Fantasy Grounds Now Offers Free Trial; Plus D&D 5E Basic Rules Now Included In All Licenses

Virtual Tabletop Fantasy Grounds has been the licensed VTT for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition for a while now. The price point can be a little steep for those who just want to try it out, so Smiteworks has just announced a free 30-day trial (you have to sign up then cancel before it's up) and also that the D&D Basic Rules are now included in all Licenses and Subscriptions (other than the demo). That's the four basic 5E reaches and classes, plus 120+ spells, equipment, and the basic rules reference. It also includes, of course, other game like Call of Cthulhu, Castles & Crusades, and Savage Worlds.

Click on the pretty screenshot!
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[Paraxis]

I am an avid fan of Roll20 but with this has prompted me to try Fantasy Grounds out, doubt it will be worth the cost difference to switch but it is great to have the opportunity to try it out for free.

 

[smiteworks]

By the way, you might be referring to this new toolset that we've been working on as part of the prep for the DMG DLC.

Our plan is to include this functionality in the base 5E ruleset for Fantasy Grounds. It will obviously be much better paired with the preloaded content from the DMG product, but it won't be required. This will be just one more feature that makes FG great as a general RPG aid in addition to being a VTT. If you only use it for that, then you are looking at $4/mo or a one time $40 software purchase. For an entire group in a full VTT experience, a single DM is looking at $10/mo or a one time of $150 to allow unlimited players who only need the demo.

Thankfully, D&D is a great system to run and you don't need any of these tools to enjoy the game. They are a complete luxury and thankfully people don't mind paying a small monthly fee to keep a small team of developers actively engaged in developing new features over time instead of being highly paid software developers in much more boring fields like healthcare.

 

[Mistwell]

By the way, you might be referring to this new toolset that we've been working on as part of the prep for the DMG DLC.

Is there any plan for a better map making tool? Something somewhat similar to Roll20's, like this?

 

[smiteworks]

Yes, there definitely is. With the recent acquisition of Tabletop Connect, we plan to implement both 2D and 3D map creation within FG instead of simply being a consumer of maps from outside sources and programs.

While this older video focuses on some of the cool new 3D mapping we will work to incorporate, he also has some very simple but powerful 2D mapping prototypes he has already built.

Mapping
[video=youtube;cjKL0T6Gz98]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKL0T6Gz98[/video]

[video=youtube;bcAocCQPCMk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcAocCQPCMk[/video]

[video=youtube;z6eclPof8lo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6eclPof8lo[/video]

Dynamic Lighting
[video=youtube;znAqYQy2DRw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znAqYQy2DRw[/video]

Carl has been busy getting some of the basic functionality ported over to Unity for Fantasy Grounds first, but the mapping is very high on the list, followed by easier character sheet building, sound, video and special effects.

 

[pindercarl]

Additional Tabletop Connect video

For a more recent look at some the tech developed for Tabletop Connect, you can also take a look at this tutorial video for building a multi-level map.

[video=vimeo;129951376]https://vimeo.com/129951376[/video]

 

[EthanSental]

Smiteworks (FG) + Carl at Tabletop Connect = should be seeing some awesome stuff next year on the 3D front!

 

[dd.stevenson]

Okay, I wasn't impressed at all by my experience as a player with FG--the interface was among the worst I have ever had to wrestle with, and there were a lot of annoying missing features that for some reason other free competitors have no problem including.

But if/when 3D map making finds its way into the free trial product, I will definitely sit down and give FG a very serious look from the DM's standpoint. Communicating three dimensional environments is something our hobby generally struggles with, both electronically and face to face. There's really room for a slick, innovative product to move us forward in this regard.

 

[smiteworks]

Our focus is mostly on making life easier for the DM, but I'm curious what sort of features you felt were missing and which game system you played. Moving from one interface to another may take a few sessions or so, but I often hear a lot of "wow" moments when I introduce new players to it from other systems. It has the best 3D dice rolling available, fantasy chat languages, condition and effect tracking, party inventory, group targeting and attack resolution and one of the first interactive character sheets around. Some of those are D&D specific features. Savage Worlds and many of the other game system support similar automation for players too, though.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Our focus is mostly on making life easier for the DM, but I'm curious what sort of features you felt were missing and which game system you played.

It was a 5E game, but it predated your 5E wotc license. (So I'm withholding gripes about 5E specific stuff.) Also it's the middle of the workday and I'm posting from memory, so this ain't exhaustive.

Why couldn't I ping the map?
Why couldn't I add/subtract numbers from existing values on my character sheet? (this isn't the same as editing a value)
Why couldn't I log in and edit my character sheet between sessions? (obviously, I'm aware of the limitations of the client/server architecture--but that shouldn't prevent me from having a local copy of the char sheet to fiddle with, especially given how obtuse the spell/powers scripting is.)
Why couldn't I generate random numbers that don't conform to dice? (e.g. 1d73)
Why weren't there tooltips on the buttons to let me know what to expect? (more of an interface problem than a missing feature, but eh.)

Perhaps the answer to some of those questions is "You can, but you don't know how." In those cases, just replace "this feature is missing" with "this feature is obfuscated behind an unfriendly interface to such an extent that no one in my group knew how to do it."

Looking back over this post, I find I don't like the irritable tone I'm adopting--I hope you don't internalize it--but the sentiment is sincere, as this eight month campaign left me frustrated and dissatisfied with your product.

 

[DMZ2112]

I'm not entirely sure that I understand what it is you want or exactly have a problem with. It's kind of like saying that you want the ability to play a PlayStation game without having to buy a PlayStation. Holding it "hostage" doesn't make must sense to me either. If you think that our version is basically the same as a PDF and that our version somehow excludes the possibility of a PDF version being made available, then I could see your point. Neither of those is true though.

Your version of the digital D&D5 tools may not exclude the possibility of a PDF version being made available, but I regret that your version likely does exclude the possibility of digital D&D tools that are not married to an expensive VTT.

It's not that I want to play a Playstation game without buying a Playstation, it's that I have to buy a Playstation to play a game that should not be a Playstation exclusive. I find this disappointing, but at no time have I suggested that I think you can or should do anything about it. I don't think that ball is in your court.