D&D 5E Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds?

[damned]

I havent played that much on Roll20 - about 6 sessions only and no 5e.

Roll20s strengths are in my experience -
* the free option (though its not really free - you are being subsidised by those who are paying the subs - they stop paying and join the ranks of free users and then the service stops) is hard to beat
* dynamic lighting, this is not available in Fantasy Grounds and probably wont be for at least another 12 months
* better dice macros, you can build exploding and keep and reroll dice pools easier in roll20, this is likely to still be the situation for another 12 months
* integrated video client, whilst video is not for everyone - being able to *see* who is speaking and their Char name is handy
* no firewalls to setup which a Fantasy Grounds GM does have to do - mind you Roll20 also blue screens my computer if I use Chrome and not Firefox so it aint all plain sailing!

I have played a lot of sessions on Fantasy Grounds and have purchased several DLC packages including 5e.

Fantasy Grounds strengths are in my experience -
* outright purchase option is much cheaper than an ongoing subscription - but the subscription option is there also
* GM prep is so much easier on Fantasy Grounds
* pins on maps is just such an intuitive way to prep your campaigns
* encounter setup makes game play so much smoother and cooler
* effects for those rulesets that support them (like 5e/4e/3.5e/PF in particular) are just amazing
* the system supports things like damage reduction, resistance, immunity to specific damage types - eg skeleons and piercing/slashing/bludgeoning weapons, creatures that can only be hit by magic, or fire, or silver, creatures that either resist or take additional damage to damage types like cold, radiant, magic etc
* the core DLC for 5e is just brilliant. its not a character builder - and the main reason for this is because most people house rule *some* aspect of their games so forcing 100% legal builds on you would be limiting - but it does do a good chunk of pointing you in the right direction. full equipment, spells lists. full monsters all statted up. abilities and proficiencies etc.
* the prebuilt modules - Lost Mines of Phandelver, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Rise of Tiamat and Princes of the Apocalypse are all ready to run. Everything is ready to sit down and play - including the Pre-Gens, Maps, Encounters, Descriptions etc etc.

And contrary to what many people think - you absolutely can play unsupported games on Fantasy Grounds. CoreRPG by itself or with some extensions can support you playing, very effectively, a lot of games that people dont think you can run on Fantasy Grounds.

And community members also create and release community rulesets that add a huge amount of system specific framework and interfaces for other games. Last month a DCC and a ShadowRun 4 ruleset were both made available by community members.

Another system that is very well supported on Fantasy Grounds is Savage Worlds - an awesome ruleset with lots of settings and variants available.

We just ran FGDaze! 2 weeks ago where we (community members) ran a day of one shots aimed squarely at new comers to Fantasy Grounds. We ran 5e, Pathfinder, Star Wars, Maelstrom, ShadowRun, Savage Worlds and more - totally free for everyone to play - even those with only a free/demo license. We will be running another event in August and then FGCon7 will be running in October.

 

[damned]

If you wanted to give 5e a run on Fantasy Grounds I would get the Lost Mines of Phandelver ($20) and the $4/month sub and learn how it works for a week or 3 and then switch to the $10 sub (then your players play free) and run your players through that. id be surprised if you and your players dont love what it offers after that.

 

[Shiroiken]

My group used Roll20 throughout the playtest. When FG became the official VTT, we looked into it. I got the demo and fiddled around with it. I seemed a bit clunky, mostly due to the learning curve (I already knew Roll20), but some of the features looked amazing. After doing the math on price... wow that sucks.

If it was possible to get a single ultimate license for a group, I might have been able to convince people to chip in to switch. However, we have rotating DMs, requiring EACH of us to buy everything, and that was just stupid. Roll 20 isn't perfect, but you can easily run games with it for free. Free is a very powerful feature.

 

[Nylanfs]

Well you could use the $10 sub and then the next gm sub for their game then the gm can send the campaign folder to the new DM. Although everybody getting a license is going to be cheaper in the long run.

 

[Jester David]

What I find so interesting in this conversation is that after 2-3 years, roll20 has better lightning and macros than Fantasy Grounds has in 11 years.
I know Roll20 can also do cards and manage decks. Can Fantasy Grounds do that?

