This may just be me, but I've never considered converting supplements to the system I use from a system I don’t the horrible, barely-possible chore a lot of gamers think it needs to be.
I'm not a RPG rookie, and I'm pretty confident in my ability to pick up a game, thumb through the rules, and figure out quickly enough what means what. "Might 80" means you're a strong dude, "6th Circle" means you can kick the ass of anyone not named Conan, "Evocation of Violet Tumescence" appears to be the system's list of temporal spells, and "21 XYW" means you're an outstanding fireballing pitcher with control issues ...
(Oh, wait, I just lapsed into APBA baseball speak. Anyway ...)
Converting this isn't tough. I know, in GURPS, what a strong dude looks like: he's got ST of 13-15. I know what someone who can kick the ass of anyone not named Conan looks like; we're talking maybe 350-400 pts. I know how to make up a wizard with a good command of temporal spells; that'd be a dozen Gate spells, say.
(Alright, I might need to take some time to replicate a 21 XYW pitcher. Hrm. The guy led the league in ERA that season by a giant whopping margin, as well as strikeouts/inning, but he also led the league in wild pitches by nearly twice as many as the 2nd worst. In short, you're screwed if he hits you with a thrown missile, but he's not the most accurate guy in the world.)
I refuse, and always have refused, to worry about whether I get the equivalencies "exactly" right. The guy who wrote the original supplement isn't running the adventure, I am. If the original NPC could beat down three starting characters in that system 75% of the time (not that anyone's particularly run the numbers), and the eventual NPC in my system could do it 50% of the time, who's to know, and who's to care?
love the APBA reference!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I played in an APBA baseball league in the 1980s ... based my team in one of the cities of my gameworld, come to that. (Possibly I should have a blogpost about sport in RPGs.) Bonus if you can identify the 1980s pitcher I cited!
Deletethat'd be Francisco Rodriquez for the Angels! But I cheated.
Delete(grins) Actually, Nolan Ryan in 1981 -- he was one of only four starters in the 1980s with a rating over 20. I expect you're talking Rodriguez in 2006, but I'd be astonished if he'd drawn a 'W' any time in his career; he seems to have had decent control.
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