D&D 5E Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds?

[Dracones]

Most of the dev work up until recently was creating CoreRPG and moving all the rulesets to be based off that. It was a pretty massive cleanup of the ruleset code for Fantasy Grounds. But it allows for people to write extensions like card extensions that'll work across all the rulesets.

Their recent work has been getting the WoTC stuff into FG and they're actively working on a Unity port of the engine. The core engine is pretty old and moving to Unity will let them modernize it and do more things in the future.

But the devs have been very active with the community. When the community wanted to put together a yearly con the devs changed the app code so it unlocks into ultimate mode for the cons. They've rented teamspeak servers, supported Pathfinder society, helped with FGDaze, supported Par5E so people could parse the D&D books into Fantasy Grounds prior to the WoTC licensing and have setup resources for the 5E adventuring league.

 

[Mgrancey]

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


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

Sorry, might be the hour but none of this post makes any sense to me. Not sure how larger player base is bad and not sure where the $11 comes from.

 

[Jester David]

Sorry, might be the hour but none of this post makes any sense to me. Not sure how larger player base is bad and not sure where the $11 comes from.

Larger player base of other gamers is good for the company and program. But doesn't do anything for people who already played if 90% of the effort is going to attract new players and not retain the ones who already paid.

It was said cards were with the Savage Worlds licence. Which is $11 on Steam.

 

[DaveDash]

Another small feature but critically important for me in roll20 - DM controlled music and sound effects from sound cloud. Having battle music and/or suspenseful music while heading through a dungeon etc adds a lot of immersion.

 

[Hawkwind]

Every one gets free updates in FG even if you bought five years ago and there is a free extension for adding your own scanned cards, The $11 is for use of Savage world's, there is nothing to stop you scanning your own physical Savage worlds deck into FG, it wouldn't be hard coded into the ruleset but you would still have random draw for individual players

 

[Dracones]

It was said cards were with the Savage Worlds licence. Which is $11 on Steam.

You wouldn't buy Savage Worlds for cards. The cards in Savage Worlds are very specific to that ruleset. For example combat uses cards for initiative, chases uses cards and there's a special adventure deck which is a unique set of cards that can be traded around by the players.

There's a free card extension to the CoreRPG ruleset which is what every other ruleset is based off of. So you can install that and have card support, though it's pretty basic(not as good as Roll20's card system). All the rulesets in Fantasy Grounds base off of CoreRPG and the code is open so anyone is free to write extensions. I've written my own extensions for Savage Worlds where I added in Alchemy and a few other magic systems.

Every ruleset has its own forum and in each forum there's a sticky where people link in the extensions they've written for the ruleset that are free to use.

 

[Hawkwind]

Most of the dev work up until recently was creating CoreRPG and moving all the rulesets to be based off that. It was a pretty massive cleanup of the ruleset code for Fantasy Grounds. But it allows for people to write extensions like card extensions that'll work across all the rulesets.

Their recent work has been getting the WoTC stuff into FG and they're actively working on a Unity port of the engine. The core engine is pretty old and moving to Unity will let them modernize it and do more things in the future.

But the devs have been very active with the community. When the community wanted to put together a yearly con the devs changed the app code so it unlocks into ultimate mode for the cons. They've rented teamspeak servers, supported Pathfinder society, helped with FGDaze, supported Par5E so people could parse the D&D books into Fantasy Grounds prior to the WoTC licensing and have setup resources for the 5E adventuring league.

The community around FG is a lot smaller than Roll20 but thanks to the 5e licence and getting on steam it's getting bigger and it's also one of the most friendly and helpful online communities I have had the pleasure to participate in. There are great people playing roll20 but there are a small but significant minority of players note not Dm's, who have huge entitlement issues. I guess that's the downside of being free that you attract the idiots. On the subject of core RPG I'm not a fan, the dice macros just aren't as good as roll20, you can't do an automated dice pool check, say you want roll half a dozen d6's and then count the number of times a number above 4 is rolled, in roll20 you can easily write a one line dice macro not so in FG

 

[damned]

The community around FG is a lot smaller than Roll20 but thanks to the 5e licence and getting on steam it's getting bigger and it's also one of the most friendly and helpful online communities I have had the pleasure to participate in. There are great people playing roll20 but there are a small but significant minority of players note not Dm's, who have huge entitlement issues. I guess that's the downside of being free that you attract the idiots. On the subject of core RPG I'm not a fan, the dice macros just aren't as good as roll20, you can't do an automated dice pool check, say you want roll half a dozen d6's and then count the number of times a number above 4 is rolled, in roll20 you can easily write a one line dice macro not so in FG

On the subject of CoreRPG - I am a fan. CoreRPG does need better dice options but the flexibility of the framework is amazing. I wrote an extension for CoreRPG that adds clickable weapon attacks, draggable damage, automation of hit points and damage, incorporates targetting and more. It can very easily be built on to deliver anything you like. I wrote a ruleset for the classic RPG Maelstrom (1984) and its newer Maelstrom Domesday and am working on 2 others - Paranoia and a Dungeon World ruleset. CoreRPG makes these things so much easier (not easy, but much easier).

 

[transtemporal]

I bought the ultimate license for FG and $150 worth of products, then dropped it like a hot rock. The UI is obscure, it's clunky as anything and making a character is tortuous.

 

[damned]

[MENTION=6777693]transtemporal[/MENTION] - thats a shame - Id be happy to have a short one one one session with you and try and work thru your questions/challenges/issues.