The ''Conan Role-Playing Game'' was published by

TSR, Inc. TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D''). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been ...

in 1985.

This boxed game was designed for players age 10 and up contained a full-color map, a 32-page rule book, a 16-page reference guide of talents, weaknesses, and charts, and a 48-page notebook about the land of

Hyboria The Hyborian Age is a fictional period of Earth's history within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, serving as the setting for the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian. The word "Hyborian" is derived from the l ...

plus two 10 sided dice.

Game mechanics

The game's main rules are adapted from the ''

Marvel Super Heroes Marvel Super Heroes may refer to: * ''Marvel Super-Heroes'' (comics), several Marvel Comics publications * ''Marvel Super Heroes'' (video game), a 1995 arcade game * '' Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems'', a 1996 platform game * ''Marvel Supe ...

'' rules, a role-playing game first published by TSR in 1984 and mainly designed by

Jeff Grubb Jeff Grubb (born August 27, 1957) is an author who writes novels, short stories, and comics and a computer and role-playing game designer in the fantasy genre. Grubb worked on the ''Dragonlance'' campaign setting under Tracy Hickman, and the ' ...

, although

Zeb Cook David "Zeb" Cook is an American game designer, best known for his work at TSR, Inc., where he was employed for over fifteen years. Cook designed several games, wrote the '' Expert Set'' for ''Dungeons & Dragons'', worked as lead designer of th ...

brought some help, as stated by Grubb himself. The system refers D100 dice rolls to a resolution table. Mark Krawec, a member of the

RPGnet RPGnet is a role-playing game website. It includes sections on wargames, tabletop games and video games, as well as columns on gaming topics. RPGnet was founded in 1996 by Emma and Sandy Antunes, Shawn Althouse ( etrigan) and Brian David Phillips ...

community, recovered the system from the past in 2007, named it ZeFRS (Zeb's Fantasy Roleplaying System) and published a free PDF document where the game mechanics had been completely expurgated from any licensed Conan material. Two years later, in 2009, a ZeFRS paperback book was printed and distributed.ZeFRS' physical edition
as mentioned in RPGnet

Supplements

The series produced three adventures, each based on novels from the Conan series. *''Conan the Buccaneer'' *''Conan the Mercenary'' *''Conan Triumphant''

Reception

Mike Dean reviewed ''Conan RPG'' for '' Imagine'' magazine, and stated that "In conclusion, this game has some interesting concepts but is lacking in certain respects, notably the magic system and the slant towards the younger gamer." Pete Tamlyn reviewed ''Conan'' for ''

White Dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes ...

'' #69, giving it an overall rating of 7 out of 10, and stated that "It's a great shame. With a bit of care it could have been a very good product. Most of the errors are essentially cosmetic and even with them I still prefer it to ''AD&D''."

Reviews

*''

Different Worlds ''Different Worlds'' was an American role-playing games magazine published from 1979 to 1987. Scope ''Different Worlds'' published support articles, scenarios, and variants for various role-playing games including ''Dungeons & Dragons'', '' Ru ...

'' #45

References

{{Conan Fantasy role-playing games Role-playing games based on Conan the Barbarian Role-playing games introduced in 1985 TSR, Inc. games

Contents

Game mechanics

Supplements

Reception

Reviews

See also

References