1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.
—oOo—
In 1985, TSR, Inc. published the
Conan Role-Playing Game, the first of five roleplaying games to be based on the
Conan the Barbarian stories of Robert E. Howard. Which means that it is forty years old in 2025, but this was not the first foray into the archetypal Swords & Sorcery genre by the publisher. After all, the Conan the Barbarian stories had always been an influence upon E. Gary Gygax, TSR, Inc., and
Dungeon & Dragons, with stats for Conan actually appearing in
Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes for the original version of
Dungeons & Dragons, which was published in 1976. That though, was unofficial, whereas his appearance in two modules for
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition was official.
CB1 Conan Unchained! and
CB2 Conan Against the Darkness! were both published in 1984 and both were designed for Player Characters of Tenth to Fourteenth Levels and to be played by the four pre-generated Player Characters included in each module, which of course, included Conan amongst their number.
Behind the eye-catching image of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan,
CB1 Conan Unchained! provides not only a scenario set within the Hyborian Age, but also an introduction to the setting and the rules to run the scenario using
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Although the image from the cover was taken from Conan the Barbarian, which was only released two years before,
CB1 Conan Unchained! does not use any more images from it and it is not based on its story. Rather,
CB1 Conan Unchained! takes its cue from the short stories by Robert E. Howard—‘Queen of the Black Coast’, ‘Red Nails’, and the unfinished ‘The Hall of the Dead’. It is from these stories that Conan himself and two of the three other pre-generated Player Characters come from. Besides Conan, they include Nestor the Gunderman and Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, whilst Juma the Warrior is inspired by later comics. All have weapon proficiencies and secondary skills, whilst Conan has a special ability which means he is very rarely surprised. Conan himself is a Thirteenth Level Fighter and a Seventh Level Thief, Valeria a Tenth Level Fighter and a Ninth Level Thief, Juma a Twelfth Level Fighter, and Nestor the Gunderman a Fourteenth Level Fighter.
One notable addition to all four Player Characters is that of Luck Points. This is the first of several new rules in
CB1 Conan Unchained! Conan has twelve of these, Nestor and Juma have ten each, and Valeria has sixteen! These are included because, “Conan is sometimes able to do things beyond the range of the AD&D rules. These impossible actions are part of Conan’s special abilities. It is important for characters to be able to do the same things, so they are given Luck Points.” However, they are not spent by the player per se, but by the Dungeon Master. She is told to encourage the players to have their characters perform “…[H]eroic, amazing, or impossible feats…”, with a player expected to describe what his character is trying to do and the Dungeon Master then adjudicate the cost without the player being told how many Luck Points his character has left. For a single Luck Point, a Player Character can make an extra attack in a round, automatically hit an opponent, climb without falling, leap a chasm, and so on; whilst for two Luck Points, he can knock out a person with fist or weapon, spring back from a trap just in time, and climb while carrying another person; and for three Luck Points, do something heroic beyond the scope of the rules. They cannot be spent on a roll that has already been made, on a Saving Throw, or a Fear Check. Some opponents also have their own Luck Points.
To account for the lack of the Cleric Class in the Hyborian Age and thus the lack of healing magic, a Player Character always heals a single Hit Point per day and Hit Points equal to half the Player Character’s Constitution if he rests for a whole day.
The other major addition is the Fear Factor to found in certain creatures and monsters as well as magic effects and reflect Conan’s own instinctive reaction to the unnatural and things that defy explanation. Whenever a Player Character fails a Fear Check, he is struck dumb momentarily or flees for his life, until he overcomes his fear or is hurt again. Sources of Fear include monsters, spellcasters, and unusual magic items or situations and have a Fear Statistic ranging between one and ten. When a Fear Check is required, the Fear Statistic is multiplied by the Player Character’s Wisdom and the resulting value is rolled against on percentile dice. Succeed and the Player Character is unaffected, but fail and he is filled with fear.
There can be no doubt that the inclusion of Luck Points and Fear Checks are radical changes to
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, that certainly in the case of Luck Points take the roleplaying game far beyond what it is normally expected to do. In fact, what the inclusion of Luck Points highlights is that as much as
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition is pitched as a roleplaying game of heroic adventures and fantasy, it is actually not heroic. Arguably, the fantasy of
Conan the Barbarian and the Swords & Sorcery genre is pulp fantasy, but if that is case, then given the fact that
Dungeons & Dragons is inspired by Swords & Sorcery, what Luck Points show is that
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition cannot do Conan-style, Swords & Sorcery as written without them. And since they encourage roleplaying in a particular style, they are actually the first roleplaying mechanic to appear in
Dungeons & Dragons! (As opposed to Inspiration, which appeared in
Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2014!)
