Why FG and not a MMO?

[greentongue]

Since you are using FG to connect online anyway, and in theory the MMOs adventures are created and run by professionals, why use FG?

Why deal with the potentially lower quality adventures, the flaky players / GMs and not just join a MMO?

What does FG offer to you that MMOs don't??

[Nylanfs]

Non scripted adventures, near total freedom do go where the group wants.

[Xemit]

FG is a tool for remote playing or automation of RPGs. An MMO is only about 30% of what an RPG offers.

Flaky players happen everywhere. In an RPG, the group can pick who is in the game, there by eliminating the game spoilers in fairly short order. In an MMO, you are at the continued mercy of flaky players every time you play.

I haven't yet run into a flaky player in an RPG, but in MMOs, I run into some on every session.

The RPGs allow for complete customization of the adventure(s). Players invest a lot more of themselves in the generation of their character and then again in the role playing of that character. Many will spend many hundreds of hours as that character. The GM can intermix different campaigns as needed and the story need not ever have an ending.

The MMO is for quick and dirty playing. You rarely get involved in the story line beyond the tightly scripted scenario. After playing for 40 hours or so , you're done the story. Generate a new character and play the same story again. Or just wander about and kill anything you find...

They are two very different types of game play. I play both.

[JohnD]

What does FG offer to you that MMOs don't??

Everything.

[Trenloe]

The question really is not what FG offers over an MMO, but what do pen-n-paper RPGs offer over MMOs? FG just facilities playing pen-n-paper RPGs in a virtual environment, it's not a game in itself.

[greentongue]

The question really is not what FG offers over an MMO, but what do pen-n-paper RPGs offer over MMOs? FG just facilities playing pen-n-paper RPGs in a virtual environment, it's not a game in itself.

I get that. It is just that you are getting much closer to an MMO by the online aspect.
So, to me, it begged the question.

What the MMO offers is the ease of finding people to play with that FG doesn't make much easier.
Yeah, if you already know people and can convince them to purchase the software, then you have a way to connect with people that are travel limited.

Having the requirement to do forward porting when that is not always an option, ISP locks access, it means you are back to meeting physically and lose the remote advantage anyway.

The already small pool of people to GM games is further reduced by them needing a PC and the software.
That it makes the actual play easier does help in convincing but creating new content isn't.

The trade offs do need to be considered.

[Zomnivore]

More cost effective. People aren't profit motivated unless they're paid DMs and even then, they're not milking you for micro transactions and play time. They're giving you an experience you can't get anywhere else.

If you like mmos that's fine, but they're different genres.

[celestian]

I get that. It is just that you are getting much closer to an MMO by the online aspect.
So, to me, it begged the question.

What the MMO offers is the ease of finding people to play with that FG doesn't make much easier.
Yeah, if you already know people and can convince them to purchase the software, then you have a way to connect with people that are travel limited.

Having the requirement to do forward porting when that is not always an option, ISP locks access, it means you are back to meeting physically and lose the remote advantage anyway.

The already small pool of people to GM games is further reduced by them needing a PC and the software.
That it makes the actual play easier does help in convincing but creating new content isn't.

The trade offs do need to be considered.

The ONLY reason I've played MMOs is because I couldn't play D&D at the same time.

MMOs are the methadone of RPGs. They really don't do much and are a very poor substitute.

MMOs are all about limits while tabletop RPGs (at least the ones I play) are about complete freedom.

[chrisnhurd]

Why eat oranges when apples are less messy and easier to peel?

[JohnD]

I'll admit to being a little confused as to why this is even a question.

If the OP likes MMOs, those are what he should play. If he likes table top games, Fantasy Grounds is something to consider.

The two are completely different things.

[greentongue]

I'll admit to being a little confused as to why this is even a question.

If the OP likes MMOs, those are what he should play. If he likes table top games, Fantasy Grounds is something to consider.

The two are completely different things.

I like the concept of table top RPG but the free time I had as a kid is no longer available.
I've played MMOs and it is great to be able to game with people again but there is always the "I would have don't that different if there was an option for it.".
With some of the new RPG where you can only do/try what your character has skills for, it feels almost as restrictive.

Maybe I just haven't found the resources where people willing to play One-Shot games "now" hang out and that would make a huge difference in actual play time.

[Mirloc]

Since you are using FG to connect online anyway, and in theory the MMOs adventures are created and run by professionals, why use FG?

