I took the plunge thanks to Valarian's great FUMcon Demo.

[zWolf]

Well, Valarian took an hour or so, and ran me through the demo of the software today at FUMcon. It was a blast! I watched the tutorials, and then made up my mind that my group was going to play on this VT.

I'm really looking forward to it. I bought a Full license, and 7 client licenses for the group.

so anyway, thanks Valarian! and if ever an 'affiliate' program is offered, Valarian should definitely get credit for these sold licenses heh.

zWolf -out.


(P.S. even though I bought these, I am STILL very interested in the subscription based floating licenses thank you.)

[Oberoten]

Welcome aboard. :) May your experience be a good one.

Oh and if you want a list of offered rulesystems I have a almost complete one at the wiki. https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki

[Valarian]

So, now you've got a full license to play, there's a Corporation game tonight at 8pm UK time. It's a fast action Matrix-style cyberpunk game where the players are Agents of one of the big five Corporations in the world of 2500AD. There are six characters to choose from. Drop by and have a go :)

[zWolf]

So, now you've got a full license to play, there's a Corporation game tonight at 8pm UK time. It's a fast action Matrix-style cyberpunk game where the players are Agents of one of the big five Corporations in the world of 2500AD. There are six characters to choose from. Drop by and have a go :)

I totally missed out on this one :-( Bummer. but at least now I have the software to play these kinds of games in the future.

I'll be honest though, I'm ... getting a tad worried about the fact that my group wants to play D&D 4th Ed in their game, and now that I have the software, I got serious about the 4th ed rule set and such things... having looked at the parser, and all that entails, well... I'm a touch overwhelmed at the amount of work that I'm apparently going to have to go through to get all this to work for my group. so that's sad. :-(

Now the thing is that I have purchased the hard back books, and the PDF's... but I guess even owning them, I still have to do the parser on my own to get the info into my game?

Can I pay some one to do it for me?

do you think that's legal?

I mean owning the pdf. and the paper books at first glance it seems like that would be as legal as doing it my self right?

anyway, a) I'm interested in thoughts on that take, and b) if some one is interested in helping to ease my pain ... let me know! (but only if it's legal!)

wadehone @ hotmail.com

I wish that they (the group,) were all fans of GRUPS or Savage Worlds, because it looks like those are much easier to find content for.

-zWolf out.

[zabulus]

For my 2nd edition group, I find that I have to do about 5 evenings of preparation for 20 evenings of play, so it's not too bad. Mind you, we are a group of very close RL friends with a VERY laid back play style (yesterday we chatted the night away, while ingame one character bought an armor, the wizard learned the spells from his new spellbook and 2 characters told their caretakers they were going on a journey with the wizard).

[mr_h]

I won't touch on the legality issues (not my realm), but keep in mind that you don't HAVE to put all that information into the game. You can do little bit by little bit if you find it easier.

When I created my Top Secret SI Ruleset, it had a character sheet. Then the graphics came after a session or two. Then I plugged some basic information into the ruleset, as I used it, it went into the ruleset. The first couple of adventures I read from the paper I printed out in front of me.

Do a little bit at a time, if you try to get everything in there, you'll overwhelm yourself. The 4E Ruleset will give you all you need to play the game at its basic level (character sheet and minor automation).

[zWolf]

Thanks for the tips, I feel a little better about it today. It's gonna be fun! :-)

[Entropi]

zWolf, I am in the same boat. I am primarily interested in 4E D&D, but I failed to research how much work was required to get stuff into the program. I read through the forums and saw that a ruleset was available, but, having no experience with FG2, I didn't realize that the ruleset still required all data to be manually input (powers, monsters, etc).

I recommend watching Xorn's excellent video tutorials. After watching his tutorial on making minis, I have managed to get a good selection of minis into the game as tokens using Paint.Net (free graphics program that is comparable to photoshop or PSP). However, I'm still daunted by having to parse all those powers, monsters, magic items, etc. Even limiting my scope (say, all monsters for Keep on the Shadowfell adventure as opposed to all monsters in the Monster Manual) it seems like an almost insurmountable task.

