Converting other games: What's your style?

[David Johnston2]

As far as game mechanics go the important thing is to care more about what the game mechanics represent than the mechanics themselves. Me, I've never been fond of Call of Cthulhu's sanity mechanic. I actually think GURPS fright checks came much closer to depicting what we see in actual mythos stories. I saw several attempts to adapt D&D spells that tripped over Magic Missiles mechanic of "never missing" without considering that D&D had no dodge mechanic because dodging was represented as a function of hit points.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I doubled them but then I was going with rather high point budgets.

I had, at the beginning, but then I went back and assigned a Skill of 12 to Regular MechWarriors and the values meshed very well.

But, if you're playing with 300+ point MechWarriors, you might want more of a challenge.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

I had, at the beginning, but then I went back and assigned a Skill of 12 to Regular MechWarriors and the values meshed very well.

But, if you're playing with 300+ point MechWarriors, you might want more of a challenge.

Actually now that i think about it, I increased them by half again and was using a 250 point budget.

[mr beer]

Feel, not mechanics. Faithful attempts to reproduce D&D races end up with these weird grab-bags of random abilities, you end up an Elf race that costs 87 points and is immune to Charm...lame.

Warhammer Fantasy has already been done really well as GURPS Hammer. I reworked the races for my game though because I'm experimenting with mandatorily short lists of Disadvantages. I also want to re-do the magic system to make it blastier and more dangerous but no-one went mage so that was easy.

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I try to convert the fluff of a game rather than its mechanics. I'll usually do custom races, as Gurps Orcs are tough rather than strong when compared to D&D Orcs.



If there is something I feel the game does especially well, I'll flat out keep that aspect and try to jury rig a way to make the skill system interact with it where I need. The classic example I see suggested is Battletech, where you do mech combat with the classic system but everything else with gurps. I haven't done that example, but its the one I see suggested most often.

I prefer to rework the fluff into Gurps rules as well. For example to run a D&D style setting I will create Gurps templates that capture the spirit of the different character classes for the PCs to create characters but can’t be used to convert NPC stat blocks. For monsters I just look for equivalents in the Gurps Fantasy Bestiary rather than convert the stats across.

Our group has tried the Battletech/Gurps combination and it worked well at our table.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

What kind of gaps do you see your GURPS conversion opening up, and do you try to patch them, plan on working around the in play, or just ignore them?

One problem I have run into time and again is with Big Armours vs. 'critters'. Mostly sci-fi powerarmours. It's easy to convert into GURPS. Give it DR:50, 70, 100 or whatever fits, compared to the firearms you have. However if the powerarmours can withstand smallarms then they are impervious to 'critter attacks' (ie. attacks by melee that do not have a huge armour divisor).

This is a problem for settings where a guy in a power armour is still supposed to be able to be threatened by 'critters' as long as there are enough of them.

I have run into this in Warhammer 40k. SLA Industries. Starcraft. And numerous generic sci-fi settings where you have the heroes in power-armours supposed to fight "enemies without guns".

One solution is to simple give everything AD on their natural attacks. But thats somtimes feels forced. It's perfectly reasonable for a wh40k genestealer. But makes less sense for a wh40k ork with a 'chopper' or a SLA Industries carrien.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Though, in Shadowrun's case, the "push-your-luck" idea of random casting cost seems very much a part of the feel. I'm still not sure how to best emulate that.

Some sort of "the cost fluxuates based on the MoS/MoF if the spell skill roll" could work.

[AlexanderHowl]

When it comes to Shadowrun, I avoid GURPS Magic and just use my own type (GURPS Magic is horribly underpowered compared to Shadowrun Magic in most cases). Magic becomes a 10 CP/level advantage, with every spell being an advantage that costs 5 CP. Mages use Ritual Magic, with every type of spell and every type of spirit being its Path (as well as Assensing, Astral Projection, Enchanting, etc.). Mages use 10 plus Magic as their magical attribute.

Mages may lose FP if they cast a spell with a Force equal to or less than their Magic or HP if they case a spell with a Force grester than their Magic (up to twice their Magic). When a mages cast a spell, they experience a FP cost equal to the Drain of the spell (HP if they are casting at a Force above their Magic), but they reduce the cost by their margin of success on a successful Ritual Magic roll.

The Force and nature of a spell determines its effects. Combat spells deal 1d per point of Force. Each spell possesses modifiers that influence its Drain. Every +50% of enhancements increases Drain by 1 while every -20% limitation decreases Drain by 1.

[RyanW]

I think one of the big benefits of GURPS is that between the simplicity of the core mechanic and my familiarity with it, GURPS just disappears into the background and let's the setting and story do the talking. Most on the time, I convert to GURPS with the thought of getting rid of intrusive mechanics - like bizarre dice mechanics or inflexible character choices. Converting them "mechanically" works completely counter to that.

Originally Posted by Phantasm

"what does the fluff say?"

Now I can't get that song out of my head.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The real problem with capability conversions is that what is balanced in one system may not be balanced in another. To take Shadowrun 4e as an example again, it was possible to create a beginning character who could punch for 16P elemental damage, the equivalent damage of an antitank missile (though with inferior penetrating power). The equivalent attack in GURPS would cost around 300 CP, but it was a beginning build in Shadowrun 4e. Converting magic, especially Astral Projection and Summoning, likewise ends up with massive CP investment. In order to make GURPS beginning characters functionally similar to beginning Shadowrun characters, you have to give them 500 CP.

The thing to remember (as I did with my D&D to GURPS conversion) are the Cinematic Rules in GURPS Proper use of these can reduce (or in some cases eliminate) the need to send CP north of 200.

Another thing to keep in mind is the difference between setting and character. For example, Unlimited Mana can solve some problems with high magic settings - just fiddle with the Threshold and Recovery Rate until things come reasonably close.