Can I roll my own dice??

[Blake]

Hello everyone,

I am thinking of buying a ultimate license to FG. I have a question i could not find answered anywhere.

I want a VTT to use with a face to face group I am starting. (DD 4e) My players are going to want to roll their own dice though. Will FG let me input a physical dice roll.

What I am really looking for in a VTT is, a digital battle map, and a way to send handouts to my players computer. (which will be connected to a TV.

Can FG do this? It looks like most players are using this for online games. Anyone else using FG for a face to face game??

Thanks guys

Blake

[Blake]

Edit: If the above is not possible in FG any suggestions for a VTT that has the features mentioned would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[kane280484]

It is possible, generates some inconvenience (did I spelled it right? :D ), because inputing rolls manually takes additional time, and I think FG won't be able to perform some automatic calculations related to rolls.

Personally, I see no reason or added value for using FG this way - most things work in that case just like sitting around the kitchen table with battlemap. Maybe if you'd tell us what do you want to achieve by using FG this way, or what do you expect, it'd be easier to address this topic.

[Blake]

Hey Kane. I want to use a VTT for:

1. The variety of battle maps. Every battle setting would be different. Instead of rearranging a white board.
2. The use of a combat tracker to help with some of the number crunching.
3. The ability to give players handouts. Maps, notes, puzzles, pictures, etc.
4. And to help me organize my campaign. Plot lines and such.

Thats about it for now. If anyone knows of a different program that is better suited for face to face gaming feel free to put it in.

Thanks everyone

[Trenloe]

There are plenty of people who use FG in face-to-face games. Some GMs use it in the same way you suggest Blake, others use it to keep track of information/details, others use it to help in the automation of their games. Automation will be much more difficult if you're rolling physical dice, but it doesn't sound like this is what you want to use FG for? Fantasy Grounds has a lot of functionality outside of any specific ruleset automation, and you'll be able to hook up a player instance of Fantasy Grounds to a TV: start a second instance of Fantasy Grounds on the same PC and connect to the GM instance using a server address of localhost which doesn't require another license and you (the GM) will have access to all of your info etc. in the GM instance and can have the player instance displaying on a TV.

EDIT: Or, if you have another computer you could let the players control the player instance.

[ddavison]

I use FG in this same capacity for face-to-face games. When using FG in that way, you don't get the automation from players to NPC attacks, however, you can still benefit from the automation on NPC to player attacks as long as you keep accurate data entered for your players. For 4E games, you really only need to track the HP, AC, Fort, Reflex and Will. I also like to keep the stats updated just in case someone gets drained or ability damage or buffs. That part is optional. You may find it easier to just have your players tell you when their AC, Fort, Reflex or Will saves change and make the update to those 4 values. You don't really care how they got their value anymore, just what the total values are for the NPC attack automation to work.

Player handouts, maps, and campaign management will all work out of the box. I would recommend running two instances of FG on the same computer and connect the player display to your second monitor/TV. I find FG to be a great asset to my usual GM prep, since I can prepare all my NPCs, encounters, etc. in advance. You can also take advantage of the Party inventory system so that you don't have the common problem of one player keeping it and then having that player not show up one day. Instead, you can juts pull up the party inventory that hasn't already been distributed out for each game session.

For player rolled dice for attacks, this would be the common workflow. Note that it leaves off most of the automation you get if they were connected and rolling through FG, but that isn't a major loss.
1. Player rolls dice attack vs (DEFENSE)
2. GM looks on his or her combat tracker for the defense target and says whether or not it hit
3. If hit, GM tells player to roll damage
4. GM manually applies any resistances or immunity and applies the result to the NPC's wounds.
5. The players see the descriptive status of the NPC change in the player view of the combat tracker.

Rolling initiative is similar, the players all roll and you just enter the values as the GM and then use the Menu option to auto-roll the NPC init values. It will keep them sorted in the combat tracker.

[dulux-oz]

Just my $0.02 worth: I use it pretty much as you've described Blake, as well as online - depending upon which Gaming Group I'm GMing for.

The funny thing is, the Face-to-Face Players have started to bring along their laptops, and some of them have even migrated to using the FG-dice - and these guys are diehard (no pun intended) physical die-rollers - I mean, one Player's Die Bag is the size of a soccer ball, I kid you not! (It hurts too, when you get hit by it! It brings a special meaning to the spell (D)Ice Storm.)

So you never know...

Hey, its Shameless-Plug(TM) time - have you checked out the fantastic Tutorial Videos on the Wiki - I produced some of them, and people tell me they like them. Anyway, the links in my sig, below.

Oh, and Welcome! to FG. :)

Cheers

[Griogre]

I just wanted to second the way Doug told you to resolve the dice rolls for to hit and damage. You don't want to enter anything you don't have to. Do your dice rolls the way you would without FG, using the data in FG as reference.

Also if you only are going to use this to help you in a face to face game there is no reason to get the Ultimate License, a Full License is fine.

[Blake]

Just wanted to say thanks to Kane, Trenloe, Davison, Dulux, and Griogre.