It's crappy that we can't share this stuff - we are all repeating the same work, spending hundreds or thousands of man-hours to do work that several others have already done. :( But I guess that is just the way of it.

[Zoso]

Parsing the information into FG isn't nearly as bad as it would seem. For example, I was able to get all the powers from PHB 1 and 2 done in under 1 hour. Feats, rituals, etc, took another couple hours. All in all, not that bad. The monster manual did take several days, but I would say no more than about 20 hours tops for the whole thing. To just get the monsters for H1-3, once you get going, probably wouldn't take more than 5 hours or so. The longest thing so far has been the reference section of the PHB which took days, but then that is just formatting bulk text and is really optional and if time is a concern for you, I would just leave it out.

Once you get familiar with the parser, you can get a tremendous amount of information done in a reasonable amount of time!

[Sungazer]

Hi! I'm way excited to be here and this software has got me hopping up and down middle-school style.

I stumbled across this site from an "ancient" thread about Wizard's failed VTT "Game Table" when someone said, "Do what I did, buy FG2." So I came here, downloaded the demo, and wasn't very impressed, almost ready to move on when I saw Xorn's video demo's which included the 4th ed. Video Tutorial. I was so blown away I bought a Full Retail license and plan on getting at least 4 lite, probably 5 or 6.

Xorn was my Valarian, and I think his tutorials are an amazing marketing tool.

I too am feeling a bit overwhelmed, but planned on building up my databases by doing the bare minimum for my players and adventures first. Building up modules and parsing will just be an occasional side time sink once the priority of the adventures is done.

I am curious though, are there any, "Start Here Dummy" guides or links for the parser and what exactly this process entails?

I hear parser and my MMO-nerd radar thinks "DPS Parser", and I understand parsing is a fancy word for recognition and recording. What exactly does the parser do? Scan .pdf's and give you text blocks? Or does it parse behind FG2 and build a module as you enter it in the game? If so, what's the point? What's the difference between having everything manually entered and having it linkable from a module if you can export the manual stuff anyway?

*phew* /ramble off

[Zeus]

I am curious though, are there any, "Start Here Dummy" guides or links for the parser and what exactly this process entails?

I hear parser and my MMO-nerd radar thinks "DPS Parser", and I understand parsing is a fancy word for recognition and recording. What exactly does the parser do? Scan .pdf's and give you text blocks? Or does it parse behind FG2 and build a module as you enter it in the game? If so, what's the point? What's the difference between having everything manually entered and having it linkable from a module if you can export the manual stuff anyway?

*phew* /ramble off

Hi, welcome aboard.

I am not aware of any 'dummy's guides' as such however if you download the parser (available from here https://www.fouruglymonsters.com/community/component/docman/doc_details/76-parser-350) it includes a document which provides a reference to the syntax the parser expects as well as an overview of the features available. The zip also includes a Samples directory which contains samples of input files and some small output modules, both can be used for getting started.

I would also head over to FourUglyMonsters (FUM) where Tenian and most of the user community for the 4E_JPG ruleset hang out. If you need pointers just join the group (https://www.fouruglymonsters.com/community/community/groups/viewgroup/49-DD+4th+Edition+FG+Development) and post yur request, most folks there will offer help.

Regarding the Parser, in simplistic terms it effectivley reads text based input files that you prepare manually (e.g. by copying/pasting text from a PDF and formatting it) and spits out a 4E_JPG FG2 compatible module.

You can then activate the module in FG2 and voila you have your content available within FG2 to use and play with. Modules generally represent either a rulebook e.g. 4ePHB or an adventure e.g. H1 KotSF and can sometimes even be both e.g. 4eDMG.

Generally speaking the Parser is a wonderful complimentary tool to FG2 and 4E_JPG however you do not have to use it in order to use either FG2 or the 4E_JPG ruleset. FG2 enables you to also enter text and reference material manually so you can build your library as you go along.

Having said that I use the parser for the Rulebooks and a combination of the parser and manual entry for adventure modules. I have parsed pretty much everything now bar a few of the available books and I would not have been able to have achieved this without the Parser.

If you decide to give it a go I'd suggest starting with the PHB and i you get stuck or need help, just shout.

