Using Fantasy Grounds at the physical table top?

[bluestank]

Hi all,

Thinking of delving into Fantasy Grounds. However, our group is local and much prefer gaming together. I haven't found the time more recently to prepare as the GM (printing maps, keeping track of character sheets etc.) so I was wondering if Fantasy Grounds could maybe be an all in one tool for the physical table top.

How easy would this be to do? Can you print out character sheets from FG? Was thinking of just printing out updated sheets for everyone at the beginning of each game for them to look at, while I do everything behind the scenes at the same time. For maps I could swivel around my computer from time to time to show them with the fog of war effect on.

Has anyone tried this?

Thanks!

[ShotGun Jolly]

I have done it in the past and it works out very well. If you have duel screen support even better. But I have used my laptop as my GM screen a few times, and it works out very well. But its really simple to do, nothing hard about it. One of my friends uses a over head screen projector, thats pretty cool too.

As for the character sheets, you cant print them so much as making a screen shot of them, then printing that.

[damned]

Welcome bluestank

You can print 5e Character Sheets and there is a Universal Character Sheet Printer that you can make your own templates for other rulesets.
But you cant print maps and other content.
Mostly for at the table play it is one of these scenarios or some hybrid -

everyone brings a laptop
the gm brings a laptop and a big screen for showing stuff (most maps and combat) to the players with
the gm brings a laptop for herself and there is one or more laptops that the players share
the gm just uses the laptop and everything else is done as you would normally do and the laptop is used for calculations, storing GM resources etc

[Zacchaeus]

Some more information here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?25600-Using-FG-at-the-tabletop) and here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22604-Can-I-roll-my-own-dice).

[Nylanfs]

And if you are using Pathfinder or 35e you can use PCGen to maintain the characters and import from there into the FG database.

[ShotGun Jolly]

Welcome bluestank

... and there is a Universal Character Sheet Printer that you can make your own templates for other rulesets.
...

And this is where?! Didnt know that!

[Trenloe]

And this is where?!
Here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27390-Universal-Character-Sheet-Printer-for-FG

And for 5E there's also this online tool to output your character sheet in PDF: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22440-5E-Character-sheet-from-XML

[Hastati]

This thread (and the others mentioned) have been very useful for me. I want to use FG at the physical table as well. One question I have though is that I don't understand the concept of the DM running two open sessions of FG on their laptop. I know I'm coming across as a complete idiot, but does this mean you just open FG twice and load the campaign in one and log in as a player to the campaign from the other open FG?

[damned]

hello Hastati and welcome. The old adage about no such thing as a stupid question is totally relevant here!

Launch FG and Load your Campaign.
(see below if using Steam)
Right click FG in the Task Bar and click Fantasy Grounds again. This will launch a second instance.
Choose Join Game and for the Server type is localhost exactly as I have written it

This is a special mode which will ignore the license conflict and allow you to connect a player instance.
You can use this second instance to see what the players are seeing, to test out actions as a player or to display to a second screen a players view.

If using Steam you will need to locate the fantasygrounds.exe file via windows explorer, right click and choose Create Shortcut which will place it on your Desktop. If launching using this you can now run the second instance that Steam wont let you.

[Hastati]

Many thanks for the quick response. I will be trying that out tonight! Thanks again.