The Hyborian Campaign...on TVTROPES??

[thegreyelf]

Okay, this is about as badass as it gets, and from a very unexpected source.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/TheHyborianCampaign

Is anyone familiar with Tony Bath or this game/these rules? I find myself wondering (I haven't delved into the reams of material that seem to be out there regarding this) if it has any relation to Carter's Armies of the Hyborian Age rules...incidentally something I really need to pull off the shelf and revisit.

[Zenopus]

That is unexpected, but neat to see him getting credit there.

We don't have a section for Bath here, but there is certainly some interest in his rules & campaigns so he does come up from time-to-time. You'll find some posts/threads if you do a search, although it's scattershot.

This post by Starbeard is a good starting place as he links to an overview of Bath on the Hill Cantons blog:

Feb 5, 2018 17:14:08 GMT -6 Starbeard said:

It predates Chainmail, but the go-to resource for that would be Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming. It's a collection of essays published as part of the History of Wargaming Project, including Bath's descriptions of his rather massive Hyboria campaign game, and another essay on setting up such games using Hyboria as a primary example.

The Hill Cantons blog writes about the Hyboria game extensively in a few posts.

I think the easiest place to start would be simply to read over Bath's essays and start drawing up forces and scenarios for Chainmail, instead of the system he used, Peltast & Pila.

Bath was an early user, if not the creator, of the "saving throw" as used in wargaming. From here:

increment in PATW says that while the term "saving throw" is used throughout Bath's 1966 rules, "By this time it was a common term in wargaming, thanks to its popularization in Donald Featherstone's War Games (1962), which included Bath's ancient miniature rules and accordingly Bath's terminology" (page 323). He goes to say that Bath developed the rule around 1960, citing War Game Digest Volume 4, Number 3; the term doesn't appear in Bath's earlier 1956 rules.

[flightcommander]

I would highly recommend getting a copy of Ancient Wargaming from the History of Wargaming Project.

[Starbeard]

Indeed. There is a whole library of good reads in the History of Wargaming Project. The bloke who runs it seems like a really nice and knowledgable fellow too. I was able to chat with him at some shows a few years ago, when they were touring demo games using Bath's own collection of flat minis from the Hyborian Game.

As others have noted before on these forums, it's bewildering how differently you start reading the LBBs when your headspace is immersed in the pre-1975 wargaming scene, rather than the usual headspace that comes from reading RPG stuff from, say, 1975-80.

[rsdean]

You guys were busy last night while I was asleep. Yes, get a copy from the History of Wargaming project...There is no rules relationship to Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age; they are just set on the same map.

[thegreyelf]

Hahahahaha looks like I have yet another level of our history to delve into. Just when you think there's not much new to discover in your corner, there's always something big. I seem to be WAY behind the curve on this one, so bear with me if I have some repeat questions in the coming months. Time is thin at the moment but I'll start delving deeper!

[thegreyelf]

Nov 25, 2020 4:43:52 GMT -6 rsdean said:

You guys were busy last night while I was asleep. Yes, get a copy from the History of Wargaming project...There is no rules relationship to Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age; they are just set on the same map.

Yeah, my thought about Royal Armies was whether IT was inspired by this; that is, I wonder if Carter heard about Bath's campaign and thought, "We should put out something official for this," and that later led to Royal Armies.

[Otto Harkaman]

Cool, bought the kindle version from Amazon

Tony Bath’s Ancient Wargaming: Including Setting up a Wargames Campaign and the Hyborian Campaign Kindle Edition


I have this vague idea Howard transposed Africa on top of Europe to get this map

[thegreyelf]

I never noticed that before, but it's quite astute.

[Deleted]

Tony Bath's writings are still on my "to read" list. Seeing his campaign on TVTropes of all places is a big surprise, but I shouldn't be too surprised. There seems to be a lot of folks with good taste over there.

[Finarvyn]

I have a copy of "Setting up a Wargames Campaign" by Tony Bath (the 1977 Heritage edition, I think, as seen here: www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/setting-wargames-campaign-1977-136830067). Keep in mind that wargames are not role playing, so this book is designed to talk about logistics of troops and such for an army-vs-army wargame such as what one can find in Arneson's "First Fantasy Campaign" tome. This book does discuss Bath's own Hyboria game, which is interesting in itself, but I've never found much RPG value to the book.

Interesting discussion can be found here: odd74.proboards.com/thread/11838/tony-baths-1966-rules

[Starbeard]

I think the roleplaying is there (edit: in the parts chronicling his game), but it's definitely in the leaders of armies category, like the sort you see in Diplomacy campaigns. I admit it isn't much use for your typical dungeon game, but I do think it's useful for the domain game, in fact I think it does a better job of setting that part up than Volume 3 of the LBBs does (but then, I think the LBBs were written under the assumption that the veteran player already had this stuff under the belt, and therefore was only concerned with how the fantasy and character sheet elements of the D&D game itself fit into it).

One thing to mention is that Bath wrote out a lot of details for publication, though how much I'm not sure (and maybe nobody does anymore). For example, it's known that Conan Himself was a major NPC in the Hyborian game, and his personal shenanigans drove a lot of play between the players and their own characters. Those stories were supposedly edited out to avoid infringements of copyright or somesuch. I think his individual newsletters kept some of that kind of stuff in, but I've never been lucky enough to read more than tiny snippets and summaries scattered around the web.

[cometaryorbit]

Nov 25, 2020 6:48:16 GMT -6 Otto Harkaman said:

I have this vague idea Howard transposed Africa on top of Europe to get this map

Kind of; I think it's vaguely inspired by the idea that the Mediterranean was dry during the last ice age, so Africa and Europe were one landmass (not now believed, but I think this was pretty common in the early 20th century; it's now thought to have filled more like 6 million years ago, IIRC).

Howard drew a map overlaying the Hyborian world on modern coastlines; it's in "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian".

Argos is shown as entirely in what's now the Mediterranean between Spain/France and the northern coast of Africa, while Zingara roughly corresponds to Spain and Aquilonia to France (though it's larger, including much of England and the southern North Sea, etc.)

The map seems to show the Nile River turning west where it would now meet the sea (given the absence of the Mediterranean) and then forming the northern border of Stygia.

The Inland Sea (=Vilayet Sea) is shown as a much enlarged version of the Caspian Sea.