What's the benefit?

[VoidByte]

Hello,

so I subscribed for the Ultimate Edition. But now where I am here, it seems not to be a Role-Play Engine. It feels like a "D&D 5E Simulator". The reason why I am here is, that I am the Author of my own ruleset.
I made it 10 years ago and worked on it since then with a solid group. From "Beta-Testing" to "Hey Void, whens your new Edition coming out?" was a long way.
I heard about Fantasy Grounds and saw a nice way to spread my ruleset for free to the world and reciving feedbacks and ideas from players around the globe.

Because of some complex calculations on some values, a PC version would be the final touch for my system. It would speed up the processes a lot and help people to get a quicker entry point.
Wich mean... am I wrong here?!

Fantasy Grounds advertises lots of "Make your own..." and "For each Ruleset...". But for a simple Character Sheet, i would need outstanding XML skills.
For simple automation (Strengh + Constitution = Athletics) I need to be a LUA professional. Not because LUA is a complicated language, then more because the FG System has almost no structure and just a 4 Years old documentation.
Sure, the "BASIC-RPG" Mode gives me a free editable sheet, but the functions are not more then an primitiv excel table.. and even this has more design features.

I expected a simple "Editor" like WYSIWYG where i can reorder Sheet elements, push them around like i want and give basic calculations for values that need to be auto-calculated. Currently i just have a Sheet where i need to retype the whole thing if i want to add something before everything else. ... as i say.. an excel table has more features and lot more customization.

What is the benefit of playing fantasy grounds now? With no automation, where everyone has to calculate everything on his own, where everything needs to be editited by hand.. i mean.. thats Pen and Paper.
Why shouldnt i play with my solid group on a real table then, instead of FG? FG is not helping me in any kind of purpose as long i dont play D&D 5E (even Pathfinder or 3.5E has no automation..)

Dont get me wrong, this is a basic question of understanding why FG instead of Tabletop. This is NO critic or offense.

Greetings from Germany

[Andraax]

FG is a tabletop that is shared over the internet. Some rulesets provide lots of automation, others provide limited automation. But at it's heart, it's a way of extending the tabletop to users around the world, so you can play with people who are not local.

[VoidByte]

FG is a tabletop that is shared over the internet. Some rulesets provide lots of automation, others provide limited automation. But at it's heart, it's a way of extending the tabletop to users around the world, so you can play with people who are not local.

Ah.. I was afraid that something like that is it..

Well thank you for the answer.

[damned]

Hola VoidByte

I might start with what Fantasy Grounds is NOT...
It is not an Editor to allow you to create code or create interactions between fields and no where does it say that it is.
Fantasy Grounds is not just for D&D - although just like in real life and just like rpg sales figures suggest - it is a big chunk of what Fantasy Grounds is used for.
Its not meant to be a replacement for you sitting together at the table - it was designed to enable you to game efficiently with people anywhere/elsewhere.

Your comparison to Excel is interesting. Excel is a serious application containing millions of hours of coding. Excel does what Excel does better than any other application out there. The fact that Excel can do things that Fantasy Grounds cant is not a surprise to me :)

What is Fantasy Grounds?
It is a virtual table top.
You can share images and text with connected players.
You can roll dice and see and share results.

Most of the other things that Fantasy Grounds can do are features of the ruleset.
There are many rulesets and they vary massively in their features, automation and completeness.

The cool thing is that there are some serious basics and frameworks baked into CoreRPG.
But by itself you dont see the power of CoreRPG.
Things like targeting, tables, templates, calendars, and many many more.

You are correct - in most cases to use the power of Fantasy Grounds you want a full ruleset.
With a full ruleset some serious magic can happen.
And yes - this takes some serious coding.
The fact that the doco is 4years old doesnt make much difference - its still lua and xml and you can crack open almost all the rulesets and see how they work.
Do you have to be a programmer to do this? No - but it certainly helps if you are!