Your input is much appreciated. I'm going to look around a little more, but FG is in the lead.

Thanks again guys.

[Blake]

If anyone else is using FG in face to face games please chime in with how you use it and how it helps.

I would like like to run my first session with FG next weekend so any suggestions would be great.

[Thete]

Sounds like the OP would like some kind of augmented reality derived input to FG. The best potential for it, that I have seen is this product Osmo
https://www.playosmo.com/home.html?utm_expid=85506917-15.vAmdP47DSMSN5cXGYOTyIw.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.playosmo.com%2F
Would lend itself perfectly to a dice tray that recognises your dice roll results, getting that data into FG is another matter. Aurasma is another product that could use an iPhone and AR to record physical dice rolls, might need customised dice to ease face recognition. Easiest that occurs to me is dark dice with white inked pips/numbers then colour pips of each face a different hue.

[damned]

This one might be for Moon_Wizard....
8003

If a player does an Attack roll (or damage roll) and hasnt targeted an enemy you can still drag the result on to the enemy/combat-tracker and it will evaluate it...
Would it be possible to create a /command like
/attack 22
/damage 8
which would create a draggable/applicable value that could then be applied similar to the above graphic.

You could use this for GM fudge rolls too then....
maybe others could be
/fudge 3
which is just reserved for the GM!

[Dakadin]

This one might be for Moon_Wizard....

If a player does an Attack roll (or damage roll) and hasnt targeted an enemy you can still drag the result on to the enemy/combat-tracker and it will evaluate it...
Would it be possible to create a /command like
/attack 22
/damage 8
which would create a draggable/applicable value that could then be applied similar to the above graphic.

You could use this for GM fudge rolls too then....
maybe others could be
/fudge 3
which is just reserved for the GM!

The hard part would be how to associate the slash command with a certain attack so it comes across right.

[Nickademus]

This one might be for Moon_Wizard....
8003

If a player does an Attack roll (or damage roll) and hasnt targeted an enemy you can still drag the result on to the enemy/combat-tracker and it will evaluate it...
Would it be possible to create a /command like
/attack 22
/damage 8
which would create a draggable/applicable value that could then be applied similar to the above graphic.


I don't know of a way to set a d20 roll that is typed as an attack, but you can set damage to be a specific number with the current damage action of a spell in the Actions tab. Just make a d6 damage action set to maximize with + caster level and -6. The maximize & -6 will neutralize the roll and the damage will equal the caster level. Then you just set the number in the CL slot to be the amount of damage to apply and it will always 'roll' that amount of damage.

Could do the same for a d20 but it would be typed as damage and probably wouldn't interact with AC and stuff like an attack roll.

[damned]

The hard part would be how to associate the slash command with a certain attack so it comes across right.

Im unsure how complex this could be... I certainly think that getting a fudge roll to use all the resistance modifiers and stuff would be horribly difficult but Im just talking about having a straight attack roll number vs the targets AC only. this would enable ppl to roll dice and still use some of the automation/tracking of FG. I was just wondering how hard it would be to implement....

[Dakadin]

Agreed. If you keep it really simple and just compare the attack number to the target number it should be fairly straight forward. As soon as more is added it would get complex very quickly.

[Mirloc]

I used to use FG face-to-face. I had a TV logged in as a player set up so all players could see it, and I had access to the "GM's screen" for setting up battle maps, displaying images, etc.

Later on, more players would bring laptops, and if a player was not able to attend in person, they found they loved the ability to play even remotely. It made not playing do to missing players almost stop completely.

As for the gaming face to face. Dice rolls were always physical, as were conversations. Even today I prefer using Skype to voice chat while we play (and we do play remotely, since I left the area) for voice communications rather than I used to use FG similar to MasterPlan (https://masterplan.habitualindolence.net/) but I liked the flexibility that the software works for any game. I prefer FG overall, but only because of the rigid nature of MasterPlan.

[Dionigi]

It is possible, generates some inconvenience (did I spelled it right? :D ), because inputing rolls manually takes additional time, and I think FG won't be able to perform some automatic calculations related to rolls.

Personally, I see no reason or added value for using FG this way - most things work in that case just like sitting around the kitchen table with battlemap. Maybe if you'd tell us what do you want to achieve by using FG this way, or what do you expect, it'd be easier to address this topic.

Some of my players like the feel of rolling dice and also handling coins, it would be nice to let them roll but enter their result so that fg can do all calculations.

[Trenloe]

...it would be nice to let them roll but enter their result so that fg can do all calculations.
This is a thread from over 6 years ago.

Manual roll entry has been available in FG for a few years now.

[LordEntrails]

Some of my players like the feel of rolling dice and also handling coins, it would be nice to let them roll but enter their result so that fg can do all calculations.
See the options to turn on manual rolling; https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/996642014/5E+Campaign+Options

[opusaug]

Trenloe and LordEntrails - you guys are the best. I searched for this question and found the thread, but had no idea this was in the options. Now I'm definitely going to use FG for my game.