Just browsing the reviews of Fantasy Craft, it looks like you give characters more depth and options (e.g. Origin, Lifestyle, Legend, even the food you eat has meaning). With all these options must come added bookkeeping, correct? How cumbersome is this during game-play and character generation (remember - I have a group that is spoiled by 4e's character builder program)?
It's not as complex as it seems from the reviews.
Basically it boils down to buying your attributes (a pain, and I use an android app to help if I'm not using 12s and 14s), pick a talent and specialty (your Origin, analogous to picking a race in D&D), picking a class, a feat, spending skill points and weapon proficiencies and buying some gear. A mage will also need to choose spells. Now, there are a lot of things to choose from but that's a good thing to me.
Generally I spend more time on the concept and backstory then the mechanics.
Lifestyle only comes into play with charisma skill checks, and Legend isn't a game play stat at all (it's a reward mechanic). Food is two small bonuses, if it's a hassle to track either disallow it or print up some cards to track what type of meal and drink the PC is benefiting from (ignore it for NPCs).
Frankly, there's far less book keeping then 3.5. There's certainly far less in play the 3.5 or 4.
If you want an example of play, look in the Play by Post forum. My current rendition of the beginning of
Burnt Offerings (Volume 1 of Paizo's Rise of the Runelords) is there. Characters include an assassin (special NPC killer), a courtier (social skill monkey), two captains (sort like a warlord, but with a 'pet'), a martial artist, a priest (nothing like a cleric), a mage (who is a lot like a cleric), and a soldier (with a animal companion).
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