New User Questions

[Cupp]

Howdy

Potential new user here, however, and even after hours of videos on youtube (most seemed geared to DMing), I still have some question about the basic functionality of the software. Hopefully someone can help me.
Without further ado, here are some questions:

1st - How friendly is the community to non-native English speakers? I'm European and speak English as a 2nd language.
2nd - How friendly is the community to new users? I have watched hours and hours of tutorials and I think I have a grasp on the software, but I'm worried I will still stumble around for the first few months, possibly holding up sessions.
3th - From my understanding, FG is, basically, a DM help tool with a heavy emphasis on maps and tokens. I have RP for years and never used maps or tokens (not much of a D&D player). What is the main functionality of FG for games that aren't as reliant on maps and tokens as D&D?
4th - Of the supported systems, the one I'm most familiar is Call of Cthulhu. What is included when I buy a Call of Cthulhu adventure in FG? Just the encounters and the stats or do I get a pdf?
5th - How will FG function for homemade campaigns with an emphasis on improvisation?

I apologize in advance for what, I'm sure, are some pretty basic questions. After hours of tutorials, I know how setup encounters, how to assign loot, how the combat tracker works, but have no idea if we get a pdf of the book when buying in on FG or not.

[Valyar]

Hello Cupp and welcome to the forums.

1. As fellow European and non-native speaker I would say very friendly. I haven't felt any bias towards that :)
2. Quite friendly. The people on the forums take time to answer and explain things and Fantasy Grounds College is also available to welcome and teach new users how to use the product.
3. The FG is excellent in allowing you to immerse into the game even if you don't use miniatures for combat. The themes of a ruleset and the way character sheets are organized for many systems facilitates this quite well. You can share images, for example, to support the narrative, use the chat for in/out game talk and have "theater of mind" combat with the same quality as in face to face games. In this case the FG is your diceroller.
4. As newcomer to the CoC, I would say the ruleset is fantastic. Damned and ianmward made fantastic job both in theme and functionality. You have support for chasing in the combat tracker (visual marks), easy way to handle skill rolls of different difficulties, assign bonus, penalty dices and make impale rolls for damage. In the ruleset you have everything in Keeper's handbook, including the 2 adventures that come with it. Adventure modules include everything from the adventure (text, images, encounters, chases) and those are imported in easy to use ways - Encounters and chases are drag and drop in the combat tracker, NPCs with their stats, all story entries organized in logical way with links between them for the GM to follow.
5. With the same east as with pre-made adventures. The ruleset provides the dice mechanics and like on table top game - sometimes this is all you need. It is also easy during the game to add images and maps, or share URLs to such resources in the chat.

I am quite brief, compared to other fellows here :)

[LordEntrails]

Welcome to FG and the community. No need to apologize, we appreciate you've done research on FG and still have questions and are glad to answer them.

I think we are very friendly, both to non-native English speakers and to new users. I've never seen anyone complain about anyone's grammar not being great. Sometimes it may mean we miss understand each other, but the default assumption is people are genuine and so we generally don't get upset with each other.

FG is really good for GMs, but it also works pretty well, in my opinion, for players too.

FG works well for theater of the mind types of role-playing as well. There are actually some threads around here with ToTM types of images for helping keeping track of things too. Without maps, FG can handle the die rolling, character sheets, stories and reference material (handouts, encyclopedia type of info on your setting, the rules, etc).

I'll have to let someone else answer about Call of Cthulu, I've never played it.

For improvisation campaigns, what do you keep track of when you play? What do you use when you play? A character sheet, die rolls, and reference material? FG will do great for all of that. Is there something else you might want/need?

Finally, You'll probably want to look at MoreCore Ruleset, it's a community ruleset that is free and is pretty flexible.

[damned]

hola Cupp

1. Everyone is welcome here providing a degree of civility and courteousness is used. This forum is very heavily skewed to English speakers though. For many reasons non English speakers who use FG still tend to use dites that are in their native languages more than they do this site.
2. New users are also welcome - particularly those that put in some effort of their own to get familiar with the system
3. FG has a heavy emphasis on the Character Sheet and Combat Tracker - more so than the battle map - in my opinion. People do however like maps in most cases! I have run whole sessions without the use of any maps or images and I often play systems that are more story/narrative oriented.
4. You need to buy the Ruleset as well to make the most of the product. There is no included PDF with most FG products (licensing) but most newer products really dont need the PDF (except for its portability).
5. FG is very easy to add your own stats, maps and content into. For a long time there was very little DLC available on FG. Now you have the best of both - lots of content in store and the ability to easily add yourself.

[dulux-oz]

Hi Cupp, and Welcome! to the Community,

Let me add this to what everyone else has said (so far) - In relation to the Playing of RPGs with FG, 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). I know you've said you've watched a lot of vids, but I like to think mine focus on the Players as well as the GM. Of course, if you have watched mine already then disregard what I've just said. :)

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 (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?31369-DOE-Sound-Extension), DOE: Locations (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?20794-DOE-Locations-Extension), DOE: Weather (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22142-DOE-Weather-Extension) and DOE: Organisations (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27169-DOE-Organisations-Extension) Extensions (to name a but a few - and a Shameless™ Self Plug).

