Special Announcement - Kickstarter

[JennyRB]

Jenny is offering to buy us snacks and soda?!

Hahahahahahahahaha ... No just pointing out the expense parts between the 3.

[Pikup]

It's irrelevant to wonder about peoples' thoughts or to speculate about their motives, there is a simple truth right now:

Real Life: GM drops $300 on books, hands books to player, player becomes GM.
Roll20, FG's primary competitor: GM drops $300 on books, promotes player to GM role, player becomes GM.
Fantasy Grounds: GM drops $150 on ultimate license, $300 on books, wants other player to become GM, oops, $450 more please.

In the five years I subscribed to Roll20 to GM I spent $300 on subscriptions.... More on repurchasing the books I already owned. R20 can be less expensive but overall I have spent way less on FG.

Pikup

[Frankison]

I do like how everyone is in agreement that GMs tend to buy snacks and such. I don't know why this is, I'm guilty of it too, when I run my games I always make sure there are snacks and drinks for my players. Deep down I think the one not hosting should do this. Alas my desire to keep my players happy comes first I guess. VTT solves this to some degree though I do still miss my live games.

To the point of $300 for books this isn't very realistic. One pays that much because they choose to. But TBH each player if serious should have their own PHB so they can educate themselves on the rules on their own time, aside from that if you are new to running a game you should not be dropping $300 until you are comfortable and know its something you want to keep doing, and even then its not necessary. Depending on the game system you shouldn't be spending more than $80, hell with C&C you only need 2 books, the PHB and monster and treasures, you're looking at $10 for that system if you go with FG, about $40 for the hard cover books.

[JohnD]

People who have axes to grind usually resort to hyperbolic statements.

[StoryWeaver]

I had a few questions for Fantasy Grounds Friday regarding FGU if that's alright?
Wasn't entirely sure which thread was the most appropriate to get these questions forth for Fantasy Grounds Friday, but here goes.


1) Will you add API support to allow us to check for a wider variety of key combinations in our extensions to run a script? And could these be globally ran without activation from mouse pressing or some other form of interface activation?
For example Ctrl+[alphabetic letter] to activate a part of the script on press, or if Ctrl+[alphabetic letter] is held on mouse press.
Currently the API only registers buttons such as Ctrl, Shift, Alt etc. as far as I know. Which is limiting and can quickly lead to conflicts, and conflicts with other extensions.

2) As a related question, will there be more out-of-the-box global key commands? Such as pressing Ctrl+1 perhaps, to activate the link in the 1st spot on the action bar at the bottom in FG. Would these key combinations be customizable in the interface?

3) Will we be able to define an in-game distance based on number of pixels on different maps, so we can draw a line, or a number of lines, to find out the distance between point A and B on said maps? This would ideally include the option to set waypoints that could would tally up to a total distance.
An example of what I have in mind is what you'll find on Roll20 and probably the best version I've seen so far as is on the online Midgard campaign setting map (https://midgardmap.koboldpress.com/ , press the compass icon to the top right to test out.)

4) While I've created a currently non-released extension to manually update the FG complete background/backlay with an image, by changing the image file name in the code and a /reload in my games. Will we have an option to change the background inside FG, similar to what you can with the Decal switch extension that is currently available (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lznFKIFiM0), but to cover all the visible background without requiring a reload?


ps. By all means feel free to get in touch if you're interested in how I'm tackling range finding between tokens, with my Token Helper extension (as is used in my 5e Combat Enhancer), including for altitudes!
I may add some further menu selectable game system specific logic in a future iteration to tackle varied approaches to range finding after watching last weeks Fantasy Grounds Friday broadcast with John Gregory in it.

[wndrngdru]

I had a few questions for Fantasy Grounds Friday regarding FGU if that's alright?
2) As a related question, will there be more out-of-the-box global key commands? Such as pressing Ctrl+1 perhaps, to activate the link in the 1st spot on the action bar at the bottom in FG. Would these key combinations be customizable in the interface?

The Quickslots at the bottom already correspond with the function keys on the keyboard. F1 will activate the first slot, F2 the second, etc. The Ctrl-F#, Shift-F#, Alt-F# all work as well. (at least on a PC)

[Valatar]

5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, the most popular system on FG, costs $175 in books for the core set, and another $25-30 for an adventure, so $200-205 for the cost of entry on top of the FG license(s), so $355 for an ultimate DM, plus whatever token/map/miscellaneous stuff is purchased on the side. As soon as you want your buddy Caitlin to run the next adventure, every penny of that spent money may as well have been set on fire, because she has to repurchase every last piece of it.

