A few questions around using FGU for homebrew content

[Valhauer]

Hi.

I’ve been using fantasy grounds as a player for almost a year now and have very much enjoyed the platform as a player. That being said I’ve never tried to go into it as a DM and have no idea how it works outside of being a player. Recently I have started missing DMing and created a homebrew rpg + campaign for me and my friends that I would like to use fantasy grounds. My questions are mostly around the viability of using fantasy grounds for a non licensed homebrew product and the costs that would be associated with it.

The only thing I know I would need would be the fantasy grounds ultimate license for me to be able to host the lobby for all of my friends who wouldn’t have a fantasy grounds license.

Would I need to buy the licensing for a similar licensed products base rules like DND 5e core rule books?

Is it possible to enjoy the features I love as a player when playing dnd using fantasy grounds like the party sheet/dragging and dropping dice to auto roll attacks and saves/etc when using homebrew content?

Some of these may be dumb questions that are easily answered by exploring the product after purchasing but I figured I would ask before purchasing in case fantasy grounds is unable to facilitate what I’m looking for.

Thank you for your time!

[Zacchaeus]

Welcome to FG.

It depends on your homebrew content. If what you have done is add some new class, race and background options as well as maybe a few spells or whatever and you intend to use the 5e ruleset (or one of the other existing ones) to play then all you need is the license and the time to input all of your stuff into Fantasy Grounds.

If you are going to be changing up rules, or create your own rules then that's a bit more complicated - still can be done - just more complicated. So perhaps before I start pointing you in the wrong direction you could expend on what kind of homebrew content you mean.

[LordEntrails]

Yes, it's possible, but as Mr Z says, what ruleset are you using?

If it's just homebrew for D&D 5E, then is pretty simple and Mr Z has a bunch of YouTube videos.

If you are looking to play a totally original self-created system, or something small that does not currently have official or community support, say GangBusters from TSR, then you will have more work to do.

Let us know some more of what you are interested in, and we can give more exact answers.

[Valhauer]

Thank you for the replies. To provide further clarification it is its own unique homebrew content but does share similar things with dnd such as saving throws. Races, classes, skills, spells, and general rules of the game such as action economy are all homebrew.

[Zacchaeus]

There's some videos here on creating classes, raves and backgrounds. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27296-Guides-videos-and-other-helpful-information

You can add new skills to character sheets easily enough. Depending on how far away from the 5e ruleset you go you should still be able to use the basic stuff. But for more complex things you may need to venture into writing an extension.

[Valhauer]

Thank you for the help!

[LordEntrails]

If its far away from D&D, then you might want to start with CoreRPG, or the community MoreCore Ruleset. Both of those are "generic" RPG systems, they will let you make a non-fancy character sheet with any fields you want on it in different sections. MoreCore allows various types of rolls and such that can be used for comparisons so you can manually determine results of a roll.

Examples of what you can do with CoreRPG and a bunch of character sheets for various minor systems can be found here;
- https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?23138-Share-Game-System-Character-Sheets
- https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?23137-Walkthrough-of-Creating-a-Character-Sheet-for-any-game-system-with-zero-coding

And more information on MoreCore here;
- https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?47382-MoreCore-Info