Help Request: Plan for Switiching to Fantasy Grounds

[Adrestia]

Hi, FG Family.

I'm a decade+ old tabletop veteran of DnD 3.5 and a recent Pathfinder player and DM (~2 years). I started playing online using Roll20 and this year I started GMing my first game using Pathfinder's APs as a guide. It's gone more swimmingly than a trout, I daresay! However, the topic of switching to Fantasy Grounds has come up and I have to give it serious consideration since 1 of my players suffers from a slow computer and struggles with her character sheet.

Now, I'm going to bring a bit of my dayjob into this potential plan of switching and I hope you don't mind helping.

1) Maps
a. Immersion
I'm very visual and it helps me to create and stay in the immersion of the world with maps. I read an article where the writer claimed that Roll20 fell into a business trap of focusing on maps. Another article also referenced that fact that if Roll20 went belly up, I'd lose all access to my lovely hand created maps and I can't disagree. However, though I am an artist, I have limited time to create engaging maps and I've relied on Roll20s token system for guidance in that area.
Q. If you are a heavy user of maps, have you used Roll20 before? What's your experience of the two apps?
Q. If you run tabletop games with a lot of visuals, what has worked well for you?
Q. If you're a theatre of the mind GM, how do you handle combat?
Q. If you're a FG GM, what's your map strategy? Is there such a thing as too many maps? Is there an organization method that works well for you?

b. Tools
I also like Roll20's map ruler. My players at times look at world maps and calculate distance using the legend and ruler tool and the use it in character to plan their day/trips. I like the idea that they're so immersed in the world that they feel the need to plan like that and to take distance into consideration. I, so far in my tinkering, have not found this similar tool in FG. Am I missing it?

I also like pinging on a map to draw the players' attention to a potential sound. I guess I'm not a fan of drawing on maps to indicate this though I certainly see the "pen and paper feel" appeal of it. Is there something like this in FG?

Finally, drawing on the maps using different colors. My players utilize this often in the "war room" planning. In FG is seems that only black can be used and only a thing line. Depending on the map, this won't do. Is there an add-in or some thing I'm missing?

c. Organization
So I have a lot of maps and I think FG's folder bases system works well. I think this may be a clear advantage for FG over Roll20, as my constant gripe is how difficult is it to flip from map to map.

2) Immersion Aids
a. Music
Roll20's music player leaves something to be desired. It slows down performance and it took some time for me to finally find songs on Soundcloud that fit my needs. I do like have ambient sounds for some dungeons and battle music so what solutions have you found effective in using on FG?

b. NPCs and PCs
I think another thing that FG has over Roll20 is organizing the population of the world. I do prefer Roll20's drag and drop file feature since it seems like I can quickly create new/unique NPCs and I do enjoy utilizing the API as well for quick character generation. However, I think I can have a comparable experience with usage. So there may be nothing to say on this topic.

c. Dynamic Lighting
I know FG doesn't have it. I know it's contentious. I love it as I think it makes my players think my tactically. It does create an issue when one person goes off on their own or off to a new map. My questions are less about the functionality and more about the art of it.
Q. How do FG GMs deal with players that have metagame....habits?
Q. What do you think Dynamic Lighting adds to a game experience?
Q. What do you think Dynamic Lighting takes away from a game experience?

3.) Game Setup and Planning
a. Time
This is my primary hobby right now. I had a few secondary and tertiary ones and may still pick them back up in the future. I spend about 6+ hours (1 hour daily) planning. I have an obsidian portal, paper and pencil notes and a LOT of my data is in Roll20.
Q. How easy is it to pull data (notes, characters, NPCs) out of Roll20?
Q. How much time should I set aside for this? Can my players help?

b. Off Session Gaming
My players have a roleplay forum that they use. I suppose we can keep using that or we can use the forum on the Obsidian portal though it's nice for them to access to their characters offline and to the game to review their notes or just hang out. I suppose for FG it's more "secure".


That's a lot of questions. If anyone would like to by my mentor for transition, I'd be happy to let them sit in on one of my games on Roll20 and maybe provide tips on how to port the game over and keep the integrity of what my players and I have built.

Thank you so much for reading!

DFTBA,
Adrestia

[Zacchaeus]

Firstly, welcome to the forums and to the FG community.

