It Becomes GURPS

One of the best things about converting a setting to GURPS is that it becomes GURPS. And I don't mind it "not feeling like D&D anymore," and I see that as a good thing.

The setting gets real.

I get complete control over the settings rules, and it does not have to be a circus of high-magic fantasy, like the setting is these days. With the Forgotten Realms, I am free to play this like we used to, a low-magic, gritty, realistic, character-driven fantasy world with no unkillable GM NPCS, vast areas of unsettled lands filled with monsters and evil humanoids, and even the first edition demons and devils that were later erased from the setting by the Satanic Panic.

I can ban every book past the first, original, AD&D gray box set. I can include anything in the original AD&D books, mostly just the monsters, and have those as the bad guys. But as for the characters and magic? The gritty day-to-day life and survival? The deadly melee combats where you think twice before drawing a blade? Slow healing, bleeding out, and serious injuries in melee?

That stuff is all GURPS.

An Orc swinging an axe like that on horseback is a serious threat, capable of causing serious injury, maiming, or even killing, and not just "damage we can short rest off." Even that muddy horseback battle screams "grit and realism," something the plastic and too-clean later versions of the setting seriously lost. Today, this is just a setting inspired by a video game, and we lost so much.

I miss the old Forgotten Realms, and we are never getting that back.

Well, at least I can have it with GURPS.

But I appreciate the realism I get with GURPS, and it fits my vision of the setting much better than the original game. With D&D, you get into this "D&D mindset" where the setting becomes more about the rules than the setting and story. Players begin to "chase power" instead of driving a narrative. The design of D&D forces you into this mindset.

In GURPS, I can get more skilled, but getting impossible to kill is not easy. Combat is always a serious descision, even with supposedly "low level" foes. One lucky shot from a goblin shortbow is taking my 400-point wizard down.

I have a few boxes of Pathfinder 1e standup minis, and I'm looking to revive another setting with GURPS. I hated what they did to this world at the end of 1e, and today in 2nd edition, the removal of any mention of the evils of slavery, the too-cute plushie races, the elevation of goblins to a core race, and the high-tech mess the setting has become with steampunk technology and modern ideas. They got rid of the Drow, too, which is wrong. OGL be damned, they are a part of the setting, and in the Creative Commons now as well (as a monster). Half-orcs, half-elves, and all the classics are here in the first edition books, and this is the world as I loved it.

I miss the original Golarion so much.

Pathfinder Campaign Setting, Inner Sea Races, Page 141

Plus, the first edition Golbins were way cooler than their goofy counterparts in 2E. These little monsters were dangerous, far more capable of demon-worship, slave-taking, town-raiding, and doing all sorts of vile wickedness than the cleaned-up corporate McMascots we have these days. The modern goblins are cute, but they have been defanged and turned into plushies. I miss the old ones and that vibe. Look at them, they have red glowing eyes, and they are drawn coolly.

With GURPS, I can have that feeling.

With any other set of rules, it will feel more like modern fantasy, where you can sleep off a shotgun blast, have someone throw a bandage on you to raise you from the dead, and be fine the next day.

And I love the idea of using those standups on my hex grids for GURPS combats, the gritty, dark, deadly, and pulp-fantasy, sword-swinging, almost Conan-themed art of the original books. Again, you look at these books, and the characters who look like they are carrying a million-and-one things on them, plus a kitchen sink, and these scream GURPS to me.

And yes, that is a Golarion Drow on this cover, and they are amazingly cool and wicked elves with style. They even go beyond the D&D ones and can worship a variety of evil gods and demon lords. Again, we lost them, and these were a massive part of my setting and lore.

Granted, the worst part about a GURPS-Finder campaign is the conversions or the thousands of monsters in the setting. You don't have to, but the standups I have force my hand at either conversion formulas or some other manner of translating statistics other than guesswork. I can always lean on my B/X conversion guide for many of the creatures, but I need a better answer.

Maybe Grok or ChatCPT can convert monsters over, and I won't have to worry about it. We are not there yet, but it would not surprise me if this worked reasonably well to get a baseline. There will be a day when we won't need game books or conversion formulas at all; we will just have anything we want, instantly, on demand.

But I don't mind the mood and feeling of a setting changing once GURPS drives the action. This is a bonus, and I love that feeling since it aligns with my original vision of most of these worlds.