New DM Pointers

[Talen]

Someone asked me today for tips in running his first D&D game through Fantasy Grounds. I game up with a quick top ten list, but I wanted to asked everyone here for their list as well since I find that I'm still learning new tricks with FG (or remember old one's as people point out how useful they are). What are your tricks, tips and practical advice for someone running D&D (AL or non-AL) in FG? Here's my list FWIW:

1. It helps to not just have your npc's ready, but to have them moved into the encounters tab on the NPC area - that way, you can just click one button and have them all entered in the combat tracker.
2. Related to the above, place your npc's from the encounter area to the map ahead of time - that way you don't have to waste time dragging them form the combat tracker to the map.
3. Have your map grid set for each map you intend to use ahead of time - that way you don't have to waste time resizing the image during game.
4. Start your server ahead of time to test connections as there are frequently connection issues (especially with newbies to FG) - but also so that you can set your FG windows before the game - your screen real estate gets used up pretty quickly and moving windows around during the game can become cumbersome.
5. Run through the Game and GM options button (top right button with a checkmark) before the game and decide on things like whether you will use a dice tower, auto roll npc initiatives, auto total GM dice, show dm dice, etc.
6. For me, helpful GM options for an AL game include setting the "remove on miss" to multi, set "GM voice to active CT" on, "show gm rolls" on, "show portraits" on, "show client results to client" on, "show roll totals" on, "Item identification" on (especially for newbies), "Party show characters to clients" on, "show inventory to clients" on, "auto npc initiative" on, "npc numbering" to append (you can use random if you don't want them to know how many npc's they will be facing), "Show effects" on.
7. Decide on the extensions you want to use and load them before the game - the language extension and remove effects tutorial are both very useful.
8. Load your pc's into the combat tracker and party sheet ahead of time - they will always be there, so you wont have to fiddle with it before the first battle starts.
9. Have all the pc's change their dice color to something different so you can better track them when you see different dice rolled - it also helps when pointers are added to the map as the pointers will be their dice color.
10. Set your module permissions in the library ahead of time so that you don't have to approve them during the game if the pc tries to open the phb they may own.

[Trenloe]

Nice list. One thing that I found invaluable when learning to GM in FG was to start another instance of FG on the same computer as the GM instance and "Join Game" with an address of localhost. This is a player instance and so it allows the GM to see exactly what the players see.

[dberkompas]

Great idea Trenloe, or if you have another notebook that you can set next to you, then you can connect through the LAN IP.
(Just a thought, I've never actually GM'd through FG.)

Talen: Thanks for this list, I hope I'll be able to make use of it to GM some day.

BoomerET

[Trenloe]

Great idea Trenloe, or if you have another notebook that you can set next to you, then you can connect through the LAN IP.

Using another computer requires a separate licence - OK if you have an ultimate licence (connect with a free licence), otherwise you'd need two full licences.

Using a second instance on the same PC doesn't need another licence.

[damned]

Start Small. You dont need to know how to use all the bells and whistles. Effects are awesome but they take some getting used to.

[stephen71]

Thanks for the great tips!

I'm just blown away at how powerful the DM tools are. Been playing around with the interface all day and it's surprisingly intuitive. Can't wait to join as a player to see how the other side works.