FGU party tool question

[A Social Yeti]

Experienced GM, but no FG xp, so looking into details about what all it can or can not do, for stuff i know goes on at my table.


Does FGU have some kind of way in which the player party can use a group inventory for "their base?"

Commonly at staged of a campaign my players will gain access various forms of "bases" to operate out of.
From being granted a residence use in town by a local leader, to being granted land on which to build a stronghold/temple by the local duke as their reputation builds.

It gives some mile stone achievement stuff to the playes. But importantly this way players can acquire loot they share in, and may horde useful tools, but do not have to drag it all around with them for encumbrance and gear tracking purposes. Giving them a mechanically promised safe place to leave valuables they don't need on them behind, when heading off to adventurer.

Does FGU have a tool/function that can do this? If not is there a plugin/extension for FGU that can?
Some kind of inventory tracking that does not concern about weight on the players, and knows no one specific player is in possession of it. A shared inventory that allows all party members to drop stuff in and take stuff out as they wish?

It's be way cool if such an inventory could be made for each unique location players could be making use of for what all they have stored where.

[superteddy57]

Experienced GM, but no FG xp, so looking into details about what all it can or can not do, for stuff i know goers on at my table.


Does FGU have some kind of way in which the player party can use a group inventory for "their base?"

Commonly at staged of a campaign my players will gain access various forms of "bases" to operate out of.
From being granted a residence use in town by a local leader, to being granted land on which to build a stronghold/temple by the local duke as their reputation builds.

It gives some mile stone achievement stuff to the playes. But importantly this way players can acquire loot they share in, and may horde useful tools, but do not have to drag it all around with them for encumbrance and gear tracking purposes. Giving them a mechanically promised safe place to leave valuables they don't need on them behind, when heading off to adventurer.

Does FGU have a tool/function that can do this? If not is there a plugin/extension for FGU that can?
Some kind of inventory tracking that does not concern about weight on the players, and knows no one specific player is in possession of it. A shared inventory that allows all party members to drop stuff in and take stuff out as they wish?

It's be way cool if such an inventory could be made for each unique location players could be making use of for what all they have stored where.

These may help with that process, but built in, no there is no central location. You can create a mule PC character as a group inventory and have it available in the partysheet to hold and distribute items.

https://fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?41634

The one I would key on is the World Builder one. This provides some world building tools within FG to help link records and provide more information to help track things.

[LordEntrails]

5E (and most rulsets) has the Party Inventory tab. This is what one of my groups use. Just assign items to name like "Bag of Holding", "Trollskull" "Wagon" etc.

Another of my groups we use "PCs" such as "Wagon" and "Fortress" that are owned and managed by a player.

I think the World Builder extension will help, Player Agency or even another might solve it for you too.

[SilentRuin]

Experienced GM, but no FG xp, so looking into details about what all it can or can not do, for stuff i know goes on at my table.


Does FGU have some kind of way in which the player party can use a group inventory for "their base?"

Commonly at staged of a campaign my players will gain access various forms of "bases" to operate out of.
From being granted a residence use in town by a local leader, to being granted land on which to build a stronghold/temple by the local duke as their reputation builds.

It gives some mile stone achievement stuff to the playes. But importantly this way players can acquire loot they share in, and may horde useful tools, but do not have to drag it all around with them for encumbrance and gear tracking purposes. Giving them a mechanically promised safe place to leave valuables they don't need on them behind, when heading off to adventurer.

Does FGU have a tool/function that can do this? If not is there a plugin/extension for FGU that can?
Some kind of inventory tracking that does not concern about weight on the players, and knows no one specific player is in possession of it. A shared inventory that allows all party members to drop stuff in and take stuff out as they wish?

It's be way cool if such an inventory could be made for each unique location players could be making use of for what all they have stored where.

I think the others explained baked in FGU abilities you can use with party sheet inventory. I had the same problems where I wanted an NPC mule to be controlled by players with its own inventory and also chests or other "token image" that represented a parcel players could put things into and take things out of on a permanent campaign basis (in campaign database). I solved it by writing a couple of extensions for myself. You could either do the same (write an extension) or PM me if you want info on mine. Gist is though - Extensions = RISK - so always best to use stock FGU stuff if you can get away with it. Or write your own so you have full control of whatever it is your trying to do.

