Fantasy Ground Software Good but Getting a Game UP and Running is Horrible

[idjester]

So yes I am new here and I'm trying to figure out something... why is it so hard to get a game up and running on FG?

I am currently investigating different virtual table tops on the market and have invested in fantasy ground with the hopes to get some game running on it. I have posted some campaign games in the forums and game calendar and even on steam forums, and finally got some players but this has been just the beginning of the issues.

Lack of communication, not being able to get character files to import correctly, messages not being seen or replied too, antique messaging system and calendar, the system does not help me I must do all of the work, and many other issues..

I can understand that FG has a smaller community and therefor it might take some extra time to find the proper players but this has really been 300% harder then it needs to be and for me this have left a bad taste in my mouth, and I am certain that many other new players got the same feeling... and I'm pretty sure that is exactly why it has a smaller community...

I can use other VTT and post a campaign game and get 5 player spots filled up in 3 hours, with players that communicate, post messages on my campaign page, and have access to the game right away so they can do things like edit their characters, input information, and the like.

I really like the potential of fantasy grounds and was hoping to get some games running with it so that I could post those videos on my youtube channel to get some people to know about this program, to see it in action, and see what it can do... but right now this program is nothing but potential because there isn't a game going to be run because of all of the reasons I have already mentioned.

This antique system of messaging and the horrible calendar needs to be thrown in the trash and start over, of god sake when a DM posts a game they should have their own webpage where players can sign up for a spot, read information, post information, and the dm can leave invite players.

Does any new player really know WTF is 5+1 5 to 6 when they are looking at a block of text in the calendar???? You have game posted to start on 7-17 (over a month and a half ago) which is the 7th one from the top... as a new player I really wonder how much this is being used when you have a game from July at the top of your list and its not even started... and 2 below that is 5-29 which is even worse...

This is bad business practice because it shows people one of three things.

1) Fantasy grounds doesn't care, and the community doesn't care

2) no one monitors or takes care of this information old information

3) no one bothers to make sure this site is user friendly, new players can quickly and easily get the information they need

NO matter which of these is the answer it bad business.... bad practice.... and it leave people not wanting to use this software....

The software is good but to get to use it you shouldn't have to go through so much hassle.... Guess that is why you aren't earning any golden Ennies....

[JohnD]

Yeah the Calendar leaves a lot to be desired. To their credit, SmiteWorks did actually clear out a whole load of old, really old, abandoned game listings from there about three months ago so it was even worse before.

Here's what's worked for me. Now, I don't hold myself up as a bastion of The Only Way and to be fair I've had a couple of games die on me due to real life stuff that can be succinctly described as "lots of **** happens sometimes". However...

Make a new thread for your recruiting effort. Be detailed enough to give a good idea but not so detailed people have to decide if they want to real a wall of text or not.

Set out your expectations - campaign style, voice or chat, game day(s), start/end times, communication requirements, type of player(s) you are looking for, level ranges, perhaps even whether or not you're looking just for experienced gamers or FG users or if new people are welcome.

Include a Game Page for your first post so interested people can sign-up. State that approval is contingent upon receipt of an email address for your group distribution list and a small character concept - can be simply what race/class they are interested in, perhaps a 50 word summary of background. Use email as frequently as you need to - don't rely on PMs as they are easy to miss, especially if someone never comes here.

Set the expectation that you as DM lead the communication efforts. Send your players an email when you've posted a game in the calendar for them to vote on. I suggest you establish a minimum expectation for "Yes" votes to go ahead with a game. Mine is 50%+1 of the player roster has to indicate they will be attending. This somewhat prevents people from treating your time/effort as disposable entertainment; if they pull a few no-shows, you remove them unless there's good reason and recruit a new person. Sooner or later you will gather a full group and you'll never look back.

So you send email when scheduling a game. Send an email reminder early in the game day; I try to send it about 12 hours ahead, but obviously that doesn't always work. Helps cut down the "oopsie I completely forgot" no-shows which, let's be honest, happens to everyone of us at some time. Then I send an email when FG and my TS room are up and ready for players to connect.

