I'm thinking of running a skyrim game using the GURPS system. Knowledge of GURPS is not a prerequisite as the free GURPS lite pdf is readiliavailable. I'm thinking a one or twice a week posting rate, with PCs decisions and  actions affecting the world. I'm thinking starting during the Skyrim civil war.

Any interest?

Could be, I'm in a Skyrim campaign with Rolemaster as the back-end and would be interested to see how they alter the flavour

Obviously plot and character development will take precedent over system and dice rolling.

Absolutely, but I've seen them frame things in an interesting way too :)

The GURPS system (points etc) will be used to gauge enemy threat level and set what characters are capable of. The system will take second place to roleplaying and character development.

Something I can see working really nicely is that the GURPS flexibility will let you build the Shouts separately from any magic systems. That could be difficult with a lot of other RPGs.

I like what I know of Skyrim and I'm a fan of GURPS.

Bane, I would TOTALLY be into this game! Let me know if you start it up!

What power level were you thinking?

Is everyone the Dragonborn, one person, or none of the PCs?

Exactly. Off the top of my head, the Shouts would be built as powers, with magic being the standard magic in GURPS. I'm thinking an advantage such as "Possesses the Voice" or something to that effect costing 25 points. Then Shouts would be individual powers built with alternative attack modifier to reduce their costs.

Power level I'm thinking 200 points in advantages with 50 points in disadvantages. Ideally we could all make characters that are established in Skyrim with backstories that are reinforced by the character creation (allies, enemies, etc, etc). I full intend on running a grizzled NPC city watch guard that has a bum leg from an old arrow wound...

Good post on the Steve Jackson website about this;

http://forums.sjgames.com/show...p;t=85210&page=2

Essentially;

"The powers will be trickier mainly because if you convert them into GURPS they won't be similar in point values at all. Some of these abilities would be hundreds of points in GURPS, some would only be a handful. My advice would be to just name a point value you want each race to be worth and then spends that amount of points on advantages for each race that simulates what they all have. (If you care about the races being balanced that is). So lets say you give each race 50 points, then for Bretons you could give them 5 levels of improved magic resistance [25] and 5 levels of magic absorption usable once per day [25], etc.

Altmer would have a higher energy reserve with one minute of 1/rnd regeneration.

Orsimer would have one minute per day of striking strength +10 [25] and Injury Tolerance (2) [25].

3) Magic. I rarely ever play a Mage in an Elder Scrolls game. It seems GURPS Magic isn't a terrible fit, though a variant ritual magic style scheme would make more sense. I'm really wanting to make it stay as close to RAW Dungeon Fantasy as possible, so would using RAW GURPS Magic be too far off to not catch the concept well?
It depends on what you want to go for. I think you could use standard GURPS Magic and do just find, it fits in with the setting IMO. On the other hand I think you could make magic work just like in the game and make things easy on yourself too.

Just make each of the types of magic from the game a Wildcard skill. So you'd have Destruction! Enchanting! Conjuration! Etc!

Call it a high mana world (I think everyone in the game can use magic?) then just do some quick conversions. Require a skill of 15 for Apprentice level spells, 20 for Adept, 25 for Expert and 30 for Master. Or lower these requirements as you see fit. Or use a system where the different level of spells give you a penalty to your skill roll. Armor should also give a penalty.
But your skill in the spell should replace Magery here.

Honestly I think I would just use standard GURPS magic, maybe with a limited spell list and allow wildcard skills. (Or maybe just combine the colleges wildcard skills matching the game. Destruction! would cover most offensive spells, Illusion! would cover mind, communication, etc.)

Enchanting could stay the same but Soulgems and Souls would provide the power and there would be a lot of Quick and Dirty Enchanting going on.

You might even want to allow any skill from the game to become a special Wildcard skill that allows for special Techniques. So Pickpocketing! Would offer techniques where you can do supernatural things like Pickpocket weapons right out of a guys hand. Smithing! Would allow characters to make armor with magic-like qualities. Sneaking! Would allow characters to vanish in plain sight and sneak around wearing armor, etc.

