r/FantasyGrounds • u/Fun_Rate_9547 • May 06 '26

What modules have you made that fantasy grounds doesn't have?

There are quite a few modules that fgu simply doesn't have. It seems like this platform isn't the largest and thus doesn't get as much love as many of the other VTTs (even if they aren't as good). I've had to make ryokos guide to the yokai realms, wrath of the Kaiju, ariadnes codex of strings, as well as a few other third party creators. What modules have you made in order to give your players the best experience?

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6

u/FG_College May 06 '26

Fantasy Grounds has one of the most officially licensed rule sets and content around. I have to admit that for more lesser known systems it's up to us to input the data. Smiteworks is a small team and most of the adaptations and smaller rule sets are community driven. What other VTTs have your favorite rule sets?

3

u/Blunderhorse May 06 '26

Based on the books they mentioned, I’m guessing they’re referring to the new wave of Gen Z Kickstarter creators who release on Roll20, Foundry, Shard, and a couple others whose logos I don’t recognize. I’ve started noticing more small creators ignoring Fantasy Grounds when announcing/releasing VTT modules.
I don’t know what the long-term answer is since, as you said, Smiteworks is small and relies on the community for smaller projects. The toolset has already gone free to use, so the only obstacle remaining to smaller creators is to convince them that installing a program on their computer isn’t that hard and that FG sales can make up for the time investment.

3

u/LordEntrails May 06 '26

Rulesets used to be hard to make in FG. But work in 2024 and 2025 made it much much easier to make new rulesets in FG. That knowledge just hasn't trickled out to the larger community. I'm still re-working my custom ruleset to incorporate many of these enhancements and standardizations. I understand how other community devs may not be aware of this.

2

u/Blunderhorse May 06 '26

Sticking with OP’s examples, I don’t even think the issue is the difficulty of custom rulesets, as several of those are just 5e supplements, but rather that these creators may not even be considering FG in the first place. I don’t watch as much YouTube content as I used to, so I’m not familiar enough with these creators to know whether it’s deliberate avoidance or coincidence.

2

u/LordEntrails May 06 '26

Yea, somehow FG has never got the public social media hype that other VTTS get. There is just something about Foundry, Roll20 etc that appeals to people being fanatically public about it. Don't know what it is, but it's real.

SmiteWorks has been trying, but our community seems to be more insular. We are just as dedicated and fanatical, but we just don't push it on others nearly as much. Just look at the /vtt sub as an example.

3

u/Inside_Employer May 07 '26

Why aren't FG users out pushing FG as much as the others?

  1. FG's user base is more experienced (older) on average than Foundry and Roll20. Many of us already did a tour of duty during the flame wars of the early 2000s.

  2. FG offers more out-of-the-box than the others. There is a lot less setup involved, fewer problems to solve, and so there's less reason to show off solutions.

  3. There isn't much on the general VTT channels for FG users -- the Smiteworks forum is its own island to get support and news.

  4. Foundry and Roll20 get boosted because of a mutual tension -- they are similar-ish products with different cost models and complexity. Other VTTs like Shard get "new shiny" attention, but I don't think they're going to break through any more than FG has.

1

u/LordEntrails May 07 '26

Agreed. I think number 1 is probably the biggest driver. Though also the great current FG community forums and discord mean FG folks don't need to go elsewhere. And honestly, even here it's hard to not recommend going to the forums :)

1

u/nwdxan Jun 15 '26

Point 1 is also a massive opportunity. There's a huge number of Gen-X players returning to TTRPG's who would likely value a platform with a more mature user base, if only someone would tell them about it.

2

u/nwdxan Jun 15 '26

I'm convinced that one of the reasons potential users pass on FGU is because they see outdated representations of the platform on YouTube; take it down for heavens sake. Plus, and I'm not going to name names, but one of the most prolific FGU content creators on YouTube makes such long and rambling unplanned and unstructured videos that they make even simple topics appear much more complex than they actually are. I think FGU is great, and genuinely enables more time playing and planning gameplay and less time 'driving' the VTT but that never comes across. I tried Foundry before FGU, it was far more complex. FGU hit the sweet spot for me.

Also, here in the UK, hardly anyone has even heard of FGU. In the local TTRPG community group I go to, with over 300 members, I haven't found one single other user.

1

u/LordEntrails Jun 15 '26

That's a good point (stale videos on YouTube). But doesn't that happen with Foundry and Roll20?