You may also want to drop into the FG College (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?40020-Join-Fantasy-Grounds-College-Learn-Fantasy-Grounds-learn-D-amp-D-and-then-play!); a great place for newcomers to get started.

And of course, there's plenty of Twitch Channels where you can watch games in progress (including my own - https://www.twitch.tv/dulux_oz - another Shameless™ Self Plug).

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

Cheers

[Cupp]

Howdy

Thanks Valyar, LordEntrails, damned and dulux-oz, for all the replies. You convinced me. I just bought the Fantasy Grounds license on Steam and will set it up tomorrow.

Two more questions:
1st - Since I bought the license on Steam do I have to buy the books from Steam from now on?
2nd - Do players need the books in FG or only the Keeper? For example, I already own Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, do I need to buy it in FG to play it?


And I will sure check your tutorials dulux-oz.

[Valyar]

1st - Since I bought the license on Steam do I have to buy the books from Steam from now on?
2nd - Do players need the books in FG or only the Keeper? For example, I already own Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, do I need to buy it in FG to play it?

1. You are not obliged to use Steam when you buy modules. Either FG store or Steam. You must sync accounts between FG and Steam though. If you wanna buy a bundle, you must buy all components of a bundle from one of the stores, can't mix and match.
2. Players don't need to buy anything to play with you in FG - GM can share all resources and modules that player's need.

For CoC - yes, you need to buy the CoC 7e ruleset for FG, no matter that you own the PDFs or hardcovers from Chaosium (like I do). The ruleset contains all the data from Keeper's Handbook and can be shared with your players so they do characters and drag items. If you want extra immersion and content for the players, purchase the Investigator handbook module and share this instead. It is having exactly the same content as the hardcover, and extra occupations.

There is a module and extention you really want to have for CoC games:
Items mod: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?40896-Adding-Items-to-Investigators
Expandable NPC sheet: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?35672-Call-of-Cthulhu-7E-ruleset&p=393398&viewfull=1#post393398

The second is must-have, as it will allow you to resize horizontally the NPC sheets, saving the pain and agony of scrolling with the mouse (the little rodent will be thankful as well!).

[Nylanfs]

Due note that if there is a bundle pricing option for your game system you need to keep all your purchases in one place. The DLC can't be tracked across the stores. Also the best reason to use Steam is for the regional pricing. Otherwise we'd reccomend using the webstore because Valve doesn't get a cut of the profits and more goes to Smiteworks.

[backwardoracle]

The Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition rule set, will make things a lot easier to run games & contains 2 modules converted to fantasy grounds, with no additional material.

[Cupp]

Howdy

Nylanfs: I didn't consider that and unfortunately I already bought the license on Steam. I think it was cheaper, if memory serves me, it was around 29€ while in the Fantasy Grounds website it was around 31, but it might have been in $.

Valyar&backwardoracle: I wasn't planning on GMing Call of Cthulhu. I played Call of Cthulhu extensively, but never GMed it before. Games I have GMed are not supported by FGs and include: Aberrant, Brave New World, Trinity, Vampire the Masquerade and Werewolf the Apocalypse. It doesn't mean I won't try to GM CoC in the future, but I think I should have few months of experience with the software first.

[LordEntrails]

$31 is the Current sale price for the standard license on the FG Store. The equivalent in Euros will be dependent upon PayPals exchange rate.

Note that it's the DLC that you need to buy from a single location if you want the bundle discounts. You can buy the license from Steam and then buy the DLC from the FG store as desired.

[Cupp]

Howdy dulux-oz

I finished your A series tutorials. Very informative:)
I was left with two questions. First, can we delete the original data folder after created the new data folder? Second, we still need to move the characters to the original folder if we wish to use them, right?

Thanks!

[dulux-oz]

Howdy dulux-oz

I finished your A series tutorials. Very informative:)
I was left with two questions. First, can we delete the original data folder after created the new data folder? Second, we still need to move the characters to the original folder if we wish to use them, right?

Thanks!

Yes.
No, you don't need to move the characters back - once you change the data folder its changed :)

[JFKWASAFK]

I have a question. With the Ultimate license, is there a way to host a game and hand over the GM privileges over to someone else?

[LordEntrails]

I have a question. With the Ultimate license, is there a way to host a game and hand over the GM privileges over to someone else?
Welcome to the forums.

No their is not. If the ideo is important to you, you can vote on the request here; https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=40882

[Skillkoil]

Cupp welcome to the forums! As Delux said if you ever need help with anything we would be happy to have you at FG College. We have many volunteers who teach classes on everything from character creation to combat or DMing & Module Creation! It is a very welcoming community with people from all over the world. If you wish to check it out there is a link in my signature.

Happy Gaming!