Did you know... ? [video series of how I play with FGU/Extensions/Modules]

[SilentRuin]

Well this is a video series I plan to put out of long boring videos showing how I used FGU with extensions and various modules. This is not how 5E ruleset is in RAW FGU in my games - so this will be a high level - no detail other than showing you me doing the things I do and giving an overview (not going to explain what extensions do what parts all the time - you can ask if you need that info). Essentially, this is something to do for chuckles in my free time and you can take them or leave them as you see fit.

Who knows? Maybe you'll learn something new! For instance,

Did you know...

What I can do with Character Creation?

My version of it I mean... of course :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns_B6modOCA

I'll add more as I do them. Every video will include a link to the one I show how the campaign setup was done that I use in all of them.

Prepare to be very very bored :)

Almost forgot - EXTENSIONS = RISK!!! Do not use them unless you are prepared emotionally for being broken by FGU updates, broken by other extensions, broken when the moon comes out.... etc.

Playlist where I will keep the "Did you know..." series... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfMOvxkZ06g&list=PLudwZcUmLrnC_Z2r3Vjzw6PvmoywlJATy)

[Jiminimonka]

Not boring at all. ;)

[SilentRuin]

Did you know... Polymorphing can be easy?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkeBm7NerYI

EXTENSIONS = RISK!!! These are not your normal FGU operations!

[SilentRuin]

Did you know... raw FGU allows NPCs to be in marching order?

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=55676&d=1672937244

I for sure did not! Pays to experiment!

[SilentRuin]

Did you know... there are tricks to Map creation? [FGU 5E Ruleset]

In this example, I'm doing complex LOS to preserve some visual graphics without shadow aberrations. Typically, I don't do this - instead I do a simple line in middle of a wall and slap doors etc. on any openings and live with any shadow aberrations that appear. But when I have a rich detailed map - I want to preserve some of that visual coolness without weird shadows for my players and do a bit more elaborate LOS. Anyway, always remember in large crowed maps you should keep LOS as simple as possible and lighting as minimal as possible. In small encounters though you can go nuts without much consequence. This is nuts FYI :) As usual, my way in my world, with extensions. And of course, one must always remember...

EXTENSIONS = RISK!!!!

[Note: Weezle brought to my attention that I used the default cut/paste option for each type of LOS - which meant for doors and windows it tried to make decisions for me on what lines to cut. I have not tried turning them off to see if it would have made my life easier - maybe you should try it for me and let me know! Also I did not attempt to block the outward corners (corners that are extending into the room) though in a real game I would have or at least made the transparent layer thinner at that point. There is no 100% solution for sure between making the shadows clean, exposing things you want seen, and maintaining realistic LOS. I should note also that filling your walls with terrain (like I do for roofs) will prevent any look around corners. So that is putting over window border a terrain matching border. ]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEg2EHXd8wM

[SilentRuin]

Did you know... filling walls with terrain can make them cover corners? [FGU 5E Ruleset]

I do this with roofs in my games not sure why I forgot in above video to do this to the walls. I overlay terrain (green lines) onto the window (yellow lines) area to prevent seeing around corners while previous things prevent tokens from moving into the area.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=55694&d=1673051830

[SilentRuin]

And in my test world using this same map - I get no wall detail but am much lazier in my LOS definitions. And truth be told, this is how I usually do a map (maybe the lines will be a little bit inward to show the wall also).

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=55698&d=1673107676

[SilentRuin]

Comments from Carl P on the map video:


Helpful tip when creating closed polygons: if you hold ALT when adding your last point (either double-click or press ENTER), the last point will be connected to the first point—closing the polygon. For the map in this example, it looks like the wall edges align with the grid. When adding points, you can use the CTRL key to toggle the state of the grid snap while the CTRL key is pressed. E.g., with grid snap disabled, hold the CTRL key to snap new points to the grid. Releasing the CTRL key returns snapping to its previous state.

Additional tip: when in the lighting panel, you can select multiple lights by dragging a selection rectangle. With multiple lights selected, you can edit common properties simultaneously. E.g., you can turn all of the selected lights on or off at the same time.

