Realm Works & VTT Questions

[MNBlockHead]

Thanks! I'd never heard of Battle Grounds.

Initial reaction was "meh, another VTT..." until I read the following:

"Battlegrounds was largely designed with face-to-face use in mind. Includes Fullscreen feature and extra-fine-grain zoom controls to assist alignment in projector-based setups."

So now I'm intrigued. Silveras, do you use Battle Grounds?

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

Thanks! I'd never heard of Battle Grounds.

Initial reaction was "meh, another VTT..." until I read the following:

"Battlegrounds was largely designed with face-to-face use in mind. Includes Fullscreen feature and extra-fine-grain zoom controls to assist alignment in projector-based setups."

So now I'm intrigued. Silveras, do you use Battle Grounds?

No, I have not used it myself. I had run across a previous version of the comparison page, before Roll20 was added, some time ago, and saw it had refreshed a few months ago.

I'm already invested in Fantasy Grounds, D20Pro, and Roll20. I had done a little exploring of MapTools some time ago. I invested in the D20Pro kickstarter, and am following developments there.

Each has its strong points.

The Fantasy Grounds community support has really been amazing in extending the 3.5/Pathfinder rule sets. The "Party Sheet" functionality embodies a lot of what people would like to see in HeroLab's Tactical Console (XP and gold distribution, for example, are often requested in the Pathfinder forum). But while RealmWorks is not trying to be a VTT, and not trying to compete with VTTs (even if some people are asking for VTT-like features)... Fantasy Grounds is expanding its campaign management tools (at least for specific game systems), and is becoming a competitor with RealmWorks in that space. It is providing some of the features people are asking for here (rollable tables, for example).

D20Pro has been doing a lot with removable "tiles" on maps (such as a removable roof for a building), and the demonstration images show some very interesting "3D" models for creatures. objects, and structures on the maps. EDIT: I should add that current work features implementing an "any system" plug-in API for rules and anything else needed, in order to make D20Pro not so D20-dependent anymore.

Roll20's strength is its relative simplicity and ease of access, as a web-based tool. EDIT: I should also add that beyond the free features, the dynamic lighting tools and special effects engine (animated flames look so cool) that are available to paying supporters add a lot to the experience.

Overall, I think Fantasy Grounds could become the biggest competitor to RealmWorks (out of the ones I have actually worked with). RealmWorks' rules-agnostic approach is both a strength and a weakness. A strength because it allows one code base to serve any game system... a weakness because GMs may not want a single code base with no system-specific features (such as rollable tables to generate weather, or spur-of-the-moment details like the customers in a bar). GMs want tools to make running their games easier.. and those tools probably need to automate game-system-specific tasks in order to really make the GM's life easier. That there is now a means to choose which Game System a Realm is "formatted" for at creation is a nod to this.. but it may not be enough to compete as the VTTs add campaign management features. Because, in the end, when the GM runs his/her game, it becomes game-system-specific.

[daplunk]

Know of any good videos showing the Fantasy Grounds campaign management @work?

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by daplunk

Know of any good videos showing the Fantasy Grounds campaign management @work?

HERE are the official videos accessible through the launch screen of Fantasy Grounds.

Now, for all that Fantasy Grounds does, it is still not on the same scale as RealmWorks for campaign management. And it is not usable by the players between sessions for reference as RealmWorks is. On the other hand, that doesn't matter much to some players/groups. If the players can't put time into the game between sessions, then it doesn't really matter if RealmWorks makes the content available at those times.

Features I like*

• In-persona chat: You can select what character to speak "as".
• Language Support: If you have the language mod installed, and you specify the language your current "persona" is speaking, Players of characters who do not speak the language will see a symbol font instead of clear text. Players of characters who do speak the language will see clear text.
• Unidentified Items: If an item has not been identified, its name is masked and description locked so that players cannot see it until it has been identified.
• Party Sheet: Summary sheet for the party as a whole, showing all characters' current combat data, and allowing "group operations" (such as awarding XP, allocating treasure, and automating group skill checks {one-click to roll a Perception check for all})
• Re-usability: Your prepared campaigns, resources, and adventures can be "exported" to "modules". The "modules" can then be loaded, singly or in groups, to run your campaign repeatedly with different players, or other combinations.