Have a look at MoreCore - it cant do your specific example of auto updating two attributes to give you a secondary value but there are lots of other ways that this can be done.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsgd1zJLdiKW3HysWZRsX4cqFlcerBvW3
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?34860-MoreCore-Ruleset
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?35056-MoreCore-Themes

If you do want a complete ruleset and you dont want to do any coding then Fantasy Grounds is probably not the right platform for you.
Dont write it off too quickly though - Fantasy Grounds is very powerful and can deliver an amazing tabletop experience.

In terms of features - The Ultimate really only has one difference to the Standard license and that is the ability to host unlicensed players in your game.

I hope you find what you are looking for - either the right tabletop or answers at least.

[VoidByte]

Thank you Damned for your detailed Answer.
First thing: I dont ment Excel by it's whole. You can replace it with every other piece of software that have a sheet and is able to simply calculate values together.

What I dont get is the pricing of FG. 134€ for a software that you cant use unless you buy the ruleset packs, which will be, in case of D&D additional 224€ ..
Its like buying the steam client, what is super handy IF you have games. But total useless if not.
I saw the video from this big dude who always makes 720p videos where you cant read anything hes doing ("Digital Dungeon Master" on youtube). He also mentioned that free D&D core rules are nice, but if you have absolutely no
understanding on D&D and dont own any additional stuff, you have no chance to play it out of the box.

Also the only supported language is English.. which is not my best as you can read. And most people in most countrys on the world dont speak it. So.. reading a ruleset in a language that you barely understand?
So we come to the Point where i see: Paying 358€ (420$) for a software that let me play a ruleset that I don't really understand with people in the USA (or the other native english countries.).. They understand everything working just with shortcuts and confuse me even more...

But thats not the theme and i wont lose my self in this thoughts.

All round up: Fantasy Grounds is a tabletop simulator for people that like to play with people in english-speaking-countries. Its not made for playing your own ruleset and not made to be playable without spending a ton of money for other ruleset's
So i see: It's not what i expected.

Thank you for helping me. At least i won some knowledge ;)

[Andraax]

With the Ultimate package, you get "Included Rulesets: D&D 3.5E, D&D 4E, D&D 5E and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game". These rulesets include all the data from the SRD for the appropriate systems. You can find a number of community rulesets (most of which are free) in the wiki: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Also, there is a community language support group that supports a number of other languages: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27202-LanguagePak-%28LPak%29-Community-Project-Program.

[Erin Righ]

also there is the Lpak community project translating the FG into other languages https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27202-LanguagePak-(LPak)-Community-Project-Program

[Erin Righ]

Crap didn't see that part of Andraax's post

[Zacchaeus]

There is also this extension (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?36627-Central-European-Languages-(CEL)-Fonts) for CEL.

[Caelen]

The biggest benefit of Fantasy Grounds is the amazing forum community. They have answered all of my questions very quickly. And it's free. ♥

[Bidmaron]

Void what you want does not currently exist. If you find something better than FG at implementing a new ruleset, please let us all know. But we know you will not.
Excel cannot share itself with your players — at least not in any very useful way.
Good luck in your search!
Oh, and for the record, Pathfinder with DLC has some very nice automation. Not quite up to 5e yet, but magnitudes better than excel.

[Maasq]

Hey Void


What I dont get is the pricing of FG. 134€ for a software that you cant use unless you buy the ruleset packs, which will be, in case of D&D additional 224€ ..


You can subscribe to FG, making the point of entry much cheaper. A standard licence is only $4 per month, and this will allow you to create as much as you want. You won't be inviting anyone to play at first anyway, so you're probably as well with just the standard licence until your ruleset is built.

IF you decided to play D&D5E, you can host it with just the SRD content (free) and add your own classes, monsters, items. You can also buy just the core books, or an adventure, and this will let you host for far less than the 224 Euros you mention. To expand on the Steam analogy - you can buy just 1 cheap game on Steam and play it. You don't need to buy every game :)

The language issue will be a barrier, but if you are building your own ruleset, maybe not so much. That depends on whether you want to translate it so more people can play it.

