Picking Up FG(2) for the First Time

[stonwulfe]

Hello All,

I'm a long-time DM who's had a very unfortunate run of bad luck finding good players locally. In a city as large as Vancouver, this shouldn't be an issue. However, the intervening factor tends to be scheduling more than it tends towards player capacities. People work, and enjoy their downtime, and a lot of my players have expressed that they would find it easier if they could telecommute to the games.

I've thought about running PBEM or IRC games, with a virtual whiteboard software for interraction, but as FG/FG2 are purpose-built I thought I'd do some research. I'm thinking about picking it up, but I've got some questions, and some reservations. I'm looking for feedback.

These are my questions, in what resembles logical order:


How steep is the learning curve for getting into DMing with FG2?
I usually run games of five to eight players. How many licences am I required to purchase?
Can I create my own custom handouts? (Further, how do I do so?)
How would you rate the user-friendliness of the toolset?
Are there communication and/or lag issues with the integrated chat script?
What is the compatibility of FG with consumer firewall solutions? (Linksys, D-Link, Belkin)
Does FG support the option of displaying time in each player's geographic region? (Real-time timezone feedback.)
How does one distribute custom content to their players?
How compatible is FG with Wacom tablets?


This pretty-well wraps up my questions for now. If there's anything else you think I might find valuable, please let me know. This includes beefs, opinions, rants, and/or questions.

Thanks for your time.

Regards,

Stonwülfe

[Griogre]

These are my questions, in what resembles logical order:


How steep is the learning curve for getting into DMing with FG2?
I usually run games of five to eight players. How many licences am I required to purchase?
Can I create my own custom handouts? (Further, how do I do so?)
How would you rate the user-friendliness of the toolset?
Are there communication and/or lag issues with the integrated chat script?
What is the compatibility of FG with consumer firewall solutions? (Linksys, D-Link, Belkin)
Does FG support the option of displaying time in each player's geographic region? (Real-time timezone feedback.)
How does one distribute custom content to their players?
How compatible is FG with Wacom tablets?



1) Very low. FG simulates the game table in a face to face game: Character sheet, dice, chat, battlemap, tokens for the battlemap. Thus if you've played in face to face games it is very fast to pick up the basics.

2) Typically the DM buys one full license and the players each buy one lite license. So that is one license apiece. There is no upgrade from lite to full so anyone who thinks they may run a game in the future should buy a full license instead of a lite one.

3) Handouts are easy. You can share images with the players, or drop or type text in the chat window. You can also share storybook entries if you wish. To distribute an image handout you need to drop the image in a folder, for the others you would need to either cut and paste or type something into chat or a storybook entry.

4) Because of the face to face simulation it is friendly to people who have played in face to face games. Most non simulation things like making hot keys are done with drag and drop. I would rate it about 4 of 5 stars.

5) Chat itself typically doesn't lag. It is all a question of the server (host's) up bandwith. What can take a while are large images, typically maps.

6) If you have ever set up a game server you should not have any problems. However, the FG host *must* open port 1802 and port forward to his local machine. If you have any doubts you can do this, make sure you download the demo and get people to connect to it before getting FG. Players typically do not have to do anything. If for some reason you do not control your router you can use a VPN but that does add another layer of overhead and complexity.

7) No. FG does not have a clock or display time at all.

8) It depends on the custom content and whether you want the player to actually have the content of just see it. You may be able to share the data like a handout or you may need to build a custom module. If you have something specific in mind say what you want to share and someone will give you more specifics.

9) Hmm. I believe FG works on some of the most common tables but they are not officially supported. I don't have one so I'll let others comment.

I would say most use FG with voice software like Teamspeak or Ventrillo because it speeds combat and lessens typing.

[stonwulfe]

1. Is it possible to scan a document and use that scanned document in the program? Further, what filetype does it need to be saved as?

2. Does FG come with tile-mapping software a-la-Warcraft map builder? Or is it just a bunch of preset dungeon/map tiles and an interactive map whiteboard, as it were?

