New Member and a Licensing Question

[AWSullivan]

Hey all,

I found out about this awesome software/community at GenCon this weekend and I can't wait to put it to use.

I have a question about how licensing and data distribution works though.

I'm thinking that a single Ultimate license might be the best solution for my friends and I but I want to make sure that there aren't any limiting factors to working in this fashion.

If I purchase an Ultimate license and my friends all play as unregistered, are there any limitations?

For example...
- Can we play Pathfinder?
- If I buy a tileset or other game asset, will my players see it properly?
- What, if any, limitations exist in this scenario?

Thank you so much for your time!

[Trenloe]

Hello and welcome to Fantasy Grounds - I'm sure your decision to use FG for your VTT will be a good one (especially as it looks like you want to play Pathfinder).

The main "limitations" with the ultimate license are:

Only one person can own the ultimate license and therefore be a GM. Anyone can connect as a player, but only one GM can use the ultimate license - ever (you can''t transfer it between friends).
Players using the unlicensed version can't save characters they are making in their local cache. They can do a one-time export to send to the GM. This is only really a slight issue at the beginning of a campaign. But, players can always connect to the GM and make their characters directly in their campaign - the GM doesn't even have to be there, just leave their server up and the players can create/modify their characters. Then the characters are in the campaign ready to play!


Your other questions:

Can we play Pathfinder? Absolutely, the Pathfinder ruleset is built into the 3.5E ruleset that comes with Fantasy Grounds (select PFRPG when you load up your new campaign for the first time). I am playing and running multiple games of Pathfinder with Fantasy Grounds - it works very well.
Once connected to a game there is no difference between an unlicensed and a licensed player in FG. Your players will be able to see any module (maps, rules, tiles, etc.) you have purchased and made available to them (you have control over what the players can use).


Getting back to my first point (1 in the first list) - if your group plans to rotate GMs throughout the group, then a bundle purchase of full licenses for the GMs and lite for the players may end up as cheaper than one person buying the ultimate license and only them being able to GM. Clicking the "Store" link at the top of this page has some examples of the discounts available if a bundle of licenses is purchased at once.

Any other questions - just ask. We have a great community here who are always willing to help. :)

[AWSullivan]

Wow! Thanks for the speedy response. You answered all of my questions.

It looks like the best answer for us is to buy some full and Lite licenses rather than Ultimate. I don't know for certain that anyone but me will ever GM but it's certainly a possibility.

Thanks again!

[craggles]

Only the GM needs to buy any rulesets or assets - the players receive anything that's shared 'in game' by the GM.

The limitation is that you can be the only GM if you buy an Unlimited License.

Alternatively, you can get a Full License and your players can get a Lite License each and if you buy them ALL at the same time, the accumulated bundle discounts are actually cheaper than one Unlimited License. You can even get a few Full Licenses in the bundle (instead of ALL your players getting Lite Licenses) if any of your players wanted to GM at some time in the future as well. :)

If it is only you who's ever going to want to GM, particularly if you want to GM multiple different games with different players or if you have a high turnover of players, then the Unlimited License is the best choice for you.

But you have to add them to your cart at the same time to get the discount.

[craggles]

Wow! Thanks for the speedy response. You answered all of my questions.

It looks like the best answer for us is to buy some full and Lite licenses rather than Ultimate. I don't know for certain that anyone but me will ever GM but it's certainly a possibility.

Thanks again!

That was quick and beat me to the punch. :P

[damned]

please note some rulesets require all players to buy the ruleset to receive all its goodness. eg with castles&crusades players can participate without ruleset but dont have access to players handbook data.
additionally the lite and full licenses also cant be transferred to other people once assigned. because of bundle discount it might pay to buy 1 or 2 extra lites in case your group morphs a little over time. if your group might change a lot then ultimate again becomes a better choice.

[AWSullivan]

Thanks again for all the great feedback.

I picked up a Full license and have been playing around with it. I'm going to get a simple little encounter/campaign set up for play testing and get my friends to connect one at a time as unregistered to play through it.

I feel pretty comfortable saying to them that if they aren't willing to shell out a few bucks for the Lite license then they simply won't be able to play. It's a pittance compared to the cost of the books they already own so it shouldn't be a problem.

I'll be poking around here looking for tips on setting up your own content/maps/etc. If anyone wants to point me to the important threads on the subject I'd be incredibly grateful! :)

Thanks again!

Anthony

[craggles]

Make sure they gang up and buy the licenses all at once - the discounts applied are excellent if they do.