4) Arms and Armor. I'm really looking forward to being able to tell my players they have more than six weapons to choose from, but the Elder Scrolls games have a relentless march of weapon and armor types. Iron -> Steel -> Elven -> Orc, etc. each with their own materials which translates poorly to GURPS. I'd love to give them those options, too, but I'm not sure the details other than being CF modifiers.
I wouldn't worry about the types of armor, just convert the materials. So maybe Elven has the following modifiers: DR: 90% of Steel; Weight, 10% of Steel. Steel: Standard GURPS stats. Iron: Cheaper maybe with more weight? Etc.

1) Races. A lot of the races have very video-game friendly powers that translate poorly as everyman abilities in DF. Kuroshima suggested I make a lot of them be racial power ups, which sounds like the simplest solution, but how should they be built? Of course Dwarves are long dead and Orcs don't have the Social Stigma (which I'll counter with Berserk).
I'd say just abstract the abilities in a way that fits the theme. Altmer should have a bigger magic Energy Reserve and some form of faster recharge counterbalanced with a Vulnerability and Weakness to Magic. Nords should be a once a day use of Terror, hearing based, to represent Battlecry, etc. Even some of the more powerful ones could probably be limited and brought down to manageable levels.

2) Classes/Templates. Mostly I'm using RAW Dungeon Fantasy, but I'm seriously considering removing the SM+1 from the Barbarian simply because I think it's silly for this game and letting the point value go up (it's a 300-point game anyway, so it's not that terrible). For more experienced DF GMs, would that break the game terribly?
If not for the fact you are using Dungeon Fantasy, I would personally shy away from the default classes. You would definitely need to do overhauling with regards to the magic oriented ones to make them fit the bill.

3) Magic. I rarely ever play a Mage in an Elder Scrolls game. It seems GURPS Magic isn't a terrible fit, though a variant ritual magic style scheme would make more sense. I'm really wanting to make it stay as close to RAW Dungeon Fantasy as possible, so would using RAW GURPS Magic be too far off to not catch the concept well?
I would suggest Realm or some form of Syntactic magic if there wasn't issues with modeling some certain spell effects simply. Alternative would be Spells-As-Powers. Magic should be based on an energy reserve everyone gets the first 10 or so points of for free.

If you want to go Realm, though, and fit some of the more experimental feel of the lore, try this:

1. Make a list of common spells as techniques, and allow spells based off techniques some advantages in casting time, etc. On the other hand, further penalize "free casting" from the Realm advantage to balance it out.

2. If a spell has a rough equivalent to an actual spell from GURPS Magic, maybe consider basing the cost or other traits on that instead of working it through the Realm system. Might be issues with Technique defaults, though.

You can make learned spells into readily usable and trainable Techniques, perhaps divided by certain levels in the Realm ranks, and people can attempt risky, difficult free casting to improvise effects. If they have the proper tools and workshop environment, free casting should become easier, and eventually with practice and investment they can make their own spells.

4) Arms and Armor. I'm really looking forward to being able to tell my players they have more than six weapons to choose from, but the Elder Scrolls games have a relentless march of weapon and armor types. Iron -> Steel -> Elven -> Orc, etc. each with their own materials which translates poorly to GURPS. I'd love to give them those options, too, but I'm not sure the details other than being CF modifiers.
There really isn't a lot of information or lore about materials, but here are a few suggestions.

Elven should be strong like steel but light, as previously mentioned. Its weight would make for relatively quick and light blades but not very good blunt weapons.

Dwemer metal should be very durable. Maybe not quite as impact resistant as Orcish, but they can sit in ruins for thousands of years without real wear or tear. Repair might be a total non-issue, and puncture resistance might be high. Lay on the blunt trauma, though. On the non-combat side, just its rarity and craftsmanship should mean that a real suit - not some cobbled together scrap from broken down Centurions - should fetch an enormous price among collectors.

Ebony I figure would be heavy and dense - it would require a lot of strength to wear, but would offer relatively unparalleled protection. Weapons made out of it would be very hard to wield, but the weight behind them could give them momentum to crush through armor.

