Playing At Home Including Fantasy Grounds

[Elfuthark]

I have purchased Fantasy Grounds to allow me to play D&D 5E online. I have also purchased the Complete Core Class Pack, Complete Monster Pack & Dungeon Master's Guide and got myself Lost Mines of Phandelver which is part of my Starter Set also that I've purchased to play at home with my wife and daughter and I'll play as the DM.

My question is will I be able to use some of the Fantasy Grounds features when playing at home with my family? I'd love to be able to use the maps Greyed out as the Players see it when totally masked off and then unmask areas as they discover them.

I'm really only looking to use the maps here and nothing more as a visual aid for everyone.

Many Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Movah]

I have purchased Fantasy Grounds to allow me to play D&D 5E online. I have also purchased the Complete Core Class Pack, Complete Monster Pack & Dungeon Master's Guide and got myself Lost Mines of Phandelver which is part of my Starter Set also that I've purchased to play at home with my wife and daughter and I'll play as the DM.

My question is will I be able to use some of the Fantasy Grounds features when playing at home with my family? I'd love to be able to use the maps Greyed out as the Players see it when totally masked off and then unmask areas as they discover them.

I'm really only looking to use the maps here and nothing more as a visual aid for everyone.

Many Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I believe that would work just fine. The other players just need the free edition and they can connect up to your session. There are some awesome tutorials on people building game tables too, not sure if they use fantasy grounds software but have all the map features etc. Search around on reddit I think is where I saw them.

[NotRussellCrowe]

Hi, Elfuthark, and welcome to the forums & family!

Yes, you can use FG at home in an offline game. You have a few options on how to set this up. If you have a second monitor you can hook up then the easiest way would be to run two instances of FG on your one computer. The first instance would be Load Campaign (makes you the DM), the second instance would be Join Game (makes it the player). Enter localhost as the alias and whatever name you want. Drag the player instance over to your second monitor and you can share all your pictures with masks and then as you unmask them in real time the image will reveal on the player instance.

If you are using two computers it's the same principle except that on the player computer you would enter the internal IP address of the computer running the game instead of localhost.

I would recommend you creating PCs for your wife and daughter and then you can make use of the combat tracker, which I think is one of the huge strengths of Fantasy Grounds. You'll have to find a way that works best for you as everyone plays differently and has different expectations, but I think having the initiative order managed for you makes things super easy. Plus then you have quick access to monster stats and such.

Happy gaming!

[Trenloe]

Welcome Elguthark!

As NotRussellCrowe mentions, if you're just displaying maps and have a second monitor then the localhost join game route is the best. You can even lay a flat-screen TV down on your table and use this as your battle map. Some info, and a useful extension, here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?33834-Map-resize-to-TV-resolution-for-Face-To-Face-games

If you want additional computers to connect to the GM then you'll have the usual FG licensing come into effect. Note: if you have a standard license a single play (and only one player in total for the campaign session) can connect - the game will switch into "demo" mode, but you can still use Fantasy Grounds as normal. If additional demo licenses try to connect they will be blocked and if a standard/ultimate connect the campaign will switch out of demo mode and the one demo license will be kicked off.

[Elfuthark]

That sounds fantastic thank you. So basically what I could do here is run FG on my virtual machine also this way my one laptop can run DM & PC !

So am I correct in saying I should add one of their characters into the virtual machine setup to allow this to work?

Basically I'd turn the laptop to me when I'm in DM version edit the map as necessary then switch to the VM Screen to show the newly edited map then turn laptop round facing the players so they now can see what's going on?

Hopefully I've got this right?

[Trenloe]

If you use a VM then FG will see this as two different computers and the "demo" mode restriction I mentioned above will come into play. There's really no need to run the VM though, just start a second instance of FG on the GM computer, and switch to the player instance before you show them the laptop screen.

[NotRussellCrowe]

You don't need to use a VM for this, just run FantasyGrounds.exe twice on the same laptop. If you have a second monitor that would make things easier but otherwise just switch between instances of FG, swivel your laptop towards your players, then when you're looking at the screen bring the DM instance of FG to the foreground.

When you run Fantasy Grounds you get options to Load Campaign or Join Game (there are others but not important for this). Click on Load Campaign, select your campaign and let it load up. When done launch FantasyGrounds.exe again but this time select Join Game (assuming on the same laptop), then enter localhost under Host Address and let it connect.

[Elfuthark]

Welcome Elguthark!

As NotRussellCrowe mentions, if you're just displaying maps and have a second monitor then the localhost join game route is the best. You can even lay a flat-screen TV down on your table and use this as your battle map. Some info, and a useful extension, here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?33834-Map-resize-to-TV-resolution-for-Face-To-Face-games

If you want additional computers to connect to the GM then you'll have the usual FG licensing come into effect. Note: if you have a standard license a single play (and only one player in total for the campaign session) can connect - the game will switch into "demo" mode, but you can still use Fantasy Grounds as normal. If additional demo licenses try to connect they will be blocked and if a standard/ultimate connect the campaign will switch out of demo mode and the one demo license will be kicked off.

Doesn't my scenario above work do you think? I purchased the standard license. I would install FG on the VM as a Demo

[Elfuthark]

You don't need to use a VM for this, just run FantasyGrounds.exe twice on the same laptop. If you have a second monitor that would make things easier but otherwise just switch between instances of FG, swivel your laptop towards your players, then when you're looking at the screen bring the DM instance of FG to the foreground.

When you run Fantasy Grounds you get options to Load Campaign or Join Game (there are others but not important for this). Click on Load Campaign, select your campaign and let it load up. When done launch FantasyGrounds.exe again but this time select Join Game (assuming on the same laptop), then enter localhost under Host Address and let it connect.

