D&D 5E Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds?

[Grakarg]

Which VTT do you prefer and why?

I've used roll20 a couple of times and while it worked great, I've been wondering how it compares to Fantasy Grounds. With the new 5e campaigns getting released onto Fantasy Grounds it seems like it might be a good choice to use to run those campaigns for some friends.

But the price difference between the two was.... shocking... and I wondered which of the two VTT people preferred and why. They might be worth every penny for the preset campaigns on Fantasy Grounds, I just don't know.

Please help me decide what system to use for my gaming and sing the praises of your chosen software!
I'm looking to run D&D5e and Savage Worlds games mostly- so far it looks like either VTT can do both.

Thanks!

 

[vandaexpress]

I think it depends on which one you started with. I prefer Roll20 currently, I'm used to the interface and it's clean and uncluttered - but I use VTTs to supplement my face-to-face games (projecting the battlemap onto the table and a big screen TV for NPC portraits, etc). I also like how easy it is to build maps from scratch using their built-in search tools, their marketplace for tokens, etc and dynamic lighting for exploring dungeons. Just be prepared to do a LOT of data entry if you want to import monsters, spells, etc...

I own an ultimate license and stuff for FG but haven't been able to get myself to use it... I think it's just an interface issue. It would be too cumbersome for me to transition to it mid-campaign. I may run PotA in Fantasy Grounds once we wrap up Tyranny of Dragons, but we'll see. I'm a major fan of Roll20.

 

[Jester David]

You can't beat the price of Roll20. Free is good. And I'm a sucker for companies that start free and encourage subscriptions with perks that are actually perks and not necessities.
But anyone playing on Fantasy Grounds is likely dedicated to the game; they really want to play and there's less chance of a casual newb stumbling in.

Fantasy Grounds has the advantage of the published content. Which is nice if that floats your boat. Or even if you have the disposable cash and simply want to pillage it for maps and encounters.

Roll20 also has a dedicated LFG section of the website, while you have to sift through a lot of other campaigns in Fantasy Grounds. But Roll20's LFG section has been buggy for me (I've been actively looking for a group there), so your mileage might vary.

Fantasy Grounds, as paid software, also looks a little more polished. They've been around a long time and have spent years working the kinks out of the system. Roll20 is newer and amazing for the time that has been invested, but there are still some quirks.

Still, since you want to encourage people to get into the hobby and limit barriers to entry, Fantasy Ground's starter price is super high, and charging for the otherwise free Basic Rules is an irritation. For that reason alone Roll20 seems the better choice.
Apparently there's a demo mode to Fantasy Grounds. That may or may not let you test playing in a game with a licences DM (the details are vague).

I think Fantasy Ground's price made sense when it was one of the few VTT's on the market and free meant buggy and problematic (maptools). Charging to get started is harder to justify now, let alone $44+licence. But now they have competition, and that competition is free. Responding by getting a D&D licence is a great move but charging more than the core books for the product seems unnecessary.
This is emphasized by the dearth of reviews for Fantasy Grounds' D&D package.

As I mentioned, I've spent the last two weeks looking for an online group. My wife's work schedule shifted and I can no longer make my regular Organized Play game, so I need to play from home. As a D&D fan with a computer looking to play digitally, I'm exactly the target audience. And yet going with Fantasy Grounds was never realistically considered. Because I cannot justify the expense. I'm not spending $60 for the chance of playing a game. At least when I but the rulebooks, even if I never end up playing I walk away with books to read and keep. I'll be able to look at those books for decades to come (or months in the case of the PHB ). Fantasy Grounds... who knows how long it's servers will be up?

 

[Dragonsbane]

Fantasy Ground's starter price is super high, and charging for the otherwise free Basic Rules is an irritation. For that reason alone Roll20 seems the better choice.

This, even when paying the 9.99 a month for Roll20, which gives you amazing scripting potential, plus a forum full of CRZAYAY scripts, automatically import monsters into macros, etc. WHen you price something too high (IMHO) then you turn people off.

 

[Paraxis]

How much free time do you have? How much disposable money do you have?

If you have lots of free time and little money Roll20 is perfect, you can input npc's, make macros, and make your game as simple or complex as you want it to be.

