Can't believe I'm here. Other people play this game too?

[caffeineNYC]

Used to play Traveller back in the early 80s. None of my friends owned the books, which meant that I always GMd (to date, I never actually played the game as a player) and I don't think I ever met anyone who played the game who didn't learn of it through me (no internet back then, so none of us knew anything outside of our circle of friends). The last time I played Traveller, politicians and news media were still wondering out loud if role playing games were spawning a generation of Satanists and delinquents.

I enrolled my daughter in a D&D class a few months ago, and decided I missed role playing, so I'm getting back into it. Got ~4 oneshot 5e games under my belt and we used Foundry VTT, which was nothing short of amazing. No more hand-mapping or describing "you walk into a room that's roughly 30 by 40 which a door on the north wall in first 10 feet and a window on the eastern wall in the center". My jaw practically hit the floor when I saw what VTTs do.

So then I decided to see what's going on with my other favorite game. Lo and behold, I see there's a subreddit and TONS of YouTube videos devoted to it, along with VTT support. Foundry support of Traveller is anemic, but I found FGU with *excellent* Traveller support, so I made the plunge, and here I am!

A couple of very basic questions about FGU:

1. I quickly learned that FGU screen real estate is at a premium. None of the sub-windows have a minimize button. Is there a way to hide/minimize windows to have a clean and orderly FGU desktop?

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2. Similarly, when I start poking around the Library, say, the Core Rulebook, I noticed that each click opens up a new window. Is there a way to open a new link by reusing a Library window already opened? Sometimes I'm just poking around the rules and I don't want to close every single window that opens. The way a modern browser works is perfect: lets us choose whether to open a new tab or reuse an old one.

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3. One thing that surprises me is that I can't seem to poke around the core rules without creating a campaign. Logically, I shouldn't have to start a campaign or connect to the cloud to look at my documentation. Is this possible?

4. Similarly, an NPC shouldn't be tied to a campaign, either. Is there a way to share NPCs among different campaigns? E.g. If the players meet someone in Marooned on Marduk, can I share the NPC with a homegrown campaign?

5. I'd like to actually play the game as a player rather than a GM at least once in my life. How can I find campaigns that are looking for players?

[damned]

Welcome caffeineNYC

Sometimes platforms use jargon that can cause some confusion.
A campaign in Fantasy Grounds is not the same as a prepackaged adventure might be in D&D.
You can run many adventures back to back (or simultaneously) in the same FG campaign.
The FG campaign is more like a container.

Personally - as soon as I have finished with a window I close it. Most windows are 2 or 3 clicks away - and important items are dragged to the HotKeys.
Ive always got Chat and Combat Tracker open and if Im GM a reference manual and probably a map.
Everything else I close as soon as Ive used it.

You dont have to connect to the cloud server - you can open your campaign locally.
But yes - you need to load the Traveller environment to access the Traveller resources.

If you are in an AUS timezone (your alias suggests otherwise) I might have a Traveller opening...

[JonStormbringer]

4. Similarly, an NPC shouldn't be tied to a campaign, either. Is there a way to share NPCs among different campaigns? E.g. If the players meet someone in Marooned on Marduk, can I share the NPC with a homegrown campaign?

Welcome to the forums and to Fantasy Grounds (FG). I think damned answered everything, but thought I'd add something to your question number 4. I am primarily a home brewer DM--So I create a lot of custom content. What I did, to have access to all of my NPC's/Monsters was create a new campaign called, "Monsterous Beings." After I've entered any new NPC's/Monsters, I export the campaign (Type /export in your FG chat box to see what that interface looks like). I can then use that as a module in any other campaign (the same way your would use any rule books/adventures/expansions). When I want to add another NPC/Monster, I just go into my Monsterous Beings campaign, make the additions and re-export it. It saves all of the previous information and will update your module. Works pretty well for me, personally. I use the same technique for custom races and classes that I've created.

#5, you can, if damned time slot doesn't work for you, check out: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...king-for-Group

I played a good deal of Traveler back in the 80's. Was a great game, but I haven't explored it on FG yet.

Again, welcome to the forums and I hope you're able to find a game. FG is a fantastic tool that has a little bit of a learning curve. Once you get it down though, it's very rewarding/fun.

