Fantasy Grounds Licenses are Now FREE! Plus Online Digital Reader launched in Beta

[Ironbloods]

Hi, and welcome to FGU!

1) The online reader tool allows only the owner of the content to read those books. It's separate from any material shared in game sessions.
2) I would guess not, since this is a licensing / IP issue. However, as long as the GM's game is running, you can read any books the GM shares.
3) The fancy custom dice are also owner specific. If you buy a dice pack, everyone in the game will see the cool dice when you roll them, but they can't use them. The same applies to your GM. Just like your favorite dice at the physical table that you won't let anyone else roll because they'll ruin the luck in them.

Also, don't fat shame FGU. It's not very nice.

Thanks for the rapid response. I had gleaned from the thread that those were likely the answers for my question 1) & question 2) but thought best to confirm.

Regarding 2), in theory, if licensing/IP are such that the content can be shared in the FGU VTT then it should be doable via another client provided the right safeguards & tech is in place (maybe like the DRM via some streaming platforms working via some browsers but not others)... That of course is "in theory" and lots of other things are likely ahead of such requests via the development team (thanks for all y'all do!)...

Thanks for the bonus answer for 3) that I did not ask but appreciate you anticipating and great to know!

Regarding 4) and fat shaming FGU... Sorry about that... I am in IT and in some of my roles we call non web based clients 'fat clients' or 'fat Graphical User Interfaces' (fat GUIs)... I am surprised that the FGU full client can use so much of my GPU (55%-99%) even when minimized to the background on my PC... My main PC hardware is beefy but old (MSI MS-7A20 motherboard with i7-6900K, 128GB RAM, all NVMe, & 1070GTX GPU) and my GPU is often pegged since I loaded FGU so a thin web-client would be great...

[LordEntrails]

Regarding #2, no, we really can't say that in theory it would be legal. Without knowing the actual language of the contract that allows FG to convert and sell content, there is no way to know what formats or restrictions are allowed. Contracts can have all types of clauses and specifics. For an example close to home, look at how the digital gaming license for Star Wars has prevented digital versions of the RPG products.

Besides, from a practical point of view, keeping a "generous" GM from sharing their books with everyone on the internet would be a challenge. Solvable, but a distinct cost to the business, all while reducing the number of products you would sell. Wouldn't be a particularly smart move for WotC or SW. My personal thought is TTRPGs are a pretty hard business to survive in, and the consumers should be willing to support the people who make all these things possible for us by being willing to pay a fair amount for the products.

Edit: look at the vsync option and other info in the GUI, your GPU shouldn't be doing that.

[ddavison]

I can understand the desire to have that level of sharing on the online reader. For now, we have not chosen to investigate this further. We don't have any current plans to add a sharing capacity. We have a lot of contracts with publishers, and each would need to be evaluated to see if we could even do that. We have a majority of our contracts that use the same agreement and a handful of other, more specific ones that were normally drafted by our partners.

Beyond legal considerations, we further need to determine whether or not our partner wants us to add that sharing option. Shooting from the hip, I expect at least some of the major players would not. We generally try not to build out features that would upset our business partners. We want to remain a value-add for them so they continue to want to do business with us going forward.

[Ironbloods]

Regarding #2, no, we really can't say that in theory it would be legal. Without knowing the actual language of the contract that allows FG to convert and sell content, there is no way to know what formats or restrictions are allowed. Contracts can have all types of clauses and specifics. For an example close to home, look at how the digital gaming license for Star Wars has prevented digital versions of the RPG products.

Besides, from a practical point of view, keeping a "generous" GM from sharing their books with everyone on the internet would be a challenge. Solvable, but a distinct cost to the business, all while reducing the number of products you would sell. Wouldn't be a particularly smart move for WotC or SW. My personal thought is TTRPGs are a pretty hard business to survive in, and the consumers should be willing to support the people who make all these things possible for us by being willing to pay a fair amount for the products.

Edit: look at the vsync option and other info in the GUI, your GPU shouldn't be doing that.

Thanks for encouraging me to dive into the FGU GUI settings more (I have been tweaking the NVIDIA Control Panel and Windows settings over and over trying to reduce FGU GPU usage with minimal or no improvement)...