[A Social Yeti]

Thanks for all this info yall.
Please let me be sure i get it here.

FGU has no built in tools or concept of player strongholds / base / off party, party inventory sort of stuff.


A work around is to make a PC and have it owned by the players so they can manage it. Name it whatever the inventory is, like cart, chest, house, or whatever describes the inventory and just use it for the inventory. Can also be on map placement like the location of the cart or whatever as needed/wanted.

The World Builder extension may have something useful to this end or you might code your own, but as with all post factory modifications, use at your own risk.



Follow up question:
Any ideas or concepts of this off party, party inventory mechanic planned to be a part of FGU exiting early access?

Thanks again for all the help.
Yeti

[LordEntrails]

Very little in the way of future features are ever announced. There are a few things around dynamic LOS and vague rumors of other things, but nothing around this. The demand just isn't that high and there are several community solutions for it.

Of course, you can always see if the idea exists on the Wish List and vote for it, or add it if its not there. https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/

[A Social Yeti]

Very little in the way of future features are ever announced. There are a few things around dynamic LOS and vague rumors of other things, but nothing around this. The demand just isn't that high and there are several community solutions for it.

Of course, you can always see if the idea exists on the Wish List and vote for it, or add it if its not there. https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/



really? how does FG imagine i decide that what FGU plans to be is what i want to spend my money on now then?

Is the real business plan here, to call it early access until arbitrarily deciding that it isn't anymore?

No project defined scope, no feature complete list? FGU is for real as a project scope an arbitrary choice to stop adding the random Wishlist stuff to it?

Please tell me this is not so, that's too insane for me to believe of a real business conducting a real development project.

Wishlist ≠Road map.
RNG ≠ Design Direction

I mean most early access titles do tend to show some kind of, and here is what we imagine the end product is like in some way or another. They got nothing like that here to have some sense of project scope informed decision of what they ask for funding for?

[Kelrugem]

really? how does FG imagine i decide that what FGU plans to be is what i want to spend my money on now then?

Is the real business plan here, to call it early access until arbitrarily deciding that it isn't anymore?

No project defined scope, no feature complete list? FGU is literally an arbitrary choice to stop adding the random Wishlist stuff to it?

Pleas tell me this is not so, that's too insane for me to believe of a real business conduct a real development project.

Wishlist ≠Road map.
RNG ≠ Design Direction

I mean most early access titles do tend to show some kind of, and here is what we imagine the end product is like in some way or another. They got nothing like that here to have some sense of project scope informed decision of what you fund?

There is of course a defined scope, but normally not public :) But the developers are often open about what they expect to be solved in the Early access, here the latest statement: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?62021-Full-Release-Date&p=543079&viewfull=1#post543079

[LordEntrails]

My comments, which I did not clearly state, are in regards to features AFTER full release. Kelrugem has linked the most recent status of FGU features for full release. You can also see review the KS project to see a general outline of what features are planned.

There is no public detailed list, because then the devs would have to defend every decision to each and every customer that felt entitled to voice their opinion. And rather than actually developing software, they would be managing the 'social' aspects of their customers.

Edit: or at least that is my opinion of why they do what they do.

[A Social Yeti]

Thanks again yall. Finding out that FGU is basically feature complete is all i really needed to know then.

A project too early on in dev, with no defined scope and no road map info with it's hand out for money is just birthing suckers by my POV. Even with the best intent on their part, by my xp in dev that'd be irrational for me to fund it.
But if they are basically done and just getting the polish in that's a real different state of early access to be asking for funding for.

i get what you see there Entrails, but as a PM and Designer, i know you can turn a def ear to dumb ideas, it's a job requirement. So i got little sympathy for em on that front. If they went to a VC for money they'd have to show plans. i do find it a little rude of them, to have assumed to not have to show the plans for what is still the VC money really.

But i'll just assume, that they assumed to do this on funding from current FG users(earned good will) more than the open public(i see you got your hand out there...) when they launched this early access project. Which would not be unreasonable a plan if you had a well enough established group of good will earned product users already.


I'm basically sold on this for mechanics heavy RPG GMing, just waiting on the sale now as i got no pressing need at the moment.
thanks again for the helpful info yall.