Brilliant !! My purchase was through Steam so I'm not sure if that's applicable though? Maybe you know

[NotRussellCrowe]

Doesn't my scenario above work do you think? I purchased the standard license. I would install FG on the VM as a Demo

I don't see why you couldn't do this with a VM but you don't need a VM, I have run two instances of Fantasy Grounds on my laptop multiple times without issue. Adding a VM only adds extra levels of complexity to the solution, at least in my mind from what I am understanding.

[NotRussellCrowe]

Brilliant !! My purchase was through Steam so I'm not sure if that's applicable though? Maybe you know

Okay, so this does add a bit of complexity to the solution. If you run Fantasy Grounds through the Steam launcher then you can only run one instance of Fantasy Grounds at a time. To overcome this just go to where FantasyGrounds.exe resides and run directly from there.

I bought from Steam but don't use the Steam Launcher, I just run it directly and have never had any issues running multiple instances.

Good luck!

[Trenloe]

It's easy to start another instance of FG on a Windows computer. See screenshot below and follow these steps:

Start your GM instance of FG as usual. From either Steam or from the installed FG shortcut. Then:

Right-click the Fantasy Grounds entry in the Windows taskbar (usually along the bottom of the screen) and
Select "Fantasy Grounds".

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=18053

That's it, a second instance of FG will start up. Quick and simple.

Then you go to "Join Game" and use a server address of localhost to connect the seconds instance as a player to the running GM instance, do not use an IP address or alias.

Note: it is possible to start more than two instances of FG, but only ever connect one player instance using "localhost" and have one GM instance running - otherwise you'll have data/connection conflicts.

[Elfuthark]

I'm a Mac user so I'll have to sit down and test these options. I'll do some research and see where my FG launcher file is. I know in Steam there was an option to save icon to Desktop which I did but every time I click it Steam opens first.

[NotRussellCrowe]

I will have to bow out now as I am not familiar with running on a Mac.

Good luck and happy gaming!

[Moriarity]

This does not work for me. I've tried all the methods described - the last one being via the r/click on the FG icon on the taskbar - the second instance runs up but, after entering the user and 'localhost', I can never get the second instance to go beyond responding with an Error icon with the words "Licence key conflict." I'm using an Ultimate licence key on a PC. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Trenloe]

This does not work for me. I've tried all the methods described - the last one being via the r/click on the FG icon on the taskbar and I can never get the second instance to go beyond showing an Error icon with the words "Licence key conflict." I'm using an Ultimate licence key on a PC. Any help would be much appreciated.
If you're running a second instance on the same computer you need to Join Game with a server address of localhost Don't use an alias or IP address. And only run one of these player instances on the same computer as the GM's computer.

[Andraax]

Also, someone else recently reported that you get the "license key conflict" error message if you try to connect with "localhost" but have no network running.

[Moriarity]

@Trenloe and Andraax; Thanks for the response but to be clear, I am using the 2nd instance (on the same PC) to 'Join Game' and I am using localhost (I have also tried using the local IP, external IP and FG alias). The local network is running fine; I can use the internet and can use file transfer to other PC's on local LAN - firewall port has been opened - I even tried it with the firewall turned off ("run test" on first instance before loading a campaign works fine) but the second instance still comes up with "Licence key conflict" when trying to 'Join Game' on the 2nd instance. This used to work fine for me - I can't be sure but I think it stopped working after the Steam account linking upgrade???

[Trenloe]

@Moriarity Try "Join Game" with an IP address of 127.0.0.1 Local IP, External IP and Alias won't allow you to connect as it registers this connection as over the network and sees FG using the same license key as the GM and will give you the conflicting license key message and not allow you to connect. If this message is coming up for localhost then, for some reason, FG is seeing that as a network connection, not just a localhost connection. You could try ping localhost from a command prompt and see what Windows reports.

If using 127.0.0.1 still doesn't work, please provide a screenshot showing this issue. Thanks.

[flynnkd]

I am running a local host player screen as a second session, works fine. But if I try to open a second character, through the PC button, I get a "Runtime error: Exception: bad allocation."

My players dont seem to have this problem.

Is this a limitation of the localhost connection?

[LordEntrails]

I am running a local host player screen as a second session, works fine. But if I try to open a second character, through the PC button, I get a "Runtime error: Exception: bad allocation."

My players dont seem to have this problem.

Is this a limitation of the localhost connection?
Nope. That's usually a memory issue. What o/s are you using? Have you checked process size? How much info have you shared, especially maps and tokens?

[flynnkd]

I am running a local host player screen as a second session, works fine. But if I try to open a second character, through the PC button, I get a "Runtime error: Exception: bad allocation."

My players dont seem to have this problem.

Is this a limitation of the localhost connection?

*** Never mind cleared my cache file and all gone away. Thanks.

[Trenloe]

I am running a local host player screen as a second session, works fine. But if I try to open a second character, through the PC button, I get a "Runtime error: Exception: bad allocation."

My players dont seem to have this problem.
Bad allocation means Fantasy Grounds is running out of memory - it has limited resources as it's currently a 32-bit app, it doesn't matter how much memory Windows has.

Close some modules in the localhost instance of FG - this is the biggest culprit, especially if if you shared (and opened) modules meant for GMs as these shouldn't be opened by player instances as they use the module resources differently than the GM instance.

[Moriarity]

Hi - just a quick update so it's not left 'hanging'. None of the solutions above worked; I did take a few screenshots as requested but I gave up trying and didn't post them. However, after the 3.3.3 update I tried again and everything is now working once more - both the localhost and 127.0.0.1 solutions. I have no idea what happened but I'm very happy it's all working fine. Thanks :D