GURPS Conversion Questions

[Seenar]

I so totally hate GURPS, but the folks at Amarillo Design Bureau decided to use GURPS for Prime Directive. (I guess now technically, GRUPS Prime Directive, gah).

 

Anyway, while I have already spent a lot of time converting the orginal Prime Directive to Hero, they will contiune to come out with thing (stupidly titled) like GURPS Klingon Empire, and GRUPS Rmulans, and GURPS Photon Torpedoes (OK, I made that last one up).

 

So, I am wondering if their is a good rule of thumb to convert from the dumb-ass GURPS system to Hero, Truly The Ultimate Gamers Toolkit?

[Peregrine]

I've looked at it before, and never came up with anything solid.

 

However, I have observed that the proper conversion of stats might be HERO Char Roll = GURPS Stat, so that, for example, a GURPS stat of 15 = HERO char of 30. (Well, good for a supers conversion, I suppose.)

[Armitage]

Re: GURPS Conversion Questions

 

Originally posted by Seenar

So, I am wondering if their is a good rule of thumb to convert from the dumb-ass GURPS system to Hero, Truly The Ultimate Gamers Toolkit?

 

As I rush to beat Surbrook posting the address for his own web page...

 

http://www.devermore.net/surbrook/herosource/gurpshero.html

[Seenar]

Thanks, Armitage. Looking at this page just increases my disdain for all things GURPS.

[Fur Face]

Just Eyeball it, Bro!

 

GURPS has great background materials, but to me it always seemed the system made things complicated and inconsistent. I would just eyeball the effects and translate how that would work in your campaign, forgeting conversion altogether.

 

For example, I picked up GURPS Martial Art Adventures some years back, and they had a supplementary rules material at the end. They had two things I thought were cool, some new maneuvers, like Axe Kick, and one thing called Sharpshooter. As far as the Axe Kick, instead of requiring things like "must be taught by master", I just ended up calling it an Offensive Strike, because that's what it truly was. As far as the Sharpshooter power, this was something that could only be done in character creation, and a character with this power could pick up, use & repair any pistol-type weapon from any time period. Not only that, but he could pull off phenominal shots without even trying. In the end I decided it was kind of hokey, but if I wanted something similiar I could just by tons of Weapon FAM's & Combat Skill Levels.

 

FWIW, I would just eyeball the effects you want and press on.

[Garlak]

Originally posted by Seenar

Thanks, Armitage. Looking at this page just increases my disdain for all things GURPS.

 

Ok we get it you hate GURPS.

Get on with your life already.

It is not like anyone is forcing you to use it.

So dont and please stop whinning about it.

 

P.S.: Not trying to flame you, just tired of this type of posting.

It serves no good purpose.

[Blue]

Originally posted by Garlak

Ok we get it you hate GURPS.

Get on with your life already.

It is not like anyone is forcing you to use it.

So dont and please stop whinning about it.

 

P.S.: Not trying to flame you, just tired of this type of posting.

It serves no good purpose.

 

Now *THAT* served no purpose. If you don't like the guy, don't read his posts. There's even some kind of ignore feature in here somewhere.

 

Back to topic: After spending much of my life trying to convert systems back and forth mathematically, I tend to think Fur Face is right. It's fairly time consuming, but I generally just look and go "... Should this guy be as strong as Grond?..." or "In GURPS a dragon is XXX and in the Hero System Bestiary he's XXX." But generally I just wing it. The "that sounds fair" approach to choosing figures and stats.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Blue

After spending much of my life trying to convert systems back and forth mathematically, I tend to think Fur Face is right. It's fairly time consuming, but I generally just look and go "... Should this guy be as strong as Grond?..." or "In GURPS a dragon is XXX and in the Hero System Bestiary he's XXX." But generally I just wing it. The "that sounds fair" approach to choosing figures and stats.

 

Agreed here. My campaigns have wandered back and forth between GURPS, Hero, Shadowrun, Unknown Armies, Aberrant, Night Life, BESM, etc. over the years. Strict conversions never capture the feel of characters or material; better to think in terms of following the special effects as closeley as you can and wing the rest.

[Garlak]

Originally posted by Blue

Now *THAT* served no purpose. If you don't like the guy, don't read his posts. There's even some kind of ignore feature in here somewhere.

 

It serves as much purpose as insulting a game system just for the sake of it I would say.

Which is like you say: none.

 

I was not trying to insult anyone, I was just pointing out that insulting game systems is pointless.

 

I am new to this game so conversion stuff is very interesting to me.

 

Carrying on posting, I got alot of reading to do now that I finally have the HERO System Book.

[JMHammer]

Poor Steve Jackson

 

Amarillo Design Bureau decided to use GURPS for Prime Directive

 

It's a good thing SJG has such a good portfolio of other products so ADB can't ruin that company the way they did TFG. I'd be very interested to learn some of the details of that contract, such as who has final say on content and who controls publication.

 

Former SFB Goober,

John H

[SCUBA Hero]

Re: Poor Steve Jackson

 

Originally posted by JMHammer

It's a good thing SJG has such a good portfolio of other products so ADB can't ruin that company the way they did TFG.