In fact, the inclusion of Luck Points in
CB1 Conan Unchained! is not only a highly radical design choice for
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and TSR, Inc., but also a very modern one.
Top Secret: An Espionage Role Playing Game for 3 or more players, ages 12 to adult, published by TSR, Inc. in 1980 included an optional rule for Fame and Fortune Points which enabled a Player Character to overcome a fatal wound. It would be
James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service, published in 1983 by Victory Games, that developed the concept fully as Hero Points that could be used to adjust skill rolls, shrug off wounds and even death, and enable the Player Characters to be more heroic. However, in
The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game, published by TSR, Inc. in 1984, only offered Player Points, which can only be spent to reduce the severity of a Player Character’s wounds or injuries. It is incongruous that in two roleplaying products from the same publisher and the same designer—David Cook—released in the same year, it is a scenario for
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition that is given Luck Points.
If the Luck Points are a good addition, Fear Factor, less so. It is not so much a case of
CB1 Conan Unchained! not needing a mechanic for handling fear, but rather a question of whether it not it needs a specific new rule for handling fear. Could not the Saving Throw mechanics of
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition be used instead? That said, the Fear Check mechanic is simple and fast.
One other change that
CB1 Conan Unchained! makes is to classify its scenes into several types. These are normal, random, and plot encounters. Normal encounters are those typical of an adventure, such as exploring a ruin or attacking a pirate ship, whilst random encounters are there to spice up the action. Plot encounters are scenes in which the Player Characters have to act through with only a limited number of choices in how they can act. The Dungeon Master is advised that they be handled with care lest the players feel forced in their characters’ actions. Unfortunately, ‘plot encounters’ like this were not well received at the time and are still looked at with some disdain, though more so in the case of
DL1 Dragons of Despair—which came out the same year as
CB1 Conan Unchained!.
The introduction to the Hyborian Age in
CB1 Conan Unchained! is short, but informative. It highlights how the countries and peoples of the Hyborian Age are formed of different individual groups, each easily identified and with different attitudes and behaviours. The latter means that is often possible to identify someone in the Hyborian World just by their actions. Steel weapons are available, but armour is rarely more than chain or scale. Monsters like those of
Dungeons & Dragons are very rare, with giant beasts and demons, elementals, giants, and golems being common. Magic in the Hyborian Age is practiced, but rare, confined to summoning, illusions, charms, and death spells, so greatly feared. Magical items are even rarer and invariably dangerous to those who wield them, though this does not stop sorcerers hunting for both them and dusty tomes of magic.
The scenario on both sides of the narrow Sea of Vilayet and opens with the adventurers as mercenaries in the employ of the Khan of Turan, hired to put down a rebellion by Kustafa, the governor of a city who has refused to pay the taxes that are due. However, a strange magical attack by darkness and shadows finds the army they were part of destroyed and the adventurers on the run. This is the first of the scenario’s four Plot Encounters, the second following close on its heels as the Player Characters are captured by the Mongel Horde-like Kozaki nomads who plan sell them to Stygian slavers. The problem with this Plot Encounter is that the Player Characters have to be captured for the scenario to proceed and given that this is at the beginning of the scenario, they have a lot of Luck Points to spend. Now the nomads do use lariats to capture them, but it is possible for the players to burn through an awful lot of their characters’ Luck Points before that happens and this is right at the start of the scenario.
The Player Characters are not expected to escape, but to prove themselves worthy of being one of the Kozaki and then over a series of events make themselves popular, and eventually, challenge the hetman of the group. There is a good mix of events and encounters to throw at the Player Characters throughout this process and they are given plenty of opportunity to prove themselves. There is even an encounter when a rival to the post of hetman attempts to assassinate a Player Character who looks like he is vying for the position. Of course, it also possible for the Player Characters to escape, but it is not nearly as interesting as when the scenario presents. Whether or not the Player Characters escape, or they become part of the Kozaki, they will in the third Plot Encounter of the scenario run into a female NPC. She will reveal herself as Costhiras, the mistress of the Khan of Turan, who was visiting the city that he sent the army that the Player Characters were part of to recapture it after it rose in rebellion and stopped paying taxes. She tells them that Kustafa, the governor of the city did not do this willingly. He has fallen under the influence of Bhir-Vedi, an evil sorcerer who searches for her still—and to enforce that fact, she is attacked by an Invisible Stalker that instant!
