Why can't players open the monster manual?

[Tropico]

First of all, hi everyone, I've been debating on buying FG for a _long_ time and now version 2 clinched it for me. I got it, it's awesome and I hope to have a lot of fun with it.

So here's my first question for the community; how come my players can't open their monster manual and look inside?

I mean, of course I know WHY, but - shouldn't that be my call, whether or not they get to look in there?

The software already has the little permissions icons to use with all the modules and books. So in theory I could easily control whether they can open it or not. But no matter what we try, or even if I put it on 'force load', the player client cannot open the manual.

So what if I run a highly tactical, combat-challenge type of d20 game where everyone has full free knowledge of everything (which just so happens to be the game that I run sometimes)? The program just won't support you in doing that then?

OK, so this is not really a big deal (cause d20srd.com is always there anyways) but if anyone has any advice or tip on how I could let my players open up their MMs I'd really appreciate it, or failing that, consider this a friendly request for a future feature of the program.

Just to be clear, I'm not bashing FG2 in any way, and I totally see the logic in restricting the players from the MM (and the Magic Items book as well).. I just think it should be an option rather than hard-coded into the software.

Thanks!

-Tropico

PS, there's always the chance that I might be being particularly dense and it really is possible, or that it might be a bug in my own computer, or whatever, if so, I apologize and ask for some help on that as well :)

[John_Geeshu]

It works for me, and this is how I do it.
I put the green check mark in the box next to the rules book I want the players to be able to access.
Once that is done they open their library and click on the appropriate book
It then opens on their screen.

Hope that helps.

[Tropico]

Ok, thanks for the quick answer. That works just fine for me - when I do it with the 'd20 Basic Rules' and the 'd20 Spells' book.

But when I try it with the 'd20 Monsters' or the 'd20 Magic Items' books... nothing.

Since monsters and magic items are traditionally GM-only knowledge (and the books themselves are brown instead of blue) I just assumed the players were being blocked from them by the program.

I guess there must be something wrong with my own program then :( not such a big deal though, at least the other 2 (which are the important ones) work.

[joshuha]

On my blackberry but the short answer is because the monster mod file is named a certain way in the xml that makes it GM only. Its pretty easy to change.

[Tropico]

Thanks Joshuha.. I just now 3 seconds ago figured out how to 'unpak' the d20 ruleset and look at the xml and lua files... lot of stuff to go through in there.. thankfully being the two-bit-hack that I am, it doesn't intimidate me too much :)

This is a side of FG hadn't even counted on, and it makes it even better than before. I'm confident I'll find out how to modify this book thing eventually (but if you wanna point me in the right direction I wouldn't mind either heh).

[SniperDM]

Fixing this is really simple, but it's not exactly intuitive unless you know how modules and their data types work. You can read more about that here. (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6446)

But anyway, all you need to do is go to the 'modules' directory, open up the module for 'd20monsters.mod' with something like winzip or winrar (you can do this for d20items.mod too), unzip the file 'db.xml' to a temporary location, then rename it to 'common.xml'. Once you do that, put the renamed file back into the module with whatever archive editing program you use and delete the original db.xml. Once you do this, putting the little green checkmark, or even the 'force load' icon will allow players access to this book, should you want them to have it.

[joshuha]

I believe its just a matter of what the xml file is named. Look at the d20spells one. I think its called client.xml. There is a whole thread on this I will try and find for you.

[Tropico]

That is awesome, thank you for the link/solution. I was looking for something lke that in the Workshop forum, I would never have thought of looking in House of Healing (don't ask me why, I'm just dense like that sometimes).

It's also awesome that FG2 has so many layers of customization to work with. It's going to be very fun seeing what comes out of it in the future I bet..

Edit -> Well, now the module appears in the player's client, but it appears grayed out with a little 'web' icon in the corner. I thought it meant that it was loading or transferring but I've left it a long time and it just stays like that.

I also tried it with Griogre's 'd20 Combat Cheat Sheet' module and the same exact thing happens.

I will try messing around with it some and see if I can force it to work.

Second Edit -> K, so I've found and read over this (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6351&highlight=module+player) thread, done everything in it and still nothing works. I think by now it's time to take this thread over to House of Healing, since there are clearly problems somewhere. Thanks everyone for your help.

[Tropico]

All right, just an update, I got this all working fine now. Thanks very much again to everyone and I realize I must seem like a crazy person posting and editing all over the place, I'm just very psyched and excited about finally getting this game :)

[SniperDM]

All right, just an update, I got this all working fine now. Thanks very much again to everyone and I realize I must seem like a crazy person posting and editing all over the place, I'm just very psyched and excited about finally getting this game :)

Hey, don't knock crazy now. We don't suffer from insanity, we enjoy every minute of it. ;)

Glad you got it working.