Editing XML and learning LUA might well be a pain, but it will be easier than learning a programming language from scratch and trying to write the whole package. All the networking and display code, all the targetting and combat options - these are all in place for you to use.

It is likely a huge effort to build a ruleset (I haven't tried it, but the program I have coded for FG took me ages!). It'll be rewarding, though - and if there is no other tool out there to let you build your ruleset, then this may be your best option. Remember, you can do it for $4 per month subscription and chip away at it bit by bit.

Hope you manage to get what you need, and I'd like to see what you come up with :)

Maasq

[Callum]

What I dont get is the pricing of FG. 134€ for a software that you cant use unless you buy the ruleset packs, which will be, in case of D&D additional 224€ ..

I've been using Fantasy Grounds to play games for over ten years, and I've never bought any ruleset packs - just the base software. Furthermore, the games I've played are ones that I never would have been able to play without the software. I consider it far-and-away some of the best value for money I've ever got. I know there are many other people in this forum with similar stories.

[Trenloe]

All round up: Fantasy Grounds is a tabletop simulator for people that like to play with people in english-speaking-countries. Its not made for playing your own ruleset and not made to be playable without spending a ton of money for other ruleset's
I would disagree with most of this.

Think of Fantasy Grounds as your gaming environment - it provides you with a table where you put maps and handouts, where you roll dice, where you put tokens (minis), notes, etc.. It provides the GM with a "screen" and a place to keep all of their notes, story entries, NPC stats, etc.. It provides players with their character sheets. It provides seats for the players to join the game. It's a complete RPG gaming environment.

Some RPG rulesets (framework to play a specific RPG system) have more bells-and-whistles than others. But Fantasy Grounds can still help you play RPG systems - look at the MoreCore ruleset!

Compare this to your face-to-face gaming experiences:
- If you want to play any RPG all you need is the basic rules - you don't need to "spend a ton of money" to play any RPG. But the stuff you want/need. This is the same in Fantasy Grounds - you don't need to buy everything. Buy the stuff you want/need and can afford. You can always enter data manually, or design stuff yourself - exactly the same as playing RPGs face-to-face.
- If you want to play in a different language you can. The main limitation is that some labels won't be translated (but see the LPAK project mentioned above) and some complex character sets aren't supported. This is made even easier for your group if you use some form of voice communications for your game (recommended), such as TeamSpeak, Discord, etc..
- You need to find a group to join and role-play with. If you want to play in a certain language then there are various groups outside of these forums that play games on Fantasy Grounds not using English.
- If you don't understand the basics of the RPG system you're playing then you'll struggle to play. This is the same with Fantasy Grounds - RPGs are complex games, you need to have as a minimum a GM who has read and understands the basics of the rules.

[LordEntrails]

Two things I will add for your information;
1) FG has a 30 day money back guarantee. So if you have bought something you didn't need or misunderstood what you are buying, see Here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?34624-30-day-trial-for-subscriptions-replaced-with-30-day-money-back-guarantee)
2) There is a free online convention, FG Con, coming up next weekend. Join a game or two as a player and you will get a great chance to see what FG can do for playing an RPG. See; FG Con 11 (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?39676-FG-Con-11-Friday-October-13th-Sunday-15th-Theme-3PPs!)

[Nylanfs]

The biggest benefit of Fantasy Grounds is the amazing forum community. They have answered all of my questions very quickly. And it's free. ♥

You haven't gotten our bill yet? :)

[Ken L]

What is the benefit of playing fantasy grounds now? With no automation, where everyone has to calculate everything on his own, where everything needs to be editited by hand.. i mean.. thats Pen and Paper.
Why shouldnt i play with my solid group on a real table then, instead of FG? FG is not helping me in any kind of purpose as long i dont play D&D 5E (even Pathfinder or 3.5E has no automation..)