[Griogre]

In computer science, parsing usually means reading in a string of data and separating, combining and/or discarding characters of interest so you have logical arrangements of specific data. Most parsers then do something with the logical arrangements.

The 4E parser reads in delimited strings in a text file and generates FG modules useable by the 4E ruleset. The delimiters have to be hand added, which gives more flexibly to the 4E parser at the cost of doing a bit more work during input.

Cutting the tech speak, the 4E parser allows you to copy and paste or type in 4E data in a one or more text file(s). Then you have the parser read the text file(s) and spit out a 4E xml module file.

My advice is to start small. While if you have the time you can parse in everything, there is also no reason not to start with just what you need. I started running KotS right when it came out before the 4E books had been released so I just inputted the monsters in the first third of the module, and every week I kept adding more. We used the module pre-gen characters since there was no PH, so I just had the players copy and paste their powers in from the characters PDF’s. Later I had them cut and paste from DDI’s Compendium. Even now the D&D compendium in demo mode still has all the PH classes’ first three levels of powers that you can copy and paste from into the character sheet.

For a DM I would actually suggest you start with the monsters in the first adventure instead of the PH. It isn’t a lot to ask players to copy or type in a few powers if you start a low level game and add another one every few levels. A player on the other hand would want to parse his class powers first.

[Sungazer]

I can handle the tech jargon, I happen to be a Computer Science major :P I was a little confused because I grew accustom to the idea of parsing requiring a "live stream" of text. Not a far stretch from doing a <<cin from a file I see, and then formatting it with "tags" so the parser knows how to convert the text block into something FG2 can actually use in the form of an interactive module. Suh-weet! I'm constantly amazed at the 3rd-party communities that pop-up and all the extremely useful freeware they produce.

Thanks for the quick and helpful responses, great community here.

EDIT: Oh I only responded to the first part of your post, Girogre.

I too happen to be running the 4e KotS, and my group has finished the Kobold Lair, found their mentor Douven Staul, and had their first creepy encounter in the "Goblin" Guard Room. I put goblin in quotes because I was so burnt out with kobolds, I didn't want more small, ugly, semi-intelligent humanoids who are basically feral kobolds. So, I turned the entire goblin tribe into a cult of freakish undead mutants and "blessed ones."

For example, the Goblin Skirmishers became "a man with an emaciated mid-section, swollen, knobby joints, grey, tightly-stretched skin over a humped back with a powerfully built upper body. A shirtless, bare chest reveals a large tattoo of a ram's skull. He leans heavily on a spear with a bundle of javelins in the other hand, slowly swaying." They immediately screamed, "Zombies!" Then had to re-think that when the "zombie brute" sprang backwards and threw a javelin. It missed, but was thrown with such force that you could hear the "whoo" of its flight and it shattered in a cloud of splinters on the other wall. The look on my players' faces as they swallowed was priceless.

Uh, oh yeah... Fantasy Grounds >.> So! This has got me setup to build the next few rooms around the guard rooms and I can't wait to get home from work to get started. Which reminds me that I need to check out Xorn's video tutorial on scaling dungeon maps. I love the maps they provided in KotS, but was sorely vexed when I realized only 6 total maps were included, so I had started doing it by hand. Copying and pasting from the .pdf, scaling, printing 6-8 pages and taping together, ugh. This will save me so much time and ink!

Thanks again, fellas.

[Zeus]

Uh, oh yeah... Fantasy Grounds >.> So! This has got me setup to build the next few rooms around the guard rooms and I can't wait to get home from work to get started. Which reminds me that I need to check out Xorn's video tutorial on scaling dungeon maps. I love the maps they provided in KotS, but was sorely vexed when I realized only 6 total maps were included, so I had started doing it by hand. Copying and pasting from the .pdf, scaling, printing 6-8 pages and taping together, ugh. This will save me so much time and ink!

Thanks again, fellas.

Check out https://www.educatedgamer.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=43&pos=7 (The Mad Mapper web site) for large scale good quality maps of Shadowfell Keep Levels One and Two.

You can also find the 6 included poster maps there. All I did was desaturate the images and Sepia them in Photoshop, got the majority of them down to about 120kb JPGs with pretty good quality at 300% zoom.