Transferring existing PnP chars and campaign to FG

[Magnimost]

We have a long-running campaign in CoC on pen and paper, currently playing Orient Express which has taken a drastic turn for the insane by my players killing and then impersonating a certain Hauptmann from another campaign for hilarious consequences. I fear for the fate of the Ottoman Empire. At least the players haven't ended up literally on the moon. Yet. Again.

Anywya. Rather than starting from scratch, is it possible and easy to transfer our 5th edition characters to the official 6th edition FG ruleset?

How about campaign, can we finish Orient Express within FG without pulling our hair out? Or would you recommend buying one of the pre-made campaigns to tip our toes in first? It looks like the learning curve for GMing on FG is quite steep.

Finally, is it possible to override the FG ruleset for a certain action or encounter? We have several house rules - essentially we have thrown out the rulebooks on many occasions as my player's actions often defy the rules.

[ianmward]

Hi and welcome,

Transfering the characters is easy but not automated. You just create a new, blank, character in FG and fill in the details.

Finishing the campaign is also possible and the amount of work required depends on a couple of things. It would be best to create all of the NPCs in FG, again this is simple but manual. If you want to use maps and handouts (probably) then you will need to scan them, or if you have them in a PDF, copy and paste them, then add them to the campaign (copy and paste the files to the right place. Easy). Most creatures, spells artifacts, etc. will already exist in the official ruleset, so little to do there. If you want to use the maps for combat, you might want to create some tokens from the character portraits.
Finally, if you want to, and you may not, you could copy the adventure text into story elements in FG. This is the longer part and not necessary, as you can easily gm from the book or the PDF as you normally do.

As for house rules, it really depends what they are, but in general should not present a problem. You have access to the (virtual) dice and can use them as you do at the table, so you can essentially do anything you like. The only time it might get complex is if you have house ruled something which the ruleset automates and that is rare in CoC.

I recommend you give it a go. You may be surprised how easy it is and how great!

Ian

[Magnimost]

Sounds great, and as I was expecting. We'll do a test run during Christmas break to see if this is for us.

Thanks!