[Trenloe]

I'll be poking around here looking for tips on setting up your own content/maps/etc. If anyone wants to point me to the important threads on the subject I'd be incredibly grateful! :)
There are a bunch of videos under the "Downloads" link at the top of this page.

The "Campaign Entry Basics" (under "Archived Video Tutorials" further down the page) is a good place to start.

[AWSullivan]

@Trenloe: Thanks for the pointer. I hadn't seen those.

@Craggles: Nice work on your sketchpad link. I'm sure this place is crawling with artists but it's nice to see a fellow artist all the same. I think I'll update my signature we well.

[Griogre]

My biggest tip I on maps/images is simple - keep the size small - think web design. On other content, while I would suggest you try out all the bells and whistles for your first test game, after that I would suggest you do the least data input you need.

Particularly if you use voice chat, there is little reason to input more than Maps and Monsters (plus their encounters). In most rulesets, including pathfinder, there is already a library module of monsters so making encounters is easy. With voice you don't really need to use story entries much.

Edit: of monsters of monsters :p

[Trenloe]

In most rulesets, including pathfinder, there is already a library module of monsters of monsters so making encounters is easy.
There are lots of community created modules for Pathfinder here:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16074

These include spells, magic items, Bestiaries, NPC stat, summoned monster stats...

[craggles]

@Craggles: Nice work on your sketchpad link. I'm sure this place is crawling with artists but it's nice to see a fellow artist all the same. I think I'll update my signature we well.

Thank you - and I'll look forward to that sig. :)

[AWSullivan]

Here is the sig. :)

[dr_venture]

The number one tip I can give you that made learning the software *much* easier is that you can launch a campaign in FG as the GM, then launch a 2nd version of FG and join the campaign as a player. Then you can click back and forth to see the difference between the player's view and the GM's view. Even now, I almost always keep a player client open on my GM computer so I can occasionally click over and make a sanity check that they're seeing what I think they're seeing.

Definitely check it out.

[Trenloe]

The number one tip I can give you that made learning the software *much* easier is that you can launch a campaign in FG as the GM, then launch a 2nd version of FG and join the campaign as a player.
Very good advice there Dr V!

To confirm - to do this start another instance of Fantasy Grounds on the same computer as the GM instance, and connect as a player using a Host Address of localhost.

[Griogre]

You do have to have different user names on each instance, so when you start the second FG instance make sure you change the user name.

[AWSullivan]

Thanks all! Great advice.

A friend and I got in and played around last night and over all I'm very impressed with the tool. I need to get my head around the 3.5 ruleset now before we actually start playing.

One last thing. I love the WotC IP, Forgotten Realms. It's where I have run virtually every game I've ever run. I don't love 4ED though so I'm thinking I need to run 3.5 rather than the pathfinder ruleset because I want all of the Fantasy Grounds data to match the world I'm in (dieties, etc). I don't suppose anyone has modified the Pathfinder ruleset for Faerun canon have they?

Just a thought. If not it's 3.5 for me! I'm happy either way.

Thanks again for all the help!

[Leonal]

The Pathfinder ruleset is just that, rules. Whether you play in Faerun, Golarion or ancient Rome shouldn't make a difference. (unless you mean you need deities stat blocks, but should be able to convert it nonetheless)

[Blahness98]

The conversions to pathfinder from 3.5 are really not that hard. I converted the 3.5 dragonlance setting to pathfinder with little issue. There is actually a document available from piazo that tells you how to do it.

Just a thought.

[TwistedHeritage]

I have a question in regards to Licensing. I'm both a new member and new to D&D, but really interested in getting into it and learning the ropes.

But back to the question, is it possible to upgrade from a Lite to a Full License?

[Valarian]

Yes it is. There should be an upgrade link in the launchpad of the application, next to the update button IIRC

[TwistedHeritage]

Ok awesome :) but the price of said upgrade? would it be reduced from the full price of the Full License?? if not then I might as well just go straight for the Full now instead of paying for both at full price in the end...

Because I want to use FG as a player at the moment, but I have no idea if I will ever be a GM as I don't have enough experience with FG or D&D to know if I'd be any good at it. Hence the reason I'm thinking of just going for the Lite first.

And thank you for the hasty reply

[Griogre]

If you know you are going to DM then it is cheaper to just buy the Full license. It is more expensive to first buy the lite version and then upgrade. I don't remember the upgrade price but basically you will pay about $5-$6 more in total.

Note: I am assuming you *don't* pay a bundled price for the lite above. Bundles can reduce the price of lites and fulls on a sliding scale so they would reduce the total cost of upgrading from a lite version to a full version.