 

(snip)

 

Former SFB Goober,

John H

I'd be interested in the TFG/ADB details. . . never did hear much about what went on. . . probably better done as a new thread in the General Roleplaying forum, though.

 

Inquiring minds want to know!

[Seenar]

Re: Poor Steve Jackson

 

Originally posted by JMHammer

It's a good thing SJG has such a good portfolio of other products so ADB can't ruin that company the way they did TFG. I'd be very interested to learn some of the details of that contract, such as who has final say on content and who controls publication.

 

Former SFB Goober,

John H

 

Was not ADB's fault that TFG just stopped publishing SFB. ADB has been doing a great job getting stuff out since getting away form TFG.

[JMHammer]

A decade ago, and far away...

 

ADB has been doing a great job getting stuff out since getting away form TFG.

 

That might be true, and if so provides even more evidence that good 'ol Steve purposely drove his "partners" out of business.

 

I shouldn't have brought it up. I am SO glad I don't play that game anymore, or have anything to do with Stevie or the Cole-bots. It's over for me, thank god, I hadn't thought about this nonsense for years, and I've decided I don't want to think about it now.

 

I'll just back toward the door now. Stepping out, yessir, didn't mean to step in here. Now I'll have to buy new shoes...

 

John H

[Toadmaster]

At the risk of starting a rant fest, why do you HATE GURPS so much. I've played both and there are many similarities which always makes me curious when people have such strong reactions vs HERO or GURPS. I can understand when GURPS or HERO people say they hate games such as D&D or Vampire type games because they are so differant from HERO/GURPS but it seems odd to have such a strong reactions between GURPS and HERO (love one, hate the other).

 

Strictly curiosity not trying to stir up a hornets nest.

[Blue]

I've also heard nothing but good things about GURPS... before this thread that is. I still have no interest in learning another system when HERO handles everything I need to do.

[OddHat]

I've played GURPS on and off for years. In many ways it's a nice system, with some excellent world books. I also like Hero system.

 

To each his (or her) own.

[Kintara]

GURPS has many of the same problems Hero has, breakpoints and such, but it has a different style. GURPS is a great system to use for a grittier game with middling to lower powered characters. GURPS is a little more specific than Hero, as its goal isn't to be a toolkit as much as a game system that can be used generically. There's an important difference between them. Also, I'd say that the level of detail to the system is differently placed than Hero; they are equally detailed, just in different ways.

 

Anyway, I'd agree that acrimony is counterproductive, as one is alienating the very people that can help most, GURPS fans. Also, it's impolite to those who like the system as it is insulting their taste. But it ain't a big deal, really.

 

Anyway, I'd say that the rough guidelines that were posted earlier are good, well, guidelines. That is to say, they are useful to a point, and then you just have to guesstimate the rest, and use some artistic license while you're at it. When you convert, there is always certain aspects of the new system that might be worth looking into, even if they don't exactly model what your character was. You want to take advantage of the benefits of the system you're converting to after all.

[Garlak]

GURPS is designed for "realistic" game play.

It breaks down in high powered campaigns.

GURPS Supers is know for being problematic.

 

But if you like grittier game play it works great.

But it badly needs revision to smooth out the system and simplify some of its complexities.

3rd edition was published a very long time ago.

Late 80s or early 90s I think.

[Mr. Negative]

Originally posted by Garlak

GURPS is designed for "realistic" game play....

 

 

...But if you like grittier game play it works great.

But it badly needs revision to smooth out the system and simplify some of its complexities.

 

 

However, some of the GURPS complexity isn't a matter of smoothing or simplifying, but of a decision to base rules on real units and reality, rather than game units. GURPS has chosen, by and large, to do their rules by "cause" rather than by "effect" as it is in Champions. This means that instead of having general rules that you modify to create specificity, you instead have specific rules for specific effects.

 

For example, Pyrokinesis raises the temperature of a specific cubic area by a specific temperature in GURPS. This would mean that perhaps a pryokineticist could raise a human's temperature by 1° per second (and GURPS tells you the temperature at which humans lose consciousness).

 

Thus, you have a LOT more complexity than HERO, but it's for a specific reason, which you may or may not like.

[Bartman]

Originally posted by Toadmaster

At the risk of starting a rant fest, why do you HATE GURPS so much. I've played both and there are many similarities which always makes me curious when people have such strong reactions vs HERO or GURPS. I can understand when GURPS or HERO people say they hate games such as D&D or Vampire type games because they are so differant from HERO/GURPS but it seems odd to have such a strong reactions between GURPS and HERO (love one, hate the other).

 

Strictly curiosity not trying to stir up a hornets nest.

 

Well I can't speak for Seenar, but I can tell you some of the things I dislike about GURPS. Some of these may no longer be true as it has been some time since I have played.

