Completely new to Fantasy Grounds, could use some info

[Ryuuka]

Hey everyone. I've been looking at Fantasy grounds to play with my d&d group! I've used roll20 before but fantasy grounds feels more robust and also has all of the d&d 5e stuff.

I've been trying to look around to see what is what but I still have a question that I can't really figure out the answer to.

My question is; what do I have to buy? I want to play through Curse of Strahd with them. I have all of the core books and my players have the players handbook. Do I have to buy: fantasy grounds (or use a subscription), the 5e d&d books and Curse of Strahd to make this possible?

EDIT: Also, what do I actually get in the ultimate license compared to the normal one? It's a lot more pricy, does that mean it includes some of the books or...?

[Zacchaeus]

Hi Ryuuka welcome to Fanrasy Grounds and to the community.

First off the only difference between a normal licence and the ultimate one is that with the latter your players can connect using only the demo licence. If you buy a normal licence players can only connect if they too have at least a normal licence (I think you can have one demo licence join but no more). None of the licence packages come with any of the 5e material (PHB, MM or DMG). Those are all separate purchases.

You don't actually need any of the Fantasy Grounds 5e books but without them you will have to enter all the character info manually. To play Curse you will need to buy the adventure. The adventure comes with everything you need to play including all the NPCs.

if you are looking for a recommendation your cheapest option is to buy the ultimate monthly subscription and the complete core class back (The PHB).

[Trenloe]

(I think you can have one demo licence join but no more).
To clarify this statement - you can only have one player in total connected to a full (standard) license if they are using a demo license. This is to allow someone with the standard license to test with a single player only, it does not allow a single demo license to play with a bunch of standard licenses. If you want to play with more than one player and the GM has a standard license, then each player will need at least a standard license (subscription or permanent).

[Daxx]

I've recently done something similar with my group. We used to be a tabletop ground but with people moving & so on we found it hard to meet up weekly.

What I found worked really well, especially for us to test the software & see if we liked it & how well it worked for us as a group etc. So what I did was personally subscribed to the Ultimate edition ($9.99 per month with a free 30 day trial) & personally purchased the PHB deluxe (so I had access to all of the core classes) & the lost mines of phandelver adventure (cheapest adventure set). This way, as long as I had those items, the other players (rest of my group) could simply download the demo version (free) of the program. So I host a game as the ultimate license holder, they were all able to connect to my game & make use of the assets I purchased. Meaning that as long as they joined my game & I shared the "books" I own they were able to make characters & play the adventure. You just have to make sure to export their characters to your PC so you have a hard copy saved since they won't have them saved as a free version user.

So basically, if you sign up to the free month of the ultimate license (& the $9.99 monthly sub) & purchase the PHB & the Curse of Strahd adventure pack. You will have everything you need to create characters with all of your friends (so long as they are connected to your game at the time) & run the full adventure for them including maps, monsters, NPC's, loot & tokens. All while the rest of your group use nothing other than the demo (free) version of the program.

I ran my first session tonight & it went so smooth & easy it was unreal. I am loving it. If our next few sessions go as well & hassle free as tonight's go, we're all going to purchase the full program to give our full support.

[Mortar]

^^ This is a really great way to check it out.

[Ryuuka]

Wow! Thanks for the quick replies and clarifying everything for me! Daxx, that's exactly what I needed to hear. Seems like we can easily try it out then without too much of an investment. I really like to look of it from the videos and screenshots that I've seen.

I'll swing it with my players and tell them that I'll be trying it out and if we all like it we could put in some money together and make full use of this cool platform.

Happy gaming everyone!

[dulux-oz]

Let me also just add this: If you haven't done so already, let me encourage you to take a look at some of the great Tutorial Videos available on the Fantasy Grounds Wiki (and on YouTube). Damn'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 the RPGs we play with Fantasy Grounds - so by learning how to use FG with the CoreRPG you'll learn about 80% of what you'll need to know to play any RPG with Fantasy Grounds. Once you've gone through the CoreRPG Videos you can then go on to Videos about your chosen RPG.

When you get familiar with the basic Fantasy Grounds product the next step is to check out some of the Extensions (Plug-Ins) for FG, such as the DOE Sound, Locations, Weather and Organisations Extensions (to name a but a few).

And keep on asking questions - we're a pretty friendly lot here, and we love answering questions.

Cheers

[Mortar]

Stop being modest OZ, your videos are a great learning tool!

[dulux-oz]

Stop being modest OZ, your videos are a great learning tool!

Thankyou, but the others are good too - credit where credit is due :)

[Ryuuka]

Thanks, I'll make sure I watch all of them. :) I know it takes a bit to set up, but from the videos and screenshots I've seen it can look and play amazing! I like fiddling with stuff so it shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks again everyone.