GMing use of FG question

[A Social Yeti]

When i'm GMing normally at the table, i have material worked up ready for what the players might want to do, but if the players decide to head off to other things i can pretty easily wing it.
I like to let them feel very in control of what's going on, no rails, even when running a module, i'm ready for the players to arbitrarily choose a detour off the marked path.

So how well does FG seem to work for this from anyone's personal xp?
It looks very good at running premade materials, but how easy do yall find it to say, be equivalent to having a white board on the table when the players are not in a premade location and just whipping up on the fly right then and there a quick and dirty battle/location map?


At my table it's a mix of premade grid map fancy stuff and just whiteboard scribbles where every player is a different color dot and the ruler, not a grid, is used for distance to determine ranges.
In this way the players are basically as free as i can let them be to roam as they see fit, even when we do have a made module we were running.

So based on that concept, what's the xp with FG for that sort of norm? Like scale of 1-10, 1 is preplanned works best and on the fly is not that really viable in FG, and 10 is, making up a usable if not pretty location/battle map in about 10-30 seconds, is as no brainier about as simple as a whiteboard on the table.

I am messing around with the freebie FGU, but my solo "lab testing" does not allow for tests of the "live field use" situations as it were. So figured best to ask what some GM's xp on that was.


Thanks for any time and attention you can give,
Yeti

[Palladius]

I think your assessment that it's better for pre-made stuff is very fair, based on my own experience... I've found the ease with which you can wing it to be a bit dependent. If you've got the resources ready (if you've got the monster manual, and a big stockpile of battlemaps, or can quickly google one) it's pretty easy. Not 30 seconds, maybe but you can send everyone to take a quick break and rustle something up in a minute or two. Maybe 8 or 9 on your scale?

If you don't have that stuff available, then yeah, I'd say it's pretty hard. Not impossible; there's a blank grid available, and there's drawing tools, and it comes with some assets you can place on maps, but the tools it uses still feel a bit clunky and difficult (that's in FGU, I don't really know about FGC). That being said, though, it seems that tools to make maps using tiles are developing... if it's something you think you might do a lot, some invested time learning that would pay dividends.

I'm still pretty new, though, so I may well have missed something important!

[esmdev]

Hi.

So starting out I mostly used modules because it was easier to have things all set and ready.

As I became more familiar with the system it became easier for me to just wing things.

First, a whiteboard is pretty easy to do. You can just create a blank .jpg of whatever size (or add a background like cobblestone or dirt or water or whatever) in a graphic progra. Then you can just load it up in FG, add a grid, throw on a mask and unmask to create hallways and rooms. With some tokens or the drawing tool you can add doors or whatever, for outdoor might want to have tokens.

I found it useful to build an encounter library, which just happens over time if you don't get rid of them. If you have an idea of where the party is likely to go you can have some prepared encounters for that sort of environment.

Collecting tokens and maps can be useful.

The only holdup is sometimes you need to say give me a couple of minutes to quick create an area on the whiteboard and then throw together an encounter and treasure, before proceeding. One drawback is making a custom NPC can be time consuming so if I need one on the fly I just wing it and use something close until I can build after the session (if still needed).

It seems like it would be harder at first but as you get used to the system it becomes quite flexible.

[Griogre]

Generally FG works like at the table for winging it. You do need to so some prep work if you are planning on needing to wing it:

1) Monsters. If you have been running modules, some GM's don't have the monster manuals. You want them so you can pull up any monster you might need.

2) Maps: FG has a built in map drawing tool that looks like an old school battle map. I do use this for certain random encounters and theater of the mind encounters, but if you have prep time having a selection of generic maps you can use will make things look nicer. There are map packs in the store and you can find tons of maps online.

3) Tokens: You are going to want to have a few generic tokens for NPCs and Monsters.

[LordEntrails]

Just like at the table, it's about knowing what resources you have available and using them as best as possible.