FG isn't as great for rule lite systems given the complexity gradient. If you run a rule heavy system the automation does help, though you are right that 5E is the prime beneficiary of automation given its popularity. Pathfinder only recently started getting a similar treatment after the content license. If you're new to online systems try other platforms to find the fit for you. From personal experience FG and Maptools have the greatest ability for automation, Roll20 + d20pro for connection (d20 recently gained a new port forward free connection model). Generally I've found that once you start demanding more from your system, FG and Maptools give you those tools at a complexity expense.



Fantasy Grounds advertises lots of "Make your own..." and "For each Ruleset...". But for a simple Character Sheet, i would need outstanding XML skills.
For simple automation (Strengh + Constitution = Athletics) I need to be a LUA professional. Not because LUA is a complicated language, then more because the FG System has almost no structure and just a 4 Years old documentation.
Sure, the "BASIC-RPG" Mode gives me a free editable sheet, but the functions are not more then an primitiv excel table.. and even this has more design features.


Customizing FG has a 'complexity' expense as far as user facing scripting/programming interfaces go. Comparing this to other mods, there's a high gate requirement as opposed to upload a little script, which can then be grown from there if more features are desired. I had a rough time creating an inventory modification as it required looking at CoreRPG, PF which aren't documented, and then through the ruleset reference with Ctrl+F. You do however get more mutable areas such as the ability to add widgets which other platforms don't have or can give access to.

[vodokar]

Hello,

so I subscribed for the Ultimate Edition. But now where I am here, it seems not to be a Role-Play Engine. It feels like a "D&D 5E Simulator". The reason why I am here is, that I am the Author of my own ruleset.
I made it 10 years ago and worked on it since then with a solid group. From "Beta-Testing" to "Hey Void, whens your new Edition coming out?" was a long way.
I heard about Fantasy Grounds and saw a nice way to spread my ruleset for free to the world and reciving feedbacks and ideas from players around the globe.

Because of some complex calculations on some values, a PC version would be the final touch for my system. It would speed up the processes a lot and help people to get a quicker entry point.
Wich mean... am I wrong here?!

Fantasy Grounds advertises lots of "Make your own..." and "For each Ruleset...". But for a simple Character Sheet, i would need outstanding XML skills.
For simple automation (Strengh + Constitution = Athletics) I need to be a LUA professional. Not because LUA is a complicated language, then more because the FG System has almost no structure and just a 4 Years old documentation.
Sure, the "BASIC-RPG" Mode gives me a free editable sheet, but the functions are not more then an primitiv excel table.. and even this has more design features.

I expected a simple "Editor" like WYSIWYG where i can reorder Sheet elements, push them around like i want and give basic calculations for values that need to be auto-calculated. Currently i just have a Sheet where i need to retype the whole thing if i want to add something before everything else. ... as i say.. an excel table has more features and lot more customization.

What is the benefit of playing fantasy grounds now? With no automation, where everyone has to calculate everything on his own, where everything needs to be editited by hand.. i mean.. thats Pen and Paper.
Why shouldnt i play with my solid group on a real table then, instead of FG? FG is not helping me in any kind of purpose as long i dont play D&D 5E (even Pathfinder or 3.5E has no automation..)

Dont get me wrong, this is a basic question of understanding why FG instead of Tabletop. This is NO critic or offense.

Greetings from Germany

Gutentag Void. I am going to address this from another perspective. No, you most certainly do not have to be a professional xml and lua programmer, or any other programmer, for that matter, to be able to make a useable ruleset in FG. Ask people here that know me... I am none of those things, yet in a few short weeks I was able to put together a useful ruleset project. It was not without some growing pains, but it was nonetheless eminently doable by standing on the shoulders of the giants that proceded me, following thier example, and not being afraid of rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty. What you are perceiving as a limitation is actually the great power available in the FG platform to be able to mold it into whatever you wish. It is the ideal platform for taking a new set of rules, such as yours, and making it a reality on the computer ... in fact, the only platform that exists robust enough to handle it, specifically because it does allow you to program it, whereas no other rpg platform out there does. This great power does come with great responsibility i.e. you need to put some time in learning it, but it gives the reigns of power to you, the user, to do it. Very sorry, but your envisioning of the way it should work, simply is not based on feasonable reality. There is no other platform out there that can do that and none even come close to what FG allows the user to do.

