fantasy grounds?

[YPU]

me and my girlfriend have been itching to get playing dnd again. but it seems like we wont get a group together, so i stumbled upon fantasy grounds, now before i spend my money on it i would like to consult the swarm brain of the playground on it, is this worth the money. who uses or has used it? (the new II edtion or the old one) is it still woth the money even if there is the wizards online game table on the horizon?

[BlackStaticWolf]

me and my girlfriend have been itching to get playing dnd again. but it seems like we wont get a group together, so i stumbled upon fantasy grounds, now before i spend my money on it i would like to consult the swarm brain of the playground on it, is this worth the money. who uses or has used it? (the new II edtion or the old one) is it still woth the money even if there is the wizards online game table on the horizon?

I use Fantasy Grounds II to run a game with my group that used to meet in person prior to our great exodus from the Orlando area (two players moved to Georgia, then about 6 months later, I moved to Miami). I found FG and decided to use it alongside a Teamspeak server that I run on my PC to revive our game.

It works quite well. All of our old "table talk" gets limited to teamspeak, while all of the actual gaming stuff is done inside FG. In truth, I've actually found that it goes a long way towards encouraging real roleplaying in some players who would otherwise be disinclined.

It also clears up a LOT of confusion when I'm running an encounter with multiple speaking NPCs. Since I can grant myself multiple identities, no one ever has to ask "Wait, who said that?"

It does have its weaknesses though. The token system, in my view, is a rather poor substitute for miniatures. But then, I like miniatures and have a fairly sizable collection. Additionally, while combat certainly isn't difficult, in my experience, it DOES take more time to run than it would in an actual table-top game.

[YPU]

i have been used to using tokesns, as i our game groups has always done that. i supose i might actualy run msn on the side during play, alows for of game talk and advice. I also believe that writen games tend to bring up more roleplay in all, a very good thing. and as it is combat ofthen takes ages with my players, this might actualy speed things up, considering the problems we have right now.

[Prometheus]

I tend to only us online resources as a secondary to physical ones. Print yourself out a grid and make paper/cardboard circles and you have all the map you need.

As far as online tools though, I can't say that I think fantasy grounds is worht it. I don't have it, but it seems way over the top to me. All the organizational stuff there is likely better ways to do, and all the mechanical stuff can be done for free elsewhere: RP Tools and OpenRPG

[YPU]

actualy if it were only a tool i wouldnt use it. but its a chat program that alows us to play online. i prefer playing in real life myself, but at the moment it looks like thats not going to happen soon, its just imposible to get people together at the same time. geting them behind their computers at the same time on the other hand might quite well be posible.

[Lord Tataraus]

actualy if it were only a tool i wouldnt use it. but its a chat program that alows us to play online. i prefer playing in real life myself, but at the moment it looks like thats not going to happen soon, its just imposible to get people together at the same time. geting them behind their computers at the same time on the other hand might quite well be posible.

I would recommend OpenRPG since its free and basically the same as FG, except FG has a nicer looking interface that's all fancy graphics and has a few more neat features. But really, I'd never spend the money on it when OpenRPG is free and does basically everything FG does.

Personally, I can't get people to get behind the computer at the same time long enough for a game, so I PbP. If you want to PbP I highly suggest Mythweavers.com, they have the most amazing PbP system I've ever seen. The GM gets to create his own sub-forum for the game and becomes the moderator and there is even a GM Screen to view stat blocks of all the characters, a private roller, and a few more things.