I want non-paying Players to be able to work on their Characters outside of game time

[swest]

Greetings,

I am entertaining thoughts of running my Pathfinder (RotR) campaign via Fantasy Grounds.

I will buy the Ultimate license so my players won't have any personal expenditure$ just to play my game.

However, I also want my players to be able to work on, and save, their characters outside of regularly scheduled game time.

Can that be done? Can I just run an 'always on' game session that they could connect to (even when we aren't actually playing)?

How do others accomplish this feat.

Thank you.

- s.west

[Trenloe]

You can leave your GM instance of Fantasy Grounds running. The players can connect and disconnect when they want. Any changes they make to their PCs will be automatically saved in the campaign.

[darrenan]

The alternative is much more difficult and error-prone. The GM can export characters to XML, email them to the players, who can then import them locally, and work on them there. I believe they can then re-import those characters into your campaign, but you might need to delete the previous version. I haven't actually tried all those steps myself, but I'm in a similar situation in a campaign I just started and other than leaving the server running, that was the only other thing I could think of.

[Trenloe]

The GM can export characters to XML, email them to the players, who can then import them locally, and work on them there.
A free and lite license can use the "Manage Characters" functionality and a full (GM) license can use either Manage Characters or can build PCs in a campaign and then export the XML.

If the GM doesn't mind having his FG server running outside of game time, or can have it up at scheduled times for the players to do their PC admin, then that is usually a good, least hassle way of doing it.

EDIT: Removed references to free licenses being unable to use manager characters. As of FG 3.0.4 this is no longer the case.

[darrenan]

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification.

[swest]

Thanks for the guidance. Leaving Fantasy Grounds running will not be a problem. And I won't incur the wrath of my guys by forcing them to buy yet another (insert item here)... ;-)

[Trenloe]

Note: in a recent version change, FG free will act like a player license for Manage Characters - so players on a free license can do PC admin outside of connecting to the game.