First Impressions

[Brainpolice]

First of all, I'm new to the forums and Fantasy Grounds in general so I should introduce myself. I've been a PnP gamer for a number of years now, mostly from 3rd edition D&D onwards and being of the crowd that settled on Pathfinder over 4th edition D&D. But my introduction to D&D was, of all things, through the PC game Planescape: Torment. A pretty unique place to start - when I went on to try my first PnP D&D games as a player all that was on my mind was Githzerai and Tieflings, not Elves and Dwarves. But I digress.

Quite a while before I ever heard of Fantasy Grounds, I had some friends run some online sessions with a free program called Maptools. This program had some clunkyness to it, but if you put in the time to explore all of the free open source options for imagery and maps, it could be used a fairly customizable tool to run online rpg games. So we ran some games on Maptools with Skype running in the background for everyone to communicate.

It's been some years since I did that, and the gaming group I used to game with in person ended up getting pretty busy with life so I've been in a position where I haven't actually sat down to game with anyone for a number of years. Which is pretty lame, being a gamer with no one to play with. That's part of the appeal of online programs like this. So I figured I'd bite the bullet on Fantasy Grounds the other day, as it was advertised as a more formal development of the idea behind the free programs like Maptools.

My Impressions (Or: Why shouldn't this be open source?)

I've only put a few days into messing with it, but here are my impressions. The visual layout and presentation of Fantasy Grounds seems to be an improvement relative to Maptools. It seems like more of a unified platform overall. Things are a bit more intuitive and easy to use for a DM than is the case with Maptools. At the same time, I have to say it feels barren considering that it's not a free program. The business model appears to be similar to that of an MMO with a large amount of little expansion supplements that all cost extra money.

The pitch that it comes with built-in support for a variety of gaming systems also feels a bit like misleading advertisement - unless I'm missing something, the modules for D&D and Pathfinder that come with the program are only a barebones reference document of the core rules of those systems. You'd think that the program, that comes with a module for Pathfinder and a number of editions of D&D, would truly have some level of built-in automated recognition that fills things in when I choose to be a certain race or class. But actually I have to fill everything in manually anyway and may as well be using the sourcebooks themselves - unless I pay 8.99 for the convenience of being able to drag and drop feats and items for D&D?

It seems like I'm just paying extra for the fact that it is officially supported in this loose way. I can appreciate that it is also officially supported in terms of adventure modules, but this ends up looking like a real money drain, and I'm not interested in running official modules but my own campaigns (which appears to be impossible to sufficiently do with the core program, as far as icons and maps).

While perhaps it took more work than putting another 39.99 on my credit card, with Maptools I could simply download images and icons online for free for the bulk of existing D&D monsters and for a wide variety of maps. I find the idea of paying another 39.99 for the fantasy grounds equivalent for Pathfinder to be a bit of a gouge. The only thing that would make me feel better about this is if I can still port all the same free stuff I'd use with Maptools into Fantasy Grounds. I haven't experimented enough to see if this is true.

So, in short, my main criticism is that you have to pay extra money for a bunch of modules for some of the conveniences that arguably should have been built into the core program. The main factor I can think of for this is that Fantasy Grounds is beholden economically to Wizards of the Coast and Piazo to use that material, in which case it is a financial burden on them that we have to bite the bullet to pick the tab up for.

I also would have really appreciated some kind of internal voicechat mechanism. It appears I'd still have to use Skype in the background with Fantasy Grounds.

So I guess I'm going to give this a shot, but I'm having a little trouble seeing what I'm paying for with the basic Fantasy Grounds program over Maptools other than a streamlined, cleaned up visual presentation for what is essentially the same thing. If I'm wrong, please guide me through how to make better use of Fantasy Grounds without shelling out another 100 bucks.

[Mask_of_winter]

Come try out a game or two at FG Con 7 October 16th through 18th.

Besides the license, everything you purchase is for convenience. You can do it all yourself with a bit of know-how and spare time. For example, I was on a team that developed War of the Dead for Savage Worlds for Smiteworks. Nothing we did was beyond the scope of what a normal end user could do. Between the 4 of us we put in a minimum of 120 hours for a pdf that's 144pages. The product is available in the store for $15. So it all comes down to if you want to spend all that time doing it yourself or just want to spend $15 and be ready to play right away. Does that make sense?

