Difference between Local Characters and Server Characters

[BigDaddyinFL]

Hello All,

My son and I have recently started playing using the 5e ruleset. He created a character and I was able to import him into a campaign that we played for a few hours. When we finished we noticed that when he went into manage characters he had his original character but there was also a server character. The server character had everything he gained during the campaign, but the local character did not. Does he have to manually add all of the stuff he got during the campaign in order to manage his character when offline (not connected to the campaign)?

He lives in Maryland and I'm in Florida so being able to manage his most current character when I'm not online is pretty important to him. Is there a way to sync the two characters when we finish a night of gaming?

Also, if there's any dungeons he can participate in he'd love that. He has a standard license for now. I'm just as new as he is, but have less time on my hands so playing with an experience DM would be a thrill for him.

Thanks in advance for any insight or help you can give me?

Michael

[Trenloe]

Welcome to the forums.

Local characters are stored on the computer of the player. Server characters are stored on the GM side - within the campaign.

If you're playing in a campaign the server character is the most up-to-date information. The local character doesn't get updated - the data remains at the point when the PC was uploaded from local to the GM (server).

It is recommended that for campaign play the players connect to the GM to do any PC maintenance.

However, sometimes connecting to the GM is not always possible. So, you can access a read-only copy of the PC in the campaign cache on the player computer - but, this is in the state it was when they last disconnected from the GM. So, if the GM does any admin on the PCs, it might not represent the most current data on the PC in the campaign - so keep this in mind. The read only version is accessed by the player through Manage Characters - selecting the campaign from the bottom window. The player can then export the PC XML and load that back into the local character store (Manage Characters -> Select ruleset). Then they can edit/maintain the PC. The gotcha here is that they will be manually uploading a new PC to the GM's campaign when they next join - so the old PC in the campaign will need to be removed. Hence why it's best to do PC admin while connected to the GM.

[LordEntrails]

As for other games he might be able to join, checkout the LFG forum, https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?40-LFG-Looking-for-Group

Look through the games there and see if any might work. He can also post there as well. Finally, their is the game calendar system, where you can look for games, but you have to be aware that the games there are listed at UTC and not local times, plus people are not always good about updating it when their games are full or dead. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/gamecalendar/dashboard.php

[BigDaddyinFL]

Thank you so much for the helpful answers