Should SW look into adding key extension features?

[ddavison]

From my perspective 5E already works.
Make 5E24 a new ruleset.

We started going down that patch, but there were some major issues with that approach. I think a new ruleset is confusing for the average D&D user, when Wizards of the Coast has been telling everyone that it is compatible. For the most part, it is compatible -- just with a lot of development changes on our end to make that work. In many ways, it is easier at the table than it is digitally. That doesn't matter though. The expectation of the average D&D user is that they will be able to access either the new 2024/2025 D&D content or the older content in the same campaign interchangeably.

[rhagelstrom]

Hey there,

With Bmos stepping away from managing his PFrpg extensions (Thanks for all the years Bmos, no hate), this opens up my biggest concern about extensions and FGU's core game rules. IMO several of the extensions are almost a requirement for quality of play. Is there a process for extension creators to work with SW to integrate an extension idea into the SW code for a game you consider core?

Curious on the thought process

The dev extension community has been hoping that this sort of thing would happen for years, but it doesn't or at least not often. When it does, it's not rolling in an ext to mainline but rather a complete reimplementation. There are some extensions that are more near turnkey ready to roll in to mainline than others with regards to style and coding standards than others, so that is also a factor. You don't know that though until you look under the hood.

Many of the top exts are also tops on the feature requests. It'd be pretty much impossible to roll in all the third-party extension ideas but I'd hope that everyone has a pretty good idea on extension features that are a really good idea / hole in fantasy grounds. That is probably like 20ish or so. If it was just those, it'd be a huge improvement. I'm going to leave Aura off that list because its a good idea and everyone wants it but there is more to it than meets the eye to just roll in.

There aren't that many of us ext devs left and we have lost a lot of great devs in the past two years. There are abandoned great ideas and some get picked up by others but there are just too many for the rest of us to keep up with, especially with breaking churn. I assume the churn is good in the long run but exhausting in the short term. That means that things are going to die on the vine which will be a backwards step for FG as a whole, especially when comparing to other VTTs be it if someone is deciding to start using FG or if someone is going to continue to use FG. It is just the reality of the situation.

[claedawg]

I like the UI updates so far but I think SW should really just drop the faux 3D maps and focus on the strong point of the system, automation. That faux 3D in my opinion is a waste of time from a financial standing, as it will in no way be able to compete with the other VTT systems out there that do actual 3D. Once those systems get the automation part down, FG will be in real trouble. The faux 2D looks worse that the graphics from Daggerfall, that was almost 30 years ago. SW needs to move forward, not backwards. Hopefully, once they get the UI completely updated, they will get working on making the automation better.

Although, with the 2024 D&D thing going on, I imagine the vast majority of their time is being spent on that. Unfortunately for me, I am tired of running superhero medieval fantasy and want to move on to something else. Shadowdark is a good start, but still lacks much of what I want in a game (this is totally my issue and not SW in anyway, lol).

I would love to play Rolemaster or BRP, but neither of those games were implemented very well, with BRP basically being unusable the way the system was intended to be used at the table, atleast without extensive outside modding through extensions (which do not exist). Rolemaster needs a complete overhaul to fully embrace the capabilities of FG (especially the crit tables, they are a mess the way they are now).

Most of the "fully supported" systems are just barebones and seem to have just been thrown together to get the minimal capabilities available and seem to have been created with the thinking that other people (modders) making the games actually functional in the way they were intended to be played. Very similar to how Bethesda treats most of its games. Even the most supported games, 5E and PF2, have much of the rules not implemented, especially the optional rules (the hexploration, camping and influence rules for PF2 are the biggest missing pieces for that system, imo).

The only system that seems like it would fit the majority of my personal wants is still in development and they do not have any plans to implement for FG, but they are thinking about Foundry, The Broken Empire from the youtuber Me, Myself and Die.

[damned]

Most of the "fully supported" systems are just barebones and seem to have just been thrown together to get the minimal capabilities available and seem to have been created with the thinking that other people (modders) making the games actually functional in the way they were intended to be played. Very similar to how Bethesda treats most of its games. Even the most supported games, 5E and PF2, have much of the rules not implemented, especially the optional rules (the hexploration, camping and influence rules for PF2 are the biggest missing pieces for that system, imo).

This is a curious post.

Most rulesets have many, many thousands of lines of code and layout.
Many optional rules are complex to code and are rarely used.
Many edge cases are also complex to code and rarely used.

Last week you attempted to make a mod but instead of looking at the actual code you asked ChatGPT to do it for you and then asked other people to tell you why it did or didnt work.
For a feature to exist it has to be coded and there needs to be someone capable and motivated to do it. For the most part money will not be a motivator because most FG programming does not pay more than some hobby money.
And the feature you were trying to code for wasnt even part of the rules for that system.

You also use the term "fully supported" in quotes but I cannot find any official reference to a ruleset saying it is "fully supported".
This is a misdirection.