[Granamere]

Um I have a completely different take on this. Use location in the player inventory. It is more designed to type in backpack or belt for where items are but there is nothing stopping you from putting Stronghold in the inventory. Then just set the items that are there to location Stronghold. Picture attached.40077

If you want it at the bottom of the inventory then call it ZStronghold. As long as you set it to not carried then the weight will not be a factor.

[A Social Yeti]

Um I have a completely different take on this. Use location in the player inventory. It is more designed to type in backpack or belt for where items are but there is nothing stopping you from putting Stronghold in the inventory. Then just set the items that are there to location Stronghold. Picture attached.40077

If you want it at the bottom of the inventory then call it ZStronghold. As long as you set it to not carried then the weight will not be a factor.



One of the mechanical wants in this is that the whole party can freely put/take inventory from the location inventory. I do not believe this work around is for me as it is just tracking that specific character's private inventory, not a shared access group inventory.

Your work around tracks it's location but does not make it a group shared inventory for the whole party to self manage that i am aware of.

I had noticed the location line for the player which is part of what led me to ask if there was a mechanical group inventory system in or planned.

[Granamere]

OK so if the DM turn show party inventory to on then it might. This stuff you would not have direct access to so not sure why it being locked to one character is a problem.

There is also a shops mod you could buy. You could move things into it and back out. You might need to change the value of the items to 0 but it could be a storage system for you maybe.

[SilentRuin]

One of the mechanical wants in this is that the whole party can freely put/take inventory from the location inventory...

FGU does not do this. Map Parcel does, but like many extensions you either have to write them yourself, buy them, or have them provided for free as part of a community project. That is one the great things I personally love about FGU. Where there is a will, there is a way.

I don't think any other VTT has quite that amount of flexibility or participation from their community to give you those options.

[Granamere]

I did not know about this extension. This does look cool. I need to check out the video.

[A Social Yeti]

FGU does not do this. Map Parcel does, but like many extensions you either have to write them yourself, buy them, or have them provided for free as part of a community project. That is one the great things I personally love about FGU. Where there is a will, there is a way.

I don't think any other VTT has quite that amount of flexibility or participation from their community to give you those options.



I got a very different take on the relationship to paid for products and their consumers.

Plug in modularity/mod-ability is a great idea and good thing to have on tap.

BUT that does not excuse the make of it from providing "core functionality."

Any product that only really meets the needs of most of its users, after they seek out post factory modifications, is a rip off by my POV.

I pay someone for the functionality. To pay someone first to get a thing, i can then pay other people or put in more of my own time effort on, to get it be functional for to some minimum viable usefulness, does not sound like a particularly rational purchase to me.

I am not explicitly judging FG here in that statement. I am just saying to you that i very much do not hold to the POV you give here. If product X does not meet some minimum usefulness on it's own intrinsically without post factory mods. Don't matter how many post factory fix mods there are, this is not a situation favorable to the consumer end of it.

Unless of course the original product that was bare bones enough, to be clear it is just a frame work that needs post factory work first, was also a bare bones priced to make it clear that's what it is.

Again not owning and using FG myself yet i can't pass this judgement on it and am not. This is just how i judge all market products, for the cost it asks, how much of what i need does it intrinsically cover vs. how much additional overhead effort/cost will be required to get it there myself?


So as with so many games and products i seen already:
Mod-ability is a positive feature.
UNTIL that "feature" is just actuality how the product gets any real usefulness to start with.

Thus making sure to show the mod-ability off front and center, is at least to me, more of a red flag than an assumed positive selling point.

Again no specific slight against FG here, just this is a market trend i have noticed to be more wary of than sold on. The market is just the environment they operate in and so are subject to themselves being treated like all the rest for the common trends (patterns) foudn there.
Buyer bewared and all that. You give trust to those who stand to gain off you, at your own risk.

BUT the community love and good will here is a positive for FG to be sure. And yet at the same time i know what fans are, and not to give their opinions too much weight.
It's tricky to keep balanced POV on the world.

[Granamere]

A social Yeti you make some interesting points. Another thing to think about is I am betting Fantasy Grounds knew from the start they were not going to be able to do everything for everyone with a small development team so they did the best thing they could which is make a product that other people could expand. I am sure there are tons of addons that SmiteWorks would have never even though up that have now been developed because of this model. Also think about if every addon was made by SmiteWorks we would have to pay a ton more for the core product for features that some of us would never use. I do not play Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, Starfinder, etc. If all of the addons for these were included in the base price I would be spending a ton of money for stuff I would see any value from.

