Using fantasy grounds an estimate?

[Griogre]

You do know if you have all this stuff already you only need to use FG as a dice roller and battlemap? There's no reason/advantage to adding data twice if you already have to it in note/excel form and use voice, just drop the image in an FG campaign and call it a day - 2 minutes prep. If your players want a character sheet in FG tell them to fill out the character sheet. You are really making this too hard on yourself. If you don't want to take advantage of the RM ruleset table lookup because you have your excel sheet then don't.

Generally, the only thing that takes longer to prep in FG than in a face to face game is creating maps, if you don't have a digital version of the one you want.

[damned]

Hi Marc,
No one likes seeing you unhappy with your purchase. I used quite a few different applications (business) that use lots of interfaces. FG's interface is different but its really not that unlearnable. There are offers around to give you a view from the GMs side, from the players side, and people are more than willing to help ease your learning curve.
Playing a game by text can take a long time and a lot of prep. Playing a game using Voice or Voice and Text need take no more time to prep than your tabletop game.
Sign up to a game at www.fg-con.com with an open mind and see how it goes.
You seem like the kind of GM who would benefit from FG seeing the work you have put into your own resources.
No one says you shouldnt say anything about "stuff that isnt going to be fixed". There is just no need to go on and on about it. It isnt going to be fixed because it isnt broken. Its just different. And its completely usable once you know where to start. You really only have two places to look - menu icons at right and right click the screen or object and explore the options presented.
Microsoft received tonnes of flack when they moved to the ribbon. Millions hated it. It works, they know it and they knew we would get it to after a little while.
Have fun.
regards
Damian

[sciencephile]

I think it is safe to say that no one product will make everyone happy. When it comes to VTT software, they all have their advantages and they all have their disadvantages. Each usually has a demo version to try before buying. Some are even free. They all appeal to different styles of gamers. I myself started one path, only to end up here. I originally worked with MapTools (free). It had a nice fog of war and line of sight tool (one of the best out there). Unfortunately, its character sheet and die rolling was awful. Then I purchased a GM license to d20pro. It had a better character sheet and die rolling but less desirable fog of war/line of sight. I eventually ended up purchasing an ultimate license for FG2. While this has very little in the way of fog of war/line of sight, I found it best in regards to the character sheet and die rolling. In addition, it allowed me to work on story preparation within the tool, rather than having it separately. I'm probably a more adaptable person in that my style has changed and I have tried different tools based on the style change.

When I began using FG2 a few months ago, I was a bit overwhelmed in the UI. I did take the time to watch the videos and it took me about 2-3 game sessions to begin feeling comfortable. My players really like the system better than the other VTTs I have used in the past.

You will ultimately have to choose to embrace FG2 and watch the videos or decide to try something different. The choice is entirely yours and nobody can really change that. I think the overall message is that complaining really doesn't help. You should either take the bull by horns or choose to ride a different animal. Complaining on how bumpy the ride is doesn't help anyone in any way.

[Dakadin]

Ok so based on what you guys are saying I have 3 choices and included is that I shouldn't say anything about stuff that is never going to be fixed. To me the software is in an unusable state because of a time consuming cumbersome interface. So use the $65 I spent on the software and extras and fix one thing in the UI. It you have the best application in the world and its 10x harder to use you are limiting the number of your end users. Nothing else I can say. I showed the software to one of my players and he says the same thing its way too cumbersome.

and as far as writing my own software I have been using an excel spreadsheet which handles my combats and here is an example of some adventure stuff I have created.
https://postimg.org/image/9qsw4n973/
https://postimg.org/image/oz1l06zc7/
https://postimg.org/image/shiv3kzp9/

Sorry I wanted to get into this sooner but work has been crazy.

Great job on the spreadsheet and adventure stuff.

I am definitely open to suggestions and want to make it easier to use the ruleset. I just need more specifics. If you can give me specific details on what you would like to see changed, I will definitely consider changing it. I just need to see if it is something that can be changed and that it will make sense to change it. So please let me know which parts are cumbersome.

Now let me see if I can help with your original questions.

