Ever switch a game from something else to GURPS? Why? How did your players react?

[Poppyseed45]

Now, this isn't anything that's going to happen to my current game, at least not anytime soon (running Sword Coast in Burning Wheel, the game is fine, and I'm pretty sure my crew would shank me if I did). Still, we had a case last session where, after the game, I did some reading in Mass Combat and realized I could have run that to handle the situation we had in the BW game, and I'm pretty sure we'll have other situations like it (to wit, about 20 people on a side fighting about something or other). Burning Wheel doesn't handle that level of battle, really, except by squinting sort of at the Range and Cover rules (and that's VERY imperfect, and doesn't fit foot and mounted melee combat).

So, I figure, I'll give it another game or two, and see. Players last session made some comments about the quirkiness of the system (it is!) but love the advancement rules (which are cool). So, BW is 50/50 for the group at the moment (but we;ll have the next session this coming weekend, so we shall see!). Still, for the level of what they want to do, GURPS might be a better fit over all (there are details and questions they had that BW doesn't really answer; I could answer, as GM, but turning those into game-rule things to then manipulate was harder than I thought it'd be). But as I said, any change won't happen for a few months anyway.

Thus, the question: have you ever had a game that started in some other system, that you ported into GURPS? What was the result? How did it go? How did players react? Did anyone miss the former system?

[trooper6]

First a description of the group in question: There were about 7 of us. Most of us also GM'd, though there were three main GMs.

Our general group procedure was a four game rotation. 3 regular ongoing campaigns then one one off.

I was running a GURPS Espionage campaign.
GM2 was running a Vampire campaign.
GM3 was running a Star Wars d2 campaign.
One of the other players would GM a stand-alone adventure of some sort.
Each adventure was like 4-6 sessions. The GM would run the 4-6 sessions then rotate. We would cycle back after finishing the rotation. So my espionage campaign ran for 5 years or so...and so did the Vampire campaign and so did the Star Wars campaign.
The fourth slot could really be anything...and we did all sorts of crazy things. We were up to try anything at least once. RIFTS, Villains and Vigilantes, Stormbringer, Deadlands, whatever.

We let the GMs do whatever because we were all in it together, if you know what I mean. Also we all rotated.

Anyway, our Star Wars GM started off using West End Games d6 system. We did that for a while...but he really became enamored of GURPS after a few of my Espionage campaign adventures and so he eventually ported Star Wars over to GURPS.

We were all fine with it...mainly because we had a group ethic what was about players supporting GMs doing their thing...because then they would support us when we wanted to do our thing as GM. A real openness.

Anyway the conversion went great. We all had fun trying to translate our characters and then we were off.

I have to say. That group was a favorite of mine. Because no one said: "Oh, I only play X" or "I won't play Y"--we would try anything if a GM wanted to run it. There was a real radical openness to new and different things--maybe because so many of us were also GMs and appreciated the work involved. So that group had no problem switching things up.

[Poppyseed45]

Originally Posted by trooper6

First a description of the group in question: There were about 7 of us. Most of us also GM'd, though there were three main GMs.

Our general group procedure was a four game rotation. 3 regular ongoing campaigns then one one off.

I was running a GURPS Espionage campaign.
GM2 was running a Vampire campaign.
GM3 was running a Star Wars d2 campaign.
One of the other players would GM a stand-alone adventure of some sort.
Each adventure was like 4-6 sessions. The GM would run the 4-6 sessions then rotate. We would cycle back after finishing the rotation. So my espionage campaign ran for 5 years or so...and so did the Vampire campaign and so did the Star Wars campaign.
The fourth slot could really be anything...and we did all sorts of crazy things. We were up to try anything at least once. RIFTS, Villains and Vigilantes, Stormbringer, Deadlands, whatever.

We let the GMs do whatever because we were all in it together, if you know what I mean. Also we all rotated.

Anyway, our Star Wars GM started off using West End Games d6 system. We did that for a while...but he really became enamored of GURPS after a few of my Espionage campaign adventures and so he eventually ported Star Wars over to GURPS.

We were all fine with it...mainly because we had a group ethic what was about players supporting GMs doing their thing...because then they would support us when we wanted to do our thing as GM. A real openness.

Anyway the conversion went great. We all had fun trying to translate our characters and then we were off.

I have to say. That group was a favorite of mine. Because no one said: "Oh, I only play X" or "I won't play Y"--we would try anything if a GM wanted to run it. There was a real radical openness to new and different things--maybe because so many of us were also GMs and appreciated the work involved. So that group had no problem switching things up.

That's quite a lucky situation! My group has some GMs, but for reasons, they don't usually run things (but I enjoy exclusively GMing anyway, so it isn't an issue). Still, fascinating! Kind of a unicorn group.