[johnecc]

Also, in what way are the Rolemaster Crit tables a mess? I played in a game for about 6 months, and the table resolution seemed to work quite well. I admit that a lot of the effects aren’t automated, but most of the important ones seem to be.

[claedawg]

This is a curious post.

Most rulesets have many, many thousands of lines of code and layout.
Many optional rules are complex to code and are rarely used.
Many edge cases are also complex to code and rarely used.

Last week you attempted to make a mod but instead of looking at the actual code you asked ChatGPT to do it for you and then asked other people to tell you why it did or didnt work.
For a feature to exist it has to be coded and there needs to be someone capable and motivated to do it. For the most part money will not be a motivator because most FG programming does not pay more than some hobby money.
And the feature you were trying to code for wasnt even part of the rules for that system.

You also use the term "fully supported" in quotes but I cannot find any official reference to a ruleset saying it is "fully supported".
This is a misdirection.

You are also misrepresenting my post in the Shadowdark thread as I clearly stated that I did not have access to files for the ruleset to be able to look at the coding first. For the extension I was doing, I have no access to the files for that ruleset. The coding I got from ChatGPT was an example code (which I explained in a later post) that I just attempted to use to see if it would work and was trying to get some suggestions on how to go forward with it. ChatGPT does have access to quite a bit of the coding from some rulesets (although I did not realize until after those posts that it has a cutoff date from 2021 so it will not have new items obviously).

As for the fully supported comment, I used quotes to indicate that I wasn't sure if the ruleset was done by SW or by someone from the company that produced the game itself but was purchased through the main store and not the Forge. If something is available on the main store page, most people are going to understand that to be a SW work.

For BRP specifically, the whole book is nothing but options as it is a tool for GMs to add the things they want for their setting and not to be used whole cloth. That needs to be able to be modified ingame in order for it to be of any real use to the vast majority of people who would run it, as we do not have the skill nor the time to basically create a whole new ruleset to use an existing ruleset. Maybe a generic, cross setting, toolkit system is beyond what FG can do in a single ruleset, if so, it would have been better to have it broken down into separate rulesets for its different setting options, or just leave BRP on the tabletop and create the rulesets for the settings they already had created (i.e., Mystara, Pendragon, Runequest) like was done with CoC.

That sentiment does not reflect how I feel about the Shadowdark game, which was where my attempt at creating an extension came from. I knew I was adding something that was not in the printed game and my statements in my original post here was in no way in regards to my post on the Shadowdark thread. My post on this thread was specifically geared towards BRP, Rolemaster and parts of PF2 that were either not included or done poorly, especially Rolemaster with all of its charts; and the Phase Initiative system it uses which does not work with the normal initiative setup in FG without making the game even harder to use on FG than it is at the table with pen and paper. FG was the perfect place to do Rolemaster right by fully automating the Crunch and make it a breeze to use, but it was not. I did a better job of recreating the attack and critical tables with QBasic in DOS on my Tandy than what was done in FG, and I absolutely suck at coding.

Truthfully, most of the issues I have with D&D and PF2 on here are covered in the player agency extension, which really should have been something that had been developed inhouse. Other things, like my wanting to add or change certain things for Shadowdark (or even in other rulesets) are not part of my criticisms in this thread, as I often get an itch to change things to fit my own personal vision of running a game. One of those things is hexcrawling (which comes with the PF2 printed rules but was not implemented in a way that it can be used without extensions in FG) or the Influence system (which was mostly just additional fields that could have been added to the NPC sheet). D&D 5E has its own issue that is not SW fault, as they decided in 2014 to not include many of the rules for things that were in previous editions, but many DMs still use, and told the DMs to basically just figure it out for yourself while you're in the middle of a game.

I understand that there is a lot of code involved, but the main power of FG is that it automates better than any other VTT out there right now (that I know of) making the tracking of roll results and resource depletion left to the computer and let the GM and players just worry about the characters and setting. Outside of 5E and PF2 the creation of the ruleset, from whoever is coding those programs, was focused on the bare minimum and left it up to others to actually make the game work to even half of what the game can do, hence the Bethesda reference.

I want FG and SW to continue to be the huge success they have been for over a decade now. It feels like when SW started focusing on the faux 3D, everything else was set aside and the bare minimum was being done after that. So far, I do like the changes being made (the UI stuff) and I am hoping for bigger and better improvements to come.

Just FYI, I have noticed you have been getting very defensive and terse lately when someone even just has a question on how to do something that is not implemented in FG, but there are rules for it in the game. Even when that person is not criticizing, just wanting help to try and implement it themselves with an extension. Most of the time, we are just looking to make changes to systems to better fit our vision of the game we want to run and is in no way meant to be critical of SW or its employees.

I was using this thread to more or less blow off some steam after getting the BRP from the store and finding out it cannot be used for what it was intended for. BRP on FG is the first time I have ever asked for a refund from FG and that is something I almost never do in any other arena much less here.

[claedawg]

Also, in what way are the Rolemaster Crit tables a mess? I played in a game for about 6 months, and the table resolution seemed to work quite well. I admit that a lot of the effects aren’t automated, but most of the important ones seem to be.