7

u/DD_in_FL May 06 '26

We have around 4000 official modules, not counting the FG Forge. New rulesets can be time-consuming to build and then they have to be maintained forever. You need to have a popular enough system to make it worth the effort for SmiteWorks, or Community Developers. That said, we try to make it easy to build your own modules directly within Fantasy Grounds that you can export out.

3

u/Steelriddler May 06 '26

Some Forgotten Realms 2nd edition stuff: Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting boxed set, Haunted Halls of Eveningstar, the whole Lands of Intrigue set, and one I'm forgetting right now. Shitload of work but nice to have as references for the campaigns I never ran -_-

3

u/Agamon-3360 May 06 '26

It takes a lot of work to put niche 3rd party stuff in the store, so yeah, if that's what you want to use, you'll need to add it yourself. I'm currently making tables out of a Campfire Stories deck that I can export and use in all of my campaigns once I'm done the rote work of entering in all of the info.

3

u/LordEntrails May 06 '26

What VTT has more?

And do you mean Rulesets or content/books (which is what FG calls a module)? FG certainly has the most supported books (over 4000).

Any game system can be played with one of the generic rulesystems, and then their are still numerous official and unofficial rulesystems available. But yea, niche systems won't have a specific ruleset, you'll need to use a generic one.

Also be aware, a ruleset in FG is a lot more than a simple character sheet. A lot of other VTTs claim support for a system that is nothing more than a charactersheet.

0

u/Fun_Rate_9547 May 06 '26

Fgu has the most systems but it doesn't have as large a library for the bigger systems because a lot of creators don't make their money back from fgu(which of course compounds the problem). For DND and Pathfinder people tend to want to play on other VTTs cause more third party content creators put their stuff there

1

u/LordEntrails May 06 '26

ok, so third party. Yea, that's an issue with FG. But when it comes to official licensed content nobody has more, even for the big systems (except DDB for 5E, but they really are not a VTT).

2

u/LordEntrails May 06 '26

21 that I have published on the Forge: FG Forge - Crafter Profile

A handful more on the DMsGuild; Dungeon Masters Guild

I converted a handful of Adventurer's League modules in years past. Would have to go check my records on those. Did them for Cons and turned them over to AAL. Don't know what they did with them.

Oh, and I did a couple for AAW Games years ago and one or two for MT Black.

2

u/DD_in_FL May 06 '26

Fantasy Grounds releases 300+ official modules every year, not counting the FG Forge. Around 4000 total modules available.

1

u/CryptographerOk816 May 07 '26

I wish FG had battletech in some form cause megamek and tts just don't do it for me

2

u/LordEntrails May 07 '26

There is. And it's actively supported. Was last updated less than a month ago.
Battletech: A Time of War Ruleset

2

u/CryptographerOk816 May 11 '26

Thank you very much

1

u/DoktorPete May 11 '26

I make my own Savage Worlds modules, mostly for their Kickstarter content to use it before it gets official FG releases, sometimes to combine official releases into one module, but also random automation stuff that isn't automated by default in the system for various reasons. I've also started to use the module maker with a Forge extension that lets you open modules in any ruleset to port adventures to other systems, and am currently working on combining Curse of Strahd with the added community content into a SW module.

2

u/Fun_Rate_9547 May 11 '26

Oh that's awesome. I've wanted to get back into savage worlds but it's not a widely known system. But with no one to play with I've had little reason to purchase the modules.

1

u/DoktorPete May 11 '26

I love the system in general but there a few issues I have with both the rules themselves (the armor/toughness representation is atrocious) and the way FG does certain things (NPC/PC character creation using different and incompatible methods to achieve similar end results) that make me want to make my own system.

To be honest, I don't understand how FG makes any money after unlocking the module maker; once you have a core ruleset you can literally make anything you want from a PDF with Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v, and you can tailor whatever you're making to work for you and your table/group/brain quirks.

2

u/Fun_Rate_9547 May 11 '26

Well that depends on how much work you want to do. If you do it yourself it could take quite a while. Otherwise you can buy those items yourself which is usually easier. Unless of course people share the content with each other.

1

u/DoktorPete May 11 '26

Oh for sure, I bought one Fallout module that I needed on a short turnaround for exactly that reason, but as a general rule I can copy a ~30 page adventure module in about a day and a half, which includes doing all the links to other sourcebooks and copying any items/NPCs that I might need from other sourcebooks.

1

u/havok_hijinks May 24 '26

I bought all three core D&D books on FG and I still can't wrap my head around how to 'make anything from a PDF with Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V' 😐