FANTASY GROUNDS Virtual Tabletop's D&D License!

Officially licensed D&D electronic tools! For real! Fantasy Grounds, one of the leading virtual tabletops, has just released a set of D&D 5th edition licensed data packages. These include the D&D Basic Rules, packs for each of the core classes, and a pile of monster packs. Each states specifically that "This product is licensed from Wizards of the Coast." This appears to be the first officially licensed and branded electronic product. (thanks to Matchstick for the scoop)

Check out their D&D wares here. They mention that "The DMG is still in the works, along with the Hoard of the Dragon Queen, The Rise of Tiamat and Princes of the Apocalypse." and that "The basic 5E ruleset will continue to be provided directly within Fantasy Grounds to all licenses. These purchasable options add a new graphics theme that is officially branded, along with the library module support, and whatever other enhancements we could squeeze in, like tokens or portraits or decals."

Here's the announcement:

We are proud to announce that we are officially licensed to sell D&D source material and content inside of Fantasy Grounds! This is the beginning of a great new partnership between SmiteWorks and Wizards of the Coast that will benefit gamers worldwide.

You can purchase the D&D Complete Core Class Pack with all the class, feats, spells and equipment or you can purchase individual classes only. You can also buy the monsters in packs or as the D&D Complete Core Monster Pack. These products have been converted to work really tightly with Fantasy Grounds to give you the best possible gaming experience - we know you're going to love them. They contain all the great artwork and content from the official products and all the smarts and integration to work with Fantasy Grounds. Not only will you get the same content that can be found in print, but you also get an exciting new Fifth Edition theme, adventures and content customized specifically for ease of play inside of Fantasy Grounds.

For Dungeon Masters and players on a budget, you might pick up a Player Customization Pack and one or two Class Packs of your choice. Dungeon Masters can often get by with just the Adventure of their choice and one or two Monster Packs.

Don't forget that players can gift purchases through Steam for Dungeon Masters who have linked their license on Steam.
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[Blackbrrd]

That's insulting. Both to the "fanbois" (man I hate that condescending term) and to the fine folks at Smiteworks. Welcome to my ignore list, sir!

A condenscendig tone, but probably true. It's pretty much standard practise to sell your digital stuff expensive to begin with, and then after a while, cut down the price to reach a larger market. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Nylanfs]

[MENTION=87795]smiteworks[/MENTION]: How modular are the various packs across different settings?

For example, I'm currently running a Kingmaker (Pathfinder) game using 5e rules. If you were to have maps, encounters, xp values etc. "keyed" to the Pathfinder system, how much unfurling would need to be done to use the same information with a 5e ruleset?

It would take next to no work. The encounters would need redone but everything else can be moved fairly easily. Especially if it's your own maps and images, those are all stored in your campaign directory.

 

[smiteworks]

[MENTION=87795]smiteworks[/MENTION]: How modular are the various packs across different settings?

For example, I'm currently running a Kingmaker (Pathfinder) game using 5e rules. If you were to have maps, encounters, xp values etc. "keyed" to the Pathfinder system, how much unfurling would need to be done to use the same information with a 5e ruleset?

Maps can be re-used, and you can even set it to re-use story entries to some degree. Many other features are slightly different between the two systems though. For instance, NPC records look substantially different between different rulesets - with the exception of 3.5E and Pathfinder. That means that if you were to build a bunch of content and then use the /export command to make those into a reusable module, it would only be recognized in other campaigns using the same ruleset. If you restricted your export selection to only include images and stories, you could edit the .mod file that was created and change the definition.xml file inside it to set it as <ruleset>Any</ruleset> instead of <ruleset>5E</ruleset>. We do this with several of the map packs from 0One Games. In those cases we created place-holders for each of the locations on the maps that you can edit inside your campaign to fill in what is in each room. This allows you to fill it in differently for each campaign that you use it in, and it doesn't matter what the ruleset is.

 

[smiteworks]

A condenscendig tone, but probably true. It's pretty much standard practise to sell your digital stuff expensive to begin with, and then after a while, cut down the price to reach a larger market. Nothing wrong with that.

We periodically have sales. On one occasion, we were able to discount an entire line of products from Pinnacle Entertainment Games (for Savage Worlds) because they did a complete re-pricing of all their PDFs.

 

[Dire Bare]

A condenscendig tone, but probably true. It's pretty much standard practise to sell your digital stuff expensive to begin with, and then after a while, cut down the price to reach a larger market. Nothing wrong with that.

For video games, maybe. But not really for RPG digital tools.

And it's never to milk the early adopters (or "fanbois"), but to simply recoup costs, as software programming is expensive. Video games drop in price after a while, because new copies wouldn't sell much otherwise.

Niche software of any type is typically expensive, because the costs aren't brought down by gazillions of copies being sold. And RPG tabletop tool software is very niche. Smiteworks product is expensive, but it is a very reasonable and fair sort of expensive. And not likely to drop in price anytime soon unless the D&D license is VERY, VERY (Baldur's Gate type) successful (which I don't expect).

