Pre-Purchase Questions

[Derelict]

Howdy folks!

I had purchased Fantasy Grounds many years ago, and quickly shelved it, due to finding a regular face-to-face gaming group. Covid has really screwed up my gaming time, and I have the itch to run something for a group of friends. I'm re-investigating FF, and have some questions. Pardon me if they're covered elsewhere; I read a lot of threads trying to get the information, but they're simple enough questions that users of the product may not consider them.

1. Fantasy Grounds II says it "supports Savage Worlds". Does that mean "out of the box"? Will I need to purchase addons (I see a lot of them in the store ... I'm not sure if they're necessary to run SWADE or not).
2. I'm a programmer by trade (I write MMORPGs). How modifiable are the rulesets? Can I make changes myself to support SWADE rulesets that are not natively supported?
3. I've been watching Kevin Doswell's videos. What part of the setup is FF II, and what part is Twitch / Facebook? Is the overlay of Kevin speaking FF or external streaming tool?
4. If I'm not streaming, how easy is it to capture the session on video? Are the Nvidia tools or Orb sufficient?
5. Understanding that those folks in the forum are FF II fans, how many features do you gain from FF II over something like Roll 20, specifically using SWADE?

Thanks much for your time!

D

[YggBjorn]

Hello!

I'll do my best to answer, let's dive right in:

1. You will need to purchase the SWADE Rule Book on the FG Store or Steam to properly run Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. It is normally $9.99 USD but is on sale for $7.49 USD https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store...?id=PEGFGSWADE

2. The community has created some extensions, the main developer for Savage Worlds is Ikael and he can better answer this question. He is currently taking a well deserved break. From my experience as someone who has converted a couple modules for use in Fantasy Grounds, most things work good and there are easy work arounds for what I have encountered.

3. Fantasy Grounds allows players to connect to the GM hosting the session. They can manipulate their dice and their characters. Voice chat is handled through a third-party platform. I think most people use Discord for it's ease of use, availability, and price point.

4. I believe most of the common video capture and recording software works fine with Fantasy Grounds. However I don't stream my games so someone else can advise you better.

5. I haven't used Roll 20 from the GM side. I researched both before purchasing Fantasy Grounds and decided on FG because it was more feature rich and allowed a one time purchase to own it outright. It was recently announced that Roll20, Foundry VTT, and Astral would be getting official Savage Worlds support. I think Foundry and Roll20 can utilize Savaged.us for some of it's content as well.

Just as an aside: We don't refer to Fantasy Grounds as FG II anymore. Now there is Fantasy Grounds Classic (was FG II, 32 bit) and Fantasy Grounds Unity (still in Beta, maps can utilize Line of Sight, 64 bit) If you own FGC I believe you can get a discount when purchasing FGU. I bought in to the Kickstarter and I think the prices have changed since then but I am sure you can find more info about pricing with a quick Google search. I heard FGU will be releasing to gold in early November. If you would like to get some hands on experience with Fantasy Grounds, come join us in the Fantasy Grounds College Discord where you can signup for free classes that will teach you how to best utilize the software. I will be teaching some Savage Worlds and FGU classes soon and I routinely run Savage Worlds one shots using FGU. I have an Ultimate license for FGC and FGU so you only need a demo copy of the respective version to join one of my sessions. I would be happy to help you learn Fantasy Grounds and I can help you from both sides of the "GM Screen" by letting you connect to my session so you can try it from the players side and I can share my screen using Discord so you can see it from the GMs side.

Below is a link to the Fantasy Grounds College Discord server.
https://discord.gg/Ew6nYyw

[Derelict]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, and I'll be checking out the Discord tonight after dinner!

D