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December 12th, 2019, 15:37 #11
- Join Date
- Feb 2019
- Posts
- 12
It sounds like you have a similar set up, just a few differences.
We actually play in a conference room - everyone tracks their characters on D&D Beyond but one player (cleric) also keeps everyone’s (player’s) hit points written on a whiteboard too (which is super handy actually).
I have a PC connected to a TV and I extend my display to it - I run two instances of fantasy grounds and put the player instance on the external monitor, which lets me conceal all the DM stuff on my laptop screen.
I do all the FG manipulation - monster hitpoints and conditions, initiative tracking, checking spell AoE, etc. (I use physical dice for monster attacks, damage, etc. just as if we were playing with physical maps and miniatures.) The player tracking everyone’s hitpoints also tracks any conditions and concentration spells on the players for me, though I also note them.
The players tell me where they want to move and I move their tokens on the FG DM screen - usually can just do this from their seat, but sometimes people get up to go look at the TV screen more closely and point to exactly where they want to move.
Really FG gives me a way to share/uncover maps, tokens for the monsters, initiative tracking, easy way to determine ranges, areas of effect, etc. (I’ve bought Monster Manual, Volo’s Guide and Xanathar’s mainly for the tokens).
I also use other physical assets like Monster Cards released by Galeforce 9. I tried using the monster details (attacks, resistances, etc.) in FG but it’s much easier to read them in the causes or in D&D Beyond. Oh - I also like being able to use FG to show the players a picture of the monster though I REALLY wish the name of the monster wasn’t in the darn title bar that they can see....
The only issues I’ve had with this approach have been:
- Finding the right monster in a longish initiative list to apply damage as mentioned in this thread.
- It’s hard to do impromptu encounters - not impossible, but I really feel like I need to be prepared with maps and tokens or the session bogs down while I try to create one ad hoc. (I try to have some extra maps available just in case.)
- Sometimes FG just flakes out - refuses to load a map that it loaded fine before the session is the biggest issue, though I’ve also had just refuse to let me connect through local host a couple times - ruined one session with that one.
One of my players is going to run a one shot so I have a chance to play (forever DM). He is also one of my players in another (Starfinder) campaign and his only real concern is FG. Our Starfinder campaign is completely remote - everyone on video conference - so we used FG’s Starfinder implementation for 3-4 months. The lack of following standard UI principles (e.g., some things implemented as drag and drop should be buttons or drop downs - 101 kind of UI stuff) was so infuriating to everyone that we gave up on it and actually roll physical dice remotely. (It was also an issue that things like healing serums and grenades just don’t work and you have to do them manually anyway.) Of course you have to trust that everyone is being honest, but that has never seemed like an issue for our groups - gameplay sped up dramatically when we switched to “manual” mode.
(Some things in the game are just a mental model issue rather than bad UI per se - understanding how the initiative tracker ties together NPC’s, tokens and maps is just never going to be obvious until it clicks, IMO. After 9 months I still slip and drop a token directly on the map instead of dragging an NPC to the initiative window first.)
I should also say I’m very thankful for the forums - I’ve spent many hours on YouTube videos, FG college, etc. but often the issues are so specific (either to a use case or a rule set) that a quick suggestion here makes a dramatic difference. (We have our next session tonight and I can’t wait to use this manual dice method of applying damage to the monsters! In testing solo it’s greatly address my biggest issue.)
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December 12th, 2019, 17:24 #12
- Join Date
- Sep 2007
- Location
- Denver, CO
- Posts
- 339
I keep a few generic maps handy: one grassland, one snowy terrain, one dirt road, etc. but my favorite one looks like old parchment paper. The parchment one is most useful, because it can be used anytime and sort of simulates a traditional vinyl battle map. Since the drawing tools are not great in FGC, I just use wet erase markers on the screen (I have a thin sheet of plexiglass on top of the TV I use for maps). And we'll use physical minis sometimes, but most of the time we just use digital tokens in FG. Here's a thread with pics of my TV/table setup, though the map shown there is from a module:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...y-Gaming-Table
The drawing tools should be vastly improved in FGU, so you should be able to use a generic map image like that and draw the map out within FGU if you prefer that over markers. It might help with those impromptu combat encounters.
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