Home : November 02 2012 Computer News : Review: Feature-rich Fantasy Grounds II meets your virtual tabletop gaming needs

Review: Feature-rich Fantasy Grounds II meets your virtual tabletop gaming needs

November 02, 2012

Fantasy Grounds II takes a different approach to virtual tabletop gaming. Most suites made to run-pen-and-paper RPGs over the internet focus on the shared whiteboard model, where the GM and players use an interactive map to move characters, NPCs, and objects around as the story or player decisions dictate. Fantasy Grounds II (FGII) sports a full-featured shared whiteboard, but that's only part of a larger system designed to tell tales in a different, more traditional way, with the focus on the narrative rather than the graph paper. Firing up the GM client takes you to the campaign load screen where you can create, host, or join a game, and manage characters. This is the first place where Fantasy Grounds diverges from its competitors. When creating a campaign, you are presented with a list of rulesets. These aren't just macros or add-on jpeg title images; they're full skins and script sets for the package based around the theme of the game you are playing. These dramatically change your experience, depending on which rules you run. For example, using FGII, Call of Cthulhu games appear and in many ways play differently enough from D&D that it looks like your campaigns are running on separate products. Roughly a dozen rule sets are supported, including Chaosium, Rolemaster, and Savage Worlds, along with the ubiquitous Dungeons and Dragons (3.5 and 4th editions), and more are available unofficially from the player community. Narrative focus takes center stage in Fantasy Grounds II. These rulesets are a double-edged sword. First, the official sets aren't free, running anywhere from $10-$28, although hard copies will still cost you more. Another problem arises if you select a game without an implemented ruleset. Generic game hosting isn't really FGII's forte, and designing your own rules requires some experience with XML (using an XML editor is recommended). This will put off most users, and rightly so. The process isn't overly difficult, but it does have precious little to do with actually enjoying an RPG. It feels suspiciously like office work, an unfortunate yet recurring theme with Fantasy Grounds II. That said, most people will be more than satisfied with the selections already on offer. Creating campaigns is a pleasant but deliberate process, and you must resign yourself to the cold truth that you won't be starting the night you install FGII, no matter how hardcore a GM you may be. Character records, story events, area descriptions, items of note, maps, tokens and other details must all be entered into various integrated databases for use during play time. The video tutorials provided on Fantasy Grounds' website are quite helpful, but run over two hours when viewed together, which should give you an idea of the breadth of the task that awaits the inexperienced user. The results are often impressive, but so is the time required to prepare them. Extended campaign creation sessions can feel like reorganizing your favorite bookshelf by size and color. Sure, you're spending the day with things you enjoy, but it's work nevertheless. This drains enthusiasm from the subsequent proceedings in ways that more nimble and lushly featured products avoid. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2013113/review-feature-rich-fantasy-grounds-ii-meets-your-virtual-tabletop-gaming-needs.html