Why deal with the potentially lower quality adventures, the flaky players / GMs and not just join a MMO?

What does FG offer to you that MMOs don't??

I can help out with this relatively plainly, and let's start at the end.

Fantasy Grounds allows you to provide literally endless hours of imagination driven gaming. Traditionally MMOs are the McDonalds of fantasy role playing (don't get me wrong, I played as much - or more - MMOs than many), they are good but there is so much better out there.

Quests: MMO quests literally can be broken down into one of the following:
1. Kill - Go out and slay x number of y creatures.
2. Escort - Protect an NPC as it wanders through several pre-set ambushes.
3. Defend - Protect NPCs/Area as several waves of creatures attack you.
4. Gather - Pick up x number of y objects and return them to the NPC.
5. Delivery - Take x item from y NPC to z NPC.
6. Interaction - Typically uses an emote targeting an NPC.

That's it. The reason? They are easy to program. All quests in MMOs are either directly one of these 6 or are combinations "Go out and kill 7 wolves and return to me with 3 perfect pelts." Kill + Gather. It's easy, it's simple and that's why MMO questing gets boring. Every find yourself playing an alt and thinking you'd done this dozens of times before? You have.

I can dream up a quest that on it's surface sounds like a standard MMO quest, but involves role-play and cooperation that is impossible to program and as such the MMO will fall short every time. That note you need to find by killing off random bandits? I guarantee the players in my game find it when they need to find it to move the overall story along. Plus the exact same adventure hooks will play out differently with different players, one group will be murder hobos (there's always a group like that), and the next will be tactical in nature thinking through and plotting out rather than killing and rummaging through the belongings of every NPC in the world.

Fantasy Grounds is a medium to allow the players and GM/DM/Storyteller/etc to meet up and play not EverQuest or World of Warcraft or whatever MMO you want to play, but literally ANY game system including your own made up one.

Why deal with potentially lower quality adventures? Even reading a module straight from the book will still outperform even the best written MMO quest arcs in imagination and replay-ability.

Flaky Players/GM? Have you actually played MMOs? They are FULL of flaky players. :)

While quests are written by professionals (in that they are paid to fill in the variables with a number and a name) there are no new quests, just new models and different numbers. My warrior and your wizard will perform the exact same quests and receive pretty much the exact same reward (x gold y piece of equipment).

I do hope this answers your questions.

[Zomnivore]

What you're really asking but not getting at is.

Why a table top or virtual table top rpg, over a computer rpg.

Essentially its a trade off.

Costs a lot less to use your imagination and some simple rules, to get an effect that is essentially priceless. You can't simulate a world a human brain can imagine yet, in a video game without spending millions of dollars for only one iteration of an idea.

The trade off being you get a very immersive visually stimulating and tightly written game if things go well vrs the live performance of a bunch of players at the table.

We spend our time together over a game of D&D or w/e game because we like the social aspect but also because we like the game, and the format. Why read books when you can write them? Well its a different experience, you might like reading, and not writing or both or only vice versa.

[JohnD]

I like the concept of table top RPG but the free time I had as a kid is no longer available.
I've played MMOs and it is great to be able to game with people again but there is always the "I would have don't that different if there was an option for it.".
With some of the new RPG where you can only do/try what your character has skills for, it feels almost as restrictive.

Maybe I just haven't found the resources where people willing to play One-Shot games "now" hang out and that would make a huge difference in actual play time.

So this is completely different from your initial question. If you truly don't know how a table top game with real people and a real GM is different from canned settings and bland rinse and repeat quests in a MMO, then maybe your first step should be to find a game to join.

Ah... but you don't have the time you say. Well, there's lots of people who don't have the time to meet face-to-face these days... hence the popularity of Fantasy Grounds at least in part. You can't get any more convenient than never having to leave your residence to game (although the way things are these days... even that fails to allow attendance in a game for us all from time to time).

Regardless, pick up games in this hobby rarely spontaneously self combust into being at the drop of a hat, regardless of the method you're using to play. Almost every game session, even a one-off game, will need some advance planning, notice and communication between the GM and the players.

If you really are that over committed everywhere else, it seems likely that your best bet for scratching the RPG itch might be a game like Neverwinter Nights or the Baldur's Gate series of games, which are "older" but still great to play.

[Zomnivore]

Technically all we need to play D&D is a multi line phone conversation. And an agreed upon set of rules. Its as simple and basic as pretend or as complex as critical role or any other high production performance by highly trained professionals with a goal towards entertaining an audience instead of eachother.

