Converting to FATE and starting a new campaign

[Greensnakedrex]

Thank you all so much for the advice and links to resources. I checked out Dungeonworld. It does look intriguing, but I think I am going to press on with trying FATE with my home group. I am really gunning for fast, fluid, cooperative storytelling. Hopefully FAE will deliver.
I am considering picking up the Freeport Companion for FATE. Looks like it might be a decent bridge into my current Pathfinder/3e campaign I've been running. I really hope it doesn't run too far back down the road I'm trying to avoid. I do not want any rules that bog us down. No grid map, range/cover modifiers, or anything else that makes us take longer than 30 seconds to resolve an action in combat. I'm a little hesitant to plunk down $10 on it, but I do like supporting the 'little guys'.

The Elf Ranger has a sealdog companion that I'm thinking of handling as an aspect. It's issues like this that make FATE so appealing to me. When my daughter told me that she wants a character who rides her sealdog animal companion in combat I had two reactions- 1. Sounds fun and cool! So much we could do with a sealdog companion! She even made a painting of him and cooked up an ecology and background for sealdogs and their relationships with her tribe of elves. Reaction 2 was, blaarrgghh! (silently in my head). How the hell are we going to handle this? Movement? Actions? HP's? Firing arrows while mounted in melee?! All of these issues are surmountable, but I want this to be fun! I want to be the DM of 'Yes, you can (try to do that!'
And then my son wanted to play an illusionist! Reaction 1. Spectacluar! Sounds like so much fun! I'm glad to have a spell caster that does not have me constantly describing how you horrifically maim the bandit with your burning hands spell to my fourth grader. Let's do this! And reaction 2. Ugh. Let's learn about spell selection, ranges, durations, concentration, and a whole lot of- No, that spell does not let you do that- it can only produce a sound within this range, and you can only use it twice per day. Lame....
We dabbled into Savage Worlds to see if we could get some relief from these issues. I really like Savage Worlds, and some things were better. But, it was not the end-all-be-all. That is why I am hesitant to convert over to Dungeon World. It does sound like it would help with those issues quite a bit, but I want to be rid of them. I do not have unrealistic expectations from FATE. Every system will have it's quirks and idiosyncrasies, but I think it will help me accomplish my goal of being able to tell my wife and kids- Yes, you can absolutely attempt that! Let your imagination run wild! You can ride a sealdog into combat (without worrying about calculating modifiers for firing in melee, mounted, without the proper feats, attacks of opportunity, ride checks, handling set of actions for your mount and so forth).

 

[Radiating Gnome]

I recently transitioned a Savage Worlds/Necessary Evil game (players are super villains defending earth against aliens because all the super heroes are dead) into a homebrew FATE Core version of the same game. We made FATE versions of the Savage Worlds characters and just picked up the story where we had left off.

It's been interesting -- our group, primarily D&D players and min-maxing machines -- had taken a big bite out of the character building in Savage worlds, and build some really over-engineered characters. After about 6 months of playing in Savage Worlds, I was in the position of having to soup up the adversaries to make them appropriate opposition for the PCs. In FATE, because it's so much more fluid, I don't quite have the same problem yet (only two sessions into the FATE version).

But the thing that has me most excited about the transition is the difference between trappings and aspects.

In Savage Worlds, trappings are a great solution to things like plain vanilla spellcasting or super powers. An attack power that is ranged uses the "Attack, Ranged" power entry, and uses it's trappings to describe the attack's actual form and potentially give it some special abilities.

In FATE, aspects are nearly entirely freeform - and then there are some standardized mechanics that you can use to adjudicate the results of using those powers.

The difference is that when you're creating the character in Savage Worlds, it's entirely possible to completely ignore trappings. Just forget about them, and leave your character with a plain vanilla blast attack. Pay your points for it and go back to the rulebook to shop for another power.

In FATE, there's no list to choose from. The player has to imagine what their character can do, and come up with the words to describe it. It's a big change for a lot of players (like mine), and they're only starting to get the hang of it, but at the outset it's impossible to ignore the details -- the aspects ARE the details.

-rg