Sit down and think about some core traits of D&D campaigns... but be more abstract. Dungeons are compounds, dragons are vehicles--there's a really simple one.
Now here comes the real lure part: Sit down with THEM some night with a few beers and talk about what they like in D&D and how to adapt it.
Here are a few tips that have gotten others interested in T2k for me, but note: I've yet to run more than 1 game... so, grain of salt and all that.
You may want to mete out what equipment characters get, so it feels like they're "advancing" in a familiar method.
If you haven't yet, read
T2k Later Days. If you have... well, there's the link to the first post, you'll probably click and start all over again. You may even share it out to some potential players, depending on whether or not you want to use those twists (or if you expect they may do well with a little hint).
I would suggest going mildly supernatural, and I'd suggest the
STALKER games (and hey, they're Ukrainian!), inspired by the Soviet era novel "Roadside Picnic" (a good alternate take). There are deviant physics, mutants, and in general things being wrong or unnatural. It doesn't have to be monster-movie crazy... a herd of hogs gone feral, misshapen with open sores and especially bad attitudes can cause both an invigorating fight scene (to drain all that ammo away
) and signify that your PCs are now in or approaching a poisoned, dangerous place. Infrasound (18.98 Hz especially) can be used in place of "evil taint," which works especially well if you decide to go deeper down the rabbit hole with your campaign: Perhaps following
The Magic Comes Back trope, radiation combined with the spiritual blah blah of so many deaths over such a long time weakens the blah blah monsters blah blah things that should not be etc to whatever extent you want. Closing up the rifts into Hell or whatever could become a campaign focus, allowing for something between D&D and T2k.
I've deviated far into the weeds though, so one last tought occurs to me for a decent-enough "dungeon crawl" feeling to ease them into it: Take one of those decommissioned missile silos, fill it with a variety of equipment as well as traps, wild animals, henchmen, and one devious zookeeper, and you've got a dungeon with treasure.