I love playing D&D because its a game, and a stage to act out my fantasies IN a living breathing fantasy world of someones imagination. Its a great game, and a nice way to bond with the other performers/players.

If you're going to state that an MMO is better because its made by professionals I would recommend you look at wikipedia and question whether or not you need to be a professional to contribute meaningfully to society.

[LordEntrails]

As for time/availability...

Playing an RPG doesn't require large time commitments. For instance I run a weekly game that is only 2 hours long on a Wednesday night. It does require reliability, and a work night does that for us (unlike a weekend where we often have different things at irregular times).

If reliability is your challenge, their are several open table / West Marches style games you can get in on that are basically first come first served with different players each time.

[GavinRuneblade]

Since you are using FG to connect online anyway, and in theory the MMOs adventures are created and run by professionals, why use FG?

Why deal with the potentially lower quality adventures, the flaky players / GMs and not just join a MMO? Most roleplaying games are made by professionals too. Most MMOs today are decidedly unprofessional and unoriginal copies of earlier MMOs that are copies of tabletop DND.


What does FG offer to you that MMOs don't??
In an MMO everyone plays the exact same story every single time. they are grindy and you even repeat the exact same dungeon with the exact same enemies over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, etc. Your goal is to copy the same moves/rotation that are determined to be the most optimal damage per second as every other person with the same character class. You copy the same boss mechanics as every other team. Indeed, you try to get the timing down to less than seconds, to individual frames in some cases. There is no creativity, no originality, no story. There is only grind and repetition. It is a hamster wheel of improving gearscore at the cost of time invested.

In an RPG you actually tell a story and no two tables ever tell it the same. While some people do copy optimized builds, their players run them differently, use different histories, make different decisions, even when playing the same adventure. DMs adlib and create new scenes that no other table gets to experience even if another group plays the same adventure run by the same DM. Because the story is a group event created by everyone at the table and the luck of the dice change things in ways no MMO pseudo random number generator ever can. A lucky skill roll can let my group talk their way past the guards that you had to kill. A skilled wizard can use magic to win a battle quickly and easily while another group barely survives and has to retreat to avoid wiping, only to return and find the defenses renewed and strengthened.

MMOs are worlds trapped in stasis. Nothing ever changes except during an expansion. If you kill the boss of an instance the world isn't changed, the boss just respawns. If you die, you and your whole team respawn and try again. You can walk in circles and kill the same mobs dozens of thousands of times and the area will never become depopulated. Your character is meaningless. Nothing you do matters. If the story wants you to be the savior, then there are millions of "saviors" because every other player of the MMO is the savior too. If you are the king of the realm, so am I and so is he and so is she and so are they. We're all the king of the same kingdom at the same time and we're all teamed up with each other too.

In an RPG, your story is your story. When the boss dies they don't come back and the world is changed. If one player in the group is the savior then none of the others are, and if that player dies the campaign is probably over. Some games allow effects like raise dead. Some don't. Some make raise dead have a cost, or change the character because of the near-death experience. If you're the king, then I'm not.

MMOs are consuming that which someone else created. RPGs are an act of co-creation. One is cooking and one is eating. The two experiences are absolutely not similar at all.


The already small pool of people to GM games is further reduced by them needing a PC and the software.
That it makes the actual play easier does help in convincing but creating new content isn't.
No. No. and also No.

The only limit is players refuse to learn to GM then complain there aren't enough GMs. Every player who wants a game but can't find a GM has the ability to solve their own problem: become the GM.

And not everyone needs a license and PC. When I first started using FG I didn't have a license, my friend did. I ran the game narratively and he moved stuff around as I dictated. Later on I got my own license. The two games I GM currently, neither one has every player owning their own PC and license. In one game a brother and sister have one setup and three people have a second, and a third person is usually solo but sometimes he has a friend join in. So 7 players 3 computers. There are whole threads and videos of people who have setup FG to be their physical game table: 1 PC, 1 license, everyone plays.

