My take on Conan: The Hyborian Age (Monolith 2025), read alongside the old Modiphius Conan 2d20 and your usual S&S suspects (Barbarians of Lemuria, Crypts & Things, Swords Against the Shroud, Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells).
The core engine is simpler than 2d20, spicier than BoL.
Monolith Conan is: pick a Stat (Might, Edge, Wits, Grit), roll that many d10s, and every die ≤ your Skill is a success. Opposed tests just compare successes. You also roll a Flex die every time; if it maxes, you get a little cinematic bump (extra action, better damage, etc.). So: no Momentum/Doom pairing to manage, but you still get a “punchy” result every roll. That’s already less to explain to players who bounced off Modiphius’s 2d20 system.
Conan stuff is baked in at character level.
Origins (Cimmerian, Civilized, Steppes, etc.) come with actual mechanical tone: base Life, small combat edges, and which sorcery you can ever buy. That last one quietly enforces Howardian scarcity, most PCs just don’t learn Stygian nightmare magic. BoL leaves “why are you all swords-and-sorcery?” mostly to the table; Monolith hard-wires a Hyborian frame
Stamina + Flex juice up the scenes.
You start each Tale with Stamina = Grit; you spend it to do more-than-human things (extra move, boost defense, etc.). Then Flex occasionally fires for a heroic shove. That’s much closer to BoL’s Hero Points than to 2d20’s constant bid economy. You won’t be handing players piles of meta-currency every roll.
Sorcery is costly, specific, and scary.
Casting almost always costs Life or Stamina, sometimes every round if you maintain it. Some spells scale: pay 2/4/6 Life, do 1d6/1d8/1d10. It’s absolutely not “D&D but darker”, It feels like a dangerous exception, which is what I want for a Conan game. In that sense it’s closer to Crypts & Things’ “magic hurts” than to BoL’s broad Magician career.
Travel light is actually a rule.
Three gear slots plus a little bundle, or you’re Encumbered. Armor has its own STR gate. That’s very pulp-Conan: you stride into the jungle with a sword, shield, maybe a bow, not with a donkey train. That rule alone pushes scenes to look like Howard and not like generic fantasy.
Campaign structure is pulpy and low-prep.
Everything is framed as Tales: 1–3 sessions, then Respite where everyone heals, gains XP, buys exactly one Skill. That’s a built-in session loop so you don’t have to invent advancement pacing. And the GM chapter tells you straight-up to use the big setting history the way Howard did, as a bucket of lost cities and ancient survivals, not a timeline to memorise. That’s exactly the “comes to the table quickly” I’m personally looking for without the lore baggage that restricts my creativity / improv.
What running it might feel like
You set up a Hyborian situation (city of thieves, Stygian ruin, border war), give it 2–3 encounters from the book, maybe a sorcerer with a stepped-cost spell, and you’re live. Fights can bite. Wounds and Conditions start to matter, so you get that “I nearly died wrestling the ape” vibe without Modiphius’s longer turn cycles.
Versus Modiphius Conan 2d20
In 2d20 you roll under Attribute + Skill on d20s, generate Momentum, then GM spends Doom. Great for long set-pieces, but it is more to track.
With Monolith the d10 pool + Flex + Stamina mechanism, still gets cinematic spikes but without the constant Momentum/Doom conversation.
GM load: Monolith says outright “GM-friendly, minimal prep” and then hands you ready Tales. 2d20 asks you to drive pacing with Doom, which is work.
Versus Barbarians of Lemuria
BoL is easy to run and I enjoyed the games of it I’ve run, but is it Conan or just generic Sword & Sorcery?
BoL wins on sheer smoothness. One d20 + Attribute + Career, done. It’s still the friendliest to run cold. Easy to explain in convention games.
Conan wins on baked-in Howard. National origins, encumbrance-as-tone, sorcery that drains Life, and Hyborian geography all right there. You don’t have to make up “Stygia-but-not-Stygia” like you do in BoL.
The Prep ask: For BoL, sketch a place + a sorcerer + a monster, go. Conan (Monolith), pick a Tale from ch. 10, drop in 1–2 Encounters from ch. 7, go. That’s still low-prep.
So will it see more play than BoL?
If the question is “what can I teach in 15 minutes to tired convention players?” BoL still wins.
If the question is “what gives me Conan without me doing all the lifting?” Monolith Conan pulls ahead, because it hands you the Hyborian kit pre-assembled.
Versus other Sword & Sorcery systems sitting unplayed on my hard drive
Crypts & Things / Swords Against the Shroud: ultra-S&S, OSR roots, easy to hack, but you have to do the “this is actually Hyboria” work yourself. Conan doesn’t. Conan’s sorcery also looks more like Howard’s “pay in blood/soul” than C&T’s D&D-derived chassis.
Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells: fastest of them all, beautiful generators, but deliberately thin on setting. Again, you must push it toward Conan. Monolith does that pushing for you.
Does it actually give you “tools to get the feel”?
I think yes, because of four very specific things:
- Tale/Respite loop: episodic Conan pacing out of the box.
- Equipment cap: everyone looks like a pulp hero, not a pack mule.
- Life/Sta-cost sorcery: magic is rare, costly, villain-facing.
- Huge Hyborian atlas + 3 sample adventures: I could run “The Frost-Giant’s Brother” tonight.
That’s exactly the “not just another fantasy RPG” lever I’m looking for from a Conan RPG.
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