Hellboy

[Crakkerjakk]

Not sure if this is the right place, as Hellboy is not technically GURPS, but powered by GURPS, as I understand it.

My question was whether most of the Hellboy for 3e book was devoted to setting, or rules. I'm interested in it, but I'm probably gonna convert it to 4e. I would like to know how much work I'm getting myself into before I pick it up.

Also, what other 3e supplements would help flesh out a Hellboy campaign. I'm guessing Weird War II, what about the other Weird War book(don't remember the name)? Most important is ease of converting said information into 4e, so less rules, more ideas is a huge plus.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

My question was whether most of the Hellboy for 3e book was devoted to setting, or rules. I'm interested in it, but I'm probably gonna convert it to 4e. I would like to know how much work I'm getting myself into before I pick it up.

I'd have to dig it out of storage to be certain, but AIR, it's about half and half, setting/stats.

Also, what other 3e supplements would help flesh out a Hellboy campaign. I'm guessing Weird War II, what about the other Weird War book(don't remember the name)? Most important is ease of converting said information into 4e, so less rules, more ideas is a huge plus.

The Hellboy Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game page recommends several titles. Of those, Cabal and Illuminati seem especially appropriate and light on rules. The various supernatural bestiaries (Blood Types, et al.) can give good adversaries for Hellboy or BPRD characters. Warehouse 23 has a lot of story jump-points, and many of the widgets have just text descriptions.

[GnomesofZurich]

It would require some doing, but I don't foresee it being a huge problem to convert editions.

As for crunch versus background material, I don't like it would be stepping on any one's toes to give you a breakdown of the contents of the book:
10 pages - short story
4 pages - introduction
29 pages - character creation
19 pages - rules
The above two chapters are basically GURPS Lite with a Hellboy orientation

28 pages - the BPRD. Includes character write-ups and bios of the major characters, templates, a brief history of the Bureau. This section also includes a 5 page comic
14 pages - Nazis and Other human foes. Similar to above but focusing on the main villains, and without templates.
Both of the above chapters are going to be very helpful if you want to convert existing characters to 4E, or just to get the right "feel" for your own creations.

20 pages - Paranormal Abilities: magic and psychic powers in the Hellboy universe
30 pages - Beasts and Monsters. Stats and backgrounds for many of the creatures and non-human foes Hellboy faces.

7 pages - Weird Science and Advanced Technology - discussing the advanced technology used by BPRD and the some of the strange technologies employed by the Ragna Rok Project.
16 pages - Running the game - advice on how to run a Hellboy game, including how to generate the right feel for the game.
10 pages - Sample adventure

Appendices

So, there are a fair amount of rules (as it was intended to be played as a self-contained game), but there is also quite a bit of background and ideas.

Other 3E books I could see being useful for a Hellboy campaign include:

Weird War II (as you had mentioned)
Undead (Monsters, Creatures of the Night, various other bestiary books)
Celtic Myth, Russia, Japan (assorted historical books; Hellboy draws on a lot of myths and legends from various time periods)
Cthulhupunk (for information on Things Man Was Not Meant To Know)
Warehouse 23 (particularly entries such as the Spear of Longinus, Ark of the Covenant, Holy Grail, Emeralds of Hermes Trismegistus, etc.)

Hope that helps!

[tratclif]

There are about a dozen threads from July of 2006 started by "krank" about converting Hellboy to 4e. Here's one to start off with.

[Crakkerjakk]

Yeah, I saw those, but none of them answered the question I was most concerned with, to wit, how much of the book was 3e specific and would have to be changed vs. background fluff/flavor.

I hadn't realized there were almost a dozen of them, however. I'll check them out.