New questions

[Linkis]

I've never used Fantasy Grounds before, and I was hoping to learn the magnitude of work that is required by a DM to create even simple dungeons. Also what is available in regards to premade dungeons and things of that nature? Thanks in advance.

[Griogre]

The amount of work greatly depends on what game you are planning on running. Usually, each RPG has a different ruleset. Generally speaking the more sophisticated the ruleset the more work for the GM. However, as a minimum you usually need the NPCs in an adventure in a form that make sense to Fantasy Grounds so libraries of monster data are particularly valuable as a time saver if available.

The availability of premade adventures and data is directly affected by any restrictions the company that makes the game has put on the information. For example, for 3.5 most of WotCs data was allowed to be freely distributed electronically with a few restrictions which means FG comes with monster libraries already made for 3.5. For 4E, WotC has forbidden the distribution of their intellectual property electronically so while there is a rules framework you have to data libraries yourself. For 4E there is a 3rd party tool to help you do this.

Anyway, if you say what game(s) you are interested in running people can tell you what is available for that ruleset.

[Koldoon]

I was making my first determined effort in a long time to prep an adventure for FG last night.

I chose an LFR adventure (4e) for my test... one I knew well with simple maps. This was done because LFR adventures are readily available as PDFs. LFR adventures are typically around 5 encounters (plus intro and closing information which also may involve some rp). This one has substantial intro RP and roughly equates to two sizable RP encounters (the intro and a skill challenge that is RP heavy) and three combat encounters. It took about 3-4 hours to finish copying and pasting what info could be entered that way and doing the rest (monster npc sheets) by hand (well almost finished, I have one more monster to enter).

Will my adventure work as entered? That part I don't know. I think I've got a handle on the part that I've done, and could even shave some time off that value. But I still have never run an adventure to know if I'm missing some critical piece.

[Dershem]

I enter (block text) Maps, monsters and thats it. For storyline I keep my laptop, (soon to be ipad) up in front of me with the original pdf there.

[Griogre]

For my weekly games I just put in maps, monsters/encounters and treasure parcels. Its much easier to do the minimum if you use voice to do narration and descriptions. I'll often have notes by my keyboard or a PDF on the other monitor.

For learning though, I did exactly like Koldoon. I put a small adventure in complete with everything just to learn how everything works and it helped me a lot to understand how FG works.

[Linkis]

My group is playing D&D fourth edition. Its getting more and more difficult to be able to work it around our schedules, so taking it online seemed favorable. I made this thread to try and get a comparison of the work burden involved for our DM when playing D&D modules in person versus playing it here on fantasy grounds.

[Doswelk]

It really depends on how much preparation the GM usually does...

I admit I've never played 4e (and most likely never will), so my responses my be skewed, but when I am running a Savage Worlds game I can just sit down and play and wing it, or I could spend some time inputting story, NPC, & items for example.

The only thing though I tend to do is key in the NPCs and source maps/graphics for the actual game session, the rest I just use a PDF on my other PC/iPad or have the book in front of me.

[Phystus]

I also don't play 4e, but I can at least comment on the difference between prepping for face-to-face games and prepping for games via FG.

The difference you'll see depends on what you'd do to prep for the face-to-face game. If you make your maps on the computer already, and prepare 'box text' and stat blocks ahead of time, the difference is probably quite small. If you sketch out a quick map on graph paper and some brief notes (room 3 - 7 orcs) then you'll find it takes a bit longer to do that digitally. Or at least I have. :D

You'll definitely want a digital version of any map you intend to share with the players. Beyond that it's up to the DM, really. I tend to do quite a bit of prep work in an effort to avoid long pauses during the game while I look stuff up or dig up the monsters for the next fight.

Having at least the monsters in an in-game library is extremely useful. For 4e that involves using the parser. It isn't exactly prep time in the normal sense, but it's time you may want to spend at least once to get set up.

Hope that helps.

~P

[Griogre]

I run 4E as well as other games (big fan of SW as well). Generally speaking the prep time is about the same if you have access to monster data. The good news is you can use the 4E Parser to scrape monster data as a one time thing.

The devil *is* in the details on DM prep time though - so for you it will depend on your style of DMing. As some have pointed out, once you have a library of monster data the next largest prep time item is maps.

It's quite possible to spend hours and hours building digital maps that are works of art. Its also quite possible do no additional prep time at all and to just sketch out your adventure maps using FG's built in map tools like a battle map. Most people are somewhere in between. There is also no reason you can't start with just sketches and build up to something better. There are plenty of maps available on the Internet and if you are running some adventure from a PDF you can usually get the map out of the PDF and into FG.

One issue that comes up with online play that does not in face to face is that for many adventures the DM's map is not suitable to be displayed because it has secret doors, traps and other DM information that is awkward to display to players. While you can load the map into an art program and edit that stuff out it often does take a fair amount of time if you need to do a lot of editing.

What about the rest of the prep that doesn't involve monsters or maps? If you use a voice program, it will be the same because you can just read off your notes or improvise like you do in a face to face game. In your situation I would recommend you use voice software - that's because you know you players and part of any face to face group that's been running a while is the social out of character interaction. The biggest kick against voice software is it can ruin role playing immersion - but if you have been playing face to face that's not a problem for you group.