If you look at it World of Warcraft has been running for how many years with a huge dev team. They have how many millions of people paying $10 to $15 dollars a month and to play the base game you will also install how many community made addons?

SmiteWorks provide a solid core and allow us to tweak things from there to our likings which I think is a good place to be. Just my 2 cents.

[LordEntrails]

Though I certainly don't have statistics, I would be surprised if the vast majority of games on FG used community extensions (mods). This is just an observation on my part based on a few factors;
- Folks more engaged in any product forum are usually the ones who use that product to the fullest, and often use mods.
- Based on the number of downloads most extensions on the forums have (or the medal level on the DMsGuild) puts most popular extensions in the hundreds, with a few nearing 2000, downloads. (I'm sure there are exceptions etc)
- Since we don't know the number of licensed user, but we can make a few observations;
- - Doug recently said their are 4000-5000 games running at any given time
- - The forum has 287k members (this includes all FGU users, some portion of FGC users, and obsolete accounts etc)
- - Reported game statistics shows about 1.3 million game sessions per month
- - The FGU Kickstarter had 8500 backers

So, extensions are important to the program and community, but I think it's safe to say the vast majority of games run using "vanilla" FG and 'most' users are satisfied with FG out of the box.

[SilentRuin]

I got a very different take on the relationship to paid for products and their consumers.

Plug in modularity/mod-ability is a great idea and good thing to have on tap.

BUT that does not excuse the make of it from providing "core functionality."

Any product that only really meets the needs of most of its users, after they seek out post factory modifications, is a rip off by my POV.

I pay someone for the functionality. To pay someone first to get a thing, i can then pay other people or put in more of my own time effort on, to get it be functional for to some minimum viable usefulness, does not sound like a particularly rational purchase to me.

I am not explicitly judging FG here in that statement. I am just saying to you that i very much do not hold to the POV you give here. If product X does not meet some minimum usefulness on it's own intrinsically without post factory mods. Don't matter how many post factory fix mods there are, this is not a situation favorable to the consumer end of it.

Unless of course the original product that was bare bones enough, to be clear it is just a frame work that needs post factory work first, was also a bare bones priced to make it clear that's what it is.

Again not owning and using FG myself yet i can't pass this judgement on it and am not. This is just how i judge all market products, for the cost it asks, how much of what i need does it intrinsically cover vs. how much additional overhead effort/cost will be required to get it there myself?


So as with so many games and products i seen already:
Mod-ability is a positive feature.
UNTIL that "feature" is just actuality how the product gets any real usefulness to start with.

Thus making sure to show the mod-ability off front and center, is at least to me, more of a red flag than an assumed positive selling point.

Again no specific slight against FG here, just this is a market trend i have noticed to be more wary of than sold on. The market is just the environment they operate in and so are subject to themselves being treated like all the rest for the common trends (patterns) foudn there.
Buyer bewared and all that. You give trust to those who stand to gain off you, at your own risk.

BUT the community love and good will here is a positive for FG to be sure. And yet at the same time i know what fans are, and not to give their opinions too much weight.
It's tricky to keep balanced POV on the world.

Smiteworks has a small team and limited resources. Plus its a VTT is an environment that allows others to create rulesets within it and extensions to them. If you have a large company with deep pockets then I could see your POV on your expectations - but this is not the case here.

Here's the bottom line. My friends play for free - because I bought the ultimate license and host the games. I bought the additional things we need to play the games I host. I wrote the extensions that I felt would make my life easier as a host.

I know of no other platform that could have accommodated my wishes for D&D 5E.

Now, its possible there are better platforms out there for what your looking for - a completely canned and supported experience. If there are? I'd research and get the product you want. Keep in mind all the costs that could be involved for you - and if your like me - the friends you play with.

The one campaign I currently run with my friends - they pay for nothing. It's what I wanted and FGU provides it for me.

Research what it is you want and what can provide you the nearest fit those desires. Or sit back and wait for something better to come along.

FGU is pretty up front and honest about what it is and how many resources they have. You may not agree with their priorities or the fact its a smaller group than some products - which is fine.

My needs and requirements were obviously different that a lot of other people, so I don't expect you to see eye to eye on how FGU was a fit for me.

I wish the best of luck in your search for a product that meets your needs, this one met mine.