Costhiras begs for the Player Characters to help her and offers to guide them to The Citadel of Bhir-Vedi (or they can follow her if she was snatched by the Invisible Stalker). Either way, this leads them to travel with a band of pirates lead by a somewhat tiresome pirate captain (though he does fight with a sword blade attached to the steel cap on the stump of his wrist and if desperate, can fire it on a spring), but eventually the Player Characters will get to the other side the Sea of Vilayet and the entrance to The Citadel of Bhir-Vedi. There is a short maze-like cavern to navigate before coming upon Bhir-Vedi’s tower, a fairly standard sorcerer’s tower by any measure. There are a fair number of traps to avoid, mostly requiring a check to see if the Player Characters are surprising before they can spend Luck Points, and there is the strong possibility of them being captured after being put to sleep and then waking up to find themselves chained atop the tower ready to be sacrificed to some god or other by Bhir-Vedi. Hopefully, they will have retained enough Luck Points to break their chains (or at least make a Bend Bars/Lift Gates roll)! And after that? Enough points to kick Bhir-Vedi off the top of the tower!
Physically,
CB1 Conan Unchained! is disappointing. It looks good, with good art and cartography, but the editing is poor with names constantly changing and inconsistent descriptions.
—oOo—
CB1 Conan Unchained! was reviewed by Steve Hampshire in the ‘Game Reviews’ section of
Imagine No. 24 (March, 1985). He said, “The module itself also has some uniquely ‘Conan’ features. Normal AD&D monsters are almost totally replaced by various human opponents and potential opponents. Surprisingly, some of these are good enough to challenge Conan! The plot is simple and rather derivative, but it takes in some interesting settings and encounters. For most part it plays well, despite niggles like a ship that keeps changing its name, and monsters using their useless wings to fly into attack.” He concluded his review by saying, “The mood of this module is different form the normal run of AD&D material, and the players and referee really need to get into the swing of the thing. It helps if one is familiar with the Conan books or film. This scenario is good for introducing the characters, but stronger plotlines will be needed of there is to be series.”
Rick Swan reviewed
CB1 Conan Unchained! in the ‘Capsule Reviews’ in The
Space Gamer Number 73 (March/April, 1985). Of the new rules—the Fear Factor and Luck Points—he said, “D&D purists may freak, but the rules work and add to the heroic feel of the setting. Fans of R.E. Howard will happy to know that Cook has approached the source material with considerable respect and that Conan Unchained is generally consistent with the Hyborian world we all known and love.” However, he added that, “The basic problem is that Conan isn’t a particularly good choice for the D&D system. Compared to most D&D settings, Conan’s world is pretty barren. There’s no magic or interesting settings to speak off, and the adventure is nothing special (the characters are captured by slavers, negotiate their freedom, and rescue a fair maiden from a nasty castle).” He concluded that, “Conan Unchained can be played as part of a regular D&D campaign without Conan and associates, but what’s the point? There are plenty of better roleplaying modules available from TSR and elsewhere. Conan and D&D go together like peanut butter and tuna fish – it can be done, but you can bet there’s going to be a funny taste.”—oOo—
CB1 Conan Unchained! suffers from several problems. Most obviously, if you going to play it, who plays Conan and why would you want play anyone else? Second,
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition does not feel right for it and is not right for, as evidenced by the inclusion of Luck Points which enables the heroic feats that Conan calls for and which
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition is not designed to do. In fact, what it highlights is how staid the design to
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition was by 1984. Third, how poorly plotted it is. The adventure does not really start until the Player Characters get captured, so why does that have to be played out and the players waste their characters’ Luck Points? Then the sequence with the pirate captain is tedious, designed to barb the Player Characters into action. The plot really is most straightforward. Yet there are flashes of excitement to found in
CB1 Conan Unchained! The sequence in which the Player Characters free themselves from the nomads and then take over is actually quite fun and the inclusion of Luck Points encourage the players to be a little more inventive than
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition necessarily might be in normal play.
Ultimately,
CB1 Conan Unchained! feels rushed and underdeveloped, an attempt to bring fans of
Conan the Barbarian and
Conan the Destroyer to
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and fans of
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition to
Conan the Barbarian and
Conan the Destroyer, that is not really good enough to attract either and satisfies neither.