Secondly I know nothing about Roll20 so I can't compare anything with that. In fact FG is the only VTT I have ever used (apart from a brief encounter with maptools- which was a long time ago)

In the order you asked:
Maps, you can't have too many maps. FG is at it's heart a Virtual Table Top and the programme works best with all combats taking place on a map with tokens for the players and NPCs. I use maps for everything; if there isn't a map I create one. I don't do theatre of the mind. (Although you can do in FG as long as everything is on the Combat Tracker). I'm not sure what you mean by an organsiation strategy for maps. You just link those to a story entry and click on the link to open the map. You can (and should) pre-prepare encounters so that they too can be clicked on to place the NPC on the map. Maps are stored in a folder in the campaign and are also accessible from a button in the UI if you don't have it linked to a story.

There isn't a map ruler as such in FG but there is a grid and if your map has a scale then the PCs can work stuff out using basic arithmetic if they need to.

Not sure what pinging a map is either but you can't ping anything in FG since there's no sound. However you can place pins on a map which you can share with the players. Such a pin can be linked to a story entry or an image.

You can draw on the maps in FG but it is basic. You can place circles, squares, cones and lines on the map and those appear in the player's colour (players and DMs can give themselves a unique colour for such purposes).

Music. You can use Teamspeak and something like Syrinscape (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?12328-Syrinscape-music-sound-effects) to play sounds and music but you can't do anything like that within FG itself - at least not at the moment.

Lighting - I don't worry about it at all. It's too much hassle trying to figure out what they can see and can't see. You can sort of limit the player's view with the map masking but it isn't dynamic. However the future may bring dynamic lighting when FG ports over to the new Unity engine. It is probably the most requested feature.

As for your other questions I don't have an answer for you since, as I said, I have no Roll20 experience, sorry.

I would suggest that you check out the Wiki (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) and also have a look at some of the videos (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Videos) that chaps have made, and also check out the forums on whatever ruleset you are hoping to use.

[jajen2003]

Hey Adrestia and Welcome!

I recently made the switch from Roll20 over to Fantasy Grounds myself a while ago.

First off, let me say that each system has their own strengths and weaknesses, but at the end of the day, as a Veteran DM, I'm much more pleased with the tools and capabilities of Fantasy Grounds, despite it's short comings.

So, I'll attempt to answer your questions having used both systems extensively.

Section 1
Part A
A. I think it is less cumbersome to add maps in Roll20. But saying this, it's not entirely hard with Fantasy Grounds. In Fantasy Grounds, all the maps you use will always be in your hard drive, whether they're in a module you bought from SmiteWorks or from a module you created. I actually prefer using maps in Fantasy Grounds, because they're not resolution dependent. Roll20 requires maps to accommodate a 70 pixel grid. With Fantasy Grounds, you can establish whatever sized grid you want.
A. Every token I've used in Roll20, I was able to load into Fantasy Grounds. Because you can build and open many different modules in Fantasy Grounds, I simply made a token pack module with all my Roll20 assets and I'm able to load one of my 3,000+ tokens and place it anywhere I want. Downside—you can't copy and paste tokens like in Roll20. So if you want multiple instances of just one token, you can to drag, drop, drag, drop. And if you need a different size, you have to do that as well. There are ways around this, but the copy and paste of tokens just simply isn't there.
A. The Combat Tracker in Fantasy Grounds was really the selling point for me. Maps or no maps, the Combat Tracker in Fantasy Grounds really lets you manage the game the way you've always wanted to manage the game. Hit points, initiative, AC, resistances, temporary status effects, monsters, NPCs, objects with AC and HP—it's amazing. So much easier than Roll20. If the DM can manage more of the technical side of the game faster and with less hassle, it lets the DM focus more on running the game.
A. With Fantasy Grounds, modules are your best friend. I have various map modules that I've made. I load them as need be and if there's random encounter or I need a map on the fly, I simply go into my Library, load the module with the maps I want, and drop the map in. Apply the grid and place monsters on the map and in the combat tracker. Modules. Modules. Modules. Super fun to use, super easy to use.

Part B
There is an Arrow tool. And in addition to a square grid, you can set up a hex grid on your maps. If there's a scale on your map, you can do the same thing here. Simply measure the scale and then start drawing arrows. Super simple.

Sadly, there is no ping feature that I'm aware of. You can place an arrow, a circle, a square or a cone on the map temporarily to indicate where something is, or it's relative size.

