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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[Nylanfs]

It is an option, as a upgrade to a full license. That was the only way Valve could handle it AFAIK.

 

[redrick]

Would pdfs be a competing product to this? I mean would pdfs of the books make it easy to extract the data making these packs unnecessary?

I really don't think this license has any bearing on other products. FG exists in one specific niche -- virtual tabletops. Why would they pay for a license which locks our other products that don't compete with them?

Roll20 support is a different issue, but, up until recently, Roll20 has made no forays into actual rules content (beyond auto calculating character sheets). FG, on the other hand, as made rules content a cornerstone of their platform.

 

[fjw70]

I really don't think this license has any bearing on other products. FG exists in one specific niche -- virtual tabletops. Why would they pay for a license which locks our other products that don't compete with them?

Roll20 support is a different issue, but, up until recently, Roll20 has made no forays into actual rules content (beyond auto calculating character sheets). FG, on the other hand, as made rules content a cornerstone of their platform.

WotC has a history of protecting its partners. Now FG is useless to those that want pdfs but I was curious if PDFs would be useful to FG users? I don't know.

 

[Nylanfs]

WotC has a history of protecting its partners.

Paizo and Code Monkey Publishing (probably more) would beg to differ.

Now FG is useless to those that want pdfs but I was curious if PDFs would be useful to FG users? I don't know.

It would make it easier for people using FG to recreate the adventures, if they are money tight but time free.

 

[JohnD]

Would pdfs be a competing product to this? I mean would pdfs of the books make it easy to extract the data making these packs unnecessary?

A PDF isn't going to let you play on-line, obviously, but if you have the time to burn entering the information in a useable manner into FG, sure you can avoid the purchase. I guess anyone doing this would have to decide if they want to spend all that time playing or entering data though.

 

[HobbitFan]

Well this looks interesting but the price is going to be a barrier for my gaming group.

 

[redrick]

WotC has a history of protecting its partners. Now FG is useless to those that want pdfs but I was curious if PDFs would be useful to FG users? I don't know.

I'm a Roll20 user, so not entirely sure, but my guess would be minimally useful. What FG is offering is the ability to drop any content from the core rules into your campaign and have it works seamlessly with their various dice rolling and data tracking features. That means being able to say, "there are 4 orcs in this room" and drop 4 orcs into the room, knowing that you will have unique hp trackers for each, that you can press an "attack" button for each and it will roll with the relevant modifiers, press a "dex save" button for each and get the appropriate modifiers, etc. That doesn't sound that important if you are running things at the tabletop with a lot of space and a bunch of books in front of you, but the reality is that, for a lot of people in the virtual tabletop environment, having the information coded into the system in a consistent way makes the gameplay smoother and allows them to focus on the aspects of GM'ing that matter. I never use digital aids at the table, but all my attempts to take that approach to the virtual table have been a total drag.

So, FG lets you just plug and play. That's gold and easily worth $100 if you are comfortable with their platform and would otherwise be entering the data yourself. Countless hours saved. PDFs might make it a little easier to do the data entry yourself, but it's still a lot of work. As an example, I use a mixture of Necromancer Fifth Edition Foes monsters in my game and Wizards MM monsters. The Necromancer monsters are in a pdf, and the Wizards monsters are in a hardback. Often, even copying and pasting the Necromancer PDF doesn't work properly, and, even when it does, there's a lot of formatting to do. And it's little help in filling in the various fields for the internal database. At the end of the day, no matter what my source, I still have to hand-enter a large portion of the information. The only benefit to me with the PDF is that I don't have much desk-space, so it's easier to manually copy data from a window on my second monitor than a hardback book crammed in between my mouse and my coffee cup.

So, no, I don't imagine that FG would be that threatened by PDFs. Or any other digital tools created primarily to support in-person tabletop games. FG provides a completely different service that is mostly about facilitating the virtual tabletop experience.

 

[JohnD]

Well this looks interesting but the price is going to be a barrier for my gaming group.

There's the low priced subscription plans. There's also a buy 3 get 4 license purchase option for the $40 license on Steam.

 

[mattcolville]

Note tablet support is still iffy, the touch interface is a little wonky

Surface Pro is also a PC so I can just use a mouse.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

$149 is a lot of money. I certainly won't be paying to be a DM through this. Even $10 a month seems high to me.