[damned]

All round up: Fantasy Grounds is a tabletop simulator for people that like to play with people in english-speaking-countries. Its not made for playing your own ruleset and not made to be playable without spending a ton of money for other ruleset's
So i see: It's not what i expected.

Thank you for helping me. At least i won some knowledge ;)

I too want to clarify this point a little - the platform is largely english centric but there are many players from countries countries where English is not a primary language. Das Schwarze Auge has long had a presence on Fantasy Grounds for example.
You can 100% play D&D and Pathfinder with good content with no additional expense. If you want all the IP/content for these then that requires a license to be purchased for this content which is completely fair.
I use a free community ruleset called MoreCore to run lots of different games. It has dozens of dice rolling scripts to support many different game systems. It requires zero coding to use and has a much lower barrier of entry to theme it up or to code a new dice roller because there are lots of completely open and accessible examples to work from.

You are welcome. Good luck with your search and with your game system!

[Wolfheart]

It looks like OP Mr. Void has come and gone, but if you're still reading this thread, here a few more thoughts coming from someone who was similarly dissapointed when buying Fantasy Grounds.

I have to agree with you, and I have stated this before elsewhere on the board so I'll keep it short, that the way Fantasy Grounds is advertised, feels wrong / false. Someone else will chime in and say I'm wrong, but note I say it feels wrong and that's a subjective experience.

"Prep less, play more", for example - I have spent probably 99.99% of my time in FG preparing stuff, moving stuff around, learning to hack things, copying PDF files into FG stories, trying to get some music played across the Interwebs to my players, etc. Granted, I like prepping and making up more homebrew lore, but roughly half that time was spent figuring things out (trying to modify character sheets, rebuilding a calendar, learning how to work with FG "under the hood" as they say). So for me, "Prep less, play more" feels like false advertisement, but it's subjective - someone else might download FG and go straight off gaming hard in the Forgotten Realms, everything set up easy-peasy with the D&D 5th edition ruleset (and that person will have the opposite opinion, "No way man, never prepped so little!") - so it really depends.

The one that hurts most was, again IMO, the way FG was advertised as "play ANY game". Others will say, "But yes, you can", and that's where your point comes in - yes, you CAN play WHATVER across Fantasy Grounds, but for the games I prefer, this amounts to nothing I can't already do around an actual table. In other words, the money paid for FG felt wasted because it didn't really support "any game" in the context FG is advertised as.
So I went into FG tinkering (without having a clue, really - I don't know if I was even aware of the existence of "LUA" before I acquired FG) trying to rebuild the CoreRPG to suit me, and that's when I felt that FG's advertisements should include an additional line - "Play ANY game...but be prepared to learn programming and spend countless hours getting it to work first". (Hence the feeling of false advertising; again, subjective). I am confident the developers never intended to come off as false or misleading, however!

I came to FG expecting the best VTT, and it couldn't even let me use dice the way I needed it to, nor did it accomodate streaming video/chat/music, or let me build maps tile-by-tile, or choose which dice to have on the table - small things I kind of expected to be in place -

BUT (and here's the thing) -

I didn't give up FG.

Instead, I began to look at what it actually *is*, what it *can* do for me, and from there I have grown to appreciate it a lot more, and even found some fun in tinkering with it just for the sake of. I have ported my campaign notes as well as the rules of our preferred game into FG, making my stuff easily accessible in many fun ways and so I use it as a "Gm's screen" on one monitor, with another, easier-to-use VTT on the other monitor.
In FG, I have my notes, my NPC stats, tables, everything really, and it has become a very neat addition to our game for me as GM. In FG, I have my setting's own calendar, showing me the day (and if there's anything special that will occur that day); I have Quest with possible scenarios; Notes with reminders; tables for encounters and for quickly rolling up a new NPC mid-game; I can look up cross-linked rules much quicker than paging through the rulebooks; I have all my setting stuff organized and cross-linked for quick reference; it really serves well as a "Gm's assistant" / screen. The only thing (yet) it doesn't really do for me, is to be easy to use with other players (connection problems, no voice/video) or with my particular game system. And it looks like some of these things that stop me from making 100% use of FG will be in place with the next iteration (the FGU as it is called).

