Virtual Table Top (VTT) support

[sjard]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Can someone other than the GM host the game? Even if they can, each GM needs at least a standard license (as far as I can tell), so that's $139 for a group with 2 GMs.

Only the GM can host. The ultimate license is there primarily for people like me who is always the GM, so that none of my players have to buy anything.

If more than one person in the group GMs each GM will need at least the standard license (currently $30 on sale, and it goes on sale regularly), which would require all players to have at least standard licenses. Or each GM would need the Ultimate license but nobody else would need to buy anything.

[Gigermann]

Originally Posted by sjard

Only the GM can host. The ultimate license is there primarily for people like me who is always the GM, so that none of my players have to buy anything.

If more than one person in the group GMs each GM will need at least the standard license (currently $30 on sale, and it goes on sale regularly), which would require all players to have at least standard licenses. Or each GM would need the Ultimate license but nobody else would need to buy anything.

I suppose if you're on the cheap, the current GM could "rent" the Ultimate for the period he's running.

[sjard]

Originally Posted by Gigermann

I suppose if you're on the cheap, the current GM could "rent" the Ultimate for the period he's running.

Yeah, that is an option, but if you plan to run for more than 14 months, it's cheaper in the long run to just buy it.

[keyespj]

There is another VTT in beta right now. NBOS is coming out with Skwyre.

http://nbos.com/products/skwyre

[GodBeastX]

I'm not a big fan of Fantasy Grounds. It has some features completely lacking that they are possibly bringing to their Unity remake.

I am, however, a fan of various other softwares, and have never had a problem getting GURPS working fine in them. I'm not sure what Steve Jackson needs to do to to enhance my VTT experience. It's been just fine.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I am, however, a fan of various other softwares, and have never had a problem getting GURPS working fine in them. I'm not sure what Steve Jackson needs to do to to enhance my VTT experience. It's been just fine.

Things SJ Games could do to enhance the VTT experience:

* Clarify the online policy to make it explicit on how much automation you can share with other people. The way I read it right now, if I write a macro that measures the range between two tokens and calculates the range penalty from the SSR, I can't share that with other people.

* Make it easy for GCA4 (and GCS) to produce macros for common VTTs and frameworks, and have the export sheets part of the official GCA release.

* Allow VTT frameworks/base campaigns to shared on the GURPS Resources thread.

* Release image files for the maps in published adventures as both the final jpg/png and as a layered document for GMs that want to edit them. Ideally, these image files should be available with and without the hex grid. They shouldn't be adapted for any particular VTT, but should let any GM quickly import them into the VTT of their choice. They don't need to be free either, though it'd be great if buying a PDF also got the maps for that PDF.

* Provide full campaign files for published adventures, intended for a popular VTT, as an additional purchase.

The first 3 don't require a lot of work from SJ Games. The last two require increasing amount of investment and I don't expect SJ Games to do them unless there is some measurable payoff. Still, SJ Games has the image files for the DF adventure Mirror of the Fire Demon, and it would be great if they were made available.

[Gigermann]

What does "official support" mean, exactly?

What does SJG get out of it? SJG's interest here is getting more people playing GURPS. I don't know about the rest, but official support for Fantasy Grounds can mean the GURPS ruleset becomes integral to FG, rather than a separately downloaded extension, and will give GURPS better visibility and credibility within the FG community at-large. It would also give SJG an excuse to advertise its VTT support, which could make GURPS more attractive to new prospects. And what's good for SJG is good for us GURPS players. Otherwise, if you're already playing GURPS and you've got a preferred VTT then it's not going to mean much to you.

What do players get out of official support? Again, I can only speak about Fantasy Grounds. In that case, it can mean being allowed to use trademarked graphics, trade-dress, etc, to make the overall experience look more GURPS-like—a small thing, sure, but more flexibility for me as a designer is a good thing. It can mean a relaxation of online policy restrictions regarding "automation," which would mean a lot of good quality-of-life improvements become available—probably the most attractive thing. It could mean the use of published GURPS content, which will negate the need for a lot of manual input, and increase overall accessibility (esp. to GURPS noobs).

Personally, it wouldn't hurt my feelings if SJG officially supported many VTTs—then everybody benefits.

[Litvyak]

Official support, at least on Fantasy Grounds, could mean purchasable modules containing various rule and source books that can be shared with players and which include drag and drop functionality to populate character sheets. It would make running games for new players who don't have the books a whole lot easier.

Right now, if I want to run a game of GURPS Action and a new player wants the books, they're looking at ~$90 in pdfs for the Basic Set and Action series.

[Ronnke]

Originally Posted by sjard

The one thing that is an annoyance to me is that as the GM you cannot easily change your chat icon to the speaking NPC. But it does have a name display when you are speaking as that NPC.

FYI. Click the little speech bubble icon on the PC/NPC character sheets. This adds the PC/NPC name just below the chat window. Simply click the name to change your "speaking" character.

[sjard]

Originally Posted by Ronnke

FYI. Click the little speech bubble icon on the PC/NPC character sheets. This adds the PC/NPC name just below the chat window. Simply click the name to change your "speaking" character.

I was aware of that, but it doesn't alter what I was saying. It will not replace the GM icon with the NPC icon. It just replaces the text GM with <NPC name>.

In other words, it still has the large blue GM picture next to it.