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Many people through the years have been
in a position where they were playing some
other Role-playing game and liked the setting,
background, concept, content, and general
material but reached a point where they
could no longer tolerate the poor rules
and / or mechanics of that game. |
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Some of those people have decided that rather
than continue to suffer, or just roll the
game up permanently, they would instead
find a Universal Role-playing game whose
strength is well designed rules, and convert
their current game into that game system.
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This offers several advantages; marrying
the strong concepts and familiar continuity
of an existing campaign with a more flexible,
adaptable, consistent rules systems gives
you the best of both worlds. |
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Of course, it comes at the cost of a lot
of work for the GM, the social aspect of
convincing the player base (who typically
are unlikely to care as much about rules
nuances as the GM does) to make the switch,
and an unstable transition period of converting
Characters and concepts while simultaneously
learning the new system. |
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Unless most of the players and the GM are
able to overcome the obstacles and maintain
a good attitude about trying something new,
the entire endeavor can end badly in near
or total failure.
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HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT |
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The various conversion resources presented
on this web site are intended to help ease
the pain and burden of this process. However,
there is always more than one way to do
something, and it is important for a GM
coming into such an undertaking to have
a clear understanding of exactly what it
is they are trying to do. Without a clear
goal in mind, success is much less likely. |
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This document discusses various approaches
to a conversion and asks the GM to consider
which approach most closely mirrors their
own preference, offers some pros and cons
to that method, and offers advise on how
to use the resources provided by this web
site to best effect to meet their needs.
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The three distinct conversion styles discussed
below basically show three points along
a graph, the two most extreme ends and a
point roughly in the middle. Your personal
preference might lie somewhere along the
line between them. In other words you might
prefer something between a Look & Feel
and a Total Conversion, or something between
a Reboot and Look & Feel Conversion.
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This is completely fine and reasonable;
in such a case simply leaven the advise
presented for the two styles you fall between
with each other. As you move between the
points the pros and cons of the first morph
into the cons and pros of the other. |
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Total Conversion |
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One of the approaches a GM can take is an
attempt to do an as exact as possible conversion
of whatever system they are coming from,
bending the mechanics of the new game system
to model the mechanics of the old system
as closely as possible. |
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PROS |
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The only real advantage to this approach
is that if you do it correctly, even the
most contrary and reluctant player will
be able to make the transition to the new
game without much grounds for complaint
(other than why are we even bothering to
do this?). |
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CONS |
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However, while this may seem to be a logical
approach on the surface, it is actually
replete with problems. |
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For starters, it takes the most work of
all the possible approaches, by far. In
addition to all the other obstacles inherent
to transitioning your game, now you also
have to overcome difficult mechanical conundrums,
which also often have ripple effects such
that even one seemingly minor change can
have a massive effect much like throwing
a pebble into a pond. |
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Secondly, and this is the kicker, if you're
undergoing a conversion just to make the
new system exactly like the previous system,
the logical question is why are you converting
in the first place? If you want to make
the new system work like the old system
you might as well just stick with the old
system. |
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HOW CAN YOU USE THIS SITE TO DO THIS KIND
OF CONVERSION? |
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If this style of conversion is your preference,
bad news. The approach taken by the conversion
resources is not a Total Conversion approach,
so if you are intent on doing this you'll
likely find the material presented here
frustrating. You can still use large chunks
of the material provided to get you closer
to a Total Conversion, but you'll have to
do the work to bend the mechanics to fit
the old system yourself. |
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Look & Feel Conversion (aka Analogue
Conversion) |
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analogous: (adj) similar or correspondent
in some respects though otherwise dissimilar. |
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Another approach to conversion is to look
for parallels and analogues between the
two systems and structure your conversion
effort around that so that wherever possible
mechanics and concepts that exist or work
in both systems are paired up. |
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PROS |
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This method has a lot of advantages. The
principal advantage is you are using the
mechanics of the new system rather than
twisting them out of shape, so whatever
mechanical strengths of the new system that
attracted you to it in the first place are
maintained. |
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Another advantage is that its not a total
departure from the "look and feel"
of the original system since some or even
many of the tropes of that game have been
translated into the new system. Further,
while this method does still take some work,
it doesn't take as much work as a more "tight"
or exact conversion would and further since
you are working with the new system rather
than against it, it is generally easier
to overcome obstacles. |
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CONS |
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However a downside of this approach is it
requires whoever is doing the bulk of the
work for the conversion to know both systems
well enough to understand where one system
is like the other system and find the places
where the source system and the target system
match up. |
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Another downside is that since anything
rooted in a mechanic or concept that doesn't
align to something in the new system is
dropped there will be some Characters and
some players that rely or like those elements
that will be disrupted by the lack. Fortunately
this can be addressed on a case by case
basis by extending the new system to accommodate
the orphaned mechanic, but in general this
works best for finite ideas that can be
made to play nicely with the new system;
if you find your self making changes
to existing mechanics rather than just snapping
on the idea you're looking to add you should
stop and reconsider. |
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HOW CAN YOU USE THIS SITE TO DO THIS KIND
OF CONVERSION? |
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If this style of conversion is your preference,
good news! This is the general approach
taken by the conversion resources on this
site. They are particularly intended to
be helpful for people that lack the intimate
knowledge of the HERO System necessary to
understand where it is similar or can accommodate
other systems in an elegant non-disruptive
fashion.
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Additionally the conversion resources also
accommodate the Magic Systems of the source
material as closely as possible, using the
vast flexibility of the HERO System to overcome
most of the differences between the
game systems. Also in some places where
a key idea from the source material does
not have a parallel in the HERO System,
the conversion resources will provide a
custom rule to handle it in a non-disruptive
fashion. |
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Reboot Conversion |
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Another approach to conversion is to basically
leave the old system behind and just use
the mechanics of the new game system as
is, reinterpreting characters in the new
system and simply ignoring any thing from
the old game that doesn't match up. The
setting and background information from
the old game is retained, but the mechanics
are junked or at best used as inspiration
for expressing ideas in the new systems
terms. |
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PROS |
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This method offers a lot of advantages.
It is by far the simplest means of conversion
since you really aren't bothering to do
an actual conversion. This means it is also
the quickest way to convert. Since you're
not tweaking around with the new systems
mechanics you are also unlikely to run into
major rules issues. |
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CONS |
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However, there are some downsides to this
method as well. There will be some (or even
many) elements of the original game that
simply do not translate into the new system
without some conversion effort, and thus
are left behind.
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This can have a huge effect on the general
"feel" of the setting going forward.
In some cases this all works out, with the
setting mutating in a fashion that is agreeable
to the GM and players, but in others it
can cause the people involved to lose interest
in the game as the elements that they liked
about the original setting are lost.
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Similarly, the archetypes that were rooted
in the old game's mechanics may find themselves
eclipsed by new archetypes that stem from
the mechanics of the new game, which can
also take the setting in new directions.
Players whose liking of the old game was
largely based upon a fondness for a particular
sort of Character will definitely be disgruntled
if their favored character type fades away
or turns out to be disadvantaged in the
new system. |
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HOW CAN YOU USE THIS SITE TO DO THIS KIND
OF CONVERSION? |
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If this style of conversion is your preference,
good news! Much of the content in the conversion
resources will still be useful to you since
they merely demonstrate how to use the HERO
System to model concepts from the original
game. But, more significantly all of the
generic
High Fantasy HERO content provided
by the site is immediately useful to you
as a buffet line / cafeteria style resource
for you to cherry pick from.
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