Question About Total Cost for Starting Up a Starfinder Campaign and Fantasy Grounds

[Sgtsplat]

Good day, I have been doing research into the different Digital Table Top systems and Fantasy Grounds seems to be the most comprehensive. I like the idea of the Ultimate license but it appears that although it includes a ton of libraries that it doesn't include the Starfinder stuff. I hate to sound cheap, but I unfortunately bought most of the Starfinder books at Amazon or Brick and Mortar shops and already have a few hundred dollars invested. I don't suppose you would ever consider letting players choose 1 or more core rule sets to be applied to their Ultimate Membership so they could choose say, not to have Pathfinder or D&D but instead have the Starfinder sets.

I downloaded the free demo software but could not complete making a character because I need to re-purchase the 60$ Basic book.

I am sure I am not the first to bring this up, but it feels a little like buying cable television and paying for a bunch of sports channels I don't want and having to pay extra for the Sci-Fi channel.

Or am I reading the page wrong?

[Sgtsplat]

If I buy an Ultimate License and get the Starfinder books online, can I then share that content with my friends or do they have to buy the books as well?

[Sgtsplat]

Can I only export characters as an XML? Is there a way to export as PDF so that I can use the character offline?

[stephan_]

The only difference between a standard and an Ultimate License is that any demo user can connect to a GM with an Ultimate License, whereas if the GM has a standard license, only other standard licenses can connect.

There is no content included in either the standard or the Ultimate License (except the rulesets themselves for the more popular systems).

As long as the ruleset is available (there might be a SF ruleset but you should be able to confirm it with the demo), you can of course input everything yourself (classes, enemies, maps, ...), it just takes an awful amount of time.

5E and I think also PF are to a degree different in that the SRDs are also available for free (but the SRD does not contain everything).

If you do decide to go for FG I would recommend at least the CRB. The other modules depend on what you want to use (the APs are usually good value, especially with the discount if you have to paizo pdfs - if you bought the books elsewhere unfortunately no discount). But again, you can also manually input what you need, it just takes time.

Note you will not be able to save anything in the demo version (but of course you can save the data in a standard or Ultimate version).

If you have Ultimate (and you are the GM), the players can connect with the free demo. As long as they are connected to your server they have access to the content you have (if you are offline, they don't have access). Be aware of two caveats: First, depending on your Internet, you may have to set up port forwarding, second, only the GM's books are shared. So even if a player has a book on FG; the others won't be able to use it, they can only use the GM's books.

Characters can be exported only to xml. There was an extension created by a user a while back to include pdf-export but I think it was only for 5E and it's not working any longer.

[Trenloe]

I am sure I am not the first to bring this up, but it feels a little like buying cable television and paying for a bunch of sports channels I don't want and having to pay extra for the Sci-Fi channel.
As @stephan_ says - you're not actually paying for any premium DLC product with the Ultimate License - you're just paying to allow people who haven't purchased a license to play in your games. The base content (common rulesets and some SRD library data) is the same for Ultimate or Standard license holders.

If the Ultimate license included a bundle of premium DLC then the cost of the ultimate license would have to be much more than it is today - to pay for licensing, pay the content developers, etc.. Hence why it is up to you to purchase any additional DLC that you want on top of your license (standard or ultimate).

As also mentioned, the base Starfinder ruleset (SFRPG) structure comes with your license of FG - but there is no data. You can save money, but not time, by entering the data you need - it's up to you how valuable your time is whether you do this or not. The game will be much smoother and quicker with the DLC, but you don't *need* it to play...