For the 6 PCs, have they already been created or will they be created fresh in FG? If they are already created it should take about 15-20 minutes per PC. I entered in the 10th level ranger from Rolemaster Heroes and Rogues in about 15 minutes. It will take a bit longer at first while you figure out where things are located and the easiest way to enter things. To give you an idea this is what I did:

• Enter basic information (Name, height, weight, etc)
• Choose the Profession
• Choose the Race
• Choose the Realm if it is an arms user
• Enter the Stats (Temp and Pot)
• Add the Skills (Drag from library or use Skill Dev button then update the ranks and level bonuses)
• Add the Spell Lists
• Add the Inventory (Drag from Library or enter manual. Custom items will take longer)
• Add the Combat Tab information (Attacks and AT. Drag Weapons and Shields from inventory.)
• Add any notes

For the 2 custom races, you need to do the following:

• Enter the race name in the Race field
• Enter the stat modifiers in the appropriate stat race column
• Enter the RR modifers in the appropriate RR race column

The rest of it is manually handled within the ruleset just like for the other races. It should only take a few more minutes for the custom races.

For the 2 custom professions, you need to do the following:

• Enter the profession name in the Profession field
• Select or enter the realm in the Realm field
• Enter in the skill cost for each skill as they are added to the Skills tab

The rest of it is manually handled within the ruleset just like for the other professions. It take is slower entering in the skill costs if you want them in FG. It isn't a lot of work but it does take time so figure about 5 minutes extra per custom profession.

The NPCs will vary depending on your NPCs. If you are able to use a creature from Creatures & Treasures or one of the NPCs from the Non-Player Character Table in Character Law as a template, then it should be only about 5-10 minutes per NPC. If you need to manually enter a new NPC then give closer to 10-20 minutes per NPC. Be sure to add a token for each of the NPCs. There are modules included that you can load with tokens.

The current adventure will depend on quite a few things but based on your samples, I am guessing you would like it all entered in FG. If you already have the text and pictures in electronic format then you just need to drag the pictures into the campaign images folder and copying the text into your story entries. For the Inhabitants Orcs page you used as a sample, it would take me about 5-10 minutes to enter that in using the copy & paste method.

The maps as someone stated tend to take the most time if you don't already have them in electronic format but if you do it only take a couple minutes to load all of your maps into FG. If you want to place pins on the map for your story entries or encounters that will take an extra couple minutes per map.

Once you have the maps and NPCs, encounters are pretty quick. Do the following:

• Create a new encounter
• Drag the appropriate creatures or NPCs to the encounter
• Change the number of each NPC in the encounter to represent how many there are
• Drag the tokens below to each NPC to the appropriate map
• Close the encounter

It should take about 5 minutes per encounter.

So based on the above, I would estimate the following assuming you have it in electronic format and the characters are already created:

• 120 minutes for the 6 PCs
• 15 minutes for the custom races and professions
• 100 minutes for the 5 NPCs (estimating on the high side)
• 50 minutes for the 10 encounters
• 30 minutes for 10 maps including dragging pins to them if there are only a few pins per map
• 60 minutes for 10 pages of story entries (I am estimating a bit high here)

So using my wild assumptions, it would take a little over 6 hours. It likely will be a bit slower as you get used to it so I would guess closer to 8 hours at first.

Hopefully that helps a bit and hopefully I remembered everything. Please let me know if you have any questions.

[damned]

i was looking at your screen shots but there was this one image at the bottom that kept distracting me.
Attachment 5273

[Andraax]

Nice summary, Dakadin. I would add only thing - at the end of creating the encounter and placing the tokens on the map and before closing the encounter, I go ahead and drag the link marker onto the map as well to create a pin near the tokens. This way I can quickly bring up the encounter entry directly from the map, to facilitate adding the tokens to the Combat Tracker.

[Dakadin]

Nice summary, Dakadin. I would add only thing - at the end of creating the encounter and placing the tokens on the map and before closing the encounter, I go ahead and drag the link marker onto the map as well to create a pin near the tokens. This way I can quickly bring up the encounter entry directly from the map, to facilitate adding the tokens to the Combat Tracker.

Great idea. I look being able to get to things using multiple ways so that whichever is closest can be used.