What I'm trying to say is that FG can still be of much use to you, if you can take a step back and see what it *can* do for you, instead of just focusing on what it can't do for you. This is pretty old software we're talking about, and FG has grown in popularity and with more people come more (and more varied) demands it can't possibly fulfill across the board right now. I wish I had the time and inclination to rebuild CoreRPG into a fully functional ruleset for our game, but I don't; yet FG has been important for my online games nonetheless :)

I really don't think you can "blame" FG for being English-language-centric, though. It's not like it's the developers' fault where they are from, or which language gives them the biggest market. It's like going to the LFGS and complain to them that the books they have for sale are in English (I'm aware it might be a little bit different in Germany where everything is translated).

As for buying FG to base your own ruleset on it, well, yeah that's a tough one. You will have to get into scripting and all that. But maybe it's worth it, if that's what you desire the most?

[Nylanfs]

Actually I believe the original programmers were Swedish (or were they from Norway). We should be glad it isn't in Swedish, or Norwegian.

[dulux-oz]

Actually I believe the original programmers were Swedish (or were they from Norway). We should be glad it isn't in Swedish, or Norwegian.

Ja!

[Ellspeth]

What are the benefits? For someone like me, with a disability that limits or makes impossible access to live games, we can play. I would never have discovered RPG's without a VTT like Fantasy Grounds.
So for me, the greatest benefit is it opens the hobby up to many who would never ever play otherwise.

[VoidByte]

Gutentag Void.
Ha! And a good Day to you Sir!


It looks like OP Mr. Void has come and gone, but if you're still reading this thread

I do, but today is Monday in Germany, so i had to work ;)
What does "OP" stands for?

@all
Thank you for your comments and explanations. I am a programmer (Ruby and C++). Thats what I do to pay my bills.
And thats the problem. I work 9 Hours/day programming backend systems. Then I come home to.. program even more?`
I mean, LUA is no complex language and easy to handle. So XML is a clear markup. BUT fantasy grounds has no clear structure.
It looks like every .pak is coded totally different. For example: 3.5E uses Moduls to include handbooks and other stuff.
5E has everything included in the .pak with code directly written in the XML files.
And the reference tell differend things how to work with files, because it was written when FG was 2.0.

It all ends up with a primitive trial and error method. Where i have to learn by failing. And I know, if the devs from FG would
spend 1 hour on their System, they could implement a simple "A1 + A2" system and noone needs to code everything from scratch.
It IS not that complicated for them to make. But they just dont want it.
My Problem is the time leak that it will bring to me, to learn and understand an Engine, that has no reference and no clear rules, in my bare free time.
I mean, the system is what it is. And it was a clear design decision by developers not to implement simple mathematics (maybe budget, maybe time.. what ever.. they just dont want it.)
I hope for changes in the upcoming Unity edition.

But so far.. my Ruleset contains over 1000 pages, most of this is handwritten (i told you, its very old stuff ^^). To bring this into FG will cost me month.
Programm everything up from scratch, started with the Character Sheets, and ending up with creating the whole automation for all classes, races, over 500 spells, implement over 370 items and so on will take years if
I have no clear path to follow because I never know what kind of XML to use and where to store scripts and why the "Database" is also just a simple XML file instead of an SQL.
Like Wolfheart said: The advertising for FG makes you feel that they bring a system wich made it easy to implement your own ruleset. But in fact it feels like: 1000 Hours Work for 10 Hours playing. .. I just misunderstood that advertising.

