Friday, September 9, 2011

CONAN TSR role playing game circa 1985

The Game book which has the same cover design as the box...art by Jeff Butler.



Half of the enormous Map which one day when the time is right I'll frame. art by Jeff Butler.



The other side of the map...with the Evil Sorceror and his pet Dragon thing!



Interior illustration by Jeff Easley...



Here is an ad I found on the web just so's ya get an idea what the game comes with.



Long ago in an age undreamed of I was a student at the " Joe Kubert school of Cartoon Graphics and cinematic animation inc. " I roomed in what they call...the Mansion a place up the road a ways from the building where the school is located in DOVER New Jersey.

Being away from home and having made a few dozen new friends all into comics and art and such we used to go trolling the back alley book stores and ramshackle shacks that sold new and used paperback books and comics.

On one of my excursions I came across this little treasure I share with you today. It's a CONAN role playing game. Played exactly like D and D...with dice and hit points and a Dungeon master and erry thin' !

I was never much of a gamer but the artwork is what I loved. The logo on the box cover by JEFF BUTLER and the giagantic map also by JEFF BUTLER. I was a great admirer ( still am ) of the art of anything CONAN! Check out the scans I provided for you and judge for yourself...a treasure indeed! ...No? Even if the box was opened and the dice were gone!

7 comments:

  1. Just a friendly FYI...

    This fantasy artist you keep calling Jeff 'Easly'; the correct spelling of the name is Jeff Easley.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Easley

    http://www.jeffeasleyart.com/index.html

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  2. Thank you very much Sir! I will fix immediately....( it was a typo )

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  3. When I saw the adverts for this in Imagine Magazine and heard that it was relatively straightforward to play I really wanted the TSR box set. I think it must have been at about the same time as the Indiana Jones RPG (TSR) which I'd bought. I think the problem for me was that it had fairly bad reviews, and I was having trouble justifying buying it when I already a variety of flavours of fantasy RPGs, but also being a slow reader as a kid I wasn't very familiar with the universe of Conan. The trouble was, later, I never met anyone who had played it, let alone seen inside of the box, so thanks for the art posts! (Easley rules!)

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  4. Man, I would have played THE SHIT out of that game if it came out when I was a teenager!

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  5. I had to make a correction as I mistakenly mis-credited the artist of the map

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  6. I know this is coming long after this was posted, but I figured I'd comment anyway.

    I own that game, have since I bought it new. It's a completely different game from D&D, as in an entirely new (at the time) game system. While that might not mean much to non- or casual gamers, it was kind of a big deal back in the day.

    At the time, I was disappointed; I wanted a D&D take on Conan, not to have to learn a new game. However, the basic system wasn't a bad game at all. In fact, it's pretty good. In recent years, that system has been worked on online, used for different fan projects. I don't know too much about it, but this link has some explanation:

    http://www.midcoast.com/~ricekrwc/zefrs/

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  7. Im sure i had a conversion chart for stats...somewhere.

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