New to Fantasy Grounds

[Keeper215]

So I just bought fantasy grounds. Looking at all the tutorials it seems very complicated. I have heard this has a pretty hard learning curve. So first off some info on my group. We use dnd 3.5 rules and books. We use hero lab. We like to play campaigns we make ourselves ie not using the pre-made stuff found in the books. Now what is the first thing as a dm do I need to do/learn?

EDIT: I haven't actually watched the tutorials.

[Trenloe]

Welcome to Fantasy Grounds!

Spending the time to get to know the application is worth the effort. Yes, it has a steep learning curve, so take it one step at a time.

Read through the getting started and 3.5E specific documentation: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/User_Guides

Watch some of the videos: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Videos

It is best to have Fantasy Grounds running while you are doing this - stop reading the Wiki or pause a video and try it yourself.

A golden rule about Fantasy Grounds is that a lot of options/menus are hidden and you need to right-click to show a radial menu. This is done to save valuable gaming screen real estate instead of having lots of menus/buttons getting in the way of your gaming - but it can take a bit of getting used to.

There are also 2 example 3.5e scenarios that come with FG that are worth a look at just to give you an idea of information organisation. One is accessible through the "Load Campaign" option and is called "A Tale of Dinor" and another is accessible as a library module once you have loaded a 3.5e campaign - it's called Well Met in Kith'takharos.

Another good way to learn the ropes is ask a GM if you could get a quick demo, or "lurk" in one of their sessions. You'd be seeing it from the player side though.

And, this is a very friendly and welcoming community - ask questions and you'll get answers.

Hopefully this will be the beginning of many happy hours gaming with your friends using Fantasy Grounds.

[ballan4]

I recommend Dulux Oz's Videos. He has a very good tutorial of the core rpg but most of it works well with the 3.5 edition as well

Also, Welcome to the community! You'll find we're a friendly bunch of gamers

[Griogre]

I suggest you sit in a game as a spectator for any version of D&D. It will show you the possibilities. As a DM for running a game you want to learn to use the battlemap tools, encounter setups and combat tracker. For adventure prep you need to learn how to build monster encounters, add story text and link them all to a map. For FG to run a game you really only need the maps and encounters if you use voice for narration, so you don't actually need to enter any story text if you don't want to.

My suggestion would be to completely create a small adventure from a PDF that you could cut and paste and build into an FG adventure module to just to learn how to do it. You are going to want to learn to make adventure modules for your different adventures and use a base campaign to hold your player's characters. I believe I originally used the small "Dark and Stormy Knight" module to learn FG and adventure prep. It's a small downloadable module WotC released for free you can get here: https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20050329a

One tip when copying and pasting from a PDF. Typically when pasted each line comes in as a separate paragraph with a blank line in between. If you select all the lines in the story entry that should be together and press Ctrl-J it will "join" all the lines into one paragraph which is a huge time saver.

[dulux-oz]

I recommend Dulux Oz's Videos. He has a very good tutorial of the core rpg but most of it works well with the 3.5 edition as well

Thankyou.

[Keeper215]

I noticed that the library only has the first monster manual where can I get the others?

EDIT: Would this be what I am looking for?
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.xcp?id=DGA054

EDIT: Nevermind. The link is for a modern setting game.

[Griogre]

The only monsters that can be legally re-distributed are those covered by the SRD - which is generally only stuff from the first MM ie the monsters shown here: https://www.d20srd.org/indexes/monsters.htm

There are some more monsters in the Complete SRD though not a huge amount: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.xcp?id=DGA044

Mostly dragons and some of the templated monsters.

[Keeper215]

So we can we make our own inside fantasy grounds?

[Griogre]

Yes, you just fill out a monster sheet.

[Trenloe]

So we can we make our own inside fantasy grounds?
Of course you can. As long as you don't distribute any copyright material publicly outside of your gaming group.

[Griogre]

If it is a monster you are only going to use in one adventure you can put it in an adventure module and forget it. If it is something you want to reused then you have a couple of options. The easy one is to make an adventure module of monsters, the one that requires you to copy and paste an use XML is to make your own personal monster library module.