Where are characters supposed to be saved?

[Vestrial]

So I created a character on my local machine, then saved it to desktop because it didn't want to save in the default location. Now I drop the character into the 'characters' folder inside appdata for fg, but it's not showing up when I go to manage characters in fg...

[Griogre]

Character's are normally "saved" inside the campaign XML files on the server. I suspect you actually exported a character which you would send to your GM who would then import them into his campaign XML file. Typically there isn't a lot of reason to export and import characters unless you are participating in organized play. That's because in a campaign game the characters stay on the GM's server and are updated there.

Manage characters is an older feature where you can create a character before the campaign starts and then when you connect to the GM you can transfer than character to him. Unless you have the Full Version or higher manage character only works for a few rulesets though.

In respect to your "saved" character if you want to see it you would need to create a new campaign and then import it.

[Vestrial]

Ok, thanks.

That seems odd. Don't players like to have a local copy saved in case something happens to the data on the server?

[Moon Wizard]

Currently, a local copy is cached on the player machine between sessions, and can be viewed (not edited) using the Manage Characters option and selecting the campaign for which you'd like to view the character. The characters saved locally will mirror the characters selected during the last campaign session for that player.

Regards,
JPG

[Trenloe]

Don't players like to have a local copy saved in case something happens to the data on the server?
In the "Manage Characters" function Moon_Wizard mentions some rulesets (3.5E and 4E at least) allow the player to export the XML of their character from the campaign cache too. This will give you a local copy if you really want a backup... If you have a full license you can import this XML into a new "campaign" you create yourself and then have full access to be able to modify if you need.

[UrKnightErrant]

This is a disastrously stupid way to store character data. My computer crashed mid game, corrupting ALL my db.xml files. You're telling me that because my players don't have copies of their characters stored on their machines, the campaign is dead?

[LordEntrails]

This is a disastrously stupid way to store character data. My computer crashed mid game, corrupting ALL my db.xml files. You're telling me that because my players don't have copies of their characters stored on their machines, the campaign is dead?
Of course not. You have backups right? Just restore your last backup and you are good to go!

Oh, you don't backup your own computer? Well then you will need to rely upon the backups that FG makes automatically. All you need to do is follow the instructions here; https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1207304196/Restore+Campaign+to+an+Earlier+Save

After you do that, your next step is to start backing up your computer regularly. Not all programs have a built in backup like FG does. Plus when you lose your hard drive (you will sometime) you will have a backup of your system to rely upon.

[Trenloe]

You're telling me that because my players don't have copies of their characters stored on their machines, the campaign is dead?
No, that's not what's being said at all. The posts in this thread say that the players do have local copies of their characters cached on their computer. The post immediately above yours gave steps to do this for FG Classic (this thread is from nearly 10 years ago).

If you're using FG Unity (I assume you are, based off your account join date) then this video shows how players can access their cached characters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30o7jjJpLoo

[UrKnightErrant]

Thank you! It may take some time recreating assets, etc, but at least we can keep playing.

[EllivasKram]

Makes you wonder why offline character edit isn’t an upfront feature. Like in classic when you watch that video. The issue will be players moaning they have no player manuals that they have when connected to my FGU DM instance.

[Trenloe]

Makes you wonder why offline character edit isn’t an upfront feature. Like in classic when you watch that video. The issue will be players moaning they have no player manuals that they have when connected to my FGU DM instance.
That was exactly the same as in classic. The license model only allows you to access shared material you don't own when connected to the GM - that's the same for FG Unity and FG Classic.