I'd be very interested of such a project indeed. Three sessions of Mistaken Identity/SoB behind, and I'm converting it as I go, but it's all rather messy and non-standardizable, so I can't be of much help myself.

What would the full list of old things things to be converted and new things to be included look like?

Turrican said:

I've started working on a word document that details the conversion process. At the moment it's becoming quite a detailed process (including 1e skills etc) which is probably only really appropriate for those NPCs that you want to keep detailed and have some personality and specifal skills etc. It's not really appropriate for NPCs who don't have much impact on the story or provide too much of a challenge. As a result I think I'm going to have a "quick-n-easy" method for creating "low impact" NPCs and a more detailed one for those specical NPCs.

For example, the last encounter in Mistaken Identity has the PCs up against the bounty hunter Adolphus Kuftsos and possibly three thugs he is talking to in the Trumpet Inn. I'd use the detailed conversion process of Adolphus and the quick process for the thugs.

I'm still working on the whole process - comparing the outcomes against 3e NPCs etc. It is based on Blustar's and Sami K's comment in this thread - but expanded and formalised. I'll post when I have something worthwhile...

Anyone done anyything similar?

I've also started working on converting TEW. I don't see it as being so much having to do with converting 1e stats in to 3e terms as it is wrapping the whole story around the 3e rules and tweeking the NPC's. But I've just begun so it may get a little more daunting later on. I would also be willing to sit down with some people and hash out a conversion to the whole campaign that the community can use as TEW is one of the best RPG campaigns IMO.

Seekerco said:

I agree – to me one of the biggest challenges seems to be to really integrate the TEW storyline with 3ed’s act structure, to decide when to use progress trackers and how (since they are such great story telling devices) etc.

I keep to the "keep it simpel" rule when converting.

For fighter npc's, I simply pick a soldier, then look at npc and ask myself: "Is he tougher or weaker, and if so, how much?". Then simply modify. The players don't care, they don't know the actual stats.

For caster npc's, I do the same really, and then transform the spells in apperance and slightly in effect. I never say "He casts a fireball at you". I say "A roar/ball of fire seems to spring from his finger". So changing that to "mass of purple fire" makes the spell chaos suddenly... Also look at the spells they have in 1st edition, then look at spells equal in pwr in 3rd edition, that should hint how hard/power demanding the spell should be.

I set the campaign in 1st edition setting, with all that comes. Thus 2nd/3rd edition stuff players read are mainly serving as guidelines, and not the truth.

I like most of the stuff in the books, adding some flavour some places, and removing stuff other places. Like many has suggested, I to am limiting the Castle, basically cutting the amount of rooms down by 50%. Some of the rooms reminds me to much of the "Sword n' Wizardry" books, where every single room contained stuff and choices... My plan is also to let the Outlaws cause trouble in the village, having the guards move out "Quell the rebelry", not knowing that many outlaws are waiting in ambush. Thus my players will move in the other entrance and find the castle mostly "empty".

I keep reminding me, to keep "non-important" combat to a minimum.

My biggest problem is that I like the idea of finding grimoires, and then learning them (like in 1st edition), spending XXX xp. This is very hard in 3rd edition, harder than in 2nd. I have a player wanting to become a caster, and will have to crack my brain for how to handle this

Spivo said:

I don't have it yet but maybe Witch's Song addresses the issue?

Aaaanyhow - nice to see this thread again. I was hitting my head to a wall while trying to think a good enough reason for players to travel around the Empire "like in Death on the Reik". I'm certain you can understand my feelings of stupidity when I understood that I could just run DotR...

As I'm only running the DotR part of TEW I'll be modding it quite a lot though as I want to set it in a time after the Storm of Chaos (as a large scale war leading to an even bigger one). I'll probably add the Gathering Storm as another plot hook by separating the locations from where the stones can be found and will most likely throw in a certain ball at Übersreik and a detour to marshes near Marienburg. The possibilities are endless! And quite possibly so is the campaign...

Blustar said:

I am, but it's not going to be finished any day soon. I'll release it one book at a time (I have the old version where the first one is two books).

I am almost done with thousand thrones. Then our group will start playing The Gathering Storm campaign I have put together. After that, we will play TEW. I'll start converting TEW in 2-3 months, when we're done with TTT (we have one session each month).

Karl R said:

havent' looked at TEW to convert yet, but started running Thousand Thrones and so far its been pretty easy to run (ie, challenge mods = extra challenge dice or misfortune dice depending on the description, dividing xp by 100 to keep the pace. Dividing stats by 10 to match with the current system, making the talents cool actions. )

Meh. And I just happened to start running TTT some two weeks before Gencon and the v3 announcement. By now the PCs have almost reached Altdorf and it'd be too much of a hassle to convert the campaign. Just my luck.

Look in my signature if you want to check out my TTT conversion notes.