GURPS conversion?

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Does anyone know of a good DS GURPS conversion? I’m looking to get back into DS (and PnPRPGs in general) after a long hiatus, and from what it looks like, GURPS is a much preferable system for a simulationist/narrativist GM like myself.

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Following. I, too, am a GURPS fan (but I’m more a collector than a player).

For the magic system(s), are you thinking about variations on the standard magic system? Or adding the various systems that have been added since the Basic Set? You’ll probably need something for psionics (there’s several builds that have been made).

One thing I would recommend is, don’t get fixated on how many yards radius a defiling circle is. It probably should just be part of the narrative and be used for drama (“you feel it was harder to access the plant energy this time, due to the defiled ground around you”).

Also, I think defiling should be a choice, not a separate “class” or template.

And one last thought: are you thinking of going the dungeon fantasy route (killing monsters and taking their loot, but not much detail on the setting) or fantasy route?

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Ack! Good questions! I’m not even sure exactly what you mean by “variations on the standard magic system.” If you mean “do you want to recreate the standard Vancian magic system of D&D in GURPS,” the answer is no; I was never a big fan of it. On the other hand, much of Dark Sun lore is built around it, so it might be really challenging to change. Frankly I hadn’t thought about it; I was just sort of hoping for a conversion document that answered all these questions for me—but of course then I’d want to like the answers!

I firmly disagree with the “defiling is a choice” model; my vision of Dark Sun (from the Basic Set) is that Athas was once a normal D&D world (except without gods for some reason), but then defiling magic was discovered, leading to everything else. I realize that’s not canon, but it’s how I see the world, and so defiling needs to be a fundamentally distinct means of casting.

As for the last question, I also don’t quite know what you mean—the reason to play Dark Sun is the setting and the feel. I’m definitely not going to focus on dungeon crawling specifically; frankly what brought me back to Dark Sun was playing Vagrus and wanting to run a Dune Trader campaign.

I want to clarify that I am not very familiar with GURPS; I have the books but have not really read them (since I have you, do you have an edition recommendation? I have both 3rd and 4th ed GURPS books). I was planning to use this conversion as an excuse to get acquainted with GURPS.

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By variations, I mean the standard advantage (Magery) plus skills (spells).

First you have certain classes having restrictions (e.g., only druids can use Plant and Animal spells).

Then you get clerics (and druids?) having custom spell lists that can have alternate prerequisites (I believe it’s linked to “clerical investiture”).

Then you add bonuses and limits to Magery. Probably something like “must defile, -10%” for defilers, to make it slightly cheaper for them?

I don’t know much about GURPS (I collect it because skills and points just makes more sense to me). But you can post to the GURPS forums (forums.sjgames.com) on the Reddit group.

Just make sure to say something like “sticking within the Basic Set” or they will flood you with book recommendations. (Including their Pyramid magazines, I have over 500 books in my w23 library. So, try to ease your way into it…)

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I bring up the dungeon fantasy vs fantasy choice because GURPS has an entire product line (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy; not counting Pyramid magazine articles, easily over 30 books) that’s heroic hack and slash. The background detail is generally sparse (so not much focus on lore), it’s about killing monsters and taking their loot. {They have a book that collects all the Dungeon Fantasy material appearing in their Pyramid magazines so you don’t have to buy a bunch of individual issues.}

Then there’s their “powered by GURPS” line of Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game. It’s much like above, but it’s self contained. There’s no reference to books outside the product line, they don’t show the work on how they priced various advantages/disadvantages, etc.

(Note that they have several other “powered by GURPS” products. Girl Genius, Vorkosigan, Discworld off the top of my head. These are examples of how you can customize the system to suit the setting.)

And then there’s regular fantasy. If you want more roleplaying (e.g., social skills, rank, reputation, all that sort of stuff), you can ignore the Dungeon Fantasy stuff and use the templates in other books, or you can just tack on the social stuff into Dungeon Fantasy.

Incidentally, there’s a 3rd party company that writes official Dungeon Fantasy stuff, Gaming Ballistics. They have a book, Delvers to Grow, if you didn’t want to start at 250 points (which is something like the equivalent of 6th level in D&D, by a very broad definition of “equivalent”). The book has 63 and 125 point versions of the classes, so you can grow into the 250 point heroes. (They also have a Norse inspired setting.)

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Linklist of conversion attempts:

I have no way of knowing, until I learn GURPS and read these, which is better or worse.

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Do you have the Thaumatology book? https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/thaumatology/

Also:
GURPS Powers: Totems and Nature Spirits – A Powers-based expansion of the idea of spirit vessels, as well as spirits who are ready and able to help with human affairs.
Might be good for spirits of the land.

GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers – A flavorful example of using powers to represent magical arts.
Might be good framework for the paraelemental magics.

GURPS Thaumatology: Magical Styles – Detailed instructions for how to organize skills, spells, and abilities into unique and interesting arcane arts.
Probably useful for building defiling and preserving.

GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic – A standalone magic system that lets you do anything . . . if you’re willing to risk harnessing the powers of the universe.
Maybe a good model for the dragon- granted spells?

GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery – Another self-contained system that models magic as a power and spells as mystical advantages the sorcerer can draw upon instinctively, easily, and repeatedly!
Might be useful for magical creatures.

GURPS Thaumatology: Urban Magics – Information and insight about how magic influences city life . . . and vice versa!
Possibly useful for Templars.

See also:

Pyramid #3/13: Thaumatology – Featuring two new paths of GURPS Thaumatology magic, including a full treatment of fairy-tale magic.

Pyramid #3/28: Thaumatology II – A new arcane school for Thaumatology: Magical Styles, an expansion on alchemy rules, variants for ceremonial magic, and more!

Pyramid #3/43: Thaumatology III – An arcane school for Thaumatology: Magical Styles penned by Sean Punch, a radical revision of spell innovation, new ghoul-themed rituals, and other arcane amazements!

Pyramid #3/66: The Laws of Magic – Several new options that tie directly to GURPS Thaumatology!

Pyramid #3/91: Thaumatology IV – a collection of new abilities, options, and threats of particular interest to thaumatologists.

Pyramid #3/120: Alternate GURPS V – Features a new optional attribute for fueling and resisting magic.

(Disclosure: I am a member of SJG’s MIB. )

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8

I don’t have any but the core books at the moment; right now I’m looking for an existing conversion (with, presumably, a list of the books I’ll need) before giving up and doing my own. Which will be challenging as I’ve never played GURPS before. However, after reading Characters, I am convinced that this is the system I want to use.

(What’s an MIB?)

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Men in Black.

(Predates the movies, a volunteer organization that was run by SJG for many years. )

GURPS is a very capable system. The number of available options needs to be carefully managed to balance flexibility with game play enjoyment. Some people love the options and crunch (like me). Others prefer less… in which case look at GURPS Lite or GURPS Ultralite (both are free on w23).

It is also recommend to cite selected options (with page numbers) on character sheets so it is always known where it was found, as a general rule of thumb.

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And another: GURPS Athas (GURPS Dark Sun)

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Alright, it looks like there is no such thing as a decent GURPS Dark Sun conversion. So I have to do it myself—problematic as I have very little GURPS experience. If I started a Patreon to help support such efforts (there are a lot of GURPS books I’d need to buy), would that be seen as gauche, do ya’ll think?

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If you are upfront and transparent with how funds are used, I do not see an issue with the attempt. Sounds like a possible avenue to generate funds, assuming there are enough people interested and willing to support another’s effort?

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Agree with nijineko. If you’re up front about it, it’s hard for folks to say “Why is Calion buying all these books with the money we gave them?”

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