New user question

[Archon129]

Hi all,

I've used FG in the past to play remotely with friends but I'm now starting to look at hosting a game in the house and am wondering how feasible it would be to utilize FG for DM duties while everyone else uses pen and paper? I love the functionality as a player but have a whole lot to learn on the DM side of the things so I wanted to see if anyone else does this, before I go to all the trouble of teaching myself.

Thanks in advance!

[anstett]

There are a few threads here on the forums with advice on how to use.

Everything from just using the manual input for dice rolls to others using a display to move the miniatures around on the map where their tokens are. It is very doable to use FG that way.

For the ease of learning, I would say knowing the interface as a player helps a lot in learning the additional things you can do on the GM side of things.

Go for it, run a fun game the way you want to.

[Archon129]

Awesome, thanks so much for the input! Ideally, my goal is to just minimize the math and let FG do the heavy lifting. This helps tremendously...I'll start readying everything I can find and watching videos now that I know what I wanted is completely doable. Thanks again!

[LordEntrails]

It's feasible to only use FG for a battle map, but it's biggest strength is in automation and tracking when the Character sheets and NPCs are used.
There are a couple of approaches you can take. These are the ones I can think of;

1. Only use FG for tokens and maps. Display a client/player view on a TV or projector so everyone can see awesome maps. Consider this extension: Fantasy Grounds Forge (note you can use this extension for all 3 approaches when you are playing in person)
2. Use FG for tokens, maps for you and players, but FG just for the DM for combat automation. In this case you enter the PCs in FG and turn on the Manual Rolls option and then run through combat as you would if the player's were online, but use FG to record everything. It means you need to be good at targeting and the combat tracker and have to input everything so FG can track it. This is the easiest for your players, but it is a lot of work for the DM. I don't recommend this approach.
3. Use FG for maps, tokens and character sheets that the players control. Yes this means your players need at least one computer amongst them to share, and they have to learn a little bit about FG, but you can still use manual rolls if people want to roll there dice. It helps offload a lot of the 'work' of playing so that the DM doesn't have to do it all. Players control their own tokens and PCs. They track their own spell usage and HP and attack rolls. This is the easiest to build from where later on you can start to learn things like story templates and quick maps and custom module creation.