[damned]

Hey Brainpolice - welcome and thanks for posting your thoughts.

Im going to address the one that seems to me to be bugging you the most... that you need to keep on paying more and more money to actually use this program.
I dont know the numbers but far and away the majority - the vast majority of their income comes from the base product. Most owners of an FG license dont spend another cent on it. Many also do. I have. And I dont regret any of the purchases but I also play game systems on here that have not cost me a cent. Example - Im playing some Dungeon World at the moment using CoreRPG (included) and a free extension (MoreCore). Works nicely. Many people play 5e and havent purchased any content. Ive got most of the 5e material and its bloody awesome though - it just saves so much time - but you can enter things in as you need them. Do what works for you.

In terms of pricing for (lets call it) DLC - this is a hobby for us. Its a business for the makers of the various role playing games. If we want to play their games we should support them. The various products are typically priced the same as their non-FG products. Some are much cheaper though - even though there is so much additional work that has gone into them. Systems like Savage Worlds and Castles & Crusades are absolute steals on Fantasy Grounds. Great value systems and they just work so well in supporting online play. Many people feel the D&D products are expensive. They are the most expensive product - you get to be the most expensive when you are the game that most people want to play. Ive got both the physical books and the FG material. I use the FG material far more than I use the physical material.

Maptools has some great features like dynamic lighting. Fantasy Grounds best features are its character sheets and combat tracker in my opinion. Oh - and if you play a game with licensed material - its even better.

Join us for a game at FG Con and get a better feel for it :)


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[damned]

Come try out a game or two at FG Con 7 October 16th through 18th.

Besides the license, everything you purchase is for convenience. You can do it all yourself with a bit of know-how and spare time. For example, I was on a team that developed War of the Dead for Savage Worlds for Smiteworks. Nothing we did was beyond the scope of what a normal end user could do. Between the 4 of us we put in a minimum of 120 hours for a pdf that's 144pages. The product is available in the store for $15. So it all comes down to if you want to spend all that time doing it yourself or just want to spend $15 and be ready to play right away. Does that make sense?

Oh btw thats a 13 session module - and you dont need to do that much prep for your game sessions. i usually dont if running from published material - i enter in the maps and NPCs and everything else I do in game as needed. if running your own stuff - well that all depends on you - some GMs are amazing at ad lib on the fly and others are super detail oriented and have everything prepped before hand... most of use are somewhere in between.

[Brainpolice]

It makes a level of sense that you are paying for a certain level of convenience. I'm willing to pay for a certain level of convenience. It seems to me that Fantasy Grounds has no choice at some level, when it comes to officially licensed support for gaming systems, but to put a price tag on it. I just personally think this stuff should be more open source than it is and really bawk at the thought of paying too much more money for a tabletop simulator, when Baldur's Gate II costs 19.99. If I can still have the option to sacrifice some convenience to be able to just port free online content into the program, I think Fantasy Grounds is fine for me. For the most part, I feel like I need to be able to prepare relatively detailed environments via maps and icons without paying extra. Beyond that I don't mind doing things mostly manually.

[leozelig]

Roll20 is a popular free alternative to Fantasy Grounds with some free (and some not) content available. I think many groups still use voice chat independently though. Fantasy Grounds is far better for finding games and has much higher production value, but if cost is a major issue, Roll20 might be the way to go for you.

FG actually has a ton of automation built in. I am always surprised when people feel like FG is deficient in this area. It doesn't fill out the character sheet for you, but don't we all fill out our own character sheets for a real tabletop game? Too much automation, and it no longer feels like a live game, which is what I want from my virtual tabletop.

Maybe you haven't had a chance to explore everything, but as a whole, I am amazed by what you can get here for free - how much time community members dedicate to projects, and they just give it away for nothing! The devs make very little money from FG. To say they are "gouging" us at $40 is a little unfair when they barely break even, but it is a common criticism with free alternatives like Roll20 out there.

[Brainpolice]

It doesn't fill out the character sheet for you, but don't we all fill out our own character sheets for a real tabletop game?