If you have little free time and a fair bit of money Fantasy Grounds is where it is at, if you purchase everything all the work is mostly done for you and it all looks great. If you don't invest the money you might as well just use Roll20.

Do remember as a player you never need to spend a penny on Roll20, as a player using Fantasy Grounds the only way it is free is if your DM has the ultimate license.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I think FG looks better and presents pictures better (no need to scroll all over the screen, nice backdrop, no wasted space). The price for mentor Roll20 is about the same as Ultimate Roll 20 subscription ($10), but you can get away with just normal supporter for roll20 $5. I dont think you can really DM with roll20 for free, or at least not without deleting content as you go.

Roll20 however has an amazing "find a group" function. FG has some forums and so on but their audience is much smaller, far as I can tell.

I use skype with both for less drop outs, so FG's lack of video/audio chat doesnt matter to me.

They're both great. I dont find price to be a significant difference - but I dont buy any of the modules etc. I just treat FG like a better looking Roll20. Overall I prefer FG with skype, i prefer the look and the macros are easier to switch up on the fly. But with weaker "find a group" tools, FG works better with an established group I think.

 

[Nylanfs]

Honestly from the players perspective there isn't all that much difference. But from the DM's view it makes everything run very smoothly. Linking maps, encounters, story items and it all just flows smoothly.

 

[ninjayeti]

I have not used Roll20 much and only recently started with Fantasy Grounds, but I have been very impressed with how well 5E works with FG so far. Yes there is a learning curve, and there are a few holes (or maybe just things I haven't figured out how to do yet) but overall it feels like a well put together product. (I haven't used the Savage Worlds ruleset, although I know that is available).

The obvious upside for FG is the availability of all of the 5E material. If you plan on running one of the available campaigns this is going to be a MAJOR time saver. Yeah, I am sure you could enter all of that manually in Roll20 but how many hours are you going to spend on that rather than actually gaming?

The obvious downside is the extra cost. Whether this is a deal breaker for you depends on 1) how much disposable income you have and 2) how much you realistically think you will use it. Obviously only you can figure out this for yourself. Personally I don't think the cost is particularly burdensome if it is something you use regularly, but if it means you are only going to eat ramen noodles for a month by all means go with Roll20!

 

[xanstin]

You can't beat FG for prep time. It has all the maps, tokens placed and entries in an easy to follow format for the published adventures if you buy the modules. You pay for you time in setup, which allows you to focus more on story plotting.

I personally used roll20 for my current campaign through LMoP, HotDQ then switched over during RoT after the Sea of moving ice. While roll20 is free and flexible there is zero automation which slows down play for us. All my players are pretty much hooked to FG since we switched. On FG you can target a group of NPCs cast a spell it rolls the Saves automatically then when damage is rolled it applies only to those that affected and gives them the appropriate amount (1/2, full , etc) that is among several polished features that make this program shine and cut down on prep and game time wasted on math and multiple clicks and tracking.

Not to mention you only need your computer in front of you, no more having 3 books open and your computer with roll20 up to have all the monster stats and module info at the ready. They are all in the modules and all linked so its all a drag and drop operation with plenty of pins which opens encounters and module info right off the maps which are all to scale with grids and tokens pre placed.

The biggest thing is to be patient when you first get in there its a lot to digest, give yourself a couple days playing around discovering features before dismissing it as to complex. Also youtube is your friend...

 

[bruceparis]

I used to use Fantasy Grounds (right from it's very first inception), but I don't any more. Three years ago, I switched from a PC desktop to a Mac desktop. To get FG on Mac OSX you have to go through Steam. And I'm wary of Steam (for a bunch of reasons I don't want to go into here). So, I switched to Roll20 (where I've been for 2.5 years). Yes, Fantasy Grounds was "prettier", but I find Roll20 more "practical". I'm a "make it myself" person anyway, so pre-fab mods don't lure me. The only downside to Roll20 is they still have bugs in the Audio+Video side of things (but I use Roll20 through Skype or Google Hangouts and the probs all go away). So, in summary: Roll20 is my pick of the two (for very personal reasons).