Feel free to place tips in here as I'd love to learn stuff also. By no means do I consider this my private thread. I'll just dump stuff in here as I feel like it for the heck of it.

[SilentRuin]

Did you know... you can design a session to have faster gameplay? [FGU 5E Ruleset]

Now you won't be able to do what I do here without extensions - and you should remember EXTENSIONS = RISK!
This is just what you CAN do if you get annoyed enough to write an extension to squash that annoyance! This is a live unedited 20+ minutes of boredom for you seeing me create a session (my way) from scratch.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs6rmHdGuOk

[SilentRuin]

I swear making this video is having me find stuff in my extensions and others extensions almost every time I make the attempt!

EXTENSIONS = RISK!

[SilentRuin]

Did you know... there are lots of tools to make game play faster and smoother? [FGU 5E Ruleset]

This one was exhausting. I can't count how many times I had to stop this to fix something that annoyed me in my extensions or someone else's. Anyway, I finish up the session creation from last time and start playing it out for a bit. Also, added a playlist on page 1 with all the "Did you know..." series in it. I think I've captured the essence of my Text walls I'm noted for, and successfully translated that into a VIDEO WALL. Prepare to be bored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xipKY97TLE

[SilentRuin]

Did you know... the standard FGU does not handle effect initialization when doing rolling init on each round?

Yep. Was stunned to learn that today as I always have the FGU option to re-roll init every round - who would want players to know who is up next to bat? Not this DM. And all this time the round count on effects was scrambled every time it did that. Fortunately, someone was on the ball and already had an extension made to fix it.

As MrDDT and this author taught me about this today - I figured I'd share.

I have added yet another thing to my FGU risk portfolio...

Effective Initiative by rhagelstrom (https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/75/view)

It is now in all my campaigns in addition to the ones I've specified in the first video in this series.

[LordEntrails]

Oh, but I like the default way FG does it :) It adds chaos to the rounds and makes something just a little less predictable. Plus it means that spell last ~6 seconds, if you adjust to character init, they could last a fraction, or twice as long.

BUT, options are good :)

[SilentRuin]

Oh, but I like the default way FG does it :) It adds chaos to the rounds and makes something just a little less predictable. Plus it means that spell last ~6 seconds, if you adjust to character init, they could last a fraction, or twice as long.

BUT, options are good :)

We differ in our DM style. Mine is not to think and be as lazy as possible when it come to the game minutia - I just want to trust its doing its thing and play the game. Stuff like this? Annoyance. And for me, extensions solve annoyances :)

With RISK!

[Moon Wizard]

It's really one interpretation vs. another. If you're okay with randomized initiative, why not randomized effect expiration?

That said, it sounds like a different option that would need to be added and implemented. Possibly an extension?

JPG

[SilentRuin]

It's really one interpretation vs. another. If you're okay with randomized initiative, why not randomized effect expiration?

That said, it sounds like a different option that would need to be added and implemented. Possibly an extension?

JPG

I admit confusion at this. This whole thing was in response to me getting an existing extension I was never aware I needed. And all effect duration timers scrambled and rendered no longer set properly as part of reordering init. That’s a unique interpretation of how that unexpected thing is not a bug. Can we expect other unexpected data value fluctuations as being declared potentially desired behavior? Because I did not know this one and would like to know about any similar “features” in FGU 5E ruleset.

[LordEntrails]

Currently this is my understanding of how FG handles spells and re-roll initiative:
Round 1: Karmon roll a 15 for init and is the first actor on the combat tracker. Casts a spell that last one round. FG sets the effect to expire at init 15. Everyone is affected by the spell.
Round 2: Karmon rolls a 10 on init and is the last actor on the combat tracker. Others who roll above a 15 are once again affected by the spell cast in round 1 ('bonus' impact). The spell he cast on round one expires well before his turn. Once again he casts on a one round spell again and FG sets it expiration for init count of 10. No one is affected this round because everyone has already acted.
Round 3: Karmon rolls a 10 again, but this time everyone else rolls really low (>10). Karmon's spell expires before anyone is affected by it (never having affected anyone). So he casts it again this round, eveyone is affected by it this round.
Round 4: everyone rolls lower than a 10 , and Everyone is once again affected by the spell cast on round 3 (bonus impact).