Point taken there. I just figured that the built-in modules for Pathfinder, for example, would build some kind of mechanics in that are automatically recognized by the system at some level. But when I went to create a test campaign module and loaded the Pathfinder module, all I found was an in-game reference document of the basic Pathfinder rules. I couldn't help but find that disappointing, in that I figure the basic modules would give more specific content to plug in. Otherwise it's just an in-program digital summary of information you can find by going to d20pfsrd.com online in another tab.

In some cases I'm looking through the add-ons and you're being asked to pay 5.99, for example, just to add the D&D 5th Ed Sorcerer, with the convenience of being able to drag/drop class features and spells. It's that kind of thing that I'm not so fond of. I can appreciate charging for specifically developed campaign/story modules, but not digital renditions of basic game content, when it's on top of a 39.99 game that is just a virtual tabletop. If the base program itself was free or cheaper I wouldn't bawk quite as much at the add-ons, but I personally have to suspend some disbelief to buy into the idea of spending money in that way, I.E. to invest extra money into the equivalent of DLC for a virtual tabletop.

Judging at least by the 5th edition add-ons, if you really want to be a completionist with the rules plugins for monsters and classes in D&D (and we're talking core material here), this program is going to be an expensive endeavor, almost akin to buying the physical copies of the books again.


Maybe you haven't had a chance to explore everything, but as a whole, I am amazed by what you can get here for free - how much time community members dedicate to projects, and they just give it away for nothing! The devs make very little money from FG. To say they are "gouging" us at $40 is a little unfair when they barely break even, but it is a common criticism with free alternatives like Roll20 out there.

Both Fantasy Grounds and the free programs come pre-loaded with almost no content at all when it comes to maps, objects, and tokens for a DM to build with. Fair enough, but the free ones don't presume to sell you some of that content piece by piece as an add-on to a program you already paid for - open source plug-ins and doing the dirty work of finding art yourself is the rule of the day basically. But I admit I might be speaking from ignorance as to the degree of free community developed material that Fantasy Grounds supports on top of the add-ons. And I see how the overall process of running games on the program is more straightforward and well organized, at least compared to my memories of Maptools.

From what I'm seeing, the main draw of Fantasy Grounds is the good organization and the degree of official support the product has from the major RPG distributors. I can definitely see how a one-time 9.99 investment for a specific RPG add-on you like could be worth it, as someone mentioned in an above post. When it comes to core D&D content though I'd rather do the dirty work.

[Trenloe]

I think I personally like doing the image-hunting dirty work more than the thought of paying for content.
That's cool, and you can absolutely do that. Fantasy Grounds provides you that opportunity to manually add your own content.

As has been mentioned above - some of the things you take issue with are controlled by the people who own the property rights not Fantasy Grounds. To take your example of the 5E Sorcerer, this is a price tag set by the owners, Wizards of the Coast. Without them setting that price tag then the product wouldn't be available (as they wouldn't give the rights to sell it) and users wouldn't have the option to get the Sorcerer info pre-made. There's nothing stopping you manually entering all of the sorcerer data and playing a sorcerer without purchasing the sorcerer module. But if you want to save some manual entry then you can pay $5.99. It's your choice - there is nothing forcing you to buy this additional library/data content. The 5E ruleset, for example, comes with the base Fantasy Grounds product - you don't need to buy anything else other than the base product to run 5E in Fantasy Grounds (and all the other ruleset frameworks that come with Fantasy Grounds), but you will have to manually enter all the data.

The choice is there for you.

[Brainpolice]

As has been mentioned above - some of the things you take issue with are controlled by the people who own the property rights not Fantasy Grounds. To take your example of the 5E Sorcerer, this is a price tag set by the owners, Wizards of the Coast.

Yep, I was figuring that. I guess I have some political gripes about how Wizards does things these days, and I think D&D/D20 should go back to an open source state. It does look like 5th edition is a relief back in the right direction as far as the game itself though.


There's nothing stopping you manually entering all of the sorcerer data and playing a sorcerer without purchasing the sorcerer module.

I don't even mind that so much as the idea that such an option was already developed and then is charged for as DLC at the insistence of Wizards of the Coast over nebulous intellectual property questions. It is what it is.

