As you can tell from my infrequent posts over the last few years I have not had much time to play GURPS and most of my friends have had even less time.  Well now I have a group of three that play, more or less, every other week.  However I still have not had a lot of time to make any original adventures so I’ve been doing something I have not done since the 80’s, I’m using purchased adventures!  Now converting adventures can be almost as time consuming as making one from scratch but it will still save me some time in the long run.

I’ve decided to go with Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics with a splash of some original AD&D modules for good measure.  Our first adventure was The Sinister Secret of Whiterock #51.5. I found this adventure to be the perfect starter for our games.  It took six hours to run through the entire thing and it gave the party time to remember how to play (including myself).

Converting Challenges

As with anything GURPS 4e the one place that it will fall short is the lack of diverse book of Monsters.  Now they do have a lot of monsters but it is spread out through several books and not all of them are suitable for every adventure.  This is not normally a problem with my regular Fantasy games, but for Dungeon Fantasy it is a large problem for me.  I use DF when I don’t have a ton of spare time to design, this includes NPC’s and Monsters.  I replaced Owlbears with Cave Bears and had to design my own Sih’hel.

Thankfully the rest of the monsters where quite standard, Giant insects and mammals and a few skeletons.

Now the traps threw me for a bit as I don’t normally have traps in my standard fantasy games, however with a bit of reading I found the area that explained them.  When I get the time I will make a list like Grimstooth Traps for GURPS.

Playing Challenges

I have to admit that I forgot a good portion of the rules and I did not run the game as seamless as I should have.  The first few combats were a challenge and I did not do so well when the players did unexpected actions.  The players pretty much walked in unprepared.  No healing potions, no torches, no bandages.  For a Ninja, Assassin, and a Martial Artist they found out what happens when you don’t follow the 7 P’s ( Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performances).

Overview of the Session

One player could not make it (the Ninja), So we start the game in an Inn (what? you where expecting something original?) when the players hear rumors of a Cave Bear in the area and the inn keepers son went missing while gathering herbs and firewood.  The innkeeper offers the players some gold and a weeks worth of boarding (excluding food and drink) if they would find his son.  The players except as they are extremely low on cash and I have not offered any other options.

Not expecting much they just head out without supplies (silly adventures) and discover some standing stones while following the cave bear tracks (which they only found because they critically rolled Per, none of them had tracking).  They accidentally find the entrance (grace of GM).  Thankfully the Assassin had Night Vision 4. All the combats go well but the martial artist is slowly whittled down throughout the game and relies heavily on defensive maneuvers and techniques towards the end.  The Assassin fairs no better and during the final confrontation the two end up running back up the dungeon and ambushing and retreating the entire way up.   After dealing with the Sih’hel sorceress  the two delvers limp back down to the black crystal obelisk to find any treasure.  What they do find is the Ninja player who is unconscious and tied to an alter.  They find some health potions (grace of GM) and end up spending over 24 hours in the place recovering and getting their loot together.  The don’t realize until they reach the light of day that the black obelisk has transformed their features giving them pale white skin, dark vision 1, and a feral aura (-1 reaction rolls).  Now how will they deal with this curse?