Copy then Edit NPC?

[arksorn]

Can I create an NPC by copying an existing NPC, then editing him?

I want to make a 4 armed troll. Can I copy a troll to use as a starting point? How do I do that?

[Mistamichal]

Yes. I do it all the time to make variants of NPCs.
Drag the NPC from the library entry into the NPC tab. Then click on it and unlock it to edit.

[damned]

And you can drag it from the NPC tab to a blank spot on the NPC tab to make another copy again, and again, and again...

[arksorn]

Thank you gentlemen!

[Mixylplyx]

This needs to be made more obvious. I would've never known I can do that until I searched for it. Very useful feature.

[Zacchaeus]

This needs to be made more obvious. I would've never known I can do that until I searched for it. Very useful feature.

You might want to read this.

[Mixylplyx]

You might want to read this.

tl;dr. no time for RTFM.

seriously though, as a UI guy, there's a lot of great functionality in FG, it's just not very intuitive.

[Cerevant]

While good documentation is always helpful, I think it would be worthwhile for Smiteworks to invest some time on UI/UX and making things more discoverable. My party has seriously considered abandoning FG and going back to (other option) because of not being able to figure out how to do things. I can say, if it weren't for the exclusive content, we wouldn't be using it.

[JohnD]

While good documentation is always helpful, I think it would be worthwhile for Smiteworks to invest some time on UI/UX and making things more discoverable. My party has seriously considered abandoning FG and going back to (other option) because of not being able to figure out how to do things. I can say, if it weren't for the exclusive content, we wouldn't be using it.

Specifics?

[Cerevant]

In my humble opinion,

Examples:
* I create a tab on one of the pages. How do I give it a name? Right click? Double click? Nope, you type the name in the chat box, and drag it to the tab.
* There are some numerical fields that can only be changed using ctrl-scroll (the number of these seems to have been reduced)
* I think this was recently changed, but to change the faction of someone in the combat tracker, you had to drag the faction from the bottom of the screen instead of click / right click on the faction icon of the character
* 5e levelling up: you don't interact with the character sheet (you can, but see ctrl-scroll above), instead drag the class from the PHB
* Activate a data module: not click, double click or right click - drag the cover open
* Activate a data module: again, drag and drop an icon from the bottom of the sheet
* Encounter: if you click on the icon for a creature, its placement is removed, no way to undo
* The UI is ok for player targeting, but my players struggle getting it to work. The DM targeting interface in the combat tracker is more reliable for this

General Recommendations:
* Clever & cool should always give way to intuitive. You can have both, but always take advantage of the intuition that players have developed from the UI of other software.
* Discoverable means that I can see (menus, tabs, buttons), or reveal a function using standard mouse commands (left click, left double click, right click, scroll. Not middle click or meta-anything) in a way that doesn't carry out that action (the radial menus do this well)
* First and foremost, implement undo so that experimenting doesn't mess things up
* Don't over use drag & drop, it should primarily be used to move something from one place to another (drag & drop tokens), not transform something. Drag & drop a story link to place pins on a map...ok, a little bit of a grey area. Drag & drop to level up? Completely unintuitive.
* Key commands (ESPECIALLY meta-key commands) should always be discoverable by some other means
* Always ask yourself, "how will the user figure out how to do this" - if the answer is "the manual" then it probably needs some more thought.

Again, MHO, but doesn't most software today come with no written instructions?