Using the WH40k Rpg system to convert other games

By Darklor33, in Dark Heresy

So I'm not sure where this should go, or even if I'm allowed to post something like this, but I'd be interested to see if anyone here on the forums has used the wh40k rpg system to convert other games? My main reason for asking this is because some of my friends and I have been kicking around the idea of using the wh40k rpg system to handle a certain Post Apocalyptic rpg produced my Kevin Sembiada. Sure it would take one heck of a conversion but it could handle alot of the elements except for magic of course.

Anyway I'd like to get your thoughts on conversions using the system and if you've done it before then what worked and didn't work for you? Thanks in advance.

Darklor33 said:

So I'm not sure where this should go, or even if I'm allowed to post something like this, but I'd be interested to see if anyone here on the forums has used the wh40k rpg system to convert other games? My main reason for asking this is because some of my friends and I have been kicking around the idea of using the wh40k rpg system to handle a certain Post Apocalyptic rpg produced my Kevin Sembiada. Sure it would take one heck of a conversion but it could handle alot of the elements except for magic of course.

Anyway I'd like to get your thoughts on conversions using the system and if you've done it before then what worked and didn't work for you? Thanks in advance.

RIFTS?

Anyways, I've been tossing around the idea of using the system for a Fallout game. It's not so different from the Special System, and purchasing "Perks" seems quite a bit like purchasing Talents. The Armor system seems pretty easy to convert, and we know that the combat mechanics work pretty darned well.

Yeah Rifts, didn't wanna spell it out though, I hear that Sembiada's legal team has had a burr up their arse in the past about people doing unoffical conversions of his stuff. Yeah I can see Fallout having a lot of resemblance to the warhammer system.

Huh, I would do it the other way around: Use a different system to run WH40K games with. I'm not too impressed with the rather clunky system used in the 40K games so far. BC is better, but still not there. Looking forward to Only War, but my hopes aren't too high.

As for Post Apocalyptic games I heartily recommend picking up Apocalypse War, which I think was $10 for the pdf. At the ApW forums some swede has already made a 40K conversion, so here you can come full circle :)

Darth Smeg said:

Huh, I would do it the other way around: Use a different system to run WH40K games with. I'm not too impressed with the rather clunky system used in the 40K games so far. BC is better, but still not there. Looking forward to Only War, but my hopes aren't too high.

As for Post Apocalyptic games I heartily recommend picking up Apocalypse War, which I think was $10 for the pdf. At the ApW forums some swede has already made a 40K conversion, so here you can come full circle :)

How familiar are you with RIFTS? It's the single clunkiest, bogged down, arbitrary system I've ever played with. I believe converting it to a Black Crusade system would be good, but Dark Heresy would also be workable.

IdOfEntity said:

How familiar are you with RIFTS? It's the single clunkiest, bogged down, arbitrary system I've ever played with. I believe converting it to a Black Crusade system would be good, but Dark Heresy would also be workable.

I've not used it. I have been looking into converting our 40K games to a FATE variant, and have seen others reporting good experiences with this. Strands of Fate seem well suited, and has been discussed on these forums before.

Perhaps the 40K systems are better than the RIFS one, I do not know. And if it's a system you know and love, go for it. However, if you're going to do alot of adapting work, I'd recommend checking out your various options first :)

ApW plays like a dream, but it's geared towards a very specific form of GMing. I recommend picking up the book for the GM tips alone, Mr. Vincent is a genius, and the inspiration just oozes out of every page!

I have used the DH system for my 1889 Stargate spinoff. It works reasonably well, but my main problem is converting the existing characters to their Victorian age equivalent. To be honest, I would use the BC systrem right now as it offers some more flexibility to the characters after you remove the Dark Gods bit.

And also: Every system is better then the Rifts setting ;)

I'll have to look into apocalypse war though I can't seem to find any information about it, any chance you have a website I can check out or what company publishes it?

I chose the Dark Heresy forum to put this post in because I didn't really know where to put it, I wish they had a general Warhammer 40k rpg forum with the game lines as sub-forums within it. Anyway I figured it would be a good place to start as I actually own the book for it. Once the conversion really got under way it wouldn't be hard to ramp it up to the power levels of RT or DW or BC if I wanted to. Then you could play at the various tiers depending on how you wanted the game to feel. Use DH if you wanted a gritty survival game, RT if you want heroes walking the countryside, or Superbeings wasting armies when you hit the DW level, or something like that anyway.

Why I chose the wh40k rpg system is due to its tone and feel. I always looked at Rifts as a grimdark post apocalyptic setting even though the sourcebooks made it a little goofy as more of them came out. The deadliness of this system also lends itself well to how I always thought rifts should be.

Anyways right now I'm just spit-balling, there's so many classes/races in rifts that I wouldn't want to try to convert every little thing. I'm looking at using the setting of rifts and then making some generic careers that could fit the types of classes that can be found in rifts. Psionic, Mage, Man at Arms, Scoundrel, Scholar. Something like that maybe, but like I said I'm just brainstorming.

Thanks Smeg!

I'm sure it'll take some time for me to go through it all. Maybe it'll be better suited for other Post-Apocalyptic games.

Appreciate the link Smeg, gonna check this out for sure while I keep thinking on Rifts-wh40k rpg!