After your hint, under 'Settings > Display', I changed the following in my initial pass (may go back later and change 1 setting at a time) and things are much better GPU % usage wise (I don't know how much these changes will impact my usage of FGU yet as I am doing my MMO daily routines right now...):

A) Background Scrolling: Unchecked 'Enable';
B) Image Quality: Dropped from 100 to 25;
C) VSYNC: Changed from 0 (60 FPS fixed) to 2 (1/2 OS/Monitor frame rate);

Note: I left 'Launcher UI' at 100 and 'Campaign UI' at 200 as those allow me to not have to put on my reading glasses to use FGU...

The net effect of 1 or more of those 3 changes is my GPU is now static at <= ~29% for FGU instead of >= 55%+ for FGU (depending on whatever else my GPU is doing)... Instead of often pegging at 100% my overall GPU load is now ~32%-80% depending on whether I have my MMO client in the background or foreground (I have my MMO client running as close to 24x7 as possible) and whatever else I am doing at that time (or if the PC is otherwise essentially idle with as many things minimized to the "background" as possible)...

It seems like FGU has essentially the same GPU load whether it is minimized (to the background) or in the foreground/visible (or foreground/focused) which is not what I would expect but at least now it is a static >= ~29% with a high GPU watermark at ~80% instead of ~100%... Still higher than I would like but way, way better (generally I like to keep everything at <= 75%-80% max usage if at all possible).

Thanks again!!!

[LordEntrails]

Sorry I didn't give you the link before. I assume you found this page on the wiki?
Reducing GPU Usage - Fantasy Grounds Customer Portal - Fantasy Grounds

[Ironbloods]

Sorry I didn't give you the link before. I assume you found this page on the wiki?
Reducing GPU Usage - Fantasy Grounds Customer Portal - Fantasy Grounds

Yes I had seen that WIKI page on 'Reducing GPU Usage' when doing my own research prior to your post but I had stopped reading when I got to the section on 'AMD Radeon Settings' and did not know there was a section below the AMD section titled:

'Adjusting vsync and image quality from the Launcher'

I only did what I did in my above post that triaged things for me due to your hint/encouragement... When I just now clicked on the link you sent after triaging, and got the familiar article, I kept scrolling down and saw for the first time the section 'Adjusting vsync and image quality from the Launcher' below AMD...

Thanks again.

[LordEntrails]

Sure. Glad my comment was able to help prod you in the right direction

[Ironbloods]

I can understand the desire to have that level of sharing on the online reader. For now, we have not chosen to investigate this further. We don't have any current plans to add a sharing capacity. We have a lot of contracts with publishers, and each would need to be evaluated to see if we could even do that. We have a majority of our contracts that use the same agreement and a handful of other, more specific ones that were normally drafted by our partners.

Beyond legal considerations, we further need to determine whether or not our partner wants us to add that sharing option. Shooting from the hip, I expect at least some of the major players would not. We generally try not to build out features that would upset our business partners. We want to remain a value-add for them so they continue to want to do business with us going forward.

I am new and learning as I go but, after reading this full thread and researching things & working with the clients, my official first impression is that:
"Y'all rock!"
I don't know yet the people/organizations/etc involved, & while the FGU VTT full client still seems to use too much GPU resources (both in general & surprisingly even when minimized), so far I am very impressed with:

• -FGU VTT: It seems like it will be really good for gaming (GPU usage aside);
• -Content available in the FGU VTT: Amazing to have all of this AD&D 2E content available! Lots of other content as well but so far my focus has been on AD&D 2E and I am impressed!;
• -Online Digital Reader: Huge boon to those that have content (our DM but not players);
• -People: More impressive than the above... People that are working hard but still taking the time to read threads like this and give input and listening to users (even new ones who may not yet understand the nuances of their requests/posts)...

Note: When/if I have some time, as a Computer Scientist & Architect, I will try do a shared session with our DM and see our DM's administrative & permissions options to see if there is something that may be both leverageable and not prone to abuse (and likely has the underlying infrastructure data-model-wise to detect any abuse).