Hello everyone, new visitor here with a question!

[Vondruke]

My wife and I are considering purchasing Fantasy Grounds to use for a D&D 5e game we want to stream. Before we plop any money down, I'm curious as to whether or not there is any support for local game play. We'd prefer if the players didn't have a computer in front of them the entire time, and shared single touch monitor laid int he center of the table, so they can move their characters, stream to viewers, and what not. A smartphone app to access player sheets and to roll would be fantastic, though I can't seem to find one.. is there any such software in development?

Thanks!

[Zacchaeus]

Hi Vondruke.

There's some information here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?23077-FG-touch-screen-functionality) about touchscreens.

[kylania]

Welcome Vondruke and wife!

[damned]

Hey Vondruke there are quite a few threads about in person play.
The current game engine is not designed with touch in mind but some of those in person threads also discuss using Touch screens. It does work but the UI isnt always right for touch if that makes sense.
In terms of plonking down some cash - do the $10 ultimate Sub and you will get the first 2 months for $10 which should be plenty of time to test it out.

[dulux-oz]

Hi Vondruke and Mrs Vondruke, and Welcome to the Community!

To answer your last question: no, there's no smartphone app at the moment (and I'm not sure a smartphone would have enough "screen real estate" to be very useful - a large screen tablet, maybe, but not a smartphone). However, there's a new, Unity-based version of FG in the pipeline, so after the rewrite a smartphone/tablet app would be certainly possible.

Yes, there is plenty of development work going on, both in-house and by the Community Devs - check out the Armoury Forum and some of its sub-forums: the Extensions, Rulesets, etc; and/or the FG Wiki.

And talking about the FG wiki, if you haven't done so already then I strongly recommend checking out the various FG Tutorial Videos available - damned's are good, as are Xorn's, and people seem to like mine as well (mine are also available from the links in my sig, below). Start with the ones on the CoreRPG, because the CoreRPG forms the foundation of just about all of the RPGs we play with FG, and by learning how to use FG with the CoreRPG you'll learn about 80% of what you need to know to play any RPG with FG.

Cheers

[gaara6666]

welcome aboard and to trying it out. We got good folks here all happy to help you folks out

[Vondruke]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome and great info! My wife and I are very excited to (dungeon) delve in.

Zacchaeus, Thanks for the heads up.

damned, My wife is kinda stocked to just buy it and be done with it, but I'll try to convince her to test it out first, Thanks!



To answer your last question: no, there's no smartphone app at the moment (and I'm not sure a smartphone would have enough "screen real estate" to be very useful - a large screen tablet, maybe, but not a smartphone). However, there's a new, Unity-based version of FG in the pipeline, so after the rewrite a smartphone/tablet app would be certainly possible.
Cheers

Dulux-oz,
I'd imagine that your description would include the map, but what about simply the player sheet and the ability to choose actions, roll, etc. scaled to fit a smaller screen and or with a new UI... or is that a reason why it's getting re-written in Unity? My programming experience is limited, so I may be talking out of my ( x ).

When we're playing locally it'd be great if people weren't hiding behind laptop monitors, so great set up (for us at least) would be the players sharing a single screen to view and move characters, while controlling their actions and maintaining their characters on a personal device.

I will check out those tutorials next.

[Nylanfs]

Here's an idea that might tickle your fancy.

https://imgur.com/gallery/FJN4B

[damned]

Heya Vondruke there are various limitations in the current game engine.
A decision has been made to move to a newer more powerful game engine that has (among other things)
better memory management
better graphics support
support for multi-threading
native cross-platform support
extended character support (better multi-language support capability)
3d graphics capability

Its a huge task. Actually its even bigger as the aim is to support the quite large library of rulesets and other products that already exist.
So major upgrades to the current games engine are unlikely to happen before this rewrite is completed.

Somewhere after that building a mobile device interface will be high on the priority list :)
That day though - is not this day.

If you see a few games that have been streamed live you might see that players still can have a pretty good view of each other whilst using a laptop etc.
However you can have all players share the one large screen and they simply switch character sheets on their turn - it is going to be slower at some times though.

[Vondruke]

damned
That makes complete sense. It'd be a bit counterproductive to spend any energy remodeling the old house when a new one is being built.

Any idea what the ETA is on on the release? Are they looking for volunteers to help ease the load? I have a few skills (chicks dig guys with skills) graphics, video editing, video production, that I may be willing to help with where I can.

[damned]

damned
That makes complete sense. It'd be a bit counterproductive to spend any energy remodeling the old house when a new one is being built.

Any idea what the ETA is on on the release? Are they looking for volunteers to help ease the load? I have a few skills (chicks dig guys with skills) graphics, video editing, video production, that I may be willing to help with where I can.

No ETA. Hopefully by Q4 this year...?
Everyone likes guys with skills!

[Nylanfs]

Soon(tm) (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealSoonNow)





Legal Warning: TV Tropes link

[gaara6666]

it is scheduled JUUUUST before half life 3 :P