18 months on : FG vs. Roll20 vs Foundry

[MostTornBrain]

Part 3: A dry run of the game

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

If you have feedback, let me know. Or I can hand these off to someone for inclusion in the wiki and maintenance (he says, hopefully...)

Cheers, Hywel

You did a fantastic job with these tutorials!

One minor cut-and-paste thing with tutorial 3. One of the leading sentences says "This tutorial will take you through generating a party of four pre-generated player characters ready to run a one-shot adventure." which I believe is accindetally left over from the intro to tutorial 2. When I first read it, I thought I opened the wrong tutorial. :-)

Also, nice tip for the Mac launching a second instance of FGU. I had done a more wasteful method of creating a second copy of the program and named it something different so I could just double-click on the icon, but that is a bit of a waste of disk space. I like your method better and despite using the Mac terminal on a nearly daily basis, I had no idea that I could launch applications that way.

Cheers,
Brian

[HywelPhillips]

Fixed, thank you. We’re in the process of adding them to the official wiki

Hywel

[celestian]

I keep using FGU for my original Pathfinder 2 group and use Foundry for a second "beginners" group.

Detailed information. Very insightful. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

[Hagedreper]

This has to be the most biased and condescending language I've seen in a good/bad comparison of products.

[SilentRuin]

Why I chose Fantasy Grounds and why I think people don't always like it... (copied from another post because I'm lazy)

I think people don't like Fantasy Grounds because of the "bling" factor. Other apps have more flash and simplicity with basic simple things.

However, FGU is the only app I use to run my campaigns. I like it because I can be ultimately lazy in how I run the game. I can actually spend time crafting the experience rather than constantly managing every little roll with all that can effect those rolls. I like the fact the LOS/Lighting is completely flexible (albeit new and still under development) and I can design/add/change things on the fly as I need them on the map during actual game play. I like my players can play for free with no costs - as host I've bought the ultimate license and all the books. I ESPECIALLY like that anything annoys me in the app I can override by writing my own extensions (note: EXTENSIONS = RISK) to make it do what I want to do in my games. Nothing has this kind of flexibility or power.

In the end, what I've crafted for myself makes running the actual games simple where I can be lazy. But to get to that state - mastering the flexibility and power? That can be a chore. And have some complexity with it. Granted, once the issues are solved and implemented, I could be lazier than any other DM in any other app. But to get to that point required a learning curve and effort. Granted, I don't do DATA and pretty much bought the FGU modules for PHB, MM, and DMG and supplemental data from DMsG to make my life even lazier with extensions. Though I have also written a huge amount of data myself - to run my own SW5e variant campaigns - so I have that flexibility to do it if I want to go through that pain and effort. But that is a learning curve even if you don't do any of it yourself and get free/paid for modules/extensions to use in your campaigns.

So in a nutshell, people don't like FGU because of the learning curve and overhead in mastering it.

But I would use nothing else. I like being the master of my universes and not having to do much during game play. Even if it costs me an inordinate amount of time to get to where I wanted to be in crafting/running the campaign. Now I can craft a campaign in no time. But yeah....

Was not easy to get to that point. And if you don't want that level of power and control - stick to the simple apps. In the end, the game is what you and your players make of it. These "apps" are just tools and can only provide as good an experience as the people that are running them.

[Jiminimonka]

Why I chose Fantasy Grounds and why I think people don't always like it... (copied from another post because I'm lazy)

I think people don't like Fantasy Grounds because of the "bling" factor. Other apps have more flash and simplicity with basic simple things.

However, FGU is the only app I use to run my campaigns. I like it because I can be ultimately lazy in how I run the game. I can actually spend time crafting the experience rather than constantly managing every little roll with all that can effect those rolls. I like the fact the LOS/Lighting is completely flexible (albeit new and still under development) and I can design/add/change things on the fly as I need them on the map during actual game play. I like my players can play for free with no costs - as host I've bought the ultimate license and all the books. I ESPECIALLY like that anything annoys me in the app I can override by writing my own extensions (note: EXTENSIONS = RISK) to make it do what I want to do in my games. Nothing has this kind of flexibility or power.

In the end, what I've crafted for myself makes running the actual games simple where I can be lazy. But to get to that state - mastering the flexibility and power? That can be a chore. And have some complexity with it. Granted, once the issues are solved and implemented, I could be lazier than any other DM in any other app. But to get to that point required a learning curve and effort. Granted, I don't do DATA and pretty much bought the FGU modules for PHB, MM, and DMG and supplemental data from DMsG to make my life even lazier with extensions. Though I have also written a huge amount of data myself - to run my own SW5e variant campaigns - so I have that flexibility to do it if I want to go through that pain and effort. But that is a learning curve even if you don't do any of it yourself and get free/paid for modules/extensions to use in your campaigns.

So in a nutshell, people don't like FGU because of the learning curve and overhead in mastering it.

But I would use nothing else. I like being the master of my universes and not having to do much during game play. Even if it costs me an inordinate amount of time to get to where I wanted to be in crafting/running the campaign. Now I can craft a campaign in no time. But yeah....

Was not easy to get to that point. And if you don't want that level of power and control - stick to the simple apps. In the end, the game is what you and your players make of it. These "apps" are just tools and can only provide as good an experience as the people that are running them.

I could not have put it better myself... and I probably would have got a Moderator telling me off if I tried.

[Weissrolf]

Detailed information. Very insightful. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

Well, I just got a bad rep from a forum regular, so opinions on that seem to differ.

[Jiminimonka]

Well, I just got a bad rep from a forum regular, so opinions on that seem to differ.

Yeah, that was me, and it was a mistake. Sorry Weissrolf.

[LordEntrails]

Well, I just got a bad rep from a forum regular, so opinions on that seem to differ.

Yeah, that was me, and it was a mistake. Sorry Weissrolf.

I just Rep'd Weissrolf to offset that for you.

[Jiminimonka]

Thanks. Lord Entrails.