Lastly, I send a post-game email thanking everyone for showing up, and try to project when the next game might be.

Use a "3 Strikes" rule to rid yourself of Non-Playing Player Characters (NPPCs) - people who have said they are interested but never make the game (and in the interest of full disclosure, I have unfortunately done this to a few GMs myself due to the aforementioned "**** happens"). You go three consecutive games with Bob not showing up when he's voted Yes, or not voted at all, or not responded to your email, remove him and dedicate your efforts to the players you do have. Bob self selected out of your game but didn't have the courtesy to let you know... it's the internet I guess.

You might start with what looks like a good sized group, only to find yourself down to two people after a game or two - don't let it bother you - keep recruiting, maybe make your message a little more refined as to what you are running and what kind of player you are looking for. Over time you'll get a full group to handle and then some.

[Sunspoticus]

Check out The Society of Extraordinary Gamers, we have an active schedule of 8+ games weekly, several ultimate lic. holders, etc.

https://extraordinarygamers.com
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SocietyOfExtraordinaryGamers/

[Trenloe]

I think the main problem you're experiencing is the size of the community, and your expectation to get a full group together pretty quickly, and over a North American long weekend.

The Fantasy Grounds community is a lot smaller than rol20 (which you're obviously experienced with) - this has an impact in two ways: 1) New campaigns take a while to get going - they don't happen overnight. 2) There is little player competition for places. Players would be a lot quicker in getting all their PC details together if there were a lot of players looking for games and players know that if they don't get everything organised quickly they'll miss out to another player and not get a game.

As a lot of people coming to Fantasy Grounds have experienced, it takes a while to get a good group going - and by saying "a while" that can be anything from 1 week to over a month before you get your core group steady and reliable (including a few sessions where players come and go).

Stick with it, have patience and keep communicating with your players. I play in 4 games a week using Fantasy Grounds (and I'm in the pre-campaign stage for another) - some of these are quite new, one has been going for a few sessions and one has been going for nearly 2 years now. Did these happen overnight? No. But they did happen over time and I'm having a great time in all of them...

It's certainly not that Smiteworks or the Fantasy grounds community don't care - you'll see this is not the case as you spend time on these forums. Would you have filled up your games quicker and had better communication from your players if there was a wizz-bang, super-easy signup process for your games? You probably wouldn't have filled them quicker and you may have had better communication from the odd player, but not all of them. Reading the player posts from your 2 game threads I can find, some of your problems seem to be related to people being busy (a long weekend), others are waiting to see what the party make-up is - and others have not replied (that I can see).

As mentioned above, I think your issues arise from the smaller FG community. Competition for places would make players keener to join and get you the info you need faster. But, being slower in getting your game together doesn't mean that your game won't be enjoyable and you won't end up with a great group of players... And, you'll be using Fantasy Grounds which is, IMHO, the most mature and feature rich VTT for playing your ongoing campaign with...

[JohnD]

Wanted to add... if you're new to FG yourself, there's something to be said for your first foray into running a game be with a small group... say 2-3 people. Less pressure to keep things moving and those who stick will become the cornerstones of the larger group as you add more players down the road to what will be, at that time, an established ongoing game (which seems to pick up a person or two easier than something that's just getting going - for one thing, the new people at least know the GM and current players have staying power).

[ddavison]

Does Roll20 have a system you think we should implement for advertising and filling games? My understanding was that it was simply a forum posting with LFG. Things are much slower over the holiday weekend in the U.S. for gaming though, so I'm not sure this weekend would be the best weekend to judge.

[Mgrancey]

It has a screen with with a table, each row is one game looking for players.

Each row has:
* An image (optional or requiring subscription don't know)
* GM's name
* Name and brief description of campaign
* Meta Information (System, current and open slots, Next game time, frequency of game).

It would have been very easy to implement as they are entirely based online, it would be more difficult to implement for FG as you would also need to create at least a campaign page for each campaign. Could be useful, could not, honestly couldn't say as alot of groups just seem to use here to find each other then split off into their own methods of communicating.