I don't want to be a big downer about the program, but the real issue I'm having is: what does it provide, minus DLC, that a free program doesn't? The official and professional aspect seems to be the main thing setting it apart. Without a doubt it seems like a polished, pro product. Otherwise it's as much up to you to do the dirty work as a free program is, unless you pay extra money for some minor conveniences.

[kylania]

Roll20 is a popular free alternative ... free alternatives like Roll20 out there.

"Ad, store and subscription supported alternative" you mean when you say "free". Exactly the same as FG just without the ads.

[damned]

kylania I dont think roll20 does that much in the way of ads - not when ive used it anyway. roll20s free level is subsidised by those people who paying the subscriptions. they stop paying the platform stops working. the ad thng may be different - i havent played a game on roll20 for over 9months.

Brainpolice you are most definitely not seeing the power of Fantasy Grounds! Fantasy Grounds isnt a character builder. It doesnt want to force you to play legal characters it wants to allow you to play the characters that your group allows. What it does next though is freaking awesome.

Now this is ruleset specific. 5e has the most bells and whistles, followed by 3.5e/Pathfinder and then 4e. Other rulesets vary greatly again.

Your character has all these different things that make her special in specific situations - attribute bonuses, racial bonuses, class bonuses, level bonuses, equipment bonuses, specific move bonuses, spell bonuses and you are fighting against critters that can have their own variants of all these. You set it up right and when you attack the Ice Giant with your Flame Tongue sword the system takes your roll, makes all your modifications - and checks all the monsters ones - including resistances, immunities etc to different types of attacks (like cold, fire, silver, magic etc) and does it all for you declaring the result. you then get to roll the damage and it will make all those same calcs again and apply the damage for you. And when your spell of XYZ wears off the combat tracker *knows* it and adjusts your rolls again.

If you havent used the Combat Tracker you arent seeing the power of this application yet.

All the additional content is neither here nor there. You dont need to buy the content for the core rulesets to make all this stuff work - but you do have to input some stuff in so the computer knows what its working with.

D&D5e would have cost the wizards something well over a million dollars to write and illustrate - and thats before printing the thing. This is not a hobby for them. They spend dollars to make dollars. No other reason. You gotta sell a lot of books at not much margin to make that money back. There are plenty of other RPGs with hefty price tags too - WarhammerFRP, FFGs Star Wars series etc. Niche industry, niche client base. Stuff costs what it costs. The Wizards produced a very excellent D&D Basic edition and give it away for free - $3 here on FG - thats a big step in itself.


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[Brainpolice]

My purpose isn't for the game to legally enforce things so much as the fact that I expected the core game rules you select to be built in to things in an automated way - for it to be "smart enough" to automatically know what's what in Pathfinder, for example.

I will say that, after looking again, it very easily lets me port whatever images I want into it. I also didn't have 100% of the in-built modules activated - particularly the exhaustive Pathfinder Bestiaries and Spells. That definitely helps to be able to plug some of that in with ease, I could just add a custom avatar for the monster and be ready to go.

I have yet to try to the Combat Tracker in any meaningful capacity.

[damned]

If a library module has been set up as Pathfinder only it will be available to pathfinder campaigns only but it wont load automatically. Why not? Because some systems and some players have many many modules and loading them all uses up resources and can make the game cluttered.

Have a look at these videos. The production quality is poor - I will one day do them again - but the content is pretty good and they are in small, easily digestible chunks of 2-7mins each.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsgd1zJLdiKUrEd85Dqr6UcaaLvD7YlJd
They are made using the Castles&Crusades ruleset but 95% of the content relates to all rulesets.

If you get stuck - ask questions - plenty of people here who will help.

[Nickademus]

Where's Dulux? This is a golden opportunity to show off his vide,... er, I mean what Fantasy Grounds can do. :P

A lot of the good qualities of Fantasy Grounds are not immediately usable but rather features that require learning and experimenting (such as the effect system, module design, and automated combats/xp/loot distribution). Also, some rulesets have more or less features than others. The potential of FG really requires looking at multiple rulesets and the ability to make new custom rulesets and content modules, even if you don't normally play other games. Hit up a Savage Worlds, 5e, PF, and Castles and Crusades game at an FG convention for a better sampling.