So, the spell cast on round 2 had no impact, but the one cast on 3 had double impact!

So I like this, but I can see how others don't. And the extension SilentRuin mentions changes this behavior to adjust spell expiration to the new init numbers. But, adjusting effect inits does not prevent spells from having the affect of either limiting or doubling the rounds that a spell is effective. It just changes the situations in which spells had additional or reduced impact than if one is using static init.

[SilentRuin]

Gist is in a normal game a round is typically measured by someone start or end of turn - this as you pointed out is completely lost. In fact many other effects given to FGU by extensions depend on this timing - as in break if it’s lost. Not that normal FGU isn’t broken by it also but it’s less noticeable to me.

[Moon Wizard]

As I said, it's not broken, but a different interpretation than what you want. There's a reason why D&D doesn't do randomized initiatives as part of the core system, and expirations denoted in number of rounds is one of them.

Regards,
JPG

[SilentRuin]

As I said, it's not broken, but a different interpretation than what you want. There's a reason why D&D doesn't do randomized initiatives as part of the core system, and expirations denoted in number of rounds is one of them.

Regards,
JPG

We will have to agree to disagree :) If you provide something, it should be fully functional not just mostly functional. I had to find out the dysfunctional stuff by finally figuring out why certain things went haywire during turns in my games. Now I know. Now I have a fix. Hence, "Did you know..." comment that proceeded all this.

NOW if you want really good one...

Did you know... the FGU 5E ruleset hardcodes certain module data even if you are not running those modules to populate your PC action tabs with nonsense data that does not apply in your campaign?

Beware this risk - as there is no way to turn it off short of an extension as far as I know. And that parsedata list is growing every release to cover more and more common module terminology which may or in my case, won't match the logic its putting in the action tabs. Took me an hour to figure out how data I had nowhere in my campaign db or my module db was ending up defined in my PC action tab... finally I searched the raw 5E ruleset code and... POOF. There it was. A raft of specific module data that had nothing to do with my 5E modules. Good to discover as now I know why sometimes data that is not in my supplemental data modules that cover the same modules have been replaced by this mystery data!


And for most people if you see this the workaround is to delete it all out after you place whatever triggered it in the abilities tab. And don't put that ability back in without being prepared to clean up after it! My world I was able to just wipe that routine that does this as it would never be applicable in my SW5E world to have it done.

"Combat superiority" keyword ability in particular will spam a bunch of unwanted things in.

[Moon Wizard]

Agree to disagree is correct; but I take issue with saying something is broken because your interpretation of how a house rule should be implemented is different than the implementation provided (which is a different interpretation than yours).

The automatic actions for 5E are tied to specific class feature and racial trait names. If they are the default features/traits, then the additions should be correct. If they are not the default features/traits, then they should probably be named differently anyway to avoid confusion.

Regards,
JPG

[SilentRuin]

Agree to disagree is correct; but I take issue with saying something is broken because your interpretation of how a house rule should be implemented is different than the implementation provided (which is a different interpretation than yours).

The automatic actions for 5E are tied to specific class feature and racial trait names. If they are the default features/traits, then the additions should be correct. If they are not the default features/traits, then they should probably be named differently anyway to avoid confusion.

Regards,
JPG

Interpretation? I suppose if your interpretation is that FGU 5E ruleset is not a generic ruleset that is module agnostic - then...

No, I really can't see it. We will have to disagree. FGU's entire selling point is how it allows rulesets to run data and that lots of variety can be done. Sticking in hardcoded interpretations with no way to turn them off cuts off all of that.

I would like your interpretation of what you consider "default" because plenty of D&D things let alone other things like SW5e - have modules that overlap and reuse keywords differently. Classes, races, traits - are not the same. There is even a thing called homebrew.

And this parsedata stuff? Breaks it. I can't agree to any other description. No way to turn it off - no way to tie parsing to a particular module... broken. We will have to disagree for sure.

