if SJG or someone could do up each combat map on a single sheet (I wasn't able to do it) so you could use miniatures or counters representing the combatants. As it is you just have to use pencil or a marker if you've sleeved that page, to note positions and moves for a fight.

Good fun and there is replay value here. I'm going to set it aside and when I do play it again, I'll use one of the included pre-generated characters just for a different feel to the game.