Glass should be very tough and light, but maybe brittle. In Morrowind Glass was very light and stronger than Steel, but wore down very quickly. Frequent repairs and wear should be an issue. On weapons, it should be sharp like Obsidian edges, but with more durability (though less of metal weapons). Trying to attack hard material armor should be avoided.

Daedric. Maybe Daedric should be somewhat lighter and stronger than Ebony, and maybe the fact there are daedra bound into it should grant mild enchantment bonuses like increased strength, magical abilities, etc. If only due to the difficulty in it ritualized construction, it would probably be rarer and worth more than any other armor. Weapons should be supernaturally enhanced in some fashion - maybe easier to wield regardless of weight, incredibly durable, etc."

I think you'd actually be better off just removing the dragonborn and dragons from the story.  The dragonborn is Sir Special Snowflake, which works fine in a single player game but gets silly if you have five of them running around.

Without dragons, there's still the civil war, the Thalmore, the daedra, the various guild happenings, the Dawnguard vampire stuff, etc.

I'm with 'chucks. Skyrim is a fascinating setting without the "chosen one" mythology of the Dragonborn, and the only other shouters being creepy old hermits living on mountains.

Plot twist. Dragonborn is in cahoots with the dragons and is a villain in your setting. Or just get rid of the dragonborn.

I think shouts can still be learned from the Grey Beards, but I am totally fine with no Dragonborn in the game.

Regarding magic, there was another interesting post I read on the Steve Jackson site;

"Energy Reserve (Magic)
(Spells Only -10% and Special Recharge -70%)

Magery 0 (for beginner characters as it always seems you can learn magic)
Magery 1+ (for those starting as wizards)
-5% Energy Reserve Only, -15% Cannot Use External Energy, and Accessability: Can't cast spells if ER is 0 -20% (been debating if -30% would be more appropriate, but sticking with -20% for now)

Regeneration
(Origin: Magic -10%, Energy Reserve Only 0%, Useless Under Stress -60%)

Those are what I used for the Magic System.

With regards to the system as a whole, I wouldn't change the spells from GURPS, simply disallow the spells that would be more "non-flavor" to Skyrim.

For the Regeneration I added Useless Under Stress because the way it's setup, you can have a 100 pt energy reserve for 60 pts, and have it regenerate after combat as early as 1 pt / second for relatively cheap. Thus, you have a fairly large spell pool, and it depletes as you need it to for extra power for your spells. ER hits zero, that's it, no more spell casting 'til after your little combat is over.

As the players level up, they can buy off some of the modifiers as they focus on their chosen paths.

Also, use the default GURPS spells. Much easier to use what's out there than it is to make up everything from scratch."

Thoughts?

Well, I think that you have to make a decision on whether you want to mostly copy the setting or if you want to copy the "game" part, as well.  GURPS, as is, can be a pretty serviceable fantasy game, but it has some very different aspects from Skyrim.

If you're down for copying the game, I'd give everyone an ER of 10 to start that regenerates 10% every 3 seconds out of combat or 10% every 10 seconds in combat (based on approximately how Skyrim does it).  If everyone has it, there's no need to apply a point value to it.  More points of ER cost 3 cp each.

Magery seems kind of similar, at least in theme.  Just give it to everyone at some base level and allow a few extra points (full price) as a "talent" type boost.

I'd give normal FP the same regen rate and charge FP for most attacks, if I were trying to copy the game.

For spells, I'd probably hand pick the allowed spells from GURPS and fill in the few gaps.  There are a couple of spells that'd need reworking to fit the Skyrim aesthetic a bit better.  Notably, I'd redo the lightning spells to drain ER and the cold spells to drain FP.  You'd also need to look at how you're going to do conjuration.

Alternatively to no dragon born would be exactly one PC who is and has put together a group of champions. Aragorn may have been the chosen one, but it doesn't make Frodo anything less interesting or loved.

I think swordchucks has the right idea here about making that decision. There are definitely different levels at which the game could be copied. It could be as small as creating some Shouts as powers and statting up non-human races. It could go a lot deeper.

I'd be interested in making this happen.

Looks like you have roughly 4-6 of us expressing definite interest. If you feel good about it, perhaps starting up the game and discussing specifics within it would be good?

Done.

link to another game