Need roleplaying "Theater of the mind" walk thru using FG

[StylinLP38]

Ive been watching YouTube for 2 weeks on people showing FG and how to use it. Including most the FG tutorials. I see that there is a forum for Old D&D and C&C but I do not see anything on how to use FG to play without the automation. The reason I do not want automation is that there is none for AD&D. Also, it is rather limited forcing people to use the battemaps and tokens which breaks rp immersion. I know it has been suggest a lot on many threads that you can do this. For example to use FG manually when FG does not have automation for a certain function. ie: range combat.

Is there a video or post on not only How To but showing an example of using FG to play older editions and D&D with more "Theater of the mind" style roleplaying? How to use FG without anything besides:

1. Character sheet
2. Dice
3. Artwork photo sketch's maps
4. Basic maps to RP off of. Not use for tactical combat management.

[LordEntrails]

Hmm, good question. Though I've used TotM often in FG, I don't think anyone has ever given guidance on how to do it...

Thought the audio is not very good on this, this video is just using CoreRPG, so very little automation. Not sure if you've looked at it yet; https://youtu.be/LuIQgasy42g

Anyway, based on what I've done (playing Star Frontiers with CoreRPG) create the character sheet, and then just each player manually adjust things like HP when needed. Roll for attacks, and tell the result and the player or GM can say hit or miss, then roll damage and it gets manually applied to the character or NPC sheet as needed.

You can setup rolls as desired, or you can just pick up the dice and roll them in chat, or you can use the "/die nd#+x" type command in chat. Artwork just gets added by the GM, then shared to the players when desired.

There are a couple of TotM combat map threads around here somewhere, they basically just are used to indicate melee, short, long range type of placements.

Finally, note that their are 2 community rulesets for AD&D, both have at least some automation, if you want it.

[Andraax]

Finally, note that their are 2 community rulesets for AD&D, both have at least some automation, if you want it.

And even if there is automation, you're not forced to use it.

[midas]

If you want to do AD&D you will need a character sheet built to display that information. You could try looking here at the AD&D ruleset built by one of our community members (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?36009-AD-amp-D-Ruleset) or possibly the OSRIC ruleset (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Ruleset:_OSRIC).

As for the rest, no automation is forced. You can pick up dice and drop them in chat to roll them just as you'd roll them at a table. Maps don't have to have grids; anything in your campaign's images folder can be loaded up to use however you like.

[StylinLP38]

Thank you for the responses. I do know all that you guys have mentioned and right now watching the youtube video on "Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop - CoreRPG Walkthrough". But I asked if there was a video on someone showing an example of playing this way. Soemtimes, the simplest things are not that obvious.

[LordEntrails]

I get it. I don't know of any videos like that. I can say eventually our Star Frontiers group is going to stream and we play mostly TotM, but until that happens (might be a few weeks) not sure what to say :(

[StylinLP38]

The "Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop - CoreRPG Walkthrough" is helping some. It does make me ask more questions as well.

[Andraax]

Theater of the Mind playing using FG is just like when you do it face to face, except you're not in the same room. FG is your table.

[Targas]

Some RPGs are more suited for Theatre of the Mind gaming, then others. E.g. Pathfinder is very rule intensive, with strategical combat and dozens of rulebook extensions, where 13th Age is the opposite and I‘ve even played a chatbased adventure with it during summer vacation for a month. There is a 13th Age ruleset available for FG I‘ll start using beginning of October with a group of 5 players (all in geman).

13th Age btw. is the evolution of AD&D 3rd and 4th Edition, because it was designed by the lead developers of those systems, who quit with former companies to be free implementing the rules as they like, without the bounds of Companies telling them what to do.
Read ‚What killed Dungeons & Dragons‘ if you wish, describing 13th Age:
https://rlyehreviews.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-killed-dungeons-dragons.html

I only use ‚Battlemaps‘ for it to ‚set the scene‘, describing who‘s next which encounter, that‘s it. 13th Age doesn‘t care much about counting feet distance. It‘s either you are enganged in melee, in reach of nearby encounters, or using ranged attacks. Hey, that‘s like 1st Edition.. :-)

There‘s a video of ‚Saving Throw‘ playing a demo of 13th Age, using TotM style:
https://youtu.be/7I-o9w5Gy_0

[damned]

Still add everything to the Combat Tracker.
You can describe the room, setting or whatever and the players can describe what they are doing.
When they do attack someone have them attack on the Combat Tracker.

As to ToTM - it is not a single size fits all.
I often use a partial ToTM that does include an image/map.
It is usually a scene/photo/drawing rather than a map - and it helps set the scene and the description without being overly specific about locations of everyone/thing.

[ProfDogg]

I frequently use TotM in combat for my 5e and SW games. Sometimes I'll drop a backdrop image so the PCs can put tokens down and then I can also drop NPC tokens to show the number of enemies and such left. But then I just narrate the events and provide approximations of distance and such. I'll describe a move as a "quick dash can get you there to be able to swing" or "you'll need to run all-out to arrive and you'll be too out of breath to attack" and such. If a PC makes a reasonable argument that they're should be flanking I usually give it. The players can either drop dice on the tokens or they can do it in the chat box and then I'll just manually calculate everything as it comes up.

Here's my most recent battle scene:

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[StylinLP38]

That is a great idea! The battle map is just a graphic photo or a scene and not an actual battlemap. I never thought of that.