I wonder if this is representative. Fantasy Grounds was so comfortable being "the best" VTT for a the better part of a decade test they stopped improving and innovating.
Having played a game with dynamic lighting, it's huge! And something that only VTT can do. And also fairly obvious as maptools was doing something similar five or six years ago.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Just a quick plug for the third way: I've checked out FG and Roll20 but ultimately ended up writing my own as an F# App.

Pro: more customized to my playstyle, handles TotM better, easy to automate large battles.

Con: not as polished, currently doesn't support battlegrids at all let alone dynamic lighting, can't import content from other people.

Big pro: it was fun and educational to build, and once I get battlegrids working I can think about adding Hololens support. (My players have already expressed an interest in playing 3D maps if I can get them working. Then I can add more cliff faces and tunnels to my game instead of trying to build them with Legos.)

If you're at all experienced with programming you might think about building your own VTT tool. It can be a great experience.

 

[Mgrancey]

What I find so interesting in this conversation is that after 2-3 years, roll20 has better lightning and macros than Fantasy Grounds has in 11 years.
I know Roll20 can also do cards and manage decks. Can Fantasy Grounds do that?

I wonder if this is representative. Fantasy Grounds was so comfortable being "the best" VTT for a the better part of a decade test they stopped improving and innovating.
Having played a game with dynamic lighting, it's huge! And something that only VTT can do. And also fairly obvious as maptools was doing something similar five or six years ago.

Fantasy Grounds has not been comfortable as being the best, they (of which there is a handful) of developers who work on the hard code for the system have been constantly working on it over the years improving and adding rules sets, some for free, to FG. There was DnD 3/3.5, then Pathfinder and DnD 4e, then DnD 5e, plus all the other rules sets they have added. Castles and Crusades, Basic Roleplaying, Call of Cuthulu, Rolemaster Classic, Fate Core (which is new and must be free as I didn't buy it within last 8 months), Savage Worlds and its update within the last year (again free for SW license holders), and the creation of the CoreRPG, which allows you to setup for a system that isn't supported and was made available free with update to FG 3.0.

As proof, here is the release and patch notes for FG, its a bit of a read

As far as decks/cards go, there are extensions for systems that don't use them, and it is built into the Savage Worlds ruleset.


Finally, it is no small thing to have to grandfather in old content into a new software, which is what they are working on with FGNext (as it is being bandied about) and changing the base code to Unity.

 

[Nylanfs]

And to the OP, you might want to talk to FSHSchmo, he runs a weekly D&D 5e Adventure League game that you might be able to get in on.

 

[Dracones]

I'm looking to run D&D5e and Savage Worlds games mostly- so far it looks like either VTT can do both.

Since Savage World was mentioned and no one else brought it up, I'll just say that Savage Worlds on Fantasy Grounds is pretty much one of the best VTT experiences out there. The guy who wrote the ruleset for Savage Worlds on FG is really good. Outside of the normal combat tracker, character sheets and so on. It has a chase tracker in it, supports bennies, and you can even get the adventure deck for it.

5e and Savage Worlds are probably the two best supported rulesets for the app.

 

[Jester David]

Fantasy Grounds has not been comfortable as being the best, they (of which there is a handful) of developers who work on the hard code for the system have been constantly working on it over the years improving and adding rules sets, some for free, to FG. There was DnD 3/3.5, then Pathfinder and DnD 4e, then DnD 5e, plus all the other rules sets they have added. Castles and Crusades, Basic Roleplaying, Call of Cuthulu, Rolemaster Classic, Fate Core (which is new and must be free as I didn't buy it within last 8 months), Savage Worlds and its update within the last year (again free for SW license holders), and the creation of the CoreRPG, which allows you to setup for a system that isn't supported and was made available free with update to FG 3.0.

I see lots of new licences. Which is great for acquiring new people, but does nothing for people already paying.

As far as decks/cards go, there are extensions for systems that don't use them, and it is built into the Savage Worlds ruleset.

Great, so if working the Deck of Many Things or a inn card game you need to pay $11.