[FG] Fantasy Grounds

[jordangreywolf]

Digital_Rampage has invested in the 'Ultimate' bundle of Fantasy Grounds -- a more polished package of the sort of thing that RPTools and MapTools tried to tackle. He's also attempting to run a Sunday-night game with what looks to be about 6 players now. I'm curious to see if this works, or if it's a disaster.

Not For Free:
For the most part, this does what RPTools and MapTools could do, but prettier, and costlier. It's $40 to get the "standard" setup -- in which you could run a game, but everyone else is going to have to pitch in $40 for the game as well. Or, you can go for the $140 "ultimate" setup, which lets you GM games for players, and all they have to do is load up the demo. There's an alternative setup that involves a monthly subscription, but I'm not convinced that it would be a better deal in the long run: and I'm hoping that this IS something that pays off in the long run. Depending on how it works out for Digital_Rampage, I might consider the "Ultimate" package myself. Who knows? It might make online RP doable for me again.

Additional costs come in the form of plug-ins of additional game material. Sure, you COULD just use the maps and tokens and the GM could just use this as a sort of virtual miniatures table, but real value comes in the automation. In this case, Digital_Rampage is going for Pathfinder, but there are also sets for Savage Worlds and a few other game systems.

Features
Want to create a character? Well, with the Pathfinder setup, I've got a multi-tabbed virtual character sheet, and a lot of the calculations are handled for me. For character creation, I figure out my starting stats, then I can drag and drop a token from the Character Creation section that represents my chosen race, and it'll adjust the final stats and apply any special abilities to my sheet. Voila!

Inventory? Well, as long as the item is actually in the Gear Library, I can drag and drop it to my inventory and it'll tally the weight for me. If it's a weapon, the stats get moved to my "Actions" page, and a routine is set up for me to be able to quickly roll attack rolls (based on my stats) and damage rolls (ditto), with an option for any custom modifiers that might apply for the situation.

Dice can be rolled in a number of ways -- basically by "grabbing" an icon that represents a virtual die, or a handful of them, and dropping them anywhere. Everyone can see the roll, and the result goes into the "log" for reference.

There are provisions for the GM to roll dice without us seeing the results -- a nice touch is that we just see a shadow of dice being "rolled," but no result, letting us know that SOMETHING happened, in much the same way we'd get that sense of foreboding at the table when the GM starts rolling. ;) Or, if you need to roll something but it's for the GM's eyes only, you drag the dice over to the "dice tower" and then the GM gets to see the result. This accommodates situations where the GM is told to "roll for the player," but, hey, this way it feels like YOU'RE the one doing the rolling. It's a psychological thing, I guess.

Everything is window-based. The GM can conjure up a world map, a local map, handouts, etc., and you can minimize them or rearrange them on your own personal view of the "tabletop" as necessary. With Gwendel's multi-monitor setup, I can stretch things out for more "table" space, which is nice.

Teamspeak/Overwolf:
Just as we used it for group games on Minecraft, we've been using Teamspeak for handling communications in realtime on the computer. Gwendel and I both have headsets for this, so there's no leaning over a microphone, and we have hotkeys for mic-on. (I am NOT a fan of always-live microphones, or those that automatically turn on when you "speak," as several of our friends have bad habits of playing loud music in the background, or making weird snorting noises and such when things are otherwise quiet that set off the microphone. When things are deadly quiet and you're in Minecraft and nervous about a creeper popping out of the shadows, and then "ssss-SHRONK!" someone blew his nose and set off the microphone in a way that sounds like a hissing alien bellow, it can be a bit unnerving.)

"Overwolf" is an add-in for Teamspeak that provides some additional tie-in features with certain multiplayer online games. In this case, when I have an active character, it makes a little "speech balloon" icon appear over my character icon when I'm speaking, to make it a little easier to identify who the active speaker is. (It's a little flaky, though. It worked like a charm for our first character-writing session, but Sunday night it didn't seem to be working properly. I'm not sure what the issue was there.)

We can also type text, but for spontaneity just being able to speak allows for moving things along more quickly. While I might do something like type in some poem composed by my bard, so I don't force everyone to listen to me actually recite it over the shared line, this isn't the sort of situation where we go and take a sandwich break because it's going to take 15-20 minutes each time someone composes his "dramatic action pose."

At least, wow, I sure hope not!


Players and Characters:
Apparently there are a few Pathfinder adventures done up with maps, tokens, treasure "cards," and all sorts of tools expressly meant for use with Fantasy Grounds, and Digital_Rampage is planning to run one such series. One of our players (Dr_Rhubarb) has actually been through those adventures in some form before, but he's promised not to spoil it for everyone else.

