How easy / expensive is it to run just a battle map on FG?

[Nazgren]

Hi,
I'm going to DM my first game tomorrow, the one-shot campaign Wolves of Welton. I have been trying to get some maps ready but am failing spectacularly, most notably because I have seemingly greatly underestimated the scale of DnD maps. The one I made for my final cave battle alone at 40x50 squares according to Dungeon Painter Online takes about 15 A3 pages. As this is obviously somewhat unreasonable, especially with ~3 combats planned, I am weighing up potential alternatives and as the room my campaign is running from is a college classroom there is a computer and projector. As I am just doing a one-shot for now and am a broke college student, I don't want to throw a few hundred quid at the game, core rulesets, etc, just yet. Am I able to get the base standard level Fantasy Grounds software, put together a map, throw some character tokens on it, and use it to show a map and the movement/death of characters on it? Preferably without forking out a small fortune on rulesets?

Thanks

[Trenloe]

welcome to the FG forums!


Am I able to get the base standard level Fantasy Grounds software, put together a map, throw some character tokens on it, and use it to show a map and the movement/death of characters on it? Preferably without forking out a small fortune on rulesets?
Yep.

A lot of people, me included, use FG for battle maps at the table top. I use a 48" TV laid flat on the table.

[Trenloe]

It would work well on a projector - the base FG comes with some tokens, add your maps to FG and then project the map plus tokens - use the mask to reveal areas as the party explores, move the tokens around, etc.. You could do this with a standard license. There's a 30 day money back guarantee - no questions asked, so give it a go!

[ColinBuckler]

For a Face-to-face game you can try the DEMO version first see how you get on.

With the demo version you can on the same computer run a GM version and a Player version. Hopefully you are running on a laptop/computer with a screen and a projector - if this is the case run the GM on your laptop/machine attached screen - the player version on the projector.

The downside with the demo version is that you can not save anything which is a pain. If you do wish to go this route I would suggest you buying the GM only version (get it in a sale for around $29.99 - maybe cheaper?).

DPS works great for creating maps - I do this all the time. Export at the FG setting (50px) and you will be fine.

If you want any help with DPS and maps for FG setup let me know - I can be contacted on my unofficial DPS Discord channel:

https://discord.gg/nVtPk3f

[LordEntrails]

If you have a chance, jump in a free class at FG College (https://www.fantasugroundscollege.net). Will help you get up to speed really quickly.