That is no whining nor critic. Its just the current state. No feelings.
But its also the reason why i will try to find some german speaking "The Dark Eye" or "Shadowrun" players here instead of starting to programm my own Fantasy Grounds inside of Fantasy Grounds.
(btw.. I loadet the Shadowrun stuff from the wiki linked forum posts.. and i was impressed how AWESOME someone realized it in FG. Hats off, mr. creator)

[Andraax]

What does "OP" stands for?

"Original Post"

[damned]

"Original Post"

Or Original Poster

Translating 1000 pages is going to take you months no matter what system you are porting it to!

To answer a couple of your queries (even though the system is probably not for you they may still be useful to the next person) -

All rulesets are .pak files and they do NOT contain data.
All modules are .mod files are they contain data in xml, jpg, png format.
All game/campaign content is stored in a flat file xml file called db.xml

Rulesets are probably more similar in design in many ways than they are not.
Everything *could* be put in files in different ways or even put into one giant xml+lua file.
There is a fairly consistent structure to most of the rulesets with combat tracker under /ct, character sheet and other windows under /campaign
In terms of how different things are implemented... every coder has preferences about how they achieve a particular thing so you might see several different ways of say rolling dice and you can use the ones that make the most sense to you. All the included rulesets and all the community rulesets can be opened up and examined.
The key thing to note is that most newer rulesets are layered on top of CoreRPG. The game engine loads, corerpg loads, 5e (example) loads and overwrites some corerpg code and adds 5e specific code, then any extensions you might have selected load and modify or add some features(s).
Looking at the 5e and 3.5e code is typically the best way to learn things.
Coding this box equals the sum of those two fields takes about 3 mins to do in code. Building a GUI or other interface to do this takes... well we dont know how long because its a big, big task and no one has done it...

The current owners and developers of F have owned the product for about half its lifetime and have made numerous upgrades along the way but many things are too hard to change from the original limitations/design or are not worth the coding effort on this game engine.

FGU will likely be more like FG3 than people think. The bulk of the initial FGU features will be engine/plumbing etc. Better networking, better graphics handling, better memory management. The rulesets will (likely) continue as they are now although with more options. There are some RAD type features that will hopefully not be too far behind but they are likely to be automation lite still...

[VoidByte]

Or Original Poster
To answer a couple of your queries (even though the system is probably not for you they may still be useful to the next person) -

All rulesets are .pak files and they do NOT contain data.
All modules are .mod files are they contain data in xml, jpg, png format.
All game/campaign content is stored in a flat file xml file called db.xml

Rulesets are probably more similar in design in many ways than they are not.

That is what i assumed as i was investigating 3.5E structure.
But if you open up the 5E campain, with a ultimate subscription you have the following modules:

DD 5E Basic Rules - Player
DD Basic Rules - DM
DD5E SRD Bestiary
DD5E SRD Data
DD5E SRD Magic Item
Calendars


except for Calendars none of these "modules" are in my "modules" folder. I have absolutely no idea, where these things come from. My only idea is, that all of this is stored in a xml file that i havent opened yet.

[dulux-oz]

No, there in a crytographically secured "vault" which we can't get access too :(

[Waldbaer]

But its also the reason why i will try to find some german speaking "The Dark Eye" or "Shadowrun" players here instead of starting to programm my own Fantasy Grounds inside of Fantasy Grounds.
(btw.. I loadet the Shadowrun stuff from the wiki linked forum posts.. and i was impressed how AWESOME someone realized it in FG. Hats off, mr. creator)

Da wäre ich interessiert :) Actually I do not plan any "Das Schwarze Auge" or Shadowrun events right now - but if you are also up for gaming and not only coding your ruleset with FG, than we should try to do a game together someday. Right now I do some English speaking rounds with 5e and was also looking for a native German speaking alternative. And as I do roleplaying for more than 20 years already, I have DMed and played both Shadowrun and Schwarze Auge already for a while...

Maybe see you soon in a game somwhere.