I was originally going to play a Bard/Rogue (Olik the Unlucky -- a black cat partly inspired by Jynx from SinaiMUCK, partly tribute to poor Loki and to the percussion-playing bard character I played on heavily-modified Skyrim), with the intention of eventually meeting requirements to play an "Arcane Trickster" prestige class (using Mage Hand to remotely disarm traps, for instance ;) ).

However, it looks like we've already got an Fetchling Rogue (Dr_Rhubarb's character). Other characters include Karin the Elf Mage (Gontharas), Squirt the Barbarian (Wookiee -- name was assigned by Digital_Rampage as a joke because Wookiee couldn't decide on one, and will likely be changed), Branch the Druid, and ... hmm. I thought there was one more, but I don't recall the class combo.

It looks like we've only got one fighter-class type, so I might possibly switch to a Fighter. It's not my class of choice, but I still have that wacky concept of a Gnoll Gourmand -- on a quest to cook and eat ALL THE THINGS -- that was rejected by Gwendel for her World of Warcraft campaign once upon a time as too silly. (Too silly, and yet we still had an Orc Druid in the party who was best known for using Summon Nature's Ally to conjure a 2000-lb rhino in mid-air above an opponent's head....)

I intend to draw up some custom tokens. I hope that might serve to break me out of my "art funk." I got at least started on a sketch of a crazy gnoll cook, but not much further than that. I don't know why, but when I draw, I end up feeling TIRED, sometimes even to the point of nodding off. It's like there's some part of my brain that really, really doesn't want to get a workout. (Gettin' old, and all that.)

We did a test run with the map and tokens. One-on-one battle between my poor bard and a goblin. The goblin won on round 3. Another reason for me to consider that maybe I need something not quite so squishy.

First game should be this upcoming Sunday. On Saturday, I'm resuming my Iron Kingdoms campaign, and I'm still not settled on WHAT I AM GOING TO DO. Ugh.

Comments

[tuftears]

If you decide you like Fantasy Grounds, Jared and I would probably be happy to split the cost of getting you your own Ultimate bundle. :)

Re: Iron Kingdoms, you've already had a Russian fairytale-inspired setting so maybe it's time to move over a bit... An Asian-style setting maybe? Or if you want to stick with the Russian setting, why not dig into history instead and center it on one of the wars between Russia and its neighboring states, reshuffled a bit?

[jordangreywolf]

Well, if I do anything with Fantasy Grounds, I wouldn't necessarily have to stick with Iron Kingdoms. Part of the reason I talk about sticking to Iron Kingdoms for any future fantasy games at my house is simply because I've invested in this RIDICULOUS amount of miniatures geared toward the setting.

(And in addition to what I've "invested in," I've got tons more either donated to the cause, or on indefinite loan. That would include NinjaWolf donating an entire Cryx army bag, several army bags of Digital_Rampage's Khador, Cryx, and Merc units, and various Hordes/Unleashed "Minion" packs that Digital_Rampage got on the cheap at game bazaars at the Armadillo Game Shoppe before it closed.)

I don't like the Iron Kingdoms MECHANICS, per se, or the lack of adventure support from the maker of the game, but I like the aesthetics of the setting. Combine that with the drumbeat of "Pathfinder-Pathfinder-Pathfinder!" from certain players in my group, and the fact that there WAS a d20 version of Iron Kingdoms RPG that came out ages ago (just that it was as incomplete in its development as the current RPG is, so there are certain GAPS that would need to be filled in), and I could foresee making continued use of the setting.

The "Ultimate" bundle would primarily be the price of entry for hosting games in general, but it also comes with basic rules sets and mechanisms for D&D 3.5, 4th edition, and 5th edition, Pathfinder, FATE, and Numera.

If I wanted to play Savage Worlds with any sort of mechanical support, it'd be at least $10 for the core Savage Worlds mechanics. It'd be another $10 if I want to get the module that adds in support for the Adventure Deck. It starts getting pricier if I want to add in material from the various "toolkits" and bestiaries ... but there doesn't seem to be much support there for full adventure paths already written up and ready to go, the way there is for Pathfinder, so since I'd be having to make a bunch of original material ANYWAY, I probably wouldn't want to go overboard in investing in all that. Really, I need to do some more research into what tools I'd have as a GM to create my own material -- how much this is going to help me do my own thing -- before I shell out the big bucks.

But past that point, it's pretty wide open. I mean, it might be nice to take the opportunity to finally run my ideas for a Fallout-themed game ... but that'd really depend upon whether my player base is invested in the idea of that setting. If I were actually involved in the creation of a game setting again (like I was for a while with Wonderland No More), then I'd likely have incentive to go with THAT, since any work I put into the online gaming could theoretically go toward that project as well. (Unlike the Fallout campaign, where I couldn't very well put together a Fallout-themed adventure and then distribute it without major copyright and trademark concerns.)