Mostly in the way it was implemented where you have to open a separate window and drag the roll result to a copy/pasted image that was hard to see as the image included all of the tables that were on that page in the book. It would have been better to just have the system automatically roll the criticals in the background and post the results in chat. That is what I did with QBasic in DOS 30 years ago. In that, all you had to do was then the attack roll and DB and the functions did their thing to produce the result for the attack and critical. In FG all that should have been needed was targeting the opponent and rolling the dice, no extra manual steps should have been involved to produce a critical result. The skill tables were just as bad, but I may be misremembering as it has been a couple of years since I ran it.

As for the phase initiative, it is just better to run D&D style initiative without a custom CT that specifically handles the different phases.

[ddavison]

The 2.5D stuff is a big step towards full 3d usage as well. Most of our publishers (outside of WOTC) will only ever be able to supply us monster and map graphics in 2D, so we thought it best to focus on that first. I would also be surprised if Wizards of the Coast decides to share any of their newly created 3D assets with any other VTTs. I get that not everyone likes 2.5D or 3D content, but we try to provide options for as many different users as possible. Thankfully, you can continue to use it in a completely 2D manner going forward.

If we look at the development costs we incur to develop smaller systems, we actually lose money on those. They are subsidized by sales on the top tier systems. If community devs build out 2nd and 3rd tier rulesets, then we don't really make money on these, but we don't lose money either like we would if we developed those in-house. It still takes internal staff time and effort to roll out community developed mods, and to manage those after release. Our best bang for the buck is to build functionality that improves the top selling rulesets and can be used to add functionality to the 2nd and 3rd tier rulesets as well.

[Dudin]

The dev extension community has been hoping that this sort of thing would happen for years, but it doesn't or at least not often. When it does, it's not rolling in an ext to mainline but rather a complete reimplementation. There are some extensions that are more near turnkey ready to roll in to mainline than others with regards to style and coding standards than others, so that is also a factor. You don't know that though until you look under the hood.

Many of the top exts are also tops on the feature requests. It'd be pretty much impossible to roll in all the third-party extension ideas but I'd hope that everyone has a pretty good idea on extension features that are a really good idea / hole in fantasy grounds. That is probably like 20ish or so. If it was just those, it'd be a huge improvement. I'm going to leave Aura off that list because its a good idea and everyone wants it but there is more to it than meets the eye to just roll in.

There aren't that many of us ext devs left and we have lost a lot of great devs in the past two years. There are abandoned great ideas and some get picked up by others but there are just too many for the rest of us to keep up with, especially with breaking churn. I assume the churn is good in the long run but exhausting in the short term. That means that things are going to die on the vine which will be a backwards step for FG as a whole, especially when comparing to other VTTs be it if someone is deciding to start using FG or if someone is going to continue to use FG. It is just the reality of the situation.

This is what I fear most. I know you, rhagelstrom, have generously taken on maintaining many extensions given the the original authors have moved on or can't commit time anymore to maintaining the mostly free extensions. For that, and your amazing original works like BCEG, I will always be thankful to you for.
I don't know how much I would want to keep using FGU without all the extension functionality I have grown accustom to outside of sunk cost fallacy holding me in. If more developers like yourself fall off and extensions stop working, then there wouldn't be much stopping me from trying other platforms (who I am sure will have their own issues too). I don't blame any community developer for dropping support for anything they have made. Time is precious and no dev is making a living off their work on the platform.
I have only really played 5E using FGU, so I can't comment whether I think the other rulesets (popular or not) feel adequate without extensions.

[LordEntrails]

I don't think increasing the automation in FG, in the popular rulesets or others, will actually make much of a dent in gaining or retaining market share. As pointed out, FG is already the most automated VTT on the market. Adding automation to that is not going to change that. (Can't be better than first place.)

When I see folks in places like r/vtt asking about what VTT they should use, they are almost never concerned about getting more automation. Half of them seem to be impressed by the VTT with the most wow factor (such as animated graphics &/or first person/camera view/3D, &/or the visual appeal of the UI). The other half seem to care about ease of use. Most of these folks care about D&D (it's what, 80% of the market?). A few others want PF2, CoC, or some of the "second tier" RPGs. Most of which are directly supported by FG. Only occasionally do they care about the level of automation in these rulesets.

Though I always hope for a bit more automation for my own use, I see the most important areas for FG to enhance are:
- The perception of Ease of Use. Though I think FG is very easy to use, many people see it differently. UI enhancements for consistency and a few other things go a long way to this.
- Enhanced "marketing" and broader community awareness towards the animation and 'flash' that FG does have. Things like including for free; a dozen set of coordinated PC or NPC tokens, portraits and standups. Releasing a free module of map packs that have animation/FX created and enabled. These would go a long way to showing what FG is capable of and could be used in the various Sneak Peaks and demo videos. Showing this as the 'norm' and not just something that can be done would go a long way to setting the collective RPG communities "wow" impression about FG.