Creating new content is easier electronically than on pen and paper. I say this as a GM who has been playing DND since before I knew how to read and write (I was taught by my babysitters while in pre-school, twins named Rod and Chad to whom I shall always be thankful) and who has been making original content since I started GMing in second grade. Gaming has been my life for as long as I can remember. I stopped using tools like campfire and Obsidian Portal and physical notebooks once I got comfortable with fantasy grounds because it is faster and easier. I do mass content generation in Word via dictation, then copy/paste to story entries in FG. NPC stat blocks, magic items, encounters, treasure parcels, etc the FG tools are so easy there is no comparison. There is a learning curve, but it is like the difference between a car and walking. Everyone can walk, not everyone learns to drive, but for those who do invest the time cars are faster, travel farther, and cary more weight.

[greentongue]

Most roleplaying games are made by professionals too. Most MMOs today are decidedly unprofessional and unoriginal copies of earlier MMOs that are copies of tabletop DND.


In an MMO everyone plays the exact same story every single time. they are grindy and you even repeat the exact same dungeon with the exact same enemies over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, etc. Your goal is to copy the same moves/rotation that are determined to be the most optimal damage per second as every other person with the same character class. You copy the same boss mechanics as every other team. Indeed, you try to get the timing down to less than seconds, to individual frames in some cases. There is no creativity, no originality, no story. There is only grind and repetition. It is a hamster wheel of improving gearscore at the cost of time invested.


If you look at the LFP / LFG you will see that many / most are the same prepackaged adventures. While they may play out differently, the rails are embedded in the content.
There are sites that are specifically about min/maxing your character,

I'm not saying that it can't be different, just that the odds are not in favor of that.

I got into RPGs for the option to do it "the other way" and playing a MMO for the first time can be enjoyable. Unfortunately, the farther you go the more "optimized" your character needs to be and the more obvious the limited options become.

[notrealdan]

If you look at the LFP / LFG you will see that many / most are the same prepackaged adventures. While they may play out differently, the rails are embedded in the content.


In a table-top RPG with published modules (using FG or not), the "rails" are a vague guide, but can be ignored completely. If the players want to go in a completely different direction or throw away the story altogether, the only limiting factor is the imagination of the DM. The DM can and should improvise new story elements on-the-fly. In an MMO, this is impossible. Everything is pre-programmed and must play out the same every time, with only some very limited, pre-programmed variations. While I'm sure the MMO programmers and designers are very creative people, they cannot be actively creating new content on-the-fly for every group of characters in the moment while they're playing. Improvisation is a huge part of what a good DM does. If your table-top DM is sticking strictly to the "rails" of a published adventure and not allowing deviation from that pre-written story, I'd strongly suggest finding a new DM.


Why deal with the potentially lower quality adventures, the flaky players / GMs and not just join a MMO?

Potentially lower-quality? I think this shows that you miss the point of table-top RPGs. What's the measure of quality of an adventure? It's not a show or a demonstration of graphical prowess. I think if you ask most VTT RPG players, that measure has nothing to do with what's displayed on the screen. It's about how enthralling and exciting and moving the story is that the group creates in real-time and tells together. Any visual elements (maps, handouts, portraits, etc.) shown in FG are guides to spark the imagination and technical tools to keep combat layout clear. The real action happens in each person's imagination. The mind's eye is waaaaaayyyyy better than any computer's graphics card and ALWAYS will be.

An MMO is a video game and has very little to do with table-top RPGs. I grew up playing and loving video games, and still do. They are a completely different experience than table-top RPGs and scratch completely different itches for me.

Your original question in this thread reminds of of when people ask "Why read the book when you can just watch the movie?" :confused:

[JohnD]

The "odds" are whatever you as a player and whoever your GM is make them.

If you min/max yourself you only have yourself to blame.

If your GM establishes an environment where you have to min/max yourself to stand a chance, then that's his/her doing. It's not "wrong" - it's a style of playing.

If you are a min/max player, rest assured there are absolutely min/max GMs.

I would also say never fall into the trap of thinking you can't try something because your character doesn't specifically have a skill, or there isn't a precise rule for it. The more specific the rules the more likely, seemingly, it is for players to focus on whether they have the right "number" to be good at something rather than just experience the game and go with how they want to react.

Anyways, this still seems like a bit of a non-topic to me, so as I bow out, I'll repeat my initial response; everything. Hopefully you find something that fits your needs, if you are actually looking.

[mortiferus93]

Well for me it's the freedom of choice what separates MMOs and VTT.

In an MMO I have to solve a quest in a certain manner. In P&P the possibilities are only limited by my imagination.

For example:

Quest: Get item x from NPC y

In most MMO you have only one option: kill the npc

In P&P you could kill him, seduce him, robb him, enchant him, turn him into an rosa frog and take the item...