[damned]

Did someone say Convention?


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[dulux-oz]

Where's Dulux? This is a golden opportunity to show off his vide,... er, I mean what Fantasy Grounds can do. :P

You rang?

I was going to let this one go through to the keeper (through to the catcher, in baseball terms), but since you mentioned my name...

(Actually, if you do that three times into a mirror... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!)

Hi BP, as others have said, I think you're not catching the full potential of FG - as Nick intimated, why don't you take a look at my Tutorial Videos (available from the FG Wiki and/or from the links in my sig, below) - they'll being to show you some of the full potential of what FG can do.

And Welcome! to the community,

Cheers

[Nylanfs]

Also the person interview that Doug just had a interview with is has gone through the same thing, except switching from Roll20 to FG. I'm not sure where in his video series he makes the switch though.

https://www.youtube.com/user/dave32780/videos

https://www.twitch.tv/table_topping/profile

[jshauber]

Welcome Brain (NARF!!!)...

You really need to play a couple of games using FG to really start to see what it can do and the value it gives for the money.

As others have mentioned WotC controls the license for 5e and therefore the pricing for DLC. Have you looked at the other sub-forums yet like 3.5/Pathfinder and seen all the community created modules that are available for FREE because of the OGL? You can get all 4 bestiaries, race guide, class guide, and loads of other stuff. All you do is download, install in the module folder and open in the library of FG for a pathfinder game.

I would suggest, again as others have, that you play a couple of games at FGCON and look in the LOOKING FOR GROUP subforum to see about getting in a game before that.

Also, for Pathfinder, if you use Herolab you can export your HL file in a custom format, run it thru a quick conversion program and BAM you have an XML of the PC ready to go in FG. You might have to do a little manual work to fully automate everything like spell effects, but 90% of that work will be done for you.

[Nylanfs]

Also, for Pathfinder, if you use Herolab you can export your HL file in a custom format, run it thru a quick conversion program and BAM you have an XML of the PC ready to go in FG. You might have to do a little manual work to fully automate everything like spell effects, but 90% of that work will be done for you.

And you can do the same thing with PCGen :)

[JohnD]

It makes a level of sense that you are paying for a certain level of convenience. I'm willing to pay for a certain level of convenience. It seems to me that Fantasy Grounds has no choice at some level, when it comes to officially licensed support for gaming systems, but to put a price tag on it. I just personally think this stuff should be more open source than it is and really bawk at the thought of paying too much more money for a tabletop simulator, when Baldur's Gate II costs 19.99. If I can still have the option to sacrifice some convenience to be able to just port free online content into the program, I think Fantasy Grounds is fine for me. For the most part, I feel like I need to be able to prepare relatively detailed environments via maps and icons without paying extra. Beyond that I don't mind doing things mostly manually.
There's an art to being new on a forum and essentially asking "why should I go with your product instead of 'X'".

BG II was released 15 years ago. It is hardly a valid comparison. FG receives continual updates which have always been free to license holders.

For pricing of 5E stuff, you should be having your argument with WotC who dictate the majority of the price tag attached.

Castles and Crusades is amazing value for your money.

Roll20 "free" isn't really free, not if you want functionality. Everyone knows that yet it's amazing how often that fallacy gets repeated. By the logic, FG is also free if someone else pays for an Ultimate license and you play when they DM.

If you walk into your local gaming store to get a module for next week's game, you're hardly going to expect to walk out with a product without paying for it. Same here. You can make your own adventure, enter everything, without having to buy any content for the included rule sets.

You can add in your own digital maps and make your own tokens (plus, there are free tokens that can be downloaded)... you also get an assortment of tokens with your FG license.

You're in a good place here with FG. Give yourself and the program a chance.

[Crymoricus]

But actually I have to fill everything...able to drag and drop

I honestly don't want to seem rude, but did you read what you wrote there in that one sentence?

I don't personally don't play 3.5, but if you want to see some amazing stuff FG can do, send me a PM and we'll hook up on my server any time. I'll blow your mind with what can be done in 5e. Or Savage Worlds. Take your pick.