[GWJ]

GURPS to D&D 5e.
Players reactions: "I was trained in the luxury gym, and now I must struggle with couple of rocks"

[Apollonian]

From Fate Core to GURPS. It went over fairly well because it turns out our group is more simulationist than narrativist, as it were, and GURPS is a better fit for our playstyle. A couple of players would have preferred Savage Worlds, I think, but it doesn't have the flexibility to do what I want.

[Poppyseed45]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

From Fate Core to GURPS. It went over fairly well because it turns out our group is more simulationist than narrativist, as it were, and GURPS is a better fit for our playstyle. A couple of players would have preferred Savage Worlds, I think, but it doesn't have the flexibility to do what I want.

Actually, I was running a supers game many moons ago (2007?) and we also moved from Fate to GURPS for it (though it may have been I had no real idea how to use Fate at that time; I think the base was SOTC?). Did your players miss the "narrativist" bits of Fate at all (like using Fate points to drive the story)?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by trooper6

I have to say. That group was a favorite of mine. Because no one said: "Oh, I only play X" or "I won't play Y"--we would try anything if a GM wanted to run it. There was a real radical openness to new and different things--maybe because so many of us were also GMs and appreciated the work involved. So that group had no problem switching things up.

Many years ago, one of my players (who moved away not long after, to my regret) said, "Bill's players would play the phone book if he offered to GM it." I thought that was a memorable bit of hyperbole, but really, I've been very fortunate in having players willing to play in the systems I like, and to go along with me when I offer campaigns in new systems that I want to try out. Now, I did run into one young man who told me that he would never play GURPS (!) because he had been told by his friend (!) that GURPS was a bad system; apparently he had never looked at it at first hand. I didn't try to change his mind; I had plenty of enthusiastic players (including the woman whose apartment he was sharing!) and didn't need a reluctant one, and such arguments are rarely profitable.

I didn't start encountering "I only play X" in an extensive way until I found the discussions here. It seems really foreign to me, even when X = GURPS (which obviously I play a whole lot).

On the other hand, I've never changed a campaign to a different rules system. My campaigns are planned for a finite span of time, and I've never felt that one was handicapped enough by its rules so that I had to do the work of conversion; instead I've looked for workarounds.

[Maz]

We've done it two times actually.

The wasn't a direct switch as such. We originally played in the games own system (a cyberpunk dark and gritty game called SLA Industries). But we didn't like it. I had converted the setting to BESM. It worked fine but I had to constantly tweak BESM as my players wanted finer levels of details. I started speaking for GURPS, but the game ended shortly after that. A few years after, we started up again, this time I suggested GURPS again, and the players were on board.

Some players disliked the finer level details when it came to 1-sec turns, having to spend several turns reloading, facings and so on. And also disliked the many, many skills. They preferred an Absolute skill-list.
But all of them still preferred GURPS over both BESM and the original. They really like the details of the combat system (wounding modifiers, hit locations, different types of maneuvers and so on).




The second time was playing Dark Heresy. I had gotten the corebook as a birthday present from the group and we where all ready to play. But we had only played 3-4 sessions before they straight up demanded we switch to GURPS. They missed the details of the combat system (for instance being able to shoot someone in the leg and have them fall over, or being able to disarm someone). They also felt the guns were too similar. They wanted more diversity.

[Antiquation!]

I can recall four specific campaigns which were switched to GURPS, and there are most probably more that I just can't recall. Two of those were driven by my own longing (one of which the group was a bit chafed about, but had great fun once the switch was complete), the other two were primarily driven by the group and I was happy enough to oblige.

There are other games I enjoy, and there a bunch I still love to read and steal ideas and philosophies from; none that satisfy me in the same way that GURPS does for a fairly committed long-term campaign, however. It's gotten to the point where my players and I are in a "grass is *never* greener on the other side" kind of mindset, even though we fully understand GURPS' weaknesses and the fact that it's just one of many games out there.

It just 'fits' to the extent that playing out our campaign concepts in other systems feels like we're actively working against ourselves. Each time we've 'translated' a campaign into GURPS, it has come out feeling vastly improved (even when we were still quite new to it).

Of course there are still a few campaign types I would never run in it, but that's a fairly narrow margin.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by StanTheMan

Actually, I was running a supers game many moons ago (2007?) and we also moved from Fate to GURPS for it (though it may have been I had no real idea how to use Fate at that time; I think the base was SOTC?). Did your players miss the "narrativist" bits of Fate at all (like using Fate points to drive the story)?

No. A couple of us found working inside Fate's player -driven narrative mechanics to be a lot more work than expected - a bit of a disappointment to me, as I had hoped they would work as well for us as they do for other groups. But they didn't... especially for me as GM!