Fantasy Grounds Unity GURPS?

[Farmer]

GGA for Foundry, Officially Unofficial, is excellent. It's technically in beta, but it's extremely useful and funcitonal and stable, and the gentlemen who are behind it are responsive, supportive, and keen, and developments occur pretty regularly. I'm comparing it 5E on Roll20, which I play regularly (long before the pandemic). I'm currently running a fantasy game and playing a sci-fi game using it, with all players/GM located in various places around the world, including one on a yacht "somewhere in the Mediterranean" (or coastal waters close by).

I'm not sure that the approach of this recent message is helpful to garnering support. The dismissal of a new release that clearly has wide and broad support shows, perhaps, a narrow view of the marketplace and a degree of congnitive bias (which can affect us all).

I also think that formal support for VTT should happen, and starting with officially supporting GGA would be brilliant. I don't think ignoring market realities or berating a company or pointing out that you're not an active customers are effective messaging techniques.

[Fred Brackin]

Support for online Gurps would be nice but currently my group (which is ludicrously heavy in high level programmers and IT guys) is struggling to make Fantasy Grounds work for D&D 5e. One of them recently gave up on it.

So my take it that The Revolution has not come yet and Gurps necessarily isn't missing out yet.

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Support for online Gurps would be nice but currently my group (which is ludicrously heavy in high level programmers and IT guys) is struggling to make Fantasy Grounds work for D&D 5e. One of them recently gave up on it.

So my take it that The Revolution has not come yet and Gurps necessarily isn't missing out yet.

The revolution is definitely here. Roll20 has been doing it for years, Foundry is taking off like wildfire (and personally I think it's much better than Roll20). I have no experience with Fantasy Grounds. Roll20 I followed way back from its early development and was brought into a long term game by a friends. When I went looking for a solution to run myself, Foundry stood out. When I then found GGA, it was a no-brainer and it's been excellent.

I don't doubt you've had problems, but that may reflect the VTT you're attempting to use rather than the the wider options available.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Farmer

I don't doubt you've had problems, but that may reflect the VTT you're attempting to use rather than the the wider options available.

<shrug> It's the one the DM invested in, possibly drawn in by support for the adventures he wanted to use. It was important to him that encounters down to the loot were directly available to him and he could just transfer stuff to us.

He doesn't seem to have been drawn in by virtual play. The admin stuff never bothered me that much. I can remember running 3.x Eberron games and doing clean up of XPs and loot the next day on our Yahoo Group.

Some online support like character generators seems to have actually regressed with 5e and that's even with 5e's greater simplicity..

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by RCathcart

I’m so sorry you don’t like my tone.

It's not that I don't like your tone. I'm suggesting that you could consider whether people are more likely to react positively to a calm, rational, polite message of feedback compared to your chosen approach.

Originally Posted by RCathcart

I did get a chuckle at your “ignoring market realities.” What “market realities” would I be ignoring?

No, my comment was in regard to your dismissal of the Girl Genius Release.

Originally Posted by RCathcart

How about the fact that GCA is about one version away from requiring a DOS prompt to install?

There's a new release that's available in Beta, but the current release certainly isn't a DOS-like installation. Believe me, I first used a disk operating system back on Z80 microprocessors.

Originally Posted by RCathcart

Five years ago it should’ve been converted into a tablet app, but instead it still looks like it runs on Windows 95. To think that it is even remotely acceptable in this day and age is complete madness. SJG made a frickin’ iPad app for an inane Munchkin counter, but they can’t give GCA an update achievable by a freshman programmer!

You have market analysis to back this up? That the return on investment would have been positive?

You're really going on a bender about Munchkin. Money is put into where a return is apparent. Lots of people play and like Munchkin (I don't play it, but I understand and am happy that lots do).

BTW, GCA is not the same as GGA which I mentioned which is GURPS Game Assistant that allows you to play GURPS on Foundry VTT - I think you missed that.

Originally Posted by RCathcart

Sometimes companies require customers that demand better for them to do better.

Sure. But you don't have to be rude about it.

Originally Posted by RCathcart

I have spent hundreds of dollars GURPS books over the years,

On books and PDFs, and allowing I'm in Austalia so the books did cost more, but hundreds is well below my expenditure over more than 20 years. I'm talking dozens of booked from 3e and 4e, plus Kickstarters (recently) and lots of PDFs. I think you'll find most people who play GURPS are similar.

Originally Posted by RCathcart

and there is absolutely nothing wrong with me telling SJG that I would be spending hundreds more if they expanded officially into VTT.

Absolutely. I'm suggesting you might find a better reception if you approached the matter in a different way, and accepted that there may be alternative views.

Originally Posted by RCathcart

I am a customer that wants a complete and modern product. I am not their beta tester, and I’m not going to fiddle with imports and exports from a hilariously antediluvian program. Just because you’re happy to get out of the car and push the ol’ girl over the tough hills to play her, doesn’t mean I should be. And your all-licensing fealty certainly doesn’t excuse SJG from failing to keep with the times.

I'm using a *very* good product in GGA. Again, I think you missed GGA isn't GCA (although I also use GCA, which is excellent in the current and the beta versions). I'm the kind of guy who buys not cutting edge stuff, but bleeding edge. I love it. I love new and updated and shiny and I'm prepared to pay for it. But it sounds like you haven't even tried the current offering on Foundry. I believe it's superior, to the mature 5E offering on Roll20, for example. But

Originally Posted by RCathcart

And do you want to know what’s worse than “berating” a company? Silence. Former customers that have just given up on GURPS and SJG and quietly switched to other games. These are the gamers that I end up talking to fondly about GURPS like a dead mate from high-school. How about the silence of new gamers that don’t even know GURPS exists because there is absolutely no official presence and nothing to buy on the VTT sites they game on, no phone apps, no video games or anything remotely notable to compete with newer RPGs?