[Moon Wizard]

For the first part, I was speaking to the per-turn randomized initiative, which is a difference in interpretations of a custom house rule. I'm not saying that the other option seems like something that some people such as yourself might want, but the current option is also a valid house rule option.

For the second part, I was speaking to the powers added on feature/trait addition. The assumption is that features/traits are unique. If you are using different rules for features/traits (such as SW5E or another modification), then change the name to Feature (SW5E). The hard-coded power additions are something we want to improve on in the future and have some ideas, but the fastest way to help the largest crowd of users using the 5E core content was to hard-code to the feature/trait names. If you don't want those to trigger, you will need to use different names, such as suffixing.

Regards,
JPG

[SilentRuin]

While its hard to tell what you were replying to when all I have to go by is order of forum responses, I can simply clarify what I'm saying like this:

Both these things break me in unexpected ways. The word break or broken is accurate in my case as to what happens. I notify people of things I didn't know but wish I had to save me a TON of work trying to figure it out.

Case 1:
I could not figure out how rounds were being applied. BCEG and other extensions that trigger on rounds were broken and randomly triggering at weird times. Now - like most users - I had no knowledge of init in effects. Never needed to deal with it - nor do I suspect the vast bulk of users. It just works as it works. Most of us see odd behavior and go "meh" if I can't duplicate it will just live with it. And so it was with various things occasionally not working as they should. One day I told someone that I could never understand how rounds triggered in FGU. There first response was "do you use the random init option?". Yes, yes I do, I said. They then told me that it would scramble the effect init order from what was expected and to prevent this you needed to use this (https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/75/view) extension. I notified people here that I had found something I never knew that was breaking me. Now, its not. Behavior is as expected.

I don't believe for a second anyone who did not dig deep into this understands what this discussion is even about. So let me clarify, for those reading this and not knowing what we are talking about.


Duration is something effects have - and they are governed by a value they keep called init. The docs describe it as follows:

Duration: When the main duration field is set to Start/End Turn values, an additional field will be shown to track the initiative number when the duration should start/end.

Now in a non random init option world you will have an effect be able to determine where in the count (round sequence) it needs to do its stuff - like expire - like extensions triggering. How it determines when the effects turn starts and ends.

This has meaning. When you use the random init option this meaning is lost. Extensions that depend on it to retain its meaning are broken.

Enter this strange back and forth argument. You guys fulfilled a request to do random inits. I'm quite sure nobody thought of the consequences to the effect init values as its pretty simple to preserve their sequence. Further, I don't think people "want this behavior" I think they have no clue what the behavior is, why its happening, but just go with the flow because its not breaking anything in their games. Like I was.

Till I found something an extension was behaving wrong and actually looked into it. You seem to be hung up on the word broken - well as we have gone over several times - we are not going to agree. This is broken to me. And now its not. I notified people of the danger here and do not regret my usage of adjectives to describe it.

Case 2:

I was busy prepping for my SW5E game which in this case involved updating all the module data (and the live data that used it) to the latest pdf document for that stuff. Very time consuming - and tedious - and I was almost done. When populating "combat superiority" feature in abilities suddenly populated about 10+ things into my PC actions tab. I thought where the heck did equip effects (extension) find that name match? The things put out there I did not recognize at all as part of my module data set. Now began an hour long dig into db.xml's of modules/campaign all showing nothing. This stuff came out of nowhere. I finally looked in the 5E ruleset code and... there it was. A very large list of keywords (no spacing - took a while to figure that out) that had nothing to do with my module definitions. I found the function that did it - no option to turn this stuff off - and shot the function... BANG. Overridden to never run with SW5E. But suddenly a LOT of other data anomalies I've noticed over the last year came into crystal clarity. Those supplemental modules that had unique action definitions go missing or mysteriously change after dropping into the PC abilities tab? MYSTERY SOLVED. My data was being broken by some mass hardcoded text substitution that could care less if I had data that shared the same keywords. And here's a common knowledge piece of information. WOTC and all the people who do supplemental modules and - well everywhere - they reuse different words/phrases that have completely different behaviors. Those actions/behaviors in my worlds get auto matched against custom effects and/or spell/powers to define the action action in the PC(actions tab)/NPC(CT actions). So I'm quite familiar with having to rename things to keep them unique when it comes to conflicting names in modules. And the users of that stuff also know it as its well documented - this is how it works - these are the options to turn it off. The reason I complain about arbitrarily replacing data behaviors with hardcoded settings, with no way to turn them off, with no notification that it is happening (except research which most users are not going to know how to do), is because having it break (yes that word again) out of the blue with no understanding how as it worked the last time I was in there.