Heck, one of my players once married an goblin chief to end their attacks on the nearby village

[nooksak]

The difference is that in an MMO I play this character and he can only do XYZ. No imagination and I can never make him do more than the programming limits him to do. For example: In my game the other night, my half-elf sorlock got grappled by vampire spawn, I pulled out my pincher staff, that I took from a previous baddy, and grappled her back. My party member then polymorphed me into a great ape! I attacked her and missed with both my attacks. Not wanting to be a complete waste of a turn, I moved to the second story railing. With her still attached to me, I used my movement to jump up and belly flop off a second story balcony landing on her. What MMO allows that sort of out of the box fighting? I like the freedom that a tabletop rpg offers, and you can never find that in an MMO. Also, it isn't a grind to get the best XYZ that every other player of the same class wants to get.

Also, have you tried running a game? It is very easy to find people wanting to play. Join the Discord server and you should be able to find someone to play with, or even ask your friends.

[greentongue]

Sleeper Island does seem to be a good combination of the two options.
https://sleeperisland.eu/

[nooksak]

Also wanted to add...it is ok if FG is not going to work for you. That is why we have such a plethora of options out there for games.

[greentongue]

Also wanted to add...it is ok if FG is not going to work for you. That is why we have such a plethora of options out there for games.

It's not that it won't work for me.
It is the frustration that I can't connect outside my local network even with port forwarding, disabled firewall and configured anti-virus settings.
So, to connect, it looks like I'm depending on others running games as the only option.

[Trenloe]

It is the frustration that I can't connect outside my local network even with port forwarding, disabled firewall and configured anti-virus settings.
Have you asked for assistance on the forums?

[Mirloc]

There are a number of alternatives to just port forwarding (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?43607-Port-Forward-Alternatives), Hamachi and other VPN software sounds like the best solution to your connection issues.

As Trenloe says, ask for help and the community will work with you.

[greentongue]

Yes, I got help but we were unable to resolve. It was assume the ISP was blocking but when I called them they said their modem had no firewall functionality so it wasn't them.
I've used Hamachi in the past but that limits connectivity to others using it. So the already small pool gets smaller.

[Mirloc]

Using a VPN option like PureVPN only requires the GM to have the software installed the players would need to connect by the public ip address you get from the VPN software once it's connected which will change each time you make a VPN connection.

[Ampersandrew]

Using a VPN option like PureVPN only requires the GM to have the software installed the players would need to connect by the public ip address you get from the VPN software once it's connected which will change each time you make a VPN connection.

I can confirm this, I play regularly and can join a game using the data connection on my phone as an internet hotspot.

The phone has no port forwarding ability so I couldn't use it to run a game until I set up PureVPN. The guys I was running for had no idea that I was using a VPN. It worked flawlessly and they just connected they way the normally do to the other GM.

I'm looking forward to no longer needing it when the Unity client is released. Then my Ultimate license and my phone will be enough :)

[greentongue]

PureVPN ... You give me hope. I will investigate.

===
Not every one thinks it is worth the money.
https://thebestvpn.com/reviews/purevpn/
===

[Trenloe]

PureVPN ... You give me hope. I will investigate.

===
Not every one thinks it is worth the money.
https://thebestvpn.com/reviews/purevpn/
===
Yep, PureVPN (you need to get the dedicated IP address option) works for Fantasy Grounds GMs, many people on these forums use it, including me, for that purpose. That review is based purely on it being used as a VPN, and for the usual reasons people use VPNs like that. For the reason we recommend (getting around port forwarding issues for FG) it works fine for many people.

Like I said, if you’d asked for help on the forums we could have given you the best options available to allow you to use FG as a GM, and you could have avoided frustration and maybe been gaming by now.

[greentongue]

It is disappointing that you need to pay for an additional service to make FG work.

Reviewing if https://my.noip.com/ will do what is needed.

[Xemit]

The vast majority of GMs do not need it.

For the few who do, there are changes coming in FGU to mitigate the issue.

[Bidmaron]

It is disappointing that you need to pay for an additional service to make FG work.

Reviewing if https://my.noip.com/ will do what is needed.
Sorry you are one that needs it but most don’t and it is better that only those few have to bear the expense than EVERYONE bear the expense of a cloud-based alternative.
I have PureVPN because I am in a hotel a lot but don’t need it at home.

[Valyar]

With FGU this problem should go in the history.