[ddavison]

Hey Brain, it sounds like you've found out how to bring images you have into Fantasy Grounds for use as maps and hand-outs. Be sure to check the wiki videos on map usage. Additionally, you can do the same thing with tokens. Just place these in your tokens>host folder and they should show up. Portrait images go into the portraits folder. It's also not clear whether or not you've found the included maps and tokens that are included as library modules and token modules. These are activated by going to Library > Modules and opening the FG Battlemaps module for the maps and going to Tokens > Modules to activate the tokens for characters, monsters and animals. As mentioned earlier, you can supplement each of these with your own files or pick up additional modules from a wide number of different artists and small RPG publishers from the store here. Something like the monster packs or character packs fro Wizards of the Coast also include new portraits or tokens, depending on the package. Those otherwise contain the same content from the book but we've gone through the extra step of also attaching tokens or portraits whenever possible.

If you want to play Pathfinder, be sure to check the Pathfinder forum here and the stickied threads on custom extensions and modules. Those things give you an amazing amount of content and power. Then watch the wiki videos on combat in Pathfinder and test it out with a couple monsters and/or players on battlemap duking it out. The first time you play through a combat or two, I think you'll start to see some of the power that is lurking under the hood for FG.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

[Brainpolice]

I know I probably look like an idiot for coming to a forum as a newbie and critiquing something I haven't fully explored yet. As I pretty much said, the idea of paying money for a tabletop simulator in and of itself required me to suspend some disbelief, if you can appreciate that. I'm guilty as charged when it comes to being very skeptical toward business/marketing, and that kind of effects my attitude going in.

I appreciate the feedback and have uncovered more of what I want the program to do just by experimenting. I intend to use this program, I am liking it, but I'm very hesitant about spending money beyond the core program. But it looks like the program comes with pretty much everything I need to do what I want, supplemented by my own images.

[damned]

Hey Brainpolice and if any of the responses felt heavy or harsh to you they werent intended as such. This is a very friendly community and full of helpful people. Ask your questions and do watch a couple of videos too :)

[Crymoricus]

I promise you that mine wasn't intended that way. And my offer stands to get with you one on one any time I'm available, Brain. Hit me up in a PM and I'll tell you how to connect, etc. I'd take an hour or so out to show you the ropes pretty darn well.

[Brainpolice]

Perhaps take a few of my critiques as possible suggestions for future versions of the program. At the very least, if the built-in voice chat thing is possible it should be done. And I'm not suggesting that the computer fills everything in for you, but I think the process one goes through generating characters could be a little more "smart" within a given game system in what it recognizes as options for you to still choose to fill in, if that makes sense (for example, 3.5 D&D and Pathfinder each have their own arrays of point buy systems).

The blank slate of this sort has the one advantage that it's amendable to custom rules and settings, which I get. This could be parallel with automatically knowing the calculations for the standard options though. Maybe this is me being spoiled by computer game products with more convenient character generation processes, but something as simple as automatically knowing what stat adjustments a Pathfinder elf comes with doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me. It's a very simple convenience that is easily done from https://www.jody-white.com/pathfinder-ability-score-calculator.php - so why not have such a thing built-in to save the necessity of opening another tab next to the program?

These suggestions are really about the program not implicitly requiring you to open internet tabs (an immersion-breaker, if you will) and use external programs like skype to ideally run. This is advantageous buisiness-wise as well I think, in that you've basically just outcompeted skype (in a specialized area at least) and you've kept your customer's immersion with the product.

[Crymoricus]

Honestly, 3.5/Pathfinder is a pretty poor example of what FG is capable of in the character creation department. Of course that's going to disappoint some who just want to play 3.5/Pathfinder. Not interested in 5e, eh? All the drag 'n drop, race adjustments, etc, are there. If you saw it, you'd probably go "oh." I guess that's one of the reasons the 3.5 ruleset is free, and 5e is not. Of course, if you just want to play, you don't need to spend a dime on anything to experience what I'm talking about. Just go sign up for some games and see for yourself. If you have full license, you'll be able to join any game. If you are free user, you can join any game in which the GM has the Ultimate license.

