What? What in the what what?
Sometimes, my brother and I would do these silly game conversions just to see where they ended up, and we would spend a weekend playing them. Many times, we would learn something new about both games, and while extremely strange and off-the-wall, these conversions were a load of fun.
So, let's play GURPS: Shadowdark.
First up, what even is this? We need some ground rules for the conversion. Let's say we want this played with GURPS characters, according to the GURPS rules, and we want to fold in the parts of Shadowdark that make sense. We will lose all GURPS races, skills, and magic, and prefer to use Shadowdark when possible. Damage will be GURPS, with character HP being done by GURPS rules, and monster HP being rolled by the hit dice. Otherwise, all combat and damage will be done with GURPS. Advancement will be entirely Shadowdark.
The goal is to use as much of the Shadowdark book as we can, use the classes, ancerties, and advancement of Shadowdark, but play as much as we can using GURPS rules. There are still a lot of fun tables in here, and plenty of ideas for GURPS games. Even if we later "play it 100% as GURPS," we will have had fun for a while and done something completely off-the-wall and silly.
Advantages and Disadvantages
We will need to hack GURPS to support the 5E advantage-and-disadvantage system. For advantage, roll 4d6 and drop the highest. For disadvantage, roll 4d6 and drop the lowest.
I see this being an official rule someday. Huh, we already found something interesting.
Character Creation
Create your GURPS characters as usual, but do not buy a racial template or skills. Just focus on abilities, advantages, and disadvantages. Set a lower point limit, such as half normal points, since we are not buying character skills or magic. You may end up with some pretty high abilities, but this is a game meant for fast character creation and frequent deaths, so get used to it.
All you do is buy and set ability scores, and pick a few advantages and disadvantages. Character creation will go quick. This is good! These characters are supposed to be disposable.
Ancestery
Use a Shadowdark ancestry pick, and just write down what they tell you. If a pick gives you +2 HP, just add two to HP and do not pay any extra. From here on in, everything is free. Talents are those abilities rolled on the charts. And +1 to attack or spellcasting rolls is treated as a +1 skill level.
So far, this game is coming together. I feel it will mostly be "rolling equal to or under ability scores" with modifiers, and ignore most skills (and even unskilled penalties). This is like the OSR; we do not have much use for skills.
Skills
But we still have a few! We only have a handful of skills in the game, and you gain these "bang skills" when the rules say you do:
- Ranged Weapons!
- Ranged and Melee Weapons!
- Spellcasting (Arcane)!
- Spellcasting (Divine)!
Note that some abilities give you both attack roll and damage bonuses! The half-orc gives you a +1 to attack and damage rolls with melee weapons, so this is treated as a +1 skill and a +1 damage modifier in GURPS.
All damage modifiers granted in Shadowdark translate over to GURPS into melee damage. There will be times your attack bonus differs from your damage bonus, and other times an ability will increase both.
Okay, this conversion is a mess. I'd like to know why I am doing this Frankenstein conversion. But let's keep hacking and going! There is always this mid-point regret where you just want to give up and say, 'This is a stupid idea.' This is it.
Ignore the feeling, and keep going.
Hit Points
Hit points start at GURPS standards, and extra hit dice are rolled per level. A d8 is a d6+2 in GURPS, and a d4 is a d6-2 (minimum 1). You will be slightly tougher than Shadowdark characters, but both GURPS and Shadowdark are so deadly that it won't matter. You pay nothing for them in CP when you level up.
When you get a level, roll for more hit points, as usual for Shadowdark. This does break GURPS slightly, but you are going to need the hit points, trust me. This is one where we would run a campaign through and test. If characters with 50+ HP in GURPS turn into a slog, we would halve the HP gain per level. Nothing will be perfect the first time through, but that is okay.
When we do conversions like this, we always put sticky notes on things to test them at the base level and adjust later if they are broken. This is a game-design skill worth learning: set a baseline, test it, and stick to it. Something that feels broken early may not be broken later. If it breaks later, correct it, then run another complete test.
How do I know this? We played a D&D 4E campaign from levels 1-20 with dozens of characters. That game was never tested past level 10; there is no way. How could they never see what they did to turn denial powers, hit point totals, and stun locking? We had a high-level combat run for 43 rounds, and we were so happy when it ended that we quit the game.
