Star-GURPS-Finder

I have a good collection of Star Finder pawns, too; about a box and a half are for that game. I played the 3.5E version of the game and enjoyed it until it fell apart. The adventures held back money to the point that my characters were constantly broke, starship-owning space travelers. Since money is only used to upgrade armor and weapons, and all of those are leveled items, the game sort of makes no sense.

And I sit there with a perfectly good starship and wonder why I can't just run cargo for extra cash, like in any 2d6 space game like Cepheus or Traveller. But the next adventure awaits, and I found myself working for "space undead." I had no interest in helping them, and the adventure path fell to pieces.

I tried a second time with the sandbox setting, and that was fun, but the leveled gear and that "arms race" started to take over the game when good stories were getting started, and I lost interest again.

I also found myself abusing my knowledge of D&D 3.5E to my advantage, and melee combat with a strong character outshone anything else, to the point where my 1d4 damage laser pistol pilot felt useless. We would just lure monsters into opportunity attacks and whallop them. While D&D 3.5E is the best D&D we got from Wizards, the combat in any version is severely lacking and exploitable.

I would prefer a normal science-fiction system to a level system in space. The only exception would be the Amazing Adventures game, but that is more of a pulp-action game, and those can do most any genre well.

The "what if" is converting the game into GURPS, which would mean all that would be the races, and then using GURPS' great selection of science fiction gear to fill in the rest. There is "magic" present in the setting, and GURPS does that too; it is just a question of "what flavor do you want?" There are psionics, too, and there are already far too many power systems in this universe, which gets a bit confusing. "Too much mojo" is the name of the game here, and it almost feels like too many magic and psionic power systems are in the game.

GURPS would do a good job, but in all honesty, it probably would not really feel like Starfinder. It would be a GURPS Space with magic and psionics, and Starfinder races, with a lot of strange pawns that I would need to create game stats for. I wonder if Amazing Adventures would do this easier, since I could crib monster stats from the fantasy game, mix in spells and spionics from these rules, and just have an easier time converting and playing with the pawns.

Still, GURPS would give me a "throttled own" Starfinder experience, far more concerned with the lower-level skill and gritty combat game than the 3.5E system ever was. Starfinder was always a game that felt like it "skipped over the surface" far too much, ignoring skill rolls in lieu of easy combats with another group of space goblins. In the adventures I played, even social interactions felt played down, and another set of combat stats was given, should "3.5 players were gonna 3.5 their way through this again." D&D never did social and skill-based play all that well, and Starfinder 1e inherited that legacy, becoming a combat game with a science-fiction veneer.

Those weak 1d4 ranged weapons were a pain, though, and the higher-level ones made you roll multiple d4 dice, like 12d4, and I am sitting here wondering why anyone would want to physically roll 12d4 for any weapon. For the love of my fingers, make this 6d8.

It would probably help Starfinder and make it seem like a more grounded universe to slow things down and celebrate the characters, rather than rushing through the next space dungeon and rolling initiative. GURPS science fiction does that; it can put the brakes on a "rush through it" sort of adventure and force you to think about your character and what they bring to the table. And GURPS makes characters versatile in many more ways than a list of special attacks, spells, and a to-hit bonus and number of attacks.

Another part of me wants to dig deeper into the magic systems of this world and define them more clearly in GURPS than in Starfinder. There are a number of tightly-defined and thematic subclasses that make the castes special here, and doing a conversion without them would feel incomplete. When you look at Starfinder, it is the precursor of Pathfinder 2, and the stronger and more thematic subclasses make the character here.

There is a difference between a "dress up" style of GURPS conversion, where you are just playing GURPS Space with a few of the races along the veneer of the universe. There is a deeper level of "total conversion" where you put in the work, build the subclasses as true templates, and rebuild the Starfinder power lists in GURPS from scratch. I get the feeling Starfinder would benefit more from the latter, where in fantasy, GURPS has 90% of what you need for simulating fantasy tropes without too much rebuilding, though Dungeon Fantasy is a good example of putting in that work.

I would probably template the base classes and then offer subclass choice templates under them. Spells would need to be converted. If a conversion needs this much work to make it feel right, you start to wonder if the project isn't too big to take on. It would be cool and be a fresh take on the classes and subclass abilities, but it would be a lot of work.

You begin to wonder if a "Starfinder lite" experience with tech-plus-space-magic is the way to go. This is how Stars Without Number does it, where you can play the base space game, and then port in "space magic" through BX additions. Is the "Starfinder vibe" that important? If so, put in the work and make the conversions. If it isn't, do a generic "space magic" setting.

By playing Starfinder with GURPS, the same thing I have seen reported with Traveller may happen: it feels like putting on a "VR headset" and becoming immersed in the world in a way the original game could not provide. GURPS can help give games an "identity" that otherwise feels lacking, and show people what it is like to live in the universe and experience it at a lower level than a more rules-light system can offer.

It is an interesting project, but a huge one if you want the Starfinder flavor. If you are a super-fan, probably play Starfinder with either the 1e or 2E rules. If I want to use the pawns, maybe a generic "space fantasy" GURPS setting will be enough, flavored but not a faithful conversion.