 

1- Costs are based on difficulty/rarity rather than utility. In GURPS, each point of STR costs twice as much as the previous point. An exceptionally strong character is virtually unplayable as nearly every point will be sucked up by STR. By comparison a 30 STR character in a Hero NCM game will only have to sink 30 pts into STR allowing him to have some other skills and characteristics. This has a tendency to encourage generalists who all share a number of abilites rather than unique characters with one or two exceptional abilites.

 

2- No standardization. SImilar effects can have wildly divergent costs. A 200pt GURPS mage will be at a vastly different power level than a 200pt Psionist or Superhero. In other words there is no real universality to the system. Compare this with Hero where you can put a 75+75pt Fantasy mage, Justice Inc. mystic, and Star Hero cyborg in the same campaign and expect them to be more or less equal in effectiveness. In Hero 40pts in a fire attack is always the same 8d6. In GURPS pyrokenesis, a fireball spell and a super's fire blast all have different values for the same effect.

 

3- No unified rule system. You want to do magic? You have to buy the magic rule book. Want psionics? Than you have to buy that. The same is true for virtually everything. With Hero literally all you need is FREd. With GURPS you really can't run anything without getting the applicable rulebook.

 

Now none of these make me hate GURPS, but they do make me want to play Hero instead.

[Mordacius]

I used to both play and run GURPS - still have a decent collection of books.

 

I *love* their worldbooks. About the only one I read that I didn't like was GURPS Riverworld - in every other case I've seen, they've really done their homework. GURPS Space talked about at least a couple of things I later brought up in high school physics.

 

Moreover, because GURPS is big on real world units, said books are often very handy in other game systems, such as HERO. I'd still consider buying a GURPS treatment of just about any genre, if only for the sidebars. (Someday I'm going to find time to convert GURPS Technomancer to HERO, and then I will play it again...)

 

On the other hand, the system a mess. I have given up on it. This is more than just a design philosophy thing, as others have mentioned. There is that - GURPS reasons from a very different paradigm than HERO. But it's also about a lack of quality control in their rules.

 

This is particularly glaring if you look at their magic system, which I genuinely do hate. After reading the GURPS Grimoire I was certain that not only had the spells been written by at least a dozen different people, none of them had the same idea of what spells should cost, and nobody had forced a consensus before the book went to print.

 

So I have a love/hate thing for GURPS, rather than the more common HERO-fan hatred.

 

After edit:

Their fan based stuff is sometimes very good, though. If you want to see a really fascinating discussion of scale in roleplaying games, check out GURPS Gulliver.

[Toadmaster]

I can understand prefering one over the other, its the downright hatred wouldn't play it if it were the only game on earth but HERO (GURPS) is great.

 

I look at GURPS as HERO for those who don't want to "build" stuff. I favor HERO because I think GURPS has become close to unplayable with all the additions (which book is that in?), but at one time GURPS was my choice over HERO (except Supers which I don't think GURPS has ever done well). If GURPS had a serious overhaul / revision I'd consider it again, I still find it quite useful for ideas. It also makes HERO combat seem quick.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by Bartman

Well I can't speak for Seenar, but I can tell you some of the things I dislike about GURPS. Some of these may no longer be true as it has been some time since I have played.

 

The costs issue has been fixed (STR starts getting cheaper after ST:15 and becomes dirt cheap in the superhuman ranges). Hit Points have been (somewhat) fixed as well, it that they may now be based off of Strength instead of Health; Superstrong supers no longer kill each-other with a single blow, but still instant-kill anyone else.

 

The Standardization issue remains a problem; a Supers mage is not a Voodoo mage is not a Fantasy mage is not a Mage ...er... mage. OTOH, the world books are excellent, and Steve Long broke Hero System standardization with Fantasy Hero anyway.

 

The no unified rules system problem remains unchecked.

 

Like any other rules system, you'll eventually have to tweak it to you liking. Currently I'm back with hero because I like having the mechanics right out in the open where I can fiddle with them until they work, but I can certainly understand someone whose play style made them prefer a game world where a punch that could smash through a brick wall would have no trouble splattering a normal human.

 

And yes, it's easy enough to weak Hero system to allow for that.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by OddHat

OTOH, the world books are excellent, and Steve Long broke Hero System standardization with Fantasy Hero anyway.

 

How so? I think I know the kinds of things you're getting at, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

 

Nevertheless, it's not as "bad" (quotes because what's bad for me isn't for everyone) as in GURPS, and you can still play a perfectly fine FH game with only the core book.

[OddHat]

Originally posted by GamePhil

How so? I think I know the kinds of things you're getting at, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

 

Nevertheless, it's not as "bad" (quotes because what's bad for me isn't for everyone) as in GURPS, and you can still play a perfectly fine FH game with only the core book.

 

The optional magic rules. They are, of course, optional. Still, a 350 point Mage built under a given set of optional rules is no longer fully interchangeable with a 350 point mage built "by the book" or under other given sets of optional rules.

 

This is not an attack; I can see why they were suggested. Still, it does make the Hero system a bit less Universal, and that is the same problem GURPS was being called on the mat for.

 

And you can play a perfectly good game of GURPS fantasy with only the core book as well.