[Updated] Who's Playing What On Fantasy Grounds? Final Stats For 2016!

Nylanfs · Jul 14, 2017

Well I don't know about you, but my plan is to be immortal.

Hussar · Jul 14, 2017

And, let's not forget, that's 150 bucks for the ultimate license. Plus another 150 if you want the DMG, MM and PHB set. So, we're 300 bucks in the hole. Role 20's full on Pro Account which comes with considerably more features than a FG account is a hundred bucks a year. So, we're three years in before the price evens out.

Look, I use Fantasy Grounds because I paid for it. Unfortunately, for the price of it, it's features are very poor. It should be the Cadillac of VTT's. It's far closer to a Lada unfortunately.

We'll see how it looks after the big upgrade, but, since there's no actual ETA on that, I'm pretty much stuck with it.

Nylanfs · Jul 14, 2017

Well seeing as you can't buy the PHB and DMG for Roll20 that's a bit of a bad comparison.

smiteworks · Jul 14, 2017

You can pay $10 / mo for FG if you prefer monthly subscriptions instead of paying $150 and get the Ultimate version. If your players already have their own licenses, then it is $4/mo or $39 for just a Standard version. All licenses and subscriptions comes with the SRD content, so then you are just back to deciding if you want to buy any additional add-ons instead of building your own. You can now build pretty much everything you need directly in FG, including custom classes, races, spells, items, NPCs, etc. Classes and Races you build or buy now support an easy layout for building in the automation when you level or apply the race or class.

We don't set the prices for DLC. This is set by the publishers or content creators. Many content creators and publishers have approved some products to go on sale at certain times of the year. The PHB is currently on sale for $39 and Lost Mine of Phandelver is on sale for $14.99. There is also a bundle that gives 25% off for those people who want to own every single product released for D&D so far and all future products released.

MM - $50 is the price for this on all VTTs that support it.
PHB - $50 for all VTTs that support it (currently only Fantasy Grounds)
DMG - $50 for all VTTs that support it (currently only on Fantasy Grounds)
...
(every single D&D fifth edition product is available as of today for Fantasy Grounds and new products are available at launch)

DMs Guild has 100s of cheap add-ons that work with Fantasy Grounds. 50% of those proceeds go back to the creator and you get both a PDF and an FG module for the add-ons that support Fantasy Grounds. We get a 10% portion of those sales if they feature FG modules.

I will leave it to others to weigh in feature comparisons. My opinion is that the map support in FG is perfectly functional but not as fully featured as other software in its current state. The combination of DM campaign management, adventure building, character creation, generators, effects management, automation, reference manual support, etc. is far ahead of anything else available. There might be one or two apps that provide 1 or 2 features better than FG does that particular item, but it is the overall package that makes it powerful.

It's been around since 2004 and evolved considerably since that time. We often find people who checked it out years ago who don't realize what all it can do now.

Reynard · Jul 14, 2017

smiteworks said:
It's been around since 2004 and evolved considerably since that time. We often find people who checked it out years ago who don't realize what all it can do now.

And with the Unity version, it looks like the features will be even broader and deeper.

I am excited, if impatient.

fantasmamore · Jul 15, 2017

What do you need? I believe that this is the right question. I personally need to plan my campaign and prepare everything from story to maps with encounters and do it fast. There is nothing like FG for all these things, except maybe for the old and now defunct Masterplan which was the ugliest but most amazing software I ever used. I play in person so I don't care if there is no integrated audio chat for example. I don't like the way that FG handles the maps and the FoW but that is not as important to me as being able to drag n drop every monster from 4th edition to my encounter with all their stats. Or create maps with pins that open text or other maps (like the map of a region that you click on a town and another map opens and you click on the wizards tower and the text for that becomes available - and all of that with simple drag n drop!) Everyone has different needs.
So, before calculating the cost, think of what you need. I wish I had choosen FG before buying / subscribing to various other solutions that seemed cheaper at the time but ended up costing money that I could have used for other things.

DragonMan · Jul 15, 2017

Mercule said:
Two data points I find incredibly interesting about that:
1) D&D 3.5 is out-performing D&D 4E. I would have expected most 3.5 fans to have moved to PFRPG, by now.
2) Savage Worlds is the third most popular system. Not to knock it (it actually looks like a great system), but I would have expected it to be in with the other indie games; maybe on the upper end, but not that far ahead. I wonder if it's something about the sample set.

My group stuck with 3.5 and pathfinder. We really like those versions and saw no reason to switch to version 4.

Mercule · Jul 15, 2017

DragonMan said:
My group stuck with 3.5 and pathfinder. We really like those versions and saw no reason to switch to version 4.

Right. My comment was that I would have expected most folks who didn't move on to be playing Pathfinder, rather than to still be playing 3.5. It's not that I'm at all surprised there's some flavor of d20 outperforming 4E (quite the opposite). It's that I'm surprised both 3.5 and Pathfinder are doing so.

Hussar · Jul 16, 2017

Well, the fact that you can play 3.5 entirely free and have enough material, all online, to run for the next century, does make it a pretty strong incentive. Why move on to Pathfinder?

Nathal · Jul 16, 2017

So, with Roll20, if they were to go out of business you’d lose all of your content purchases (unless somebody else bought the company and renegotiated). But if Smiteworks were to go out of business (Gods forbid) all content would be safe and one could continue to use the software so long as the client/server remained compatible with the current OS? So content purchases are “safer” with FGs, in the unlikely event of a company going away? Did I read that right?

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[Updated] Who's Playing What On Fantasy Grounds? Final Stats For 2016!

Nylanfs

Hero

Hussar

Legend

Nylanfs

Hero

smiteworks

Adventurer

Reynard

aka Ian Eller

fantasmamore

Explorer

DragonMan

First Post

Mercule

Adventurer

Hussar

Legend

Nathal

Explorer

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