I think that a calm voice is more often listened to than a shouting one. And I speak from experience of being a shouter at times, and realising I wasn't helping.

Originally Posted by RCathcart

I am truly sorry that I’m not delivering my message to SJG with a glass of warm milk and an understanding pat on the head, but at least I’m saying something.

If you looked, there's an active thread about GGA on Foundry VTT. There's plenty that went into that receiving approval, and resulted from the creators working with SJG. A voice is important. I'm not suggesting you need to gift wrap your opinion. You do you, but isn't it interesting how people don't like feedback when they don't agree with it, but expect companies to act when they berate them?

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

<shrug> It's the one the DM invested in, possibly drawn in by support for the adventures he wanted to use. It was important to him that encounters down to the loot were directly available to him and he could just transfer stuff to us.

He doesn't seem to have been drawn in by virtual play. The admin stuff never bothered me that much. I can remember running 3.x Eberron games and doing clean up of XPs and loot the next day on our Yahoo Group.

Some online support like character generators seems to have actually regressed with 5e and that's even with 5e's greater simplicity..

I think that's a good point. It will depend on how thoroughly you want the VTT to "run" everything (and there's no right or wrong desire/requirement). I would suggest that if VTT is of interest, though, to look at the other offerings. They have very large user bases, across many game systems. It might be worth seeing how some of the others stack up, assuming that's not already been done. But they are certainly here and now and more than a flash in the pan. The pandemic accelerated a lot of things and pushed a lot of people into it, and that has only improved them.

[Farmer]

I also wanted to add that I'm very enthusiastic about VTTs and would love to see more support. Of GGA in particular, but certainly broadly. Removing distance and leveraging related resources (maps, either pre-done or making your own, or there's even a new module on Foundry that lets you use Google Maps to create a scene), are great. And I'd happily spend money with SJG to support that.

[Armin]

Note that there are two similar abbreviations in use here: GCA and GGA. GCA is the character program, and GGA is the Foundry aid.

Originally Posted by RCathcart

How about the fact that GCA is about one version away from requiring a DOS prompt to install? Five years ago it should’ve been converted into a tablet app, but instead it still looks like it runs on Windows 95. To think that it is even remotely acceptable in this day and age is complete madness. SJG made a frickin’ iPad app for an inane Munchkin counter, but they can’t give GCA an update achievable by a freshman programmer!

GCA5 is in a Beta Preview right now. Maybe check it out. GCA4 is, indeed, incredibly old. SJGames doesn't pay for GURPS program development because there's just no return on it. So, you get what people are willing to spend their own time on.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by RCathcart

Thanks for the info. So is it safe to say that aside from whatever GCA can do export-wise, SJG has no foreseeable plans to go into VTT? I'm not talking about cheering modders on from the sidelines (or whatever). I'm asking about foreseeable official support.

What is actually Official support? Far as I can tell its paying the company fees to get your products and banner on their site. Why is that so needed and desired by a vocal minority?

[DaosusLeghki]

Originally Posted by Refplace

What is actually Official support? Far as I can tell its paying the company fees to get your products and banner on their site. Why is that so needed and desired by a vocal minority?

I suspect there may be more that is desired. Any online game aid is currently limited by the SJG online policy. For example, when playing DnD in Roll20, there is a compendium of items and monsters that you can just drag onto your game table or character sheet. When making characters, there is a character builder that walks you through the process. Also, you can look up rules in the compendium. None of these features is possible for GURPS because of the SJG online policy.

There have been some work-arounds, of course. If playing GURPS in Foundry VTT, the PDFoundry module lets you reference PDFs you already own. That's "like sharing books at a game table" and is permitted. But, it's not cross-linked (which is useful in GURPS because of the large number of statements that say "X but also see Y on pg. Z." Similarly, the damage calculator will notify you when certain HP thresholds have been passed. But, it will not automate the implementation of the rules, so you still have to look up the rules to implement them. Because of the structure of the GURPS books, this is often a multiple-location lookup (the rules for Injury are in one place but the rules for Knockdown and Stun are in another). You can make a character in GCA or GCS and can then import it into Foundry. This still requires a level of techical and system knowledge that is far larger than using the Charactermancer on Roll20.

On top of the above, it would be nice to see an introductory module made on a VTT platform, even a non-free one. I just set up Foundry to run a single adventure with characters that were already made, and art that I already have. (This one) Even with all those resources at the ready, it still took me about 12 hours, not including the time it took me to learn the Foundry system and "way of doing things." That's a lot of investment for someone interested in just trying the system out. Heck, I think there are people that would be willing to do the work for free, so long as they got the "we won't sue you" go-ahead from SJG. But they won't, as things stand.

I suspect it may be an issue of lack of resources on SJGs time. Any Official Support would need to be vetted and assisted by a person at SJG and that person does not currently exist. Any fan support is basically going by the letter of the online policy because there are no clarifications or exceptions available due to lack of resources at SJG.

GURPS is on life support right now. Any reasonable company would have stopped publishing, but I suspect SJ himself has decreed that the line will be around. I doubt it's making much money, so expanding it is not really in the works. I think it'll be what it is right now until it isn't.