[Mask_of_winter]

Both rulesets are free and come with the install. 5e reference material costs money because of licensing. 3.5 is free because of the SRD, same with Fate Core.

[Brainpolice]

Honestly, 3.5/Pathfinder is a pretty poor example of what FG is capable of in the character creation department. Of course that's going to disappoint some who just want to play 3.5/Pathfinder. Not interested in 5e, eh? All the drag 'n drop, race adjustments, etc, are there. If you saw it, you'd probably go "oh." I guess that's one of the reasons the 3.5 ruleset is free, and 5e is not. Of course, if you just want to play, you don't need to spend a dime on anything to experience what I'm talking about. Just go sign up for some games and see for yourself. If you have full license, you'll be able to join any game. If you are free user, you can join any game in which the GM has the Ultimate license.

I started playing D&D with 3rd edition and gravitated toward pathfinder when 4th edition came out, because 4th edition really wasn't for me. I'm actually "5e curious", but I only read the free core rules some months ago briefly. Your suggestion to join games first makes sense, as designing custom campaigns can really take some time.

[damned]

Yeah - the availability of included libraries is purely based on two things - a quality ruleset AND an SRD being available (AFAIK).

The rulesets that ship with the product are 3.5e, 4e, 5e, Pathfinder (these four make up anywhere from 65-80% of RPGs being played at any one time depending on whose stats you are using), Numenera (because JPG likes the system) and Fate Core (because Valarian built one with the SRD library and an agreement was struck with the publisher). Only 3.5e, Pathfinder and Fate libraries ship with Fantasy Grounds.

There are a lot of other freely available rulesets - most without any sort of Library - some with a Library sans the meat of the source books (SW:EotE for example). And then there are the commercial rulesets which contain ruleset and library modules.

And last of all - and certainly it should not be considered least there is CoreRPG - which can support a lot of games very well - unless they use more complex dice mechanics like exploding dice, roll/keep etc.

You can vote for features youd like to see and you can add your own if they are not in the list already - https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/
Before adding anything type a few key words in the search box - dont press enter (ouch - stop that Nick) and see if there is something similar already - and vote on it. There are some good things in there that are planned, there are many things that have been done and there are some that we are still hoping for. Voice is in there. I wont add anything further on voice as the argument has been waged many times. Vote on it!

[senjak]

Hi!

I'm new here, but I'd like to address one of the points that was brought up in this thread.

I'd much rather have the pricing scheme be the way it is currently, a base price for the systems and then additional add in modules that you can purchase rather than the entire cost of the software up front. Getting all of that data into the right format is a great deal of work, work that I'll happily pay someone else to do.

Senjak

[Ken L]

Having been on Roll20 for over a year and developed tools for it on the 'API' level. I can definitively say that I prefer the Fantasy grounds model.

For the base package you get all the tools you need as well as a number of prebuilt tools by the devs themselves. The interface documentaion is also more complete compared to the random code snipnets and 'customer built' documentation (you know you have a problem when your customers need to write your own product manual.)

I say 'customer' to refer to the paid pro/mentor level to gain access to the tools. All they do is sell you a tool box at that level.. the various scripts are created by other customers that bought this tool box. In essence Roll20 is selling the work of its own customers as the other 'pro' features are like... 3 web gl effects, the ability to transfer data between campaigns, and a test server... oh and pretty badges. Roll20 has no scripts or useful tools it has developed itself using the paid-for framework.

FG too has community extensions and scripts, but FG doesn't rely soley on the community to develop marketable features for it. There are improvements to the base product as well as developer backed scripts and rulesystems added in addition to comissioned additions.

From this I can say that FG is a bargain for an actively developed platform, and worth the 40 stones sticker price. You only need to buy a single license, as well as your players which is pretty much the price of a rulebook. If you're going to play a proprietary system, sure You need to buy the respective system, but think of FG as purchasing a 'platform' and it fits well in that model.

[damned]

For the base package you get all the tools you need as well as a number of prebuilt tools by the devs themselves. The interface documentaion is also more complete compared to the random code snipnets and 'customer built' documentation (you know you have a problem when your customers need to write your own product manual.)

