Official Website

          [Official Discord](<https://discord.gg/fantasygrounds>)       

Intro

Fantasy Grounds is the OG virtual tabletop; it’s been around since 2004. There are many die-hard FG fans out there who absolutely adore the primo feeling of the UI, intense rule automation, and customizing that it offers.  Now that Fantasy Grounds Unity has come out, FG has once again topped the competition as having the most features.  FG is an absolute dream for PC gamers and people who play complicated RPGs that could greatly benefit from automation.  However, it’s probably not the best option for anyone that doesn’t have a teacher, especially if you’re very new to the whole online-play thing.  It’s pretty expensive for the GM, so it requires a level of commitment to reap the benefits of that up front cost that a lot of casual tabletop gamers aren’t ready for.  What’s more, getting to know the basic functionality can be complicated and intimidating, and the cluttery window-based interface is a nightmare for players who don’t have a large screen at their disposal. That being said, the options don’t just stop at in-game features. Because of Fantasy Grounds long standing partnership with DMsGuild, there are dozens or hundreds of 3rd party homebrew offerings on the site!

Cost

• Because of the one-time cost associated with the VTT its generally considered paid off after about 5 months if switching from Roll20 or other subscription services. Well within the timeframe of a single campaign!
• Fantasy Grounds is on Steam, and respects Steam Sale times of the year. (more than the usual books on sale.) Of course, this sometimes means different per-country prices so be sure to check whether steam or fantasygrounds.com is better for your region.

Features

Key

• Battlemaps
  • ✅ Shared battlemaps with player- and GM-controlled tokens
  • 💙 Advanced drawing tools & paint with images
  • ✅ Tile-based map-making, where you can layer maps on a grid or set them side by side
  • 💙 Ruler — Uses movement paths for measurement. It can also measure cones, squares, and circles!
  • ✅ Fog of War is either static or dynamic depending on if you use walls and/or masking layers
  • 💙 Dynamic Line-of-Sight with numerous lighting conditions including fantasy darkvision and modern night-vision goggles
  • 💙 Areas of Effect
  • 💙 Animated image effects and maps supported, many animated weather effects that can be drawn on
• Chat & Dice
  • 💙 Basic chat with roll commands & macros, as well as some very fancy functions (polls, speaking in other languages, etc.)
  • 💙 Die rolls from character sheets has always been a feature, but now with new dice each element (fire, ice, whatever) can be set to roll a different kind of dice too.
  • 💙 Visual (non-chat) dice rolling interface — real 3D dice! That you can throw! There’s even a dice tower! The chat is a dice tray!
  • 💙💰 Dice effects have been added too, so they sparkle when you throw them
• Character Sheets
  • 💙 Character sheets for MANY popular games are available along with their rulesets and automation as “systems”, and FG’s CoreRPG system allows for flexible use to play any other game on FG without needing to code a new system for it.
  • ✅ Characters can be moved between games by exporting and importing
  • 😕 Custom character sheets require the creation of an entire game system and a lot of coding. 30+ systems are supported though.
  • 💙 Controls for the combat tracker can be built into different conditions and abilities in the sheet — for instance tracking concentration
  • 💰 Shape changing is available via third party
• Compendium
  • ✅ Included SRD/rulesets from popular games (D&D 5e, Pathfinder 1/2, Numenara)
  • ✅ Library modules available for purchase for popular D&D and Pathfinder editions, Savage Worlds, Call of Cthulu, Castles & Crusades and Rolemaster Classic.
  • 💙 Official adventures for supported game systems can be purchased and loaded into games, and even many 3rd party adventures are available with FG integration through Drivethru RPG
  • 💙 COMPLETE drag-n-drop to character sheets, this is a core feature the system was built around.
• Handouts, Etc
  • 💙 Campaign-logging, handout, and GM note features that are unprecedented in any other VTT (though the text formatting for these is pretty cumbersome) with visibility controls to make them available to players
  • 💙 Calendar with session logging features
  • 3️⃣ Collaborative note taking for locations, npcs, quests, and calendar entries
  • 💙 Quests, NPCs, etc can be pre-prepared and shared with your players for their reference
  • 💙 Party inventory! Items and loot can be dropped on the party inventory or on players to be split up
  • 💙 Robust random table creation with tables from all your library modules (core books from D&D for example) available at your fingertips, and even more community-created tables for you to import
  • 😕3️⃣ Playing cards are only available in some systems (eg Savage Worlds) or possibly via community modules
  • ❌ No cloud storage, GM client must be open for players to access all game content.
• Automation
  • 💙 This is the really shining gem of FG. A huge degree of automation (even including turns, dealing damage, conditions, etc) is supported for several really popular games.
  • 💙 The combat tracker is extraordinarily robust, allowing you to track HP and many other stats at a glance beyond just initiative
  • 💙 Character sheet rolls are always clickable or you can pick up the button and it turns into the correct dice to throw
  • 💙 Similarly, NPC sheets parse the actual words of a monster manual. You can click on or pick up the words and they turn into the correct dice to throw.
  • ✅ Die rolls can be dragged into macros at the bottom of the screen and tied to the function keys on the keyboard, or they can be put in a scratch sheet in Notes or Story sections
  • ✅ Community modules and themes can be installed to create tons of extra functionality
  • 💙 Encounters can be prepared completely ahead of time and just drug onto the map & combat tracker
• Music & Video Streaming
  • 😕 FG does not natively support video/voice calls, but if used with the Steam overlay it can use the Steam voice chat.
  • ✅ FG has integrated both syrinscape and local audio into the platform. Setup for local audio is a bit of a chore though.
• Extras
  • ❌ No mobile device support — no tablets, chromebooks, phones, etc. (promised in late 2023)
  • ✅ Forums and discord are full of very helpful people who are passionate about FG
  • 💙 Tons more neat little features that are too numerous to be listed here

Pros & Cons