Potential buyer with unanswered questions

[HappySailor]

Hey all, I'm new, and I have read every bit of info here on the site, I still have a few more questions If anyone could oblige me.

1. If I buy ultimate, the big one, can I make games that all my non-purchasing friends could take part in? We are a fair sized group and I would ultimately like to not have to ask them all to make such an investment.

2. It says that you can make new rulesets, I am not sure what this means. I am a designer of sorts for tabletop systems, Am I able to input rules for such things, even if they are rudimentary?

3. Is the software easy to use? I am quite tech savvy, I am just curious about the learning curve of the software.

4.Because of the nature of my gaming group, I do alot of things on the fly, (example Party might decide to veer off the beaten and try to find some small random village) is it easy to create these things quickly or is it recommended to only use things that were prepared beforehand?

5. It accomodates alot of rulesets, I see. Do I need to purchase additional sets? I own 3.5, 4, gurps, savage, and a few other systems, I would really rather not have to "re-purchase" the ability to play with these systems over the program.

6. It says we can play securely over the FG server, my router is definitely not built for hosting, is it easy to hop in over the FG server?

7.Most important question, as users, is it worth the money?

I hope to hear back soon, thank you, have a great day

[damned]

1. With included rulesets - yes.
For purchased rulesets they may or may not have access to manuals etc like PHB. Will vary from ruleset to ruleset. They can certainly still join games hosted by you and get resources you publish like maps, images etc and they will see combat tracker/chat etc.
2. There are whole bunch of (very clever) people here who make and modify rulesets. I dont know if its EASY or QUICK but yes you can make whole rulesets or just extensions for existing rulesets which add new rules or override existing rules.
3. Yes - for GM and Play most defintely. Not always intuitive and the doco is a bit brief but you will definitely pick it up. Im pretty new and luckily for me I have had a couple of players with previous experience who have given me great tips/pointers along the way. Expect *some* learning curve and initial slowness of play. will improve every session.
4. you dont HAVE to present maps and images to your players. You can describe them to your players just like you would for pen and paper game. check out pyros awesome flash mapping tool for making quick maps on the fly. having maps will aid in combat - but not required and not required for role playing.
5. many rulesets are commercial. many more are community. it depends on licensing and on the ruleset coder. check out oberons wiki for lots of community rulesets.
6. no hosted solution. YOU as the ultimate license holder and GM will be hosting the game and content from your internet connection. Initial connections might take 5-30mins for EACH player. it is best to get them to logon for the first time PRIOR to game night so they can build their initial cache. If you have 512kb or better upsteam you shoudl be fine for hosting but you do NEED to be able to ALLOW INCOMING TCP 1802 thru your router to your computer.
7. if you buy it and never use it then it would be poor value. if you use it then i think you will find it good value.

[Griogre]

5) Like damned said there is a mixture of rulesets commercial and free. The commercial ones don't cost any more than $10-15 and usually have the reference material input into FG reference libraries. The 4E ruleset is included with FG but has no reference materials because of WotC's restrictive policies. Likewise the 3.5 ruleset is also included along with reference libraries using data from the old SRD. The Savage Worlds ruleset is a commercial one, and I think well worth the $12 or so (disclaimer: I bought the ruleset - but I have also developed SW modules for sale in the store). There is a free community GURPs ruleset available.

[Leonal]

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/?sys=-1&pub=-1&typ=1&sort=1&x=23&y=22 here you can see which systems are for sale. Cheapest for $10, most expensive for $27.5.

https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/Category:Rulesets The wiki also has a list of all of them, both free and purchasable ones.

[Trenloe]

4.Because of the nature of my gaming group, I do alot of things on the fly, (example Party might decide to veer off the beaten and try to find some small random village) is it easy to create these things quickly or is it recommended to only use things that were prepared beforehand?

6. It says we can play securely over the FG server, my router is definitely not built for hosting, is it easy to hop in over the FG server?

7.Most important question, as users, is it worth the money?

4. You can draw maps on the fly (simple mouse driven line drawing) which I have found fine for describing location layouts and running battles I hadn't preared for. You can copy images to your campaign directory in game and display these to the players as needed. If you're planning on using more of the automated functionality in the rulesets, you'll really need to have your NPC's/Monsters ready to go - but, most systems have some form of a bestiary library module that allows you to drop NPCs directly into a combat. If you're not going to use the automation then it's not much of an issue - name your NPC for the combat tracker entry and apply the initiative score/combat order and off you go.

6. The secure FG server is just used as a secure way of providing connection information to the clients connecting to the GM. Basically, all the GM needs to do is provide the player's with the connection string (4 random words) and a password if necessary - the FG server then maps this to the current public IP address used to connect to the GMs router. As most people's public IP address on their internet router changes once in a while, this is a nice feature for regular campaigns - you just need to know the connection string (which doesn't change for a specific campaign) and the FG server points you to the right place.

7. I've been completely blown away with the functionality of Fantasy Grounds compared to other virtual table tops I've checked out. Plus, the community is amazing and the developers really responsive. I'm now using Fantasy Grounds to run a regular Pathfinder campaign and both the players and I are loving it. I'm playing in a cool Castles and Crusades campaign ran by damned and play in other games every now and again. I initially bought it just to play private games with my friends (one of our group moved half way across the world), but now I'm playing with people I've never met before from all over the world. 40 of the best dollars I've ever spent! :)

[HappySailor]

Thanks everyone, you have been so helpful.

I really think I will buy this. I am glad to have gotten such immediate feedback. I hope to become a dedicated member of this community as well.

Thanks again!

[phantomwhale]

Great choice. The Savage Worlds ruleset is a bargain for $12 too, and is super-awesome. Disclaimer: that's because I write it.

[Doswelk]

Great choice. The Savage Worlds ruleset is a bargain for $12 too, and is super-awesome. Disclaimer: that's because I write it..

I have to admit the Savage Worlds ruleset is very good (even before Phantomwhale made it EVEN BETTER), I did buy it (but it was for FG1)

I have been lucky enough to be a play-tester for the FGII version since the year dot, but if tomorrow I had to buy it I would. :D

Disclaimer: I spend all my non-gaming time on FGII building Savage Worlds Modules and graphics themes so I might be viewed as biased.

[Doswelk]

Thanks everyone, you have been so helpful.

I really think I will buy this. I am glad to have gotten such immediate feedback. I hope to become a dedicated member of this community as well.

Thanks again!

If you want to see how usable it is on the Downloads tab there are videos of FGII being used to play D&D 4e

Over here (https://www.furiousdice.com/video.html) are my Savage Worlds Videos.

[Valarian]

A note on the usability aspect. Download the demo and play around with it. You'll soon see if this is the tool for you. The demo is a little it of date now, but it gives you a feel of FG2.

[Griogre]

This is very good advice. Check out the demo. It is dated, and for just d20 but you can see the built in map tool, typed chat, and images.

[HappySailor]

wow, I have sinced checked out the demo and I am thrilled. I am so excited to see deadlands up here, it's one of my favorite systems to write for.

Thanks everyone, I hope to be here soon with a nice purchased copy and a big grin.