Its not often the doco gets much praise!
Im glad you are finding it useful.
I think the biggest complaints about the doco are from us poor coding nuffies that wish things were just "easier"!

[Ken L]

Hah, I didn't exactly praise it, it's better from a relative standpoint in where roll20 put up bare bones API docs and expected its subscribers to figure out what works, what doesn't, and what the limitations where. Much of their documentation on how to use their tool set was written by those who bought it. As a software dev, it takes some serious stones to ask your customers to document your own software-as-a-service. Add in that the Api interface is prone to sporadicaly crashing mid game irregardless of your own script logic.

For FG I'd say the API documentation is more complete..... but it's just harder to find. I think FG needs to reorganize their docs, it took forever to find the reference docs of the scripting interface.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/refdoc/

[damned]

Hah, I didn't exactly praise it......

:)

[Trenloe]

A good place to start: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?20651-Modifying-the-CoreRPG-ruleset

[Ken L]

...

:)

It's constructive criticism ;)


@Tren, that's a good spot, but it's out of the way, and not in the suspect places. For me I went directly to the wiki and developer documentation. However I didn't find much there. How I found that ref doc was from when I asked about DB support and you linked me, I just walked back the link.

[Trenloe]

that's a good spot, but it's out of the way, and not in the suspect places.
So, where would you put this "Developer guide" other than in Wiki -> Developer Guides?

I'm genuinely curious. We get people saying "XXX should be easier to find", "YYY is hard to find", etc., etc.. If the website makes something more obvious then something else is probably going to become less obvious. The first and foremost place to go for documentation/guides is the Wiki. If you want developer guides click on the "Developer Guides" link in the wiki.

[Ken L]

So, where would you put this "Developer guide" other than in Wiki -> Developer Guides?.

Yes, and I scoped out the module maker's guide as well as extensions. I however skipped right over the ruleset section.

My goal was not to make a ruleset, so why is the XML scripting interface under rulesets? In hindsight, it makes sense as having skimmed some of the documentation, the ruleset is the engine that's also somewhat combined with the programming interface; correct me if I'm wrong. Now if I came in fresh in the knowledge that I need to modify the ruleset engine to make a script that deals with say just working with images, or looking through libraries, or just adding an NPC it would make a bit more sense. But you can clearly see why I did not connect the two as they are in most architectures clearly separate (Model and Control).

I don't have the privilege to be familiar with the structure of how fantasy grounds manages each asset, so I was looking for an apple and found it in a bin labeled 'oranges'. Can you fault me for that?



Ruleset: The files that define how a game system implementation looks and behaves on FG.
Extension: A modification to an existing ruleset. (themes, house rules, new features, etc.)
Module: A data file that defines campaign or reference data to be used with a ruleset. (equipment, spells, creatures, etc.)


Didn't help that the extensions section came up empty though. I was looking for script references, or some kind of function documentation.

From what I skimmed after finding what I needed regarding the placement of such things:

1. On the development guide within the wiki, a page describing the architecture of fantasy grounds that's a bit more fleshed out than 3 lines as an overview.
2. A note on the connection of the 'Ruleset' actually being the programming interface (API).
-- I expected the ruleset page to contain information on other systems built with the API to provide 'rules', not the actual API function reference, so the connection wasn't clear initially.

Personally, I have worked with ruleset/state based systems.The fact that FG calls their program interface a ruleset is an odd naming convention, but I guess it's a carry over from the older system. I guess it makes sense if a library is called 'ruleset' used to make rulesets, but the ruletsets here clearly do more than define bounding conditions and state navigation.

[dulux-oz]

1. On the development guide within the wiki, a page describing the architecture of fantasy grounds that's a bit more fleshed out than 3 lines as an overview.

This may be what you're looking for (although the title (not set by me) may be slightly... off). :)

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Development_Overview

Cheers

[Ken L]

Heh, nice tongue in cheek you two. Touche.

I've been working with a number of systems and if I usually can't find what I need to at least hit the ground running in an amount of time, It's frustrating. It seems all the information is there, but not in a well connected way. IE: pathfinder user guide page links to a page of all system user guides. By comparison I found the Oculus and HTC Vive developer guides more friendly despite their complexity.