*Note that availability of features is game-system dependent. Not all systems support all of these features, as many are sourced from the community. What I list here is based on Pathfinder.

Things I don't like...

• Variability between systems: Because many of the innovations come from the community, they are game-system specific. If you are not playing the game system a feature was developed for, you may never see it migrate to your preferred system (unless you learn to do it yourself).
• LUA based: The system uses a modified of LUA scripting. This is not something I've run across other than with Fantasy Grounds.
• Clunky Implementations: The emphasis is sometimes on getting things IN, rather than on having them be smooth and polished in the process. The implementation for some combat Feats, for example, required entering them as Spells in order to make them available as applicable effects and not just text.
• Reliance on the Community: Aside from the innovative functionality, which has been great, sometimes SmiteWorks (the makers of Fantasy Grounds) relies too much on the community to provide core data. For example, the Bestiaries and Magic Items for Pathfinder were, for a long time, only those from the Core Rulebooks. The Community used other data sources to compile unofficial collections of monsters and magic items, as well as rulebooks beyond the core (Advanced Players Guide, for example).

[Jay_NOLA]

Thanks Silveras,

I had forgotten about Battle Grounds. I heard of that one several years back via a CC3 tutorial on making battle maps. (Side Note: I'm going to have to do a mapping software post listing the pro's and cons of the various main ones since I've used and own the major ones.)

Fantasy Grounds is looking like it might be the better buy, since you just need 1 ultimate for the GM and free version for players if I ever opted to run an online game.

I also saw a Fantasy Grounds tutorial on importing Hero Lab data into it which looks like it might be another plus If Hero Lab had more systems.

[daplunk]

Made a video showing how I import maps and get them to display of the player client using MapTool.

http://downunderdm.blogspot.com.au/2...tware.html?m=1

[BoomerET]

@daplunk,

Yes, in Fantasy Grounds you can create a .mod file that contains all your maps, text, vision blocking, etc.

However, you can't double-click it and have it open FG. So I'm guessing what can do with a MT campaign file you can't do with Fantasy Grounds.


Dave

[daplunk]

I just watched the Fantasy Grounds videos on campaign management.

Wow... that looks absolutely horrid.

The UI is no where near as user friendly as RW. And by that I mean you actually have to go out of your way to learn how FG works. It's a good look, but the UI is too unique and the focus is on a visibly pleasing experience versus something that would actually provide efficiency for me at the table.

The concept of having to put images into a Windows folder before you can use them in the application. Didn't like the idea of that at all.

The biggest take away for me, was he was planning on his prep. He had to think about what he wanted to prep before he started his prep. With Realm Works I just, do it. Want an NPC, create a Hero Lab snippet and build it using the character creator. Want a picture, open up Google Images and copy and paste straight into Realm Works.

Organisation of content was very limited. I imagine it would be next to impossible to manage with the amount of content I have entered so far.

RW is leaps and bounds ahead from what I saw. Thanks, I have been curious for a while.

[Silveras]

In Fantasy Grounds, that "organization scheme" is part of what Modules are about. You would create your Adventure (with all Story elements, NPCs, Items, Tokens, etc.) then export that to a Module. Your active campaign would then activate those Modules from the Library window, and each of the other element windows (Story, NPCs, Items, Images, etc.) would then have a tab for each Module loaded (though they can also merge if you decide to index them with that in mind).

So to do a 6-part Adventure Path, you might create 6 (or more) Modules, one for each part of the adventure, with the NPCs, Story elements, Images, etc. needed for each. Then in a 7th Campaign, you would load and activate the other 6 as modules to run the adventures with them. You could reduce clutter by loading only the ones you need, but that means your organization overall may need to be less "by book" (for cases where NPCs are present in multiple parts, for example, that could be a hassle).

[Silveras]

HERE is d20Pro's YouTube video channel, for those interested.