This is because that parsedata is growing every release, taking more and more keywords that were not previously conflicted or as in the case of combat superiority baffle me as to why anyone would want their players to have a bunch of options that they could not use legitimately dumped into their actions tab (we can skip that they don't match the desired behaviors or don't exist at all in the campaign as things doable). Players will click what they have to click. Now its possible you have some clear statement somewhere that THESE KEYWORDS in 5E will be auto populated into your players PCs - but I've not seen it. Except by digging for it myself to explain the inexplicable.

Do I mind they do this to help the most people they can? Absolutely not. Do I mind they do it with no way to turn it off or marry it to specific modules? Absolutely.

But again - the purpose of this thread is the let people know of things I've run into and explain how THEY might suffer the same fate - but maybe not spend quite so much time figuring it out.

That's as fully as I can explain my position and the reason for posting this stuff here. I get you don't agree with it. But we will just have to disagree.

As we've both agreed to do.. several.. times now :)

[LordEntrails]

Just to make sure, I don't disagree with you posting this stuff and in this thread. I think it's useful and educational, to you, me and others. The reason I started going off-topic per se is because I saw a chance to clarify or educate on something that seemed like it wasn't clear. i.e. effects initiative. Hopefully I clarified default behavior in Post #17. As I said, default effect init behavior is what I expected and desire to happen, but can also see how others would expect different behavior (after all, most things that cause effects in the rule book are written to say something like "until the start of your next turn" which is not the way effect initiative works).

[SilentRuin]

"Did you know... SW5E data set exists?" [FGU 5E Ruleset]

What I do to create an SW5E campaign and PC characters using Fantasy Grounds Unity 5E Ruleset with extensions and SW5E extension and data modules.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jef2eWnTv68

[YAKO SOMEDAKY]

Did you know... raw FGU allows NPCs to be in marching order?

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=55676&d=1672937244

I for sure did not! Pays to experiment!

How make this? Works in 5E and RMC?

[SilentRuin]

How make this? Works in 5E and RMC?

Not sure what you mean as I only play 5E this is pure FGU behavior in the party sheet order tab. You'll have to look up in FGU for any details on it. Maybe the ? in upper right of window will take you to the explanation. But just dragging and dropping the NPC out of combat tracker into that page will do it for me.

[LordEntrails]

The order tab of the Party Sheet was upgraded a few months back. More details here: 5E Party Sheet - Fantasy Grounds Customer Portal - Confluence (atlassian.net) (https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/996641997/5E+Party+Sheet#Order-Tab)

[YAKO SOMEDAKY]

I think I now understand my misreading!
It's in the Marching Order and not in the Vigil!
Thank you anyways! And Smiteworks is a tip generated by my erroneous reading!
Allow NPCs (Allies) to be placed on vigil.
That would come in handy for the Hirelings!

[SilentRuin]

"Did you know... tokens can follow another token in single file?" [FGU 5E Ruleset]

What I do to let a set of tokens be led in a single file across my maps. I saw a thread asking about this and I thought - "I bet I could get my Carrier extension to do this..." - and it turned out, I could :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiuq37OTFDs

[SilentRuin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCocZ9zwy4k

[SilentRuin]

For my own entertainment... no functional information. While EXTENSIONS = RISK, and players may not care what they do for them... still :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLW-v2-UeDo

[SilentRuin]

Some new stuff added into combat groups and death indicators involving center/select of tokens in client and host. Adding it in this thread instead of the two extension ones as it covers more than one extension's updates.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHcYr1U9uL8