Quote:
Originally Posted by gloranphile
Pray tell, what competitor are you using? I've pretty much given up on RW except as a "reference bank" of content.
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I decided to go with a combo of Fantasy Grounds and Onenote/Word (since Onenote was installed free on the laptop) and my dropbox account.
After re-evaluating how my players view content there is no way I could force them to look at a player view or even visit a dedicated campaign website (most of my players are 40+, so old school) so sharing my own documents (not purchased PDFs, but actual campaign notes) on dropbox is enough. Each one of them gets a folder shared only to them if I need to grant one of them any additional info.
As far as the other things, FG supports custom calendars, the big two (5e and PF) and many other game systems, the monster and spell libraries are fast and easily searchable, and the core rulebooks are in a format that's easy to flip through. Since I happen to have a cheap 2nd laptop, I can display the map or any images to a dedicated client that shows on a large TV next to the game table. It has a combat/initiative tracker built in and if you use the built-in spell/dice rolling from a laptop it automagically can do all your monster combat rolls for you, or you can set it to handle manual rolling at the table.
And, it grants me the flexibility to go full VTT in the future if I need to.
The downside is that I still need a tool like Hero Lab to really create characters or NPCs with classes, and there is a little bit of manual process to create your own NPCs if you don't use stock monster stats. It also doesn't have a true player view without a 2nd client.
I do however believe that FG might fix those issues going forward.
The BIGGEST SELL is that Doug (the owner) and the community host a dedicated youtube channel that they call Fantasy Grounds Fridays that they use to keep their community engaged and informed. Something that RW could easily replicate but doesn't seem to want to.