Even the boss monster was begging for it to be over.
This is what happens if you skip testing or create echo chambers.
Classes
Pick a class and follow the Shadowdark rules and suggestions. When a class says "add half your level to attack and damage rolls (round down)," just do that. So a level 2 fighter will add one to all attack and damage rolls, so a +1 skill level modification and a +1 damage adjustment (to melee and ranged) is applied. If a talent lets you modify stats, do so as instructed, but do not adjust your character points.
Thief skill rolls are done with advantage and made against the character's attributes. A thief figuring out how a trap works would be an IQ roll, while disarming would be a DX roll, while forcing open a stuck window would be a ST roll, and so on.
Spells
Use Shadowdark's spell slots, spells, and casting rules, but roll spellcasting checks in GURPS with IQ and your appropriate Spellcasting skill. Priests cast off Will, while mages cast off IQ. Mishaps are rolled as usual (keep a d12 handy, or use the d2/d6 method for generating 1-12 results).
Shadowdark damage is GURPS damage. Ability rolls (such as the confusion spell's WIS check) are best translated into GURPS (like a WILL check on 3d6 or less).
Damage and AC
Damage between GURPS and Shadowdark is one-to-one. Use GURPS weapon and STR damage for characters, modified by any modifiers given by the game. Thief backstabs add weapon dice as noted. Calculate GURPS DR based on armor types in GURPS, as usual.
GURPS DR for monsters is (Shadowdark AC - 10) / 2 (rounded down). If you want a faster-playing game, halve the monster's HP; otherwise, leave it as usual and treat higher HP (30+) monsters as boss monsters.
Backgrounds
When you roll up a background, treat that as a "bang skill" and make rolls as usual against it, and the referee could rule that these have an advantage in certain situations.
All Other Rules
Darkness, exploration, danger levels, luck tokens, gear slots, and all the other rules go by Shadowdark standards. We are just using GURPS for combat, skill rolls, ability rolls, and damage. You are not getting character points for GURPS experience; you get Shadowdark XP and advance the level charts in that game. You get talents and extra HP when the game tells you to.
If a roll should be difficult or easy, apply a suitable modifier to the 3d6 roll. Ignore the Shadowdark DC system and substitute with GURPS die roll modifiers.
Some rules, such as survival, falling, exposure, bleeding, food, and water, will be better handled in GURPS. Make a judgment call when the situation comes up, and "handle it in GURPS."
Go Play GURPS Shadowdark!
The conversions we did were not complicated, nor did they try to make everything fit perfectly into the GURPS rules and framework. For this, abandoning traditional GURPS character advancement and putting yourself at the mercy of the Shadowdark rules for XP and talent rolls would lead to some hilarious situations. If we felt something was horribly broken, we would issue a ruling and fix it, adding it to our conversion rules.
What I love about this conversion is letting thieves make an ability roll for their skills, without even using a skill level. Theives just work "as they do" and this is a helpful way to handle NPC skill and ability rolls without needing a skill. Got a town sage and want to make a skill roll for them? Give them an IQ and roll 3d6 against it.
So, I did learn something and got a new tool for my GURPS toolbox!
Also note, this is not a perfect conversion, and you will need to make adjustments and rulings on the fly. This is another excellent skill to learn, since it comes up in pure GURPS games as well. Game design is experimentation, but it also requires patience and testing to ensure something is broken, not just a knee-jerk reaction. High hit points at higher levels may not be a problem. We don't know until we test.
And these mutant-chimera game conversions are fun ways to spend an afternoon and learn something about both games. Often, you will find yourself going back to GURPS for everything and tossing the conversions. But you may end up with characters and an adventure framework you like! You may enjoy the "digest-sized" dungeons of the Shadodark adventure as "GURPS mini dungeon runs." You may keep that format and introduce a new type of fantasy game for GURPS.
For the most part, GURPS and the superb combat rules should carry the game, and you will start to "feel holes" when it comes to the skills you are used to having for searching, hearing noise, and knowledge. For these, just make ability rolls, as needed, and chalk it up to Shadowdark not having all the tools that GURPS gives you. Make the best of it and enjoy the simplified game while still keeping the best parts of GURPS running the show.