The color's the you can use can be changed. You have to use the Color Palette tool to adjust it. Anyone using it will also change the color of their dice. Players automatically have black as the default color. Simply change the color and you're set.

Part C.
This is where Fantasy Grounds really sold me since it's an actual stand alone program and not a WebApp. For me as a DM, organization and notation is key. With Fantasy Grounds, I'm able to keep track of everything I need. There's a Calendar that I use to keep track of time during the day, and the longer passage of time. The various tabs and sections with subsections I can make, I can really cut up massively long adventures and campaigns into much smaller manageable pieces. This is the No. 1 selling point of Fantasy Grounds for me.

Section 2
Part A.
Music is where Fantasy Grounds is lacking. There is no music or sound effects features built in. There are lots of work arounds, but if we're talking what the program can do... nothing. It can do nothing with audio.

Part B.
NPCs and PCs can both be easily created and managed with Fantasy Grounds. You can manage PCs quickly but importing and exporting various PCs as need be. NPCs can be made as part of modules. So if you want to create an entire bestiary as a module that you can load into multiple different campaigns, you can do that very easily. No Transmogrifier needed.

Part C.
Nope. No dynamic lighting. I was curious how this would impact my games with my groups. All 16 of players that I brought from Roll20 to Fantasy Grounds actually prefer not having dynamic lighting for multiple reasons: 1. Players with slower systems like the no dynamic lighting and 2. It creates a more old school feel. There is a Fog of War tool, which works fairly well. But yeah... there's no Dynamic Lighting. From what I understand, I don't think Fantasy Grounds users will be getting it any time soon. But what we are slated to get is much better... a 3D table top with 3D tokens.

Section 3
Part A.
Copy and Past the data from Roll20 into a Story entry in Fantasy Grounds. The No. 2 selling point for Fantasy Grounds... Links! So when you're creating story entries, encounters, NPCs, monsters and items, you can link everything to everything. You can create a Story entry with a link to a Map. And that Map can have multiple Pins on it, for each area. Those pins can open up the description for each Area and those Area entries can have Encounters linked to them that not only place the monster's tokens on the map for you in a place you've already predetermined, but it will also throw in the Combat Tracker for you, roll their initiative automatically, and hide them. Of course, you can change these options to do whatever you like, but it's there.

It's really fast to set up game play in Fantasy Grounds. I spend way less time now with Fantasy Grounds than with Roll20. Especially thanks to the modules I've made and the modules I've purchased. I spend way less time setting up and more time playing and enhancing gameplay for my players.

Part B.
If you're players have the Free/Demo version, they won't be able to access their server characters offline. But you could always export their characters out for them and send your players the .xml files. OR... for your players that have the purchased version of Fantasy Grounds, they can access their characters while you the GM aren't hosting the game. They will access a specific server version of their character as it appears on your server.

That's the other thing. When running Fantasy Grounds, you the DM are the server. Not SmiteWorks. Since you're hosting the game, your players access you, not some company's server somewhere else. So if you have a good internet connection, you'll have a great game. :D

If you have any other questions, let us know.

Fantasy Grounds is a phenomenal piece of software and worth every penny. There is a learning curve, but we can help with that too. Once you get there, it's amazing. Roll20 doesn't hold a candle to the versatility that is Fantasy Grounds.

If you want, I can host a sample session for you and your players, so you can give it a go before you fully commit. Just let me know.

Take care. Hope to see you soon.

[dulux-oz]

The No. 2 selling point for Fantasy Grounds... Links! So when you're creating story entries, encounters, NPCs, monsters and items, you can link everything to everything. You can create a Story entry with a link to a Map. And that Map can have multiple Pins on it, for each area. Those pins can open up the description for each Area and those Area entries can have Encounters linked to them that not only place the monster's tokens on the map for you in a place you've already predetermined, but it will also throw in the Combat Tracker for you, roll their initiative automatically, and hide them.

Let me chime in here with this: In addition to the "stock" product that is FG there are also a number of free (or near-free, depending upon what it is) Community-made Extensions that increase, modify and extend the functionality of the system. I'll use a couple of my own as examples: the Weather Extension provides a detailed yet Rule-System-Neutral weather generation system for just about every world (or plane of existence) type imaginable (good for fantasy, modern and/or SF gaming); the Soon(TM) To Be Released Organizations Extension provides all the framework necessary to provide groups of NPCs into your game (ie Secret Societies, Military Units, Guilds, whatever); and the Locations Extension provides the framework and structure for places - everything from buildings (including shops and "shopping"), towns, geographical and political locations, worlds, star systems, planes of existence, whole cosmologies and even portals (from one or more places to one or more places) - and its all linkable with each other and with the existing FG sub-systems.

