Absolute Beginner with FG

[Vellian]

OK, I am one of the old school table top gamers, probably way older than most of you. Computer literate, but impatient, even when I was not this old. I am looking to use FG to re-connect with friends now spread out across the country. I am willing to buy the lifetime membership and host my friends who would most likely be on free level accounts. What is the most cost-efficient way to get into this and have access to content? It seems that I can buy Paizo/Pathfinder content and have that cost applied to my F-Grounds membership and I saw in the forums where you can get the Humble Bundle with tons of Paizo content for $25. If someone could help me with what you need to buy and pay related to fantasy grounds vs what you need to buy from publishers to have content available for the game, it would help me a lot. Also I think I see a potential issue down the road if I have to have my F-Grounds DM account open for someone to look at anything in the game, or modify a character. That seems awkward.
Appreciate any advice and thanks in advance.

[Zacchaeus]

Hi Vellian, welcome to FG. I can't advise much on the PF stuff since I don't know much about it, but what I can say is that if your players are all on demo accounts then you'll need the Ultimate license for Fantasy Grounds, either the one off payment or the subscription. Furthermore players can only connect to your game when you have Fantasy Grounds running. They can view their characters in Manage Characters when you are not on line and can to some extent edit them. But such things are best done when your players are joined to your game.

[LordEntrails]

So the first thing is you want the ultimate license. If you are going to be playing for a year or more, you probably want the one time license. Though you could go with a subscription if you want to continue to support SW on an ongoing basis. Note that their is a 30 day refund so you can get it and test it and get a refund if it doesn't work out for you (but I'm sure it will).

If you buy the Humble Bundle, you will end up with 11 of those items that will get you discounts on the FG versions of the products (I think each one of those is worth $9.99, but not sure). Which of those 11, or other things, you will want I really don't know. A big part is if you are going to be running an AP that is available on FG or make your own homebrew or what.

[Vellian]

Thanks guys. We have decided as a group to buy the $3.99 level accounts and give it a test run for a month. THANKS for the advice.
V.

[Nylanfs]

Welcome aboard, Let us know what everyone thinks at the end of the month.

Also note there is a 4 for 3 pack in Steam. So one person that doesn't already have a license can buy that, hand out the 3 extra ones and everyone reimburse him for their share.