If you're using the completely free kinda mediocre Roll20, she could use everything you purchased, subject to two limits: 5 players, and only one active campaign at a time. Which is no limitation at all if you're doing an average-sized group playing one game at a time, which is the case for a lot of gamers who have a weekly/monthly/whatever game.

If you want to host a bigger group or more simultaneous games, you have to be on the hook for their monthly subscription, so that does add up over time, but it'll take a long, long time to equal the $350+ that Caitlin has to shell out for her own license and modules. In fact, it will take seven YEARS of the Plus subscription on Roll20 before she's starting to be in a worse financial equivalence, meanwhile that same subscription comes with voice/video chat and tablet use that FG doesn't offer, as well as the lighting/LOS that FG won't have until Unity.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned, a one game at a time group is doing just fine with the free Roll20 and being able to swap GMs/share books however they please.

Not having that functionality is going to guarantee that FG is never going to supplant Roll20. Even discounting the people who will never spend money and just stick their own assets into Roll20 to muddle by, any gaming group who doesn't just have a dedicated forever GM is going to look at this and say, "Wait a minute, you mean we have to rebuy everything?" and that will be that.

[JohnD]

You don't "have to" re-buy everything. You can enter stuff manually as it's needed by your group. But you've been on the forums for 2.5 years now so you know that.

You also can choose to not jump in with the most expensive commodity... I know some people will be afraid to go outside what's big and popular or their comfort zone, but there are rulesets for which the outlay is considerably less.

This 3rd party comparison is a couple years old, but more or less still valid I suspect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gHmxi4EydE

[BadByBirth]

The logic behind is that the 1-time licenses are a replacement for a monthly subscription that costs $10 per month. The longer you've had that and not paid a subscription, the more monetary value you've received from the license. New customers are likely to face buyers regret if they just bought 10 days ago. We are giving them a very steep discount that means they get more value from their original purchase. We are just being overly friendly and extending that even further all the way back to 2018. They can have owned it for nearly 17 months ($170 worth of subscription value savings) and they only have to pay $30 (the equivalent of 3 months). Beyond that, people get multiple years worth of savings but are only asked to pay the equivalent of $60 (6-months worth of subscriptions) to transfer that same savings to the newest version of the software. Meanwhile, it's an optional upgrade that doesn't invalidate their old version.

We had one customer arguing endlessly over it for a license he bought in 2011 (8 years worth is $960 worth of savings in monthly subscription fees and he thought it was unfair that we want to charge him $60 for access to the new platform.

If it doesn't make sense to you, then simply don't back the KS or upgrade to FGU. FGC will continue to work fine for you and you can go on about your business.

Hi Doug,

I must state I disagree with the logic.
If you buy a house over renting you don't state that after x years of buying it, you are living in it rent free.
They are different products and different services.
Comparing them like this is treating those who bought a 1-time fee like 2nd class citizens.
If you don't want people paying a 1-time fee for your product, don't offer the option, or don't 'punish' them for doing so when they do.
I know software development costs time and money (I was a developer myself at some point in my career), and you need to fund it.
I get you are creating a product which has value.
I don't get why when someone bought it should matter.

Another point I feel conflicted about is this:

"FGC will continue to work fine for you and you can go on about your business."
Q. Will the current version of Fantasy Grounds still be available after Unity is released?
A. Yes. But not necessarily indefinitely
This reads to me like all effort will go into FGU, FGC will just be expected to keep on working, but don't expect any more updates on it.
And after a couple of ??? we'll pull the plug out of it anyway...

That being said, it doesn't really matter since your prices are set and mind is made up.
I however won't be upgrading to the FGU version since I think $60 on top of the $110 Ultimate + $200 worth of content is more than I'm willing to spend.

Good luck with FGU, hope it turns out well.

[Frankison]

Starting with 5E is free with your standard license. License holders get 5E and many other SRD's for free, and there are a ton of modules that complete these for various rulesets, also free thanks to this great community, that is enough for a starting DM. The core books total if you buy all 3 (PHB, DMG, MM) is only $90 not $170, DMs can buy the core bundle sure but its not necessary for play, also there are a bunch of adventures under $10 if someone is willing to go 3rd party. One can go to sites like DMs guild that has plenty of adventures for very low prices to include AL content that has already been converted to FG modules.

Its important to separate out need vs would like. Sure its nice to have the bundle, but if someone hasn't DMed before why are they going to dump a ton of money? I would highly suggest to a new DM to run a few one shots using only the SRD data so they don't have to memorize a ton of rules especially with something like 5E or pathfinder that uses feats. Keep things manageable and invest over time if you really enjoy it. I can't tell people what to do but that would be my advice if I was going to assist one of my players into DMing.

There are charts that compare the differences between leading VTT systems already so I don't feel the need to go into that.