I did a quick map for a friend of mine who is running a game online. He showed me the program he is using to run the game, Fantasy Grounds II. For those who are unfamiliar with Fantasy Grounds it is a virtual table top program that allows a group to meet online and play in an amazing environment. Check out some screenshots of the program here. My personal favorite is the the tarot card reading screencap from a Ravenloft game.
Though I've never used the program to run a game myself, I certainly wouldn't rule it out now that I am aware of it. Obviously I prefer to play games in person, but I have many friends who live too far away to meet up and game regularly. Fantasy Grounds might just be the answer to that problem.
I would also like to add that I am much more impressed with Fantasy Grounds than the virtual tabletop program that WotC advertised... Mostly because Fantasy Grounds actually exists.
Anyway, here is the map. He asked me to keep it fairly basic so that he can add things like dungeons, caves, and ruins as the characters discover them. The map features the castles of three competing lords and the wilderness that surrounds them.
3 comments:
My groups uses a virtual game table now for some time to exactly counter the problem of player distance. With this tool we can meet for a quick game session, which are mostly just 3h long. Therewith we are able to play regualy, although all of us have tied time schedule with job and family.
We thought about using Fantasy Grounds as it has a nice interface which mimics a real gametable nicely. It is also possible to modify it for your own needs. In the end we ended up using Maptool from RPTools. This is more focused on maps and has less features like story scripting or displaying nice handouts. Therefore it has a not only Fog of War, but also topology, improved vision and lighting settings. Important for us was also that MapTools is java based and therefore platform independent (works with Win, Linux and Mac). And is`s also free.
I haven't heard of Maptool before either. I'll be sure to check it out!
My friends and I have used FG2 now for over a year, from 3.0 now on to 4e. Yes you must pay to get it, but the XP and time saving capabilities is far beyond any other program for virtual tabletop out right now. Since the 2009 post the game has be greatly enhanced and now saves time more than ever.Highly Highly recommend using if your group is at a distance.
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