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JediOre
April 1st, 2005, 14:06
My friends & I are interested in this product. Bill Clark over at Necromancer's forums pointed us to here.

I have a question as probable DM.

I'd like to run the party through a regular module, say The Tomb of Abysthor from Necromancer Games or The Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho from Goodman Games. I know nothing of programming these days. What will I need to do to facilitate the game and insure no long lags explaining what the PCs see and drawing of the maps?

Thanks for any input.

tarrasque
April 1st, 2005, 15:10
Im going to assume that your doing this conversion for just your own home use and so theres no worries about copyright infringement..otherwise your on your own

you need to convert the maps, you can either scan the ones from the module or make new ones in dundjinni / photoshop / MS paint depending on your skill & budget

take a look at some of the adventures posted in these forums to get an idea of what maps to make

if you are using the chat box for text (rather than using a voice program in the background) then you might like to scan/ocr or type in BOX text from the modules and maybe some stuff like room descriptions & descriptions..once these are cut n pasted into the story pages then you can assign then as ' chat ' type.. then in game you just drag the 'BOX' text onto the chat box (instead of typing it all in)

its very easy really and requires no programming knowledge..but if your interested in a little tweaking 'under the hood' then theres lots of things you can do with XML and FG

Chris

richvalle
April 1st, 2005, 18:18
As Chris says...

Its not too hard to get an adventure into FG ( I would recommand Chris's Word to FG converter). What is going to make a differance is how much you want to get into FG befor the game. Are you going to use VOIP with FG? If so you won't need most of the chat box stuff (unless you want to). If you have the module in front of you at game time you can just type in what you need as you need it with no FG prep time. FG makes it EASIER to run a game by letting you pre type in the chat boxes, have the npc's listed ect.

If no voip software I'd say at least put in the text you want to drag and drop into FG. Then you can wing the rest. Don't feel like you have to do EVERYTHING in FG either... if you find keeping paper notes easier go for it.

Have fun!!

rv

onky
April 1st, 2005, 19:18
So true... Last friday I hosted my first ever DM session, and with FG out of all apps.... I only had played 4 DnD sessions or something in my life but with FG I could just sit down and host (with fairly little preptime).

JediOre
April 1st, 2005, 20:20
Thanks for the replies. That is what I'm curious about. One of my best friends lives several states away. We've had so many years of comradely gaming with D&D. I really want something to enable us to enjoy the fun for old time sake without being bogged down with mechanics (as if third edition isn't already!).

Being able to sit down at the computer and DM with the rule books at my side and a module in front of me is my goal. It sounds possible.

My group of current gamers are all looking at FG as a way to have my long distance bud join in.

Any other suggestions or advice is very welcome.

richvalle
April 1st, 2005, 21:32
Both of you (and anyone else interested) get the demo, let them connect and play.

If you guys are still interested... you get the dm version and then run an 'open one-shot' game of some free pdf or other out there for any FG owners to join. Then you can see how much/little work you think there is needed. If you don't like it... only you are out the $$ for the game.

If you still like it then have the others buy the client version (unless they think they may try to run a game at some point).

rv

NeoDante
April 2nd, 2005, 00:27
The whole reason I got FG was because my 'old gaming group'(tm) (all very good friends of mine) found ourselves scattered like leaves in the wind. Our spread reaches each and every time-zone in the country and now we have a way to get back to our 'Sunday Night Game' (tm). It's fantastic.

It's important to understand you need no more skill than the ability to type in order to get the most basic function out of FG, that is, to simulate a table top RP experience. From there it can get pretty fancy depending on your time/skill. As others have mentioned, if you know XML you can 'modify' the program some.

If you have the time, it's usually a good thing to scan maps and NPC pics or what-not. Then I usually also enter in 'read-aloud' text, which describes the rooms and what the PCs see and such. If you want to get really fancy, you can prescript (type) all kinds of NPC dialog, stuff like that. Other DMs here just 'wing-it', drawing out maps as they go and typing everything 'in the moment'.

By all means, get the Demo, have your friends get the Demo, that's what I did. After about...oh 10 minutes, we all bought the program ;-)

Sigurd
April 2nd, 2005, 02:32
I have not heard back about a way for a player to have more than one character in a dungeon. Multiple instances of the software makes your system unstable and is not a good solution in my experience.

S

richvalle
April 2nd, 2005, 02:53
Nope... right now you can't. :(

rv