So, whether you prefer to use plain Story records or more specialized Location records it doesn't matter; you can link them all to your maps or to anything else.

The hyperlink functionality, while super-simple in concept, is probably the absolute best friend a GM can have, followed closely by the generosity and talent of the Community (including the Community Devs).

If you haven't done so already I strongly recommend you follow Zac's suggestion and watch some of the Tutorial Vids (including mine; also available from the link in my sig, below).

And keep on asking questions :)

Cheers

[pbexxx]

I'll use a couple of my own as examples: the Weather Extension provides a detailed yet Rule-System-Neutral weather generation system for just about every world (or plane of existence) type imaginable (good for fantasy, modern and/or SF gaming)
Cheers

Wow nice!, where can I get my "hands" on your weather system? I would be keen to give it a crack!

[dulux-oz]

Wow nice!, where can I get my "hands" on your weather system? I would be keen to give it a crack!

All of my Extensions (they all go by the name DOE<something> - for Dulux-Oz Extension) are available via an number of links: the FG Wiki Extensions Page, the Extensions sub-Forum under the Armoury Forum, and also the various Community Creation posts stickied to various Rulesets Forums - are probably the three easiest ways of finding them. You can also use the Forum Seach function, but the first three methods are probably the easiest.

Cheers

[damned]

Hi, FG Family.

Hey!


I'm a decade+ old tabletop veteran of DnD 3.5 and a recent Pathfinder player and DM (~2 years). I started playing online using Roll20 and this year I started GMing my first game using Pathfinder's APs as a guide. It's gone more swimmingly than a trout, I daresay! However, the topic of switching to Fantasy Grounds has come up and I have to give it serious consideration since 1 of my players suffers from a slow computer and struggles with her character sheet.

Now, I'm going to bring a bit of my dayjob into this potential plan of switching and I hope you don't mind helping.

1) Maps
a. Immersion
I'm very visual and it helps me to create and stay in the immersion of the world with maps. I read an article where the writer claimed that Roll20 fell into a business trap of focusing on maps. Another article also referenced that fact that if Roll20 went belly up, I'd lose all access to my lovely hand created maps and I can't disagree. However, though I am an artist, I have limited time to create engaging maps and I've relied on Roll20s token system for guidance in that area.
Q. If you are a heavy user of maps, have you used Roll20 before? What's your experience of the two apps?
Q. If you run tabletop games with a lot of visuals, what has worked well for you?
Q. If you're a theatre of the mind GM, how do you handle combat?
Q. If you're a FG GM, what's your map strategy? Is there such a thing as too many maps? Is there an organization method that works well for you?

Many GMs love maps.
There are some different considerations for maps on FG compared to roll20.
On roll20 the layers are downloading the maps from the roll20 servers. on FG they are downloading them from you. so your upload bandwidth is a major consideration. now there isnt usully much you can do about your upload bandwidth so manage your image files wisely. use jpg. save teh quality down to 70%, 50% experiment with 40% you might be surprised how much quality is retained vs how much size you save.
PINS ON MAPS are freaking awesome. this simple but effective tool lets you run a whole (prepped) adventure from the maps - visually, laid out before you. i love pins. i highly reccomend them. pin pictures, stories, traps, encounters - oh definitely encounters make sure you know how to use encounters and then pin em.
if you are theatre of the mind thats fine too - tell your story and let the combat tracker do all the heavy lifting. this breaks down a little in a combat with no map and lots of combatants - but then again the theatre of the mind probably struggles to have too many actors in one scene so use mobs too.


b. Tools
I also like Roll20's map ruler. My players at times look at world maps and calculate distance using the legend and ruler tool and the use it in character to plan their day/trips. I like the idea that they're so immersed in the world that they feel the need to plan like that and to take distance into consideration. I, so far in my tinkering, have not found this similar tool in FG. Am I missing it?

put a fg grid on your map and then the players can drag pointers to show measurement.


