Converting Rulesets

[ShadeRaven]

Guessing this is probably not possible, but I create Adventures and things like Bestiaries as Modules within FG2 for various rulesets. Currently, we are playing Pathfinder and enjoying it quite a bit, but it does occur to me that it is certain that we'll at least take a look at running a full-time 5E campaign once it's officially released.

So that begs the question... is there any possibility that these modules from different rulesets can be converted for use in other rulesets?

I know some are vastly different in format and style, but as 3.5E, PF, and potentially 5E will share many common aspects, I am wondering if there's at least some possibility there. At worst, I know things like images can be transferred, and I could probably use simple cut-n-paste for various textual information (Story, Fluff, etc)... though c-n-p would be arduous... but it would be very nice if more of the work I am putting in on other D&D platforms could be translated over going forward.

Any possibilities here, or is this just wishful thinking?

Thanks in advance!
SR

[Trenloe]

With 3.5E, PFRPG and I believe the future 5E all being based on the CoreRPG ruleset you have a good chance of basic modules being able to be brought across OK - stories, images/maps and notes should work fine. However, when it gets down to more ruleset specific stuff this is where you may begin to struggle an have fields missing (at best) or, at worst, errors being raised and not being able to open your module data. Once the differences in format/names are identified you should be able to do a find/replace in your XML files to manually edit the data to allow you to use it in 5E.

Also, keep an eye on the Par5e project which allows creating of modules from base text files - this may or may not be useful to you going forwards, but the documentation might give you an idea of the fields 5e will be looking for: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?18123-Project-Par5e

[Moon Wizard]

This might be possible using your own translation of XML tags via a program of your own creation.

I did something similar when I wanted to run Masks of Nyarlathothep from the CoC ruleset on the Savage Worlds ruleset. Luckily, I had official conversion notes from CoC to SW from the Realms of Cthulhu source book to help guide the creation of my custom tool.

Regards,
JPG

[Zeus]

A couple of ways to do this.

For any ruleset module to any ruleset module. Compile an XSL stylesheet which reads your source module XML and converts to target module XML using XSLT.
For 4E to 5E: Download my 4E Decompiler tool, decompile the 4E module to source text files. Download my PAR5E tool, markup your content for 5E and parse using PAR5E.