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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[Griogre]

For anyone coming in a bit late to the announcement there has been a lot of talk about price - how expensive, etc and a lot of talk about the high end.

Nobody that I saw really said that the min price if you want to try it for a month with a group is $13. You pay $9.99 for a month of FG's Ultimate license and then drop $2.99 and get the Basic Rules Pack which has the classics races and classes: Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Human; Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard. The Basic Rules is a one time buy and also has 200+ monsters for the DM.

One month's gaming for the price of a movie ticket. That's not a bad deal to try out the software and 5E, IMHO.

 

[hbarsquared]

[MENTION=87795]smiteworks[/MENTION]

To clarify, do the Complete Class Pack and Complete Monster Pack include the full text of the PHB and MM, respectively?

As in, if I buy the Complete Class Pack, am I simply buying the whole PHB, in VTT form?

 

[smiteworks]

It includes the full text and images from the PHB or MM. Wherever possible, that "text" is converted into an appropriate VTT record, such as a Class, an NPC an Item, a Spell., etc. The images are normally linked in relation to the text, so a picture of an NPC would get set up as a link from the description of an NPC but would be stored as an image that could be shared.

 

[Mistwell]

That is simply not entirely accurate. There are many more options for pricing for base FG than $150.

At the most expensive level nobody that ever connects to your game needs to pay anything. No charge. Ever.

I can appreciate everyone has their preference, but at least get your information right.

So what is the $40 version on Steam or $120 4-pack? I saw this post earlier:

$150 for the Ultimate license (or $10/month for a subscription)
$50 for the Complete Class Package
$50 for the Complete Monster Package
$20 for Lost Mines of Phandelver
$270. (Or $120 and $10/month)

"This will allow anyone with a Demo license( free) to connect to your game and view all the content."

"Alternatively, you and all your players could buy normal licenses for $40 (or $4/month)"

What exactly does that last sentence mean? Will the $40/person or $120 for 4 substitute for the $150 ultimate license portion above?

 

[pedr]

That's a full licence which allows you to connect to any GM with a licence or to act as GM - but it requires your players to have their own licences. The $150 ultimate licence lets free licence players connect. From what I can tell, that is the only difference between the standard licence and the ultimate one.

 

[pedr]

Re the edit - yes. If every player has paid for FG, the DM just needs a standard licence. It's only if the GM wants to allow players who haven't paid anything for the program to play that he needs the ultimate licence.

(Edit) Does this help: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/buyFG/#licensecomparison ?

From what I can tell, the only difference between $40 and $150 is who can connect to a game you are GMing.

 

[smiteworks]

Those replies are both correct. Some historical context (since Fantasy Grounds has been around since 2004):

We used to have
- a Lite license which was cheaper but only let you do player stuff
- a Full license which let you use all the DM features of Fantasy Grounds, build your own rulesets and extensions, modules, act as a player or host for other players with a license.

At some point, people in the community and newcomers started requesting the ability to have unlimited players or at least slots for players to join freely. At this time we created a Free license and an Ultimate license. The Free license only worked if connected with an Ultimate. Over time we added a Demo mode too and now we call it a Free/Demo license. The Ultimate allows you to have unlimited players, who can all be running the Free/Demo license if they don't already have a license of their own. Due to popularity of the Ultimate license and the constant state of confusion on the Lite license's capabilities, we dropped it entirely. That now means that anyone who buys a license of FG gets to use all the DM features. All of those features are the same between the Full (now just a standard) license and the Ultimate license. We also added in a bunch of free tokens that we purchased the rights to distribute and gave these to all standard and Ultimate license people along with a dozen or so maps that I created for people to use for common scenarios. You can upgrade from the standard to the Ultimate license.

The pack we sell on Steam is the Standard license. There is DLC for the Upgrade to Ultimate. There is also a buy 3 get 1 free pack of standard licenses. Which option is best for you depends on the make-up of your group. If you have a fixed number of people where multiple people might want to DM, then the 4-pack deal is probably a good way to go. If the DM is mostly the same but there are a large number of players (perhaps multiple groups) or they rotate in and out players a lot, then the Ultimate probably makes more sense.

The other option is the subscriptions. These act the same as the Standard and Ultimate but you pay a monthly fee of $3.99 or $9.99 to keep it active instead.

Clear as mud yet?

 

[transtemporal]

Clear as mud yet?

You've framed in a lighthearted way, but this is actually a barrier to your product. People should have questions about the functionality sure, but they shouldn't have questions about the distribution or subscription model. That should be so clearly spelled out and accessible that even a complete nonce can get it. I don't want to get down on you or anything because I think its cool there's a product for 5e, but its also frustrating that I had to ask here to make sense of it.

 

[smiteworks]

It may be a barrier to some, but it's due to providing more options. Sales people will tell you to limit the options to two or three things. If you look on our store page, we've framed it as Option #1 Subscriptions or Option #2 Lifetime License and then Show the small # of options underneath each of those two choices. We have a link to an FAQ about subscriptions in that area and a link underneath the whole section to a chart that compares license types - much like you see with other software packages.

Short of removing options, I don't see how we can make it clearer.

 

[Greg Benage]

The software itself looks very cool, but as Ryan Dancey would say, the value is in the network. How many people are playing 5E on FG? How easy is it to find players and DMs compared to Roll20? Judging by the Guild House forum, it seems...limited...but I don't know if that's the right way to compare. The FG software may be appropriately priced, but it's worth $0 if I can't put a good gaming group together. Other than the Guild House, where do I look to evaluate that?