Stats for D&D spells in a Fantasy game?

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

First, it is not a good idea to conver the mechanics from one system to another. Specially in D&D, the mechanics are often slightly (or completelly) abstract, and GURPS is a concrete system. Convert the concept, ditch the flavour.

I'm going to go further and try to argue against converting at all. I understand that this is a thread about converting D&D spells to GURPS but, respectfully, in regards to the intent of the original poster, I think it might be a bad idea.

I remember doing the same thing once for a group, and I so successfully converted D&D into GURPS that, at the end of the experience, the group said "Well, GURPS doesn't do anything that D&D doesn't do, so we don't see why we should change systems," and went back to D&D. I've learned since then that if someone is open to a new system, they often want to see what the new system actually does, how it's different, how it stacks up, and so on.

If they're not actually open to a new system, they're not going to care how much effort you put into it, because they've already made their decision and they're just going to suffer through your session and declare it a failure anyway, so conversion is pointless for them too.

What you do want to do is show them that they can play their favorite genres in GURPS. Dungeon Fantasy is great for this, because it's about going into dungeons, beating up monsters and taking their stuff, but unlike D&D it doesn't involve rigid classes or the mage-as-artillery concept or abstract war-gamey mechanics.

So I say showcase its strengths and how its different and let them judge it honestly. Don't file off the serial numbers and present them "D&D with 3d6 instead of a d20."

(This is not an argument against converting anything from D&D, just against trying to sell D&D-types on GURPS by making GURPS look as much like D&D as you can).