First let me qualify this by saying I only use both of these for Role Playing games (Pathfinder, DnD 5e, Shadowrun). The games we play are not face to face.
I pay for both systems. I paid for Mentor in Roll20 so I have all the features. I also paid for the FG Unlimited license. After a year of playing on Roll20 my group moved to FG in Feb. The character creation alone made them believers. Forgetting any "cost" (I think there is some misinformation but you can all go and look at the relative pricing) I feel FG is far superior. It handles 99% of the game mechanics for you (assuming you are using one of the rule sets) and speeds up combat substantially.
I do miss some features of Roll 20 (dynamic pings on maps, better drawing capability for quick mapping, supported map layering --> FG has it via extension). I don't miss dynamic lighting as it was a lot of work for little gain and there were too many exceptions ---- however that is just our play style so others may miss it heavily. I do miss my fireball that I get to move around the screen
.
I do not miss the voice. I found it unreliable. Instead I use teamspeak. I have a server but like others have mentioned you can use google hangouts or run a voice server (like teamspeak) on your own. I find it more reliable.
Because it can automate so much there is some learning to use FG but if you look at the character sheets in roll20 it also has learning (what is automated vs what you simply enter). In the end the curve is more due to the automation. For example it does the initiative order (correctly) and it handles effects and rolls on effects, crits, fumbles etc. It also has options to turn these things off.
In FG the ability to have your stories and NPCs sorted out is much better and there are libraries of information that you just drop onto maps or sheets etc. For the players alone the libraries of spells and weapons made their lives easy. I also drop magic items etc onto a group sheet and they sort it out (or I can force who gets what but my players have been playing together a long time so there is no need for me to arbitrate).
I also found the user extensions to be of much higher quality in FG and they do a good job of identifying which extensions work or need to be retired. I found Roll20 to not be as good. There are a ton of extensions but you have to read a lot of posts to get to the bottom of them when they crash or don't work with your combination. In FG I have found this to be a relative breeze.
I know it sounds like I am a FG groupie but the reality is the product (at this point) is at least a couple of years ahead of Roll20. If you play DnD 5e it is even worse as FG now officially supports DnD 5e and you can get the player manual, monster manuals with the tokens included, stat blocks etc all prepared for you (of course this does cost money as it is a licensed product).
I still have my roll20 if I ever want to go back but when I look at what I would want FG to add to make me not care about any feature on Roll20 the list is short. If I ask what I need updated from Roll20 the hill is much steeper.
Thats my opinion but if I were a GM that had not tried any VTT I would start with Roll20 to get a feel for VTTs. Then I would pay for a month of FG and try it against a free ruleset like pathfinder. You should quickly see the difference (or perhaps you value different aspects of the two tools).
In the end I hope both thrive as it will push both to become better and innovate. FG is not perfect and I have a list of things I want to see improved but to me the comparison (at this stage) is not close.
GMs will chose the one that works best for them and that is how it should be. My main concern is that I see several posts were people have clearly not used both making comments that are clearly false and GMs new to VTTs may make decisions based on that.
I pay for both systems. I paid for Mentor in Roll20 so I have all the features. I also paid for the FG Unlimited license. After a year of playing on Roll20 my group moved to FG in Feb. The character creation alone made them believers. Forgetting any "cost" (I think there is some misinformation but you can all go and look at the relative pricing) I feel FG is far superior. It handles 99% of the game mechanics for you (assuming you are using one of the rule sets) and speeds up combat substantially.
I do miss some features of Roll 20 (dynamic pings on maps, better drawing capability for quick mapping, supported map layering --> FG has it via extension). I don't miss dynamic lighting as it was a lot of work for little gain and there were too many exceptions ---- however that is just our play style so others may miss it heavily. I do miss my fireball that I get to move around the screen
.I do not miss the voice. I found it unreliable. Instead I use teamspeak. I have a server but like others have mentioned you can use google hangouts or run a voice server (like teamspeak) on your own. I find it more reliable.
Because it can automate so much there is some learning to use FG but if you look at the character sheets in roll20 it also has learning (what is automated vs what you simply enter). In the end the curve is more due to the automation. For example it does the initiative order (correctly) and it handles effects and rolls on effects, crits, fumbles etc. It also has options to turn these things off.
In FG the ability to have your stories and NPCs sorted out is much better and there are libraries of information that you just drop onto maps or sheets etc. For the players alone the libraries of spells and weapons made their lives easy. I also drop magic items etc onto a group sheet and they sort it out (or I can force who gets what but my players have been playing together a long time so there is no need for me to arbitrate).
I also found the user extensions to be of much higher quality in FG and they do a good job of identifying which extensions work or need to be retired. I found Roll20 to not be as good. There are a ton of extensions but you have to read a lot of posts to get to the bottom of them when they crash or don't work with your combination. In FG I have found this to be a relative breeze.
I know it sounds like I am a FG groupie but the reality is the product (at this point) is at least a couple of years ahead of Roll20. If you play DnD 5e it is even worse as FG now officially supports DnD 5e and you can get the player manual, monster manuals with the tokens included, stat blocks etc all prepared for you (of course this does cost money as it is a licensed product).
I still have my roll20 if I ever want to go back but when I look at what I would want FG to add to make me not care about any feature on Roll20 the list is short. If I ask what I need updated from Roll20 the hill is much steeper.
Thats my opinion but if I were a GM that had not tried any VTT I would start with Roll20 to get a feel for VTTs. Then I would pay for a month of FG and try it against a free ruleset like pathfinder. You should quickly see the difference (or perhaps you value different aspects of the two tools).
In the end I hope both thrive as it will push both to become better and innovate. FG is not perfect and I have a list of things I want to see improved but to me the comparison (at this stage) is not close.
GMs will chose the one that works best for them and that is how it should be. My main concern is that I see several posts were people have clearly not used both making comments that are clearly false and GMs new to VTTs may make decisions based on that.
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