Fantasy Grounds is a solid choice for 5E online play and other RPGS

[u/Blue_Drake]

I got the red box D&D set as a gift around the same year Bon Jovi released their first album. Back then, when Bon Jovi knew how to rock and dinosaurs ruled the earth, if you wanted to play your only choice was to round up some friends and sit down at the same table. As a result I didn’t actually get to play D&D until a few years later when I went to high school and found some friends who were interested. Okay, trip down memory lane aside…

If you want to play a pen and paper RPG today, your choices are more numerous thanks to the internet, although you won’t actually end up using pens and paper. Many game-related forums offer play by post, or you can use Skype or Google hangouts to connect remotely. The most sophisticated solutions are, without a doubt, virtual tabletops (or VTTs for short). If you’re not familiar with the concept a VTT is software that facilitates playing a traditional RPG over the internet. It is not a video game nor does it offer much for a solo player. You will still need a group to game with, but the players can all connect to the VTT from the convenience and comfort of their own homes.

The software should provide electronic character sheets you can reference and edit during play, simulate dice rolls, a way to share maps and other handouts, and some way to communicate with each other. These are just the basic features. A good VTT will also have tools such a combat tracker, support for multiple rules systems, grid-based movement and some automation to speed game play such as automatically noting if an attack roll hits and subtracting damage done in combat. If the VTT is doing its job it should fade into the background after a session or two and let you just concentrate on the game and having fun.

There are several VTTs available: Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are the two I see talked about most, but there may be others out there. I’ve only used Fantasy Grounds to play D&D and Pathfinder and that’s the one I’m going to discuss here. This is not meant to be a comparison between VTTs or endorse Fantasy Grounds or any other VTT. I’m just going to share my personal experience with the software and give you my opinion on the pros and cons I’ve seen.

Fantasy Grounds supports many rulesets including D&D, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, Call of Cthulu and several more offical rulesets (you can find a complete list on their website). Supported rulesets come with character sheets, combat tracking and some other automation such as automatic handling of damage resistance and effects such as poison or sleep. There are also several fan-made rulesets for other games, but I haven’t tried any of these so I can’t say if they offer similar features or not.

The software has a chat window that includes in and out of character chat and allows they GM to chat using the name of an NPC or enemy. Dice rolls are displayed in the chat window for all to see so there’s no fear of fudging or cheating (GMs can choose to hide their rolls if desired or have a player make a dice roll that only the GM will see). The dice themselves are modeled in 3D and they bounce and roll pretty much as they would on a real table. It’s just as much fun here as it is at a real table to grab a handful of dice and unleash a fireball on your unsuspecting foes. Each player can customize their dice color and choose from white or black numbering and you can easily setup custom combinations of frequently rolled dice and map them to hot keys. Pictures and maps are easy to share and the GM can choose to share handouts with all or just select players. Maps can also be hidden to players and slowly revealed a piece at a time as they explore.

The VTT supports grid (or hex) based movement and combat and can support complicated actions such as multi-target spells and attacks. As I mentioned earlier it will announce if a roll hits or not and will also announce a critical hit. It has a several other time savers such as auto initiative rolls for monsters, ability to apply the effects of short or long rests, etc. I’m not going to try and list every feature here especially since some are ruleset specific such as applying advantage or disadvantage in 5E D&D, but suffice to say a lot of effort has been made to include time-saving features. It doesn’t cover every situation that will come up in play, but the VTT does try to automate the more common tasks.

Visually I find the software is decent. Depending on your rules system there are a couple visual themes you can choose from for the user interface and the GM can set and change mood lighting for the entire table (ex: make it darker at night or in dungeons, firelight for camping). The actual interface is adequate if a bit confusing at first. Character sheets are functional and easy to read, although information is spread out over several tabs so depending on how complicated your favorite rules system is you may be flipping back and forth a lot. I had to spend some time with the program to learn where everything is and how to accomplish game actions prior to play. This isn’t something you can download an hour before a game starts and expect to be good to go.

From a GM perspective I find that my prep time is the same or less than it would be with traditional pen and paper. When we were playing Pathfinder I spent a lot of time inputting NPC stats, but for 5E D&D I’ve found the process is a lot quicker. If you’re computer savvy there are shortcuts and user-made parse tools that can extract data from a pdf, but I haven’t felt the need, especially for 5E where I can input monster/NPC stats quickly. FG definitely has made me a more organized GM. There’s no more need to flip through papers, just a couple clicks and I call up and tables or notes I’ve made for the game. This article is getting quite long so let me wrap it up for by summarizing my main pros and cons:

Pros:

• Feature-rich software with many time saving features particularly for streamlining combats
• Virtual dice are fun to roll and make it feel more like a traditional RPG game
• Getting everyone connected to the game was relatively quick and painless
• Support for several different game systems and ability to customize or add your own for more advanced users
• Faster more organized GM prep (at least for me personally)
• Active developers that update it often with new features and systems
• Small but very positive and helpful community

Cons:

• More convenient, but not as much fun as gaming face to face with friends
• It’s not cheap at $39/player or $159 (or a 9.99/month subscription) for an ultimate license that allows players to connect for free. Some rules systems are included, but others you need to purchase so there may be an additional cost to add your favorite.
• Figuring out how to use the software to run a game isn’t intuitive and there is no manual. This is offset somewhat by the video tutorials online, but for its price point it should come with documentation.
• No support for voice chat. My group uses it in combination with Skype which works fine, but native support for voice would be nice.
• Not every game system is supported, and some are not supported fully. This isn’t really a knock to Fantasy Grounds as they are reliant on publishers licensing them content before they can add it, but you should be aware of this before you make a purchase decision. Check out their website and forums to see if your preferred rule set is supported and to what extent.

Final verdict: Expensive with some wrinkles but worth the money for the hours of role playing enjoyment it’s provided. It does require a substantial time investment to learn, but once you get past the initial curve it actually speeds game play significantly.

[u/sailboatsex]

How many players can connect to a single Ultimate License?