Thread: A Year In Fantasy Grounds
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June 11th, 2021, 02:17 #11
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Congratulations and thanks for posting this!
Our group will be hitting 1 year later this month. I've really enjoyed getting to learn FG and the community has been outstanding. It was pretty rocky in the beginning. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on FG after watching several videos and reading countless posts on how to do things. Then we had our first session and it was pretty painful. Luckily, I had a very patient group of players and we all learned FG together. In hindsight, I wish I would have taken a couple FG College classes. We are still learning things in FG, but I couldn't imagine playing without it anymore. I'm going to remain virtual, but even if I were to play face to face, I would still incorporate FG.
I'm slowly entering all of my campaign world data into FG. I wish the toolset were a little more robust for world building (Would love to see some World Anvil type database organization), but I understand that's really not what FG is for. I just like the idea of having everything in one tool.
I tried OneNote, but for some reason it didn't grab me. One of my players suggested Scrivener and it works great for me--I find it a little more powerful than OneNote. I'm not sure it's any better than OneNote, but it's better for me. I write out my setting and then copy and paste it into FG. Here's a screen cap:
scriv-look.PNG
As I said, I've really enjoyed getting to know FG. FG opened up the door to a whole new way of gaming and a new group of friends who are sharing this adventure with me.Last edited by JonStormbringer; June 11th, 2021 at 02:20.
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June 11th, 2021, 04:13 #12
FWIW I'd love to bring my laptop (a player hosts the weekly game) and run the game with everyone in the same room. One player (the host) is in both my online and in person games, and for the life of him, rolls terrible either way. Now we all get to share his frustration in person
Maybe one day we can emulate Make Love, Not Warcraft LAN party.jpeg
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June 11th, 2021, 04:25 #13
I am eternally grateful for suffering through the early sessions because the payoff was well worth it. I recently played a Roll20 game where the DM had nine individual saves to make, then had to track damage and conditions, and all I could think was 'this would have been over in a few clicks in Fantasy Grounds.' We made the right investment.
As far as Scrivener, I did look at the software, but my Windows subscription pushed me to keep my office platform consistent. That being said, I forgot to make a point in my original post:
When prepping for an in person game, my campaign ideas bounce around my head and I can improvise and adapt while DMing through loose notes and face to face interactions. Online, and in Fantasy Grounds, SPECIFICITY IS KING, meaning I needed to actually and dare I admit accurately prepare for my sessions. One major benefit was once I built whatever into the game it was there, and as long as I remembered where it was built, I had instant access.Last edited by Brian D; June 11th, 2021 at 04:28.
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June 11th, 2021, 09:11 #14
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June 11th, 2021, 18:23 #15
Lesser Deity
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If you want a simpler alternative to Scrivener you can try the free yWriter authoring software (though I have not used yWriter7) which you can get from the Spacejock website here:
https://www.spacejock.com/yWriter.html
It's got a very dated feel but its free and pretty easy to use.Last edited by Griogre; June 11th, 2021 at 18:26.
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June 11th, 2021, 21:29 #16
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PA is a great extension! If I had it/knew about it before I entered a pretty fair amount of information, I definitely would have used it. Unless I missed a feature, I'd have to re-input everything I'd already put in to keep the same style/format. Is that correct? I'd already created about 150+ story entries when I first saw PA.
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June 12th, 2021, 05:05 #17
I would like to second this. I actually started using Fantasy Grounds as an offline tool way before I used it as an online tool. I used it for projecting my maps to a TV, tracking initiative, and reading monster statblocks while in person. If my brain was tired I also rolled dice with it directly off statblocks as well when dm-ing. I can't imagine going back to running dungeon crawls without it - makes it very easy.
I've begun the worldbuilder portion of this extension to make notes about lore in the world I run in. I really like it and want to second how helpful it is. You can pin your story entries into the forms in PA if that helps.
I'm thinking of keeping a copy in FG but then copy and pasting in OneNote as I also like to use that for campaign planning and like the idea of having duplicates of my work.Fantasy Grounds D&D Adventurers League Consultant
Organizer, DungeonMaster , and TTRPG Gamer
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June 14th, 2021, 14:06 #18
For worldbuilders I've been toying around with the free version of this. It's interesting. https://www.notebook.ai/
Paul Grosse
PCGen BoD
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June 14th, 2021, 16:11 #19
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I see this on Foundry, too. I like the interface, but the automation is so spotty. It tends to lurch forward depending on what updated (the program or the various modules) from the prior week. Its been hard recently as our party had a good number of buffs - smite, protection, boost trait plus a summoned critter to boot (talking Savage Worlds here). Manual adjustments made to sheets (you could put in code, but not like you can with FG's built in effects in the powers) then having to track them. And the global effect is very nice to toggling cover and illumination penalties in FG.
But! Foundry now as a mod to interface with Giphy! For me as a player I love it! Now was a GM, I am glad FG does not have that.Last edited by amerigoV; June 14th, 2021 at 16:14.
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July 2nd, 2021, 22:37 #20
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I have spent quite less time than you, having the extra burden of learning 5e (most of us coming from 2e) from scratch. Many mistakes, much searching, but FGU allowed me to push forward as all of us re-learned the game.
I wish I had consistently copied entries before changing, as you mentioned, but I did not
The second account advice is gold; I share it over zoom and record it for future reference.
The vsync command is something I need to check next time.
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