 

[smiteworks]

A new D&D Fifth Edition session just got launched and is accepting players for a Saturday, one shot game on Fantasy Grounds. Since it is part of FG Con, playing is completely free. Go to www.fg-con.com to sign up and follow the links to get all the software and info you need.
http://www.fg-con.com/events/baron28s-dd-5e-keep-on-the-borderlands-one-shot-2/

 

[Blackbrrd]

For video games, maybe. But not really for RPG digital tools.

And it's never to milk the early adopters (or "fanbois"), but to simply recoup costs, as software programming is expensive. Video games drop in price after a while, because new copies wouldn't sell much otherwise.

Niche software of any type is typically expensive, because the costs aren't brought down by gazillions of copies being sold. And RPG tabletop tool software is very niche. Smiteworks product is expensive, but it is a very reasonable and fair sort of expensive. And not likely to drop in price anytime soon unless the D&D license is VERY, VERY (Baldur's Gate type) successful (which I don't expect).

It isn't about milking your customers, that wasn't my words. That was what I found condecending.

If you look at what I write, I write that it's common practise to sell as much as possible, to as high a price as possible. If you look at what they say themselves, they do say that they have occational sales etc. Basically, selling first without rebates, and then having sales afterwards to drive sales of items that doesn't sell well. This way they generate publicity and probably sell more of those items afterwards.

I am a software developer myself, in a company with three employees and I know how expensive it is to create software, and much you need to take if the software doesn't sell to a wide audience.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't know if I said this here or not, but Roll20 is like a bicycle, Maptool is like a car you build yourself (or have a friend build), and Fantasy Grounds is like a luxury car. All three will get you where you're going, but at different speeds, and with different amounts of automation.

Let me know when your luxury car can do the dynamic lighting the bicycle can do.

With Roll20, you have to do all the work to move the pedals, unless you pay money and learn how to code it into a motorcycle.

You apparently missed the release of the 5e character sheets for Roll20 as well. Between that and the dynamic lighting, I suspect it must have been quite some time since you used Roll20. It's a Buick now.

 

[Selvarin]

I think your website is clear, and this has also been made clear in this thread . . . but I still think lots of folks aren't getting it, sadly. Criticizing the software for not being a character builder is like criticizing an orange for not being an apple. You might want an apple, but to complain about the orange not being one is a bit silly.

This is not on Smiteworks in any way, but I wish WotC had delivered (or licensed) a character builder first to lessen the confusion. But, I suppose, you work with what you have and FG is an amazing virtual tabletop that only needed the datasets to become the official D&D virtual tabletop. There is not likely a ready-to-go 5E character builder just waiting for a license.

It's not silly, because gamers have various needs and some people *really* want a program that is good at one or two things. In my case I have a lot of characters--PCs and NCPs--and I want something that looks good, does *not* require me to keep opening up windows in order to do X Y and Z. I want something that can crunch the numbers, throw in specifics relating to race and class (in this area having drag-and-drop would be tolerable), and print well should I so desire.

In my instance I wanted to test it out and, eventually, the rest of the software suite since it's multifunctional. At the time it didn't make sense for me to pay for Core Rules at $2.99 or whatever because I wanted full access in order to test the capabilities. I now know there's a way to get the 'Basic' package without $$, but that's a little too late. I did what I did in order to properly test the features which mattered to me. Not my cup of tea, although I'll keep updating and see if someday it gets to be the way I need it to be.

So...

1) I agree with you in that a Character Builder--a program that does nothing else but create characters--would have been nice first. It would be nice having that as a separate program or module, with the base classes already included--no $$ purchase or back-door workaround, have it in so people can try it without having to resort to forum searches and what not. Then, if you want more you can purchase the program suite and just 'plug' it in.

2) As it stands the character creation process is more of a chore because of that 'open book' method --> Open X --> open Y --> Remember you can access Z *here* --> ad infinitum. For character creation the creation sheet itself should be the focus--let me type in 'fighter' and have the program look it up, click OK and then type in the number of levels. The way I'm thinking it can be done (which is more user friendly) differs from the current experience. The books/packs we purchase should click right in. The rest of the process should be less visible. I've tried other tool kits that related to older editions of D&D, it *can* be done.

3) As a more specific gripe, related to AC. ON the Combat Calc, perhaps the base figure can be tied directly to a section on inventory where Armor/Protection should. Whatever relates to that should directly show up for the Base AC. That would be nice.



Again, best wishes to FG. May they sell a lot and improve their product. But I can see there's still a lot of room for another team to make different design choices and come out with a design that fits some functions better. Since character creation/management is an important part--and the one which matters to me--I hope someone gets it right. I'm not asking for the ghost of Steve Jobs to come back and assist, but I can see where the design needs a fix. Too bad D&D isn't free/open source.

 

[RSKennan]

You apparently missed the release of the 5e character sheets for Roll20 as well. Between that and the dynamic lighting, I suspect it must have been quite some time since you used Roll20. It's a Buick now.

I use it every week for GURPS.