This antique system of messaging and the horrible calendar needs to be thrown in the trash and start over, of god sake when a DM posts a game they should have their own webpage where players can sign up for a spot, read information, post information, and the dm can leave invite players.


What are you suggesting for a messaging and such? What you seem to be talking about is something like Obsidian Portal or Epic Words, thing is there is alot more work to that then you think. An amended one would be doable I suppose but its still a fair bit of work to build something like that. Additionally, communication isn't just technology its people as well.


As far as rest goes, FG is superior as far as I am concerned as it actually supports multiple systems and has support for the RP in RPG, nearly all other VTT's either are for a singular system, have only community support (not a bad thing, but there is a difference), or really just focuses on a map, tokens, and dice. Yes, FG is older and as such doesn't utilize all the latest technology, but I am not blinded by gadgetry either. I am also not a fan of social media so using twitter, facebook, or google+ would be an irritation rather than a benefit as far as I am concerned. There is only one other VTT that has caught my eye but it is focused on Indie games which for the most part don't interest me merely because that tend to be so focused on a particular topic, and generally one that I am not even slightly tempted by.

[Nylanfs]

There's also the added option now of finding players through Steam now.

Looking for Group (https://steamcommunity.com/app/252690/discussions/0/)

[ddavison]

So based on what Roll20 has, is the only thing really missing the description on the main listing page? The 5+1 area is labeled as # of Players (accepted + pending)... To me, that seems like a reasonable way to show it. It could be split into two columns to be a little cleaner.

[Blacky]

Just to give some feedback, I've never used this part of the FG website. Of course I can't because some of my (actual or potential) players can't or don't want to use English, but I never really felt the need. I use mostly dedicated communities (like VirtuaJdr), that's communities dedicated to remote rpg (or virtual tabletop gaming). FG, just as Rolisteam, or Roll20, or any other out there, is just a tool. It's usually the right tool for me, but it's still just that. Communities come together for a hobby, dividing up players between tool churches will only make us miss gaming opportunities.

[ddavison]

I made a few slight changes to the calendar to show the description, genre and ruleset on the main page along with the avatar for the GM hosting the game. What are some other items that you believe would make it more useful? Are those changes an improvement or a step backwards?

[darrenan]

I would prefer to see better sorting and organizing of entries, rather than more information per item.
The new layout results in more scrolling because there are less items visible at once.
I think the default sort order should be "Last GM Activity", that's almost always the first thing I click when I go to the calendar page.
Would a ruleset dropdown at the top of the page be useful? In other words, I only want to see Savage Worlds games for instance. That probably wouldn't work so well in it's current form because ruleset is free-form entry when creating a campaign, not pick-from-a-list.
Adding the avatar image certainly makes the page look spiffier, but I don't know how much end-user value it is really adding for the vertical real-estate that it takes up.

Those are my initial impressions.

[ddavison]

Did you know that you can click on the column headers to sort it and click on them again to sort descending by that column?

[darrenan]

Yes, that's why I said that's the first thing I do when I go to calendar. And it's not a big deal, since it's just one mouse click. It would just be a small optimization and I might be the only one who uses the page that way anyway. But in general, I *think* it's almost always the right decision to display more recent items first by default. Once you've found the item you're looking for, and particularly after you've joined a campaign, there are other controls on the page to make it easy to go right there. It looks like the default sort order right now is the campaign name? I guess I feel that that isn't the best default sort order. It's only helpful if you already know the name of the campaign, and chances are, if you already know the campaign name then you've probably already joined it as well, in which case you just click the link in the "Campaigns I'm playing in" box.

Sorting by ruleset works ok, but depending on what you're looking for it could result in the entries you care about being somewhere down in the middle of the list. Being able to just filter to the specific ruleset you care about would give a cleaner view. And also, the whole free-form entry thing means that games using the same ruleset might not be sorted together anyway. Adding a list of common rulesets to pick from, while still allowing custom entries *might* be an improvement, but it's probably more complicated than it sounds.

[JohnD]

I would sort by last activity as the default when you open the page. Now you have people putting *s and other symbols at the start of their game names simply to be at the top of the list.