[damned]

As Dulux_Oz notes the Wizards DLC and then all DLC from that point onwards is stored in an encrypted vault.

The internal structure/content of these files is the same as other DLC content that is either hand written, or examples the 3.5SRD or the numerous community Pathfinder modules or content generated from /export etc. When I say *the same* I mean that loosely as the exact XML structure varies from ruleset to ruleset for many good and some not so good reasons.
So whilst you cannot view the 5E DLC you can get good examples of it.
See Zacchaeuss videos on creating new classes from within FG.
See kp9911s fantastic export tool
See the numerous posts on Par5e
See valeros basic rules parser
All of these will show you a lot about the content/structure of the 5E DLC
Of course you are not that interested in 5E but if you are digging in and want to see how these things work/look these resources will help.

[damned]

I do believe I missed one of your questions too...

You asked why data is not stored in a sql database.
I ask you - how many applications that are intended for use by non technical people install sql database engines as part of the application.
Whatever you gained in functionality you would lose in complexity and end user support.
The flat file db.xml works pretty well. Its easy to backup. Its easy to crack open and look at the innards.

[VoidByte]

I do believe I missed one of your questions too...

You asked why data is not stored in a sql database.
I ask you - how many applications that are intended for use by non technical people install sql database engines as part of the application.
Whatever you gained in functionality you would lose in complexity and end user support.
The flat file db.xml works pretty well. Its easy to backup. Its easy to crack open and look at the innards.

Believe me... they already lost the fight against complexity 5 years ago. It was lost before they started it. No DRY (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself) approach (they repeat one and the same function 10000 times in each table instead of making a host function and call the term as an argument), Nor any kind of MVC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model%E2%80%93view%E2%80%93controller) (Code in codefiles, design in codefiles, code in tables and sheets.. you find everything everywhere everytime) and no usefull state of the art documentation.

Don't get me wrong, I definitly DO NOT want to blame anyone. Because no matter of style, they made a great product that makes people happy around the world. And that's the most important part.
But from a programmer perspective... It does not look like that they intend that somebody looks at the code.



See Zacchaeuss videos on creating new classes from within FG.

Would love to. He is a cool dude. But he only makes 720p videos and that means I cant read anything hes doing on screen. Wich leads into headache.



See kp9911s fantastic export tool
See the numerous posts on Par5e
See valeros basic rules parser

I would appreciate some links, if you have them close.

Thank you anyways for the time you spent to convince me :D

[damned]

hah - Im not trying to convert you. Im not sure this is the right product for you :)

as mentioned earlier (in this thread I hope) the current owners and developers bought this product half way through its life.
it has engine limitations but also has some early design decisions that later on proved to be less optimal but are hard to justify the effort in unpicking.

im not a programmer - im a rude and ugly hack and i make lots of mistakes getting to where im going so im not qualified to argue with you and even if i was you may well be correct.
but putting things in perspective this is a small company with limited resources and the knowledge they have is the knowledge they have.
developers in bigger teams can focus on smaller things and do them better and they are both exposed to and forced to code to better standards and doco.
the vast bulk of this product is coded by 1.5 developers so things that dont necessarily make good sense from a coding perspective are sound and logical from a resourcing perspective - where do you spend your finite resource (coding hours) most effectively.
In the last 2 or 3 years the product has grown its user base substantially and has added resources.
However the port to and design of the next generation engine and product is a huge project and one that consumes all the new resources and then some.

So I guess there are probably many reasons why things are done this way and not some other way and some will be good reasons and some probably arent and most are just what they are :)

btw: this is all just my thoughts and opinions based on what I see here and could be complete fairy dust. i personally think that despite less than optimal documentation the code is very accessible and not that hard to follow and the developers are active here in the community and chime in when needed.

links to follow.

[damned]

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21835-D-amp-D-Basic-Rules-PDF-Parser
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?30560-Fantasy-Grounds-5E-Parser
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27297-Par5e seems Par5e is no longer available to download