How much can Fantasy Grounds handle?

[FredrikVladimir]

OK, a couple of questions.

First, how many simultaneous characters can be included in a single Fantasy Grounds campaign?

Second, how many campaigns can be running through the normal sharing process simultaneously?

Third, how many campaigns can use the FG Discord audio connections simultaneously?

And finally, how close have you gotten to these limitations?

[Moon Wizard]

1) There are no forced limits on the number of simultaneous characters in the campaign, nor how many players connected. However, the GM machine is the server, so you will be limited by what the GM's machine can handle as well as the GM network upload speed.

2) FG only supports hosting one campaign per machine/installation.

3) Not sure what you are asking. There are a limited number of rooms we have set up on Discord for everyone to share; but they are limited.

4) We've heard people running upwards of 7-12 people at a time; but TTRPGs in general tend to bog down at that scale (i.e. over 4-5 players) due to the number of simultaneous people trying to interact with the GM.

Since your questions appear to be asking for a particular purpose, perhaps you would like to share why you ask?

Regards,
JPG

[anstett]

As a practical matter I have had a total of 25 players logged into my game at one time for special occasions. Most nights we keep it to 10 or less. It does take skill to juggle that number of players, but Fantasy Grounds can handle just about anything you throw at it.

As Moon said because the DM's machine is hosting and dealing with the connections the real limitations are not in Fantasy Grounds but in the GM's computer and the internet connections between that computer and the Player's computers.

[FredrikVladimir]

1) There are no forced limits on the number of simultaneous characters in the campaign, nor how many players connected. However, the GM machine is the server, so you will be limited by what the GM's machine can handle as well as the GM network upload speed.

2) FG only supports hosting one campaign per machine/installation.

3) Not sure what you are asking. There are a limited number of rooms we have set up on Discord for everyone to share; but they are limited.

4) We've heard people running upwards of 7-12 people at a time; but TTRPGs in general tend to bog down at that scale (i.e. over 4-5 players) due to the number of simultaneous people trying to interact with the GM.

Since your questions appear to be asking for a particular purpose, perhaps you would like to share why you ask?

Regards,
JPG

Basically, I'm wondering how scaleable FGU is. The world is full of horror stories about products which weren't scaleable and failed badly when they hit their limits.

Your answer 2 didn't really address my (apparently poorly worded) question 2. If I'm running a game with five players, I'm assuming that all traffic between computer and the five players go through your servers. If so, there's a limit to how many different games can communicate simultaneously. That's what I was asking about.

(Of course, I could be wrong in my assumption about the communication path, and the only time your server is involved is when the player makes the initial connection with the GM system. After that it's a direct connection between the GM computer and the players' computers.)

For Discord, if you've only set up a limited number of rooms (say, x), what happens when game x+1 needs to set up an audio link? Has this happened (yet). Are there good and cheap audio options that don't involve going through your Discord rooms.

Sorry that my questions weren't as clear as they could be. They were clear in my head before I wore them down.

[Griogre]

You assumption is wrong on 2. All network traffic goes through your network connection after the initial connection - thus the practical limit being caused by GM's network bandwidth.

Discord is a free app and you can easily set up your own Discord server if you don't want to use a channel on Smitework's Discord - and most people do use their own Discord for actual game play. Smitework's discord is many to answer questions and maybe find some players.

[Zacchaeus]

There are about a dozen rooms in the official Discord channel set up for users to use. I've never seen more than one being used at any one time.

[LordEntrails]

Note, the FG Store has a 30 day money back policy. No questions asked. All you have to do is contact support via the link above and they will return anything you've purchased in the last 30 days. Try it out, see if it's going to meet your needs. No risk.

[Mytherus]

I’m wincing at what some of the responses are, as if it’s a shooting pain in my head.

10 players , more than 10 players in a session? Forget the tech forget FGU unless you are doing an all night “we stop when we stop” type of session how slow does that game progress?

Some combats must take a loooong time.

I stop my fgu games at 6 though ironically I have 7 for my new campaign. There’s rarely 100% attendance though.

As for discord limitations everyone I play with and when I dm we all just use our own discord servers. I was on an fg voice channel i twice in five years, those were the two times I hosted or played in a game for their con they have each fall.

Nothing is hosted by smiteworks when you connect besides the lobby which acts as a connection broker of sorts once your players are connected to your game that’s your computer over your network they are using not a smiteworks box.