[JohnD]

Welcome. If you were blown away by Foundry, wait until you get a good workout in FG under your belt.

[bmos]

None of the sub-windows have a minimize button. Is there a way to hide/minimize windows to have a clean and orderly FGU desktop?

In most rulesets you can right-click on a window and there will be a minimize button in the resulting radial menu. I'm not sure about Traveller.

[kronovan]

1. I quickly learned that FGU screen real estate is at a premium...

This is a trick I learned from the Keeper of the Call of Cthulhu campaign I play in. Unfortunately, it will only work if you have 1 or more additional displays connected to your PC which are not configured for surround spanning. Don't run FGU in full screen mode, but instead run it windowed and resize the window to fill most of your primary display. Then stretch the window side(s) as far a you want on to your secondary display(s). Configured as such, it's easy to move floating windows like the Combat Tracker onto the portion of the FGU window on that second display. By not having surround spanning enabled, you can still use portions of your secondary display(s) for PDFs, or audio and voice apps. I'm currently only doing this for the Combat Tracker and Encounter windows, but those alone go a long way towards increasing FGU's screen real estate and reducing clutter.

[johnecc]

Hi, welcome to FG and back to Traveller. It was actually my 1st rpg back in 1980.

Having used FG for a couple of years, I feel you about real estate, but as Kronovan says, I hook my laptop up to my tv and strecth the window.

I have a few sessions as a Traveller player in FG under my belt now, and it is still evolving with new functionality and content being added. My way of ‘bookmarking’ things is to drag their link to the hotbar, as Damned mentioned. I use it for access to maps, pages from the reference manual, etc. the different windows, Party Sheet, Items, etc are just a click away, so close them ifyou don’t currently need them.

Hope the suggestions here and above help.

Get into a game and enjoy.

[caffeineNYC]

Welcome caffeineNYC

Sometimes platforms use jargon that can cause some confusion.
A campaign in Fantasy Grounds is not the same as a prepackaged adventure might be in D&D.
You can run many adventures back to back (or simultaneously) in the same FG campaign.
The FG campaign is more like a container.

Personally - as soon as I have finished with a window I close it. Most windows are 2 or 3 clicks away - and important items are dragged to the HotKeys.
Ive always got Chat and Combat Tracker open and if Im GM a reference manual and probably a map.
Everything else I close as soon as Ive used it.

You dont have to connect to the cloud server - you can open your campaign locally.
But yes - you need to load the Traveller environment to access the Traveller resources.

If you are in an AUS timezone (your alias suggests otherwise) I might have a Traveller opening...

Gotcha. A campaign is more like a regularly meeting group, and could contain what we'd call campaigns and oneshots.

Too bad about the windows and accessing documentation. If other people live with it, I can too.

Argh! I *wish* I could. I just had a client call with with an Australian bank a couple of weeks ago It was something like 11:30-ish am for them when it was 10:30-ish pm for me.

[johnecc]

Yeah, if the game Damned speaks of is the one I think, then its the same one I am in. If I calculate correctly, it would start around 6:30am Saturday your time.

[caffeineNYC]

Hi, welcome to FG and back to Traveller. It was actually my 1st rpg back in 1980.

How unusual for 1980! I've never met anyone whose first game was Traveller. That's so cool!

I started around the same time. Not sure about Australia, but here in the US were seriously asking whether role playing was causing "Satanism" and delinquency. I think those were our Reagan years, where our conservative party pretty much dominated politics, so the liberal party was looking for issues to demonstrate that they, too, were the party of morals and ethics. They glomed on to "Dungeons and Dragons" (the catch-all phrase for all role playing) and music, mostly hair metal (which seems so tame by today's standards). I remember all the hubub surrounding D&D was the best advertising that anyone could buy; EVERYBODY I knew wanted to play D&D because of what we were hearing on the news.

I think that's why D&D got so popular in the US relative to the other games out there, even though there were a lot of really great games back then. All that free advertising in our media. So, at least for us, D&D definitely became the "gateway drug" for other RPGs. That's why it's so interesting to hear that Traveller was your first RPG!