Anyhow, with FG,you have to pay for a license to use it as a GM. They have two options, one is the standard license which allows you to run with other uses that have a standard license, and the other is the ultimate license, which allows a GM to run a game with players that are using the free FG app. Of course to make things easier I wanted to grab the Ultimate license so anyone could download the free app and play, but the price is usually $150 (lifetime use). Today, I randomly went to the site to find some information and saw that they are running a 20th anniversary sale, and the ultimate license was only $50, so I grabbed it without hesitation.
One of the coolest aspects with the license is use of many RPG systems without any further cost. One of those free systems is C&C!
I spent much of the day messing around with the tabletop, customizing the background logo for both C&C and WFRP. I also bought the rule set for Savage Worlds and a pack of virtual dice that I thought looked pretty cool.
Below are the tabletops that I put together along with a test character using my current monk from our Tuesday night game.
I also played around with a test map and some tokens to get a feel for how combat can play out. The system is very nice in many ways. In the screen shot below, I have my character on a map along with a enemy NPC and an imp. There are a multitude of cool mechanics built into this table top, but here are a few that really caught my eye.
In the screenshot below, you can see that the PC token has a yellow dot in the lower left corner, while the imp and NPC have green dots. These are status indicators for HP damage. When I noted 12 damage in Uhlgren's character sheet, it was more than half of his HPs so the system flags his status as yellow, meaning heavy damage. The imp has taken 3 damage but remains "healthy", as does the human which hasn't taken any damage yet. All of this is automatic, it all changes and adjusts as the players and GM make adjustments to character and enemy sheets. When the wounds exceed the HP, then the status changes to red/dead.
Initiative is setup by the GM in advance and players can grab the initiative die from their sheet and roll it or drop it in the dice tower icon. After the roll, the Combat Tracker sheet is automatically updated with the player's initiative score and the list arranges itself properly. The GM then initiates a new round of combat by clicking on a button and the Round number is noted at the bottom of the tracker (unfortunately covered up in image below). The GM can move combat along as each player is active, by clicking the down arrow button at the bottom of the tracker. This will automatically highlight the current acting player or enemy to denote it's their turn to go.
Something else that is really nifty, in the combat tracker row for each character, there is a Target line. Players (or GM) can click the Target icon and then click an enemy and that enemy's token will be added. You can see this in the image below where Uhlgren is targeting both the imp and human. While these two are in the target row, the distance to each of these targets will be shown on the map and indicate who is being attacked.
Of course the combat tracker wouldn't show the enemy information to the players, that's only something the GM sees. But I can literally click on the Imp's bite attack listed in the Attack row and it will pop out as a d20 that I can toss in the dice box. The same with the damage in parenthesis. I can drag that to the box as well, and it will roll a d4 for the damage. Likewise, players can do the same thing from their character sheets, grabbing the icon next to their weapon or attack and it will spawn the proper die that can be thrown.
All in all, I'm very glad to have grabbed a copy of this for future online gaming. I think it's going to be much better than some of the free alternatives. There is still a lot I need to learn in how all of the different aspects work together, but looking forward to delving in.
