Fantasy Grounds Is Going Free To Play

Fantasy Grounds, the Virtual Tabletop (VTT) which launched over 20 years ago in 2004, has always been a premium option for VTT users. That is--until today! Because, effective immediately, Fantasy Grounds is free to use.

Previously an FG license cost $50, and then you had to buy the games and other modules you wanted to use with it. As of today, all users can host and join unlimited games with no purchase or subscription.

The software itself is free, although of course the marketplace contains a massive quantity of official licensed content, and add-ons like art, maps, tokens, and digital dice. Officially licensed material includes Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, and more, with over 50 game systems and more than 3,000 products.

There's also a new 'Online Reader'--a web-based compendium which enables you to access your Fantasy Grounds library from your browser.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

So how are they monetizing going forward?
They have put a lot of work into it so far and I am concerned about free services and how they pay for themselves.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I am also very curious about sharing resources with players? Rules, off line character access or world building?

 

[UnplayedRanger]

Huh. I just bought it for $13 when it went on sale last month. Should have seen something like this coming.

 

[darjr]

Huh. I just bought it for $13 when it went on sale last month. Should have seen something like this coming.

I bought it many moons ago and used it not at all. So we have that going for us.

I’m not knocking it btw. Just the game I bought it for never happened.

 

[Reynard]

(Partially) Eliminating the financial barrier to running games via FG is a good start, but the real key to making FG ubiquitous would be to get it on tablets and/or in a browser. Installing software beyond an app seems to be quite the barrier for folks.

I think they would do well to figure out a deal with Wizards to be able to give away a Starter Set for free, too.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

I bought it many moons ago and used it not at all. So we have that going for us.

I’m not knocking it btw. Just the game I bought it for never happened.

Yeah, I bought it for Daggerheart. Which is hopefully coming out soon.

 

[grimslade]

Surprising. I am glad to see it. Wonder how they will monetize going forward? Just percentage off books?

 

[smiteworks]

Monetization will need to come from selling our dice packs, map packs, and our share of revenue from selling licensed content. Our cut is normally 30-40% range.

By removing the license costs and offering our digital reader, we believe it will bring more customers to our platform and be good for the other RPG publishers we partner with.

We have more than 20 years of data that we looked at, along with some case studies, but only time will tell if our projections were correct.

For the comment about someone who bought it on sale recently, be sure to check the free rewards you can claim.

 

[môrgondír]

What problems did you have? It's pretty rare to hear about installer problems.

Here's a partial list. Perhaps if defaults are used, there are no problems, I don't know. But I don't have the inclination to troubleshoot an installer when the user changes defaults to custom values -- it's easier to use a different product.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?85575-Fantasy-Grounds-Not-Launching-After-Latest-Update-%E2%80%93-Install-Stops-After-Updater

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?55145-Updater-Issues

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?82113-FGU-New-install-updater-fails

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?85443-Recently-built-new-Win11-%28first-time-using%29-PC-trouble-installing-FG-on-drive-D

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Here's a partial list. Perhaps if defaults are used, there are no problems, I don't know. But I don't have the inclination to troubleshoot an installer when the user changes defaults to custom values -- it's easier to use a different product.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?85575-Fantasy-Grounds-Not-Launching-After-Latest-Update-%E2%80%93-Install-Stops-After-Updater

Seems to be an issue from August 2025 related to a user (is this you?) running with a video card released in 2011 having problems with the installer's latest release. The software was upgraded to the latest version of Unity. There's a more than strong indication that the problem lies with the user's hardware.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?55145-Updater-Issues

This is an issue from August of 2020... about a temporary issue with their update servers.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?82113-FGU-New-install-updater-fails

This one is from July of 2024. Looks like an issue unique to this user and was no longer reproducible after the user restarted their PC.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?85443-Recently-built-new-Win11-%28first-time-using%29-PC-trouble-installing-FG-on-drive-D

This one is from July of 2025. Again, unique issue to this user. The problem disappeared on a clean install. According to the user, they had multiple older installs of the software backed up on a drive attached to the PC; it would be a reasonable assumption that is linked to the problem being experienced.

---

All software, game-related or not, has bugs of some kind at some point in its history. As well, only some of these issues you listed here even qualify as bugs, and of those, all are incredibly minor corner cases (source: me, a career software architect and development lead).

Did someone over at Fantasy Grounds kick your dog and steal your lunch money or something? Do you own stock in a rival company?

I don't own this software or use any VTT... I saw this list of bugs and checked them out of professional curiosity. After reading this, I did download the tool. It is pretty clunky and dated. It's also surprising that in this day and age there is no mobile-friendly app as well.