Converting material from other systems

[Kage2020]

Originally Posted by Alacrity Fitzhugh

I've been doing an on-again, off-again conversion of Earthdawn to GURPS, and have struggled on many things.

Strangely I was thinking about this when I typed since it ultimately relates to some of my goals when dealing with a post-apocalyptic version of Shadowrun. Of course, that's another "powered by" situation since I personally don't feel so bound to direct conversion of the system

Completely incidentally and off topic... No, I'm going to leave that for a PM that you can select to ignore or not, as you see fit. :D

[Mgellis]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

I know one of the great benefits that people tout about GURPS is how easy it is to convert material from other systems into it. At least that's the theory. In practice how easy is it really?

I've found it difficult enough that it's easier to use another system's published adventure as inspiration rather than convert it outright. With settings I've found it easier to make the setting fit GURPS than vice versa, even if that means breaking some long-standing assumptions the other system provided. (Not always for the worse, though, but not always for the better, either.)

I have started using what I half-seriously call a "strip mining" approach to conversion. What I want to be able to do is look at a character in d20 or World of Darkness or whatever and have a GURPS version fairly quickly. I've worked up some basic "formulas" that indeed let me do this very quickly.

Now, the downside is that these are only rough translations--I think they succeed in capturing the spirit of whatever character I've stole--I mean, liberated, but I don't pretend they'll function exactly as they did in the original system. But that's okay. If I wanted to run a game and have it work exactly the way things work in d20...I'd run it in d20.

For example, looking at a sample vampire from a WoD book, the GURPS version is...

ST 10 DX 10 HT 10 IQ 12 Will 14
Charisma +2
Delusion (Everything is part of a conspiracy) [-10]
Vampire Package [50, more or less]

Power Investiture (Curse of Cain) 2
Ritual Magic (Cainite)-16
Path of Auspex-16
Path of Dementation-14
Path of Obfuscate-14

Acting-14; Economics-12; Expert (Conspiracy Theory)-14;Guns (Pistols)-10; Hidden Lore (Sabbat)-14; Law (Mexican Criminal)-12; Leadership-11; Occultism-11; Performance-12; Politics-14; Research-12; Stealth-10; Streetwise-12; Teaching-12

Zap. I'm done. Less than 10 minutes. Now, it might make me a little more time to flesh out the remaining specifics, like how certain discipline powers work as magic rituals, but I've basically got the character ready to go.

He's an interesting character. He's not a combat monster. He's a trickster and a manipulator. And even if he fails to manipulate you, he'll know you're coming before you show up, and fade away and make his escape before you even know he's gone.

There's also the potential problem that some random piece of World of Darkness or d20 or whatever might be totally unbalanced compared to the rest of the spells, powers, etc. in the game. But I haven't seen anything that looks too bad. And none of my players are munchkins. They like having badass characters, but they don't go looking for every campaign-wrecking loophole they can find. And, honestly, if someone started acting that way, it's important to remember the Rule of Stats: If it has stats, it can be killed. It works both ways, you know. And player characters always have stats. :)

Mark

[Mercator]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

In practice how easy is it really

Very easy, actually. As others have said, ignore the source mechanics and translate just the feel.

In case nobody has mentioned it already, I recommend you have a look at the first post in Gavynn's thread on CP overuse, where he does an ultra-quick conversion of a D&D monster to GURPS.

Also, check out the thread on my attempt at running Brett's excellent scenario 9,401 (designed for an entirely different system) under GURPS Lite + a few extras. The attempt was a big success, even though the group was completely new to GURPS. If you play rules-light games, you might like my approach.

Good luck,
M.

[Centisteed]

Originally Posted by Mercator

Very easy, actually. As others have said, ignore the source mechanics and translate just the feel.

In case nobody has mentioned it already, I recommend you have a look at the first post in Gavynn's thread on CP overuse, where he does an ultra-quick conversion of a D&D monster to GURPS.

Also, check out the thread on my attempt at running Brett's excellent scenario 9,401 (designed for an entirely different system) under GURPS Lite + a few extras. The attempt was a big success, even though the group was completely new to GURPS. If you play rules-light games, you might like my approach.

Good luck,
M.

That's an excellent link to Gavvyn's thread. Thanks! Looks
like I can brush the dust off of my polyhedrals after all. :-)