[Valarian]

FGII doesn't have a map editor ... it accepts image file types (e.g. JPG / PNG) to use as a map base. There are tools in the application to add a grid, use pointers, whiteboard etc. You can use further image files as tokens and place them on the map. You can scale the tokens to the map, and lock the scale so further tokens are at the same scale.

[stonwulfe]

So, insofar as map generation goes, if I've got access to a good third-party cartography software I could generate the maps, export them as web-vieable image files (.jpg, etc) and use them in FG? Nice.

The next question is, does FG support both Hex and 2D (Square) Grids? I often run instances of arial combat, and the ability to move between a 2D grid and Hex grid would be advantageous.

Further, has anyone encountered any problems with importing maps? Do they need to be a specific size, or within specific constraining factors (dpi resolution, format)? Could someone recommend a good cartography software?

[Griogre]

So, insofar as map generation goes, if I've got access to a good third-party cartography software I could generate the maps, export them as web-vieable image files (.jpg, etc) and use them in FG? Nice.? Yeah, you can use what ever map making program you want and it handles the standard image formats though probably gif, jpg and png are the most common. I use pngs myself. Typically you want maps without grids because there are advantages to using FGs grid and it is a pain to line up the FG grid and a grid on a map (and usually not possible unless the graphic grids are integer multiples).


The next question is, does FG support both Hex and 2D (Square) Grids? I often run instances of arial combat, and the ability to move between a 2D grid and Hex grid would be advantageous.? In FG you can make a square grid and draw on it with a pen. Tokens and pointers (lines and Area Effect markers) snap to the grid. I really suggest you load the demo and play around with grids and drawing (and check out your Watcom). You can not lay down a hex grid however. However if the hex is important to you, most map programs can put one down on the map image.


Further, has anyone encountered any problems with importing maps? Do they need to be a specific size, or within specific constraining factors (dpi resolution, format)? Could someone recommend a good cartography software?
I recommend pngs or jpegs. The biggest constraint on map size is how long do you want to sit around transferring them. Most non commercial broadband “up” connections are a quarter to one third of the total bandwidth and if you have a large group connected - say six or eight - the host going to be trying to serve the maps at a rate of less than 1/6 to 1/8 of his up because there is some overhead and people may be chatting either with voice or typing. Maps are transfered apparently in *uncompressed* format from the server so you would ideally want as few colors as possible as well as the smallest area possible. However once they are on the client - they are cached, so you shouldn't have to transfer a map more than once.

There are many good map makers running from professional grade like Campaign Cartographer to free tile mappers. Dungeon Forge is a free mapper. I still use Dungeon Crafter II (III is still not functional last time I checked). Hex Mapper is an old fashioned, but still functional, outdoor map program. Do a search on the forum for map making programs and you should get a ton of hits.

[Andugus]

I use a Wacom 4x6 Intous 3 and it works great in FG for freehand drawings.

[Silas1066]

My favorite aspect of FG is the map/image management.

I typically scan maps and images from modules into .bmp, .jpg, etc. files and them put them in the campaign/images folder.

I find it works best when you scan in an image from a module that already has a "grid" on it (a dungeon map, etc.)--then I just size the tokens to the grid. Saves time.

for voice, I use Yahoo voice chat. Teamspeak no longer works correctly on my system (I cannot log into it). I've never used Ventrilo.

[Vorpal]

How suitable is FG as an electronic Dungeon masters screen? I anticipate running mostly face to face adventures for younger players. It would be nice to have a laptop on the side that would make page turning and table flipping easy.

[balth]

One of the nice things that nooone else has mentioned about the maps is that you can put down the 'fog of war' on your maps, and have only the starting positions exposed. It uses a drawing tool to let you reveal more and more of the map, it's very sweet.

I will say I have yet to find keyboard shortcuts for a lot of the gm things I want to do, so I seem to have to use the mouse a lot, but it's pretty quick to pick up so far! (I just bought it 2 days ago)