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GURPS to Fudge Conversion

This page gives guidelines for converting character statistics from GURPS (Published by Steve Jackson Games), to Fudge, the infinitely customiseable system developed by Steffan O'Sullivan.

These conversion notes are intended to help you:

• Convert PCs and NPCs from an existing GURPS Campaign to Fudge, if you're switching an entire campaign over to Fudge.
• Convert NPCs in published GURPS sourcebooks to Fudge, for use in an existing Fudge game.

Of course, for PCs and important NPCs, a purely mechanical conversion should only ever be a starting point; you should make whatever adjustements make the character 'feel' right.

Attributes

GURPS has 4 attributes, ST (Strength), DX (Dexterity), IQ (Intelligence) and HT (Health). In addition there are a number of Advantages and Disadvantages do the work of additional attributes. More of them later.

GURPS attributes run on a scale of 1-20, with an average human defined as having attributes of 10. Mapping these onto the standard Terrible-Superb Fudge scale can be awkward, and any mapping will be a but of a compromise. Therefore I've provided three different conversion scales, depending on the power level of the campaign or characters you want to convert.

• For realistic characters, such as the characters in GURPS Who's Who, the 'realistic' column feels about right; Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein should have Legendary Intelligence.
• For a campaign where the PCs are built on 100 points, the effective range is about 7-16, and the 'Standard' column is a reasonable mapping.
• For a highly cinematic game with characters of 200 points or more, the 'cinematic' column should be used. This also happens to be the closest mapping between GURPS's 3d6 and Fudge's 4dF

GURPS (Realistic)	GURPS (Standard)	GURPS (Cinematic)	Fudge
8	7	6-7	Terrible
9	8	8-9	Poor
10	9-10	10-11	Mediocre
11	11-12	12-13	Fair
12	13-14	14-15	Good
13	15	16-17	Great
14	16	18-19	Superb
15+	17+	20+	Legendary

I have defined the baseline, Fair as slightly better than the 'average peasant'. Ordinary people have Mediocre attributes; as well as making better use of the whole Terrible-Superb 7-level Fudge scale, it also makes PCs a little more, well, heroic.

Of course, Fudge doesn't have a standard set of attributes, and many Fudge GMs choose an appropriate set of attributes for the genre, which are likely to differ from the standard GURPS attributes. However, many levelled advantages and disadvantages can turn into additional attributes if you're that way inclined. Below I've listed some common attributes and how they can be derived:

Willpower can be based in GURPS IQ plus or minus Strong or Weak Will, then converted using the table above. For example, a character with IQ 13 and two levels of Strong Will will have Great Willpower.

Perception can be based on GURPS IQ modified by the Alertness advantage in much the same way as Willpower above; a character with IQ 10 and three levels of Alertness will have Good Perception. Good/Bad sight or hearing work in an similar way, although you might prefer to use gifts and faults for these.

Wisdom, that old D&D favourite, can also be based on IQ, adjusted up one Fudge level for the Intuition or Common Sense advantages (or two levels if the character has both), and adjusted down one level for Overconfidence and/or Impulsiveness. Of course, if you want to duplicate the new improved Wisdom of 3rd Edition D&D, you have to factor in Will and Alertness as well.

Appearance can use the table below:

GURPS Appearance	Fudge
Hideous	Terrible
Ugly	Poor
Unattractive	Mediocre
Average	Fair
Attractive	Good
Handsome/Beautiful	Great
Very Handsome/Beautiful	Superb

Charisma can use the table below, totalling reaction modifiers advantages and disadvantages such as Charisma, Odious Personal Habits, Voice etc. Note that I've made a normal person 'Mediocre' in much the same way as the GURPS attributes.

GURPS	Fudge
-2	Terrible
-1	Poor
0	Mediocre
+1	Fair
+2	Good
+3	Great
+4	Superb

Status in GURPS goes on a scale of -4 (scum of the universe) to +8 (Emperor/High King/Pope). Status is very campaign-specific; in a very stratified society such as Kalyr it's quite an important attribute. Depending on taste, you could also roll in Social Stigma, Military Rank or Administrative Rank.

GURPS	Fudge
-3 or lower	Terrible
-2	Poor
-1 to 0	Mediocre
+1 to +2	Fair
+3 to +4	Good
+5	Great
+6	Superb
+7 or higher	Legendary

Advantages and Disadvantages, Gifts and Faults

Any GURPS Advantage or Disadvantage that didn't get subsumed into an attribute, either because it didn't correspond to one, or your game didn't use that attribute, should become a Gift or a Fault. As a general rule of thumb, and Advantage or Disadvantage worth less than 20 points or is one Gift or Fault, and anything worth 20 points or more counts as 20. Certain Advantages, such as Mathematical Ability or Language Talent exist primarily to give bonuses to certain skills, since they will already have been factored into skills, they can simply be ignored altogether. If your character is Great at ten languages, the language talent is pretty obvious!

Skills

Use this table to convert skill levels. It's roughly based superimposing the GURPS' 3d6-based bell curve on Fudge's 4dF bell curve, and taking 12-13 as equivalent to Fair.

GURPS	Fudge	Notes
7 or lower	Terrible
8-9	Poor	A typical GURPS PC with attributes in the 12-13 range will have defaults at this level
10-11	Mediocre
12-13	Fair	Defined in GURPS as the level needed to earn a living using a skill
14-15	Good	Defined in GURPS as the level recommended use in life-and-death situations.
16-17	Great	Defined in GURPS as the level for an 'expert'.
18-19	Superb
20+	Legendary

Unless you're converting a whole campaign and using signficantly broader or narrower skills than GURPS, it's probably best to simply use the GURPS skill names as listed. If you are converting to much broader skills, and a character has different levels in two GURPS skills that both correspond to the same broad skill in your game, use the higher level . For example, if Bob the Fighter has Broadsword-16 and Battleaxe-14, and your game just has a single Melee Combat skill, he would have a skill level of Great.

Psionics and Magic

Things get more Fudgey when converting powers. While you can simply port the GURPS psionics and magic systems into Fudge, when converting an entire campaign it might be better to go back to first principles and design magic or psionic powers in Fudge from the ground up rather than port whatever you had shoehorned into GURPS in the first place.

If you want a straight port of characters using build using the standard GURPS Magic system, the best solution is to use the rules for using GURPS Magic with Fudge in "A Magical Medley".

For a straight port of characters using the standard GURPS Psionics systems, use the table below to convert GURPS power levels to Fudge trait levels. The first Fudge trait level column should be used for lower-powered games, while the second should be used for higher-powered games. Telepathy range and Telekinesis weight are shown as examples for those who aren't familiar with GURPS psionics. Use the previous skill table to convert psionic skill levels.

GURPS	Low Power Fudge	High Power Fudge	Telepathy Range	Telekinesis Weight Lift
1-2	Terrible	-	Touch only	Coin
3-4	Poor	-	Arm's length	Pencil
5-6	Mediocre	Terrible	Same room	Book
7-8	Fair	Poor	Across the street	Large Knife
9-10	Good	Mediocre	Along the street	2-handed sword
11-12	Great	Fair	Next street	Barrel of beer
13-14	Superb	Good	Other end of town	Man
15-16	Legendary	Great	Other end of a city	Cow
17-18	-	Superb	Next town
19-20	-	Legendary	Next county	Car