I also like pinging on a map to draw the players' attention to a potential sound. I guess I'm not a fan of drawing on maps to indicate this though I certainly see the "pen and paper feel" appeal of it. Is there something like this in FG?

yes - hold down left and right mouse buttons and drag to create a pointer. its a temp pointer and will disappear as soon as you press the two mouse buttons again. if you hold down ctrl while doing this it draws a circle instead. both of these are extremely quick to do. you can also right click a map and synch client view and that will realign the players maps to your positioning and zoom level.


Finally, drawing on the maps using different colors. My players utilize this often in the "war room" planning. In FG is seems that only black can be used and only a thing line. Depending on the map, this won't do. Is there an add-in or some thing I'm missing?

nope. drawing in fg is crap. the only extra piece of info that may alleviate some of this loss is you can hold down shift while drawing to make a straight line.
thats it. there is no other drawing aids likely to be seen until the unity version hits - maybe late this year.


c. Organization
So I have a lot of maps and I think FG's folder bases system works well. I think this may be a clear advantage for FG over Roll20, as my constant gripe is how difficult is it to flip from map to map.

Pins, story links, image tabs... there are various methods to manage these. you can also put images in modules so you can load and unload them more efficiently.


2) Immersion Aids
a. Music
Roll20's music player leaves something to be desired. It slows down performance and it took some time for me to finally find songs on Soundcloud that fit my needs. I do like have ambient sounds for some dungeons and battle music so what solutions have you found effective in using on FG?

FG has no sound at all. Any sounds you use would be over your chosen comms method - teamspeak, ventrillo, mumble, skype, hangouts or even... roll20.


b. NPCs and PCs
I think another thing that FG has over Roll20 is organizing the population of the world. I do prefer Roll20's drag and drop file feature since it seems like I can quickly create new/unique NPCs and I do enjoy utilizing the API as well for quick character generation. However, I think I can have a comparable experience with usage. So there may be nothing to say on this topic.

Pathfinder has oodles of pre-made monsters available and npcs can be dragged from any pathfinder source into any other pathfinder campaign.


c. Dynamic Lighting
I know FG doesn't have it. I know it's contentious. I love it as I think it makes my players think my tactically. It does create an issue when one person goes off on their own or off to a new map. My questions are less about the functionality and more about the art of it.
Q. How do FG GMs deal with players that have metagame....habits?
Q. What do you think Dynamic Lighting adds to a game experience?
Q. What do you think Dynamic Lighting takes away from a game experience?


metagaming - results in bad luck, then worse bad luck and then a quiet word to the player about how they are really annoying me with their childish metagaming and then lightning
because we dont have dynamic lighting its hard to say how much it adds or detracts.... excluding the setup time for dynamic lighting and walls etc I suspect that fg users will love it when it arrives... gms may not appreciate the extra prep work but thats the way these things go...


3.) Game Setup and Planning
a. Time
This is my primary hobby right now. I had a few secondary and tertiary ones and may still pick them back up in the future. I spend about 6+ hours (1 hour daily) planning. I have an obsidian portal, paper and pencil notes and a LOT of my data is in Roll20.
Q. How easy is it to pull data (notes, characters, NPCs) out of Roll20?
Q. How much time should I set aside for this? Can my players help?

i dont know of any conversion tools from roll20 to FG.
players can build their own pcs - this will save some goodly amount of time.
maps can be easily copied to fg. dont load them all up in your campaign directory. only load them in when you need them...
prep and fg is a matter of preference. you should (imo) always prep your encounters and your key npcs. prep maps as much as possible. everything else can easily be winged or can be read from whatever source it is currently in. or you can prep every single thing into fg - stories etc - ahead of time. i suspect that once you catch up with your conversion load that you will do this and will prolly enjoy dong that.
and its easy to export your material into a module for later re-use in another game/campaign or for another group.



b. Off Session Gaming
My players have a roleplay forum that they use. I suppose we can keep using that or we can use the forum on the Obsidian portal though it's nice for them to access to their characters offline and to the game to review their notes or just hang out. I suppose for FG it's more "secure".

keep using your OP - its working for you. players can do offline character management but they will need to re-import their pcs at the start of each session or email them back to you to re-import. 15second task.


That's a lot of questions. If anyone would like to by my mentor for transition, I'd be happy to let them sit in on one of my games on Roll20 and maybe provide tips on how to port the game over and keep the integrity of what my players and I have built.

Thank you so much for reading!

DFTBA,
Adrestia

good luck - and hope to see more of you!