In FGC having a generic map of dirt or cobblestones is great. And you can use it just like a wet erase mat, and takes the same amount of time. Pretty sure folks have posted some on the forums, probably in the map sub.

You can do the same in FGU, but you can do better using map tiles and brushes. The biggest challenge here for me is familiarity with what you have available. Knowing where you tiles and brushes are so you can get to them quickly. The search, and not being too picky, are the keys for me.

Also, it's easy to have a folder with a few hundred maps in it that you get off of Google, Reddit, or the map forums here. I don't load them into FG itself, not until I need it. But again, it's about familiarity so you can get something quickly.

Monsters/NPCs are pretty much the same. Depending upon the ruleset, you can get hundreds or thousands of free NPCs off the forums here. But you have to know what you want and how to find them quickly. But adding them to a map and starting a combat can be really fast. Maybe it takes longer than grabbing a handful of colored tokens and throwing on a wet erase mat, but not by much. And the speed of combat being so much faster in FG you get to the end of the combat in much less time than at the table.

So, in the end, for me, yes it might take me a little bit longer to setup an improvised encounter in FG than at the table top. But, the combat is much faster (resulting in from start of setup to end of encounter being shorter than at the table top), the quality of the graphics is nearly infinitely better, and the experience is much better. And that goes for awarding treasure too :)

[LordEntrails]

Oh, plus you can create random generators of all sorts, from room descriptions to store contents to encounters to treasures. Lots of those are available on the forums here, depending upon your ruleset. So IF you have prepped, and what you have prepped is what's right for your game, you could create a random location description, the random monsters for the location and their treasure with a couple of clicks.

[A Social Yeti]

OK thanks a lot yall this seems to say what all i had hoped to hear.

Sounds like:

on the fly can take a little more time and effort than the table top whiteboard, but not much more, and the reduced time combats will take, makes up for it anyway.
+
An over time built up library of individual resources(monsters/NPCs/maps) combined with an organized FG setup, makes for relatively easier winging it as time goes on.

Thanks again for all the time you take to answer these for me,
Yeti

[Zacchaeus]

Something you would find useful as a replacement for your whiteboard is this extension https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?59220-Theater-of-the-Mind-(Universal)-Extension

[GavinRuneblade]

I find that FG is the best tool to help me adlib and generate game content on the fly I've ever experienced. I run an extremely open game, I often have only a limited idea what my players are going to do and I react on the fly as they act.

I pull images off the web from searches, or pull them out of a couple folders, drop them into the FG images and share with my players.

I don't design fights ahead of time because I don't know if it will be a fight or not until someone starts it. When I think they might be moving toward a fight, I start putting together the likely parties on the fly. Yes I have a lot of monster books, but when in doubt, I just grab something close and change the name, token, and weapon/ability names. It is fast and easy. If I have time because there's more talking and RP happening, then I can keep searching for a better fitting enemy. I've never yet had to ask my players to wait while I finished.

I keep tons of maps from patreon and reddit and anywhere else I can find them, which I can grab as needed.

I've been DMing for a long time in a lot of games. I've always been an adlibber, I don't like using modules as they are published, I just take a few things here and there and fill in the blanks. FG is the best tool I've ever found for the way I GM, because it is the best tool I've seen for adlibbing.

[The High Druid]

Some of the answer to this question will depend on which system you are running. If it's D&D5E and you have the monster manual available, creating an impromptu encounter can be very quick. If you're running a system where you don't have a monster library, and you havn't spent the time creating some generic npcs, it make take a lot longer.

I've found it very useful to have a handful of generic maps "city street" "field" "forest" and the like that can be used over and over because the terrain at the time isn't so important, and you can always improvise terrain, by dropping an "r" token for a rock or a "t" for a tree.

[vegaserik]

I've used the party order - marching & formation window to do quick on the fly battles with little prep. Use theater of the mind but with the tokens out to use for FG. It has a simple drawing tool - for a simple battle I find it's all I need.