Word!
And on that note: I’m happy those with the needs for it now have an easier time to use this tool. 
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No, I get that.
For me, the thing that I find a bit distracting with VTT – and this may be a consequence of the particular VTT tool that our GM is using – is that I feel like we players spend a lot of time talking about how to do something with the tool (“Why can’t I move my character?”, “the ambient noise is too loud; how do I change it?”, “where is the chat button, again?”, “Woah, this map is so complex, I think it’s making my browser chug”), rather than progressing the story.
If we were more familiar with the tool – or if using the tool was a bit easier (admittedly hard to do when something offers a lot of function) – then I probably wouldn’t have that feeling that the tool was impeding me.
BC
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I suppose that should become a default part of a virtual game’s session 0: learning the VTT (or whatever virtual tools are being used).
It does tend to put more onus on the GM, since they have the power to just do things for players in a VTT, so they can just do the thing without the player even having to understand anything about the VTT or the gaming system.
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For what it’s worth, I saw what you did there.
BC
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Learning the tools and deciding which tools are going to be used that the VTT has would fall under session 0 or a pre-session 0.
Fantasy Grounds has a Fantasy Grounds Academy which was a community started project initially to help teach new people to learn how to use it. They would have free tutorials you could sign up for in which they would walkthrough a new user on how to do stuff. Fantasy Grounds Academy is still around not sure if they are still doing the tutorial classes. They are still doing tutorial videos.
Tutorial videos are another way to learn to use a VTT and a lot of them are online.
The GM can do a lot and depending on how much work the GM wants to do can make things even easier.
One of my players had a stroke a few years back and lost use of his arm and hand as a result. When I’d run a VTT game I would physically go to his house, and would do things like move his character, etc. on the copy of Fantasy Grounds running on my laptop while he had a copy of Fantasy Grounds on his computer that was showing his player’s view on his big screen TV, but he couldn’t easily move things around, etc. So, I had to control of his character and would do his rolls, etc. base on what he indicated about 65% of the time as he had trouble doing stuff.
Learning to use any sort of computer tool fully is going to take time. If a person wanted to say make a TNG starbase like the huge infamous over 30 deck mapped one that was done years back for Campaign Cartographer 2, you can do this with CC3+ by the way, it is going to take them a while to learn how to work with the software to make a similar base that includes dedication plaque, side view, LCARS view and the mapped out decks, even if they are just copping and pasting crew quarters and making minor modifications to a few. Doing a smaller project like the U.S.S. Thomas Paine, that the symbol set designer and starbase mapper also did, would be an easier starting project. Then jumping full into something you don’t want to do till you have more experience.
Start simple with the VTT and start using more functionality of the VTT as you become familiar with it. Also doing a session 0 you might want to run out a test combat or do some test rolling to determine if it is quicker to use the VTTs built in way of calculating stuff or if just rolling the dice, etc. and not relying on the computer to do some stuff quicker and easier.
Some other things that take time and that are easy to forget are things like. I need to make sure maps and images aren’t too big and are going to cause load issues and make player’s computers not run right. I’m not overloading everyone with stuff like background music, etc. Yeah, it might sound nice, but it can be distracting to some and again, but a strain on computers and lagging and crashing is a to be avoided at all costs.
Getting after session feedback and trying stuff out in a session will help eliminate some of this.
Anyway, saw this video Saturday afternoon that shows off most of the STA ruleset for Fantasy Grounds for those that want to see how stuff looks in it. The video answered a few questions that I had spent time working out on my own. They start showing off the ruleset about 20 minutes into the video.
Star Trek Adventures Sneak Peak | Fantasy Grounds Fridays #222 - YouTube
After I had time to watch it, I had to deal with my user profile on my computer becoming corrupted and that took all of Saturday evening and most of Sunday to fix. So, I’m still working on my tips and things to beware of with the ruleset.
I also noticed some more problems trying to add in some of the custom races into the set, which is indicating that creating characters for some are best made manually and entered in instead of using the Character Generator. One of the fan species that I glanced at on Continuing Mission that was posted on Saturday can’t be done in the Fantasy Grounds ruleset’s character creator cause it of the attributes it modifies. 4 total instead of 3 and in addition to that, one is a negative modifier and the other a modifier of more than +1.
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Ok had a little more time to play around with the ruleset. The last update of the ruleset lets you drag and drop a character’s role and pull up the info for it by click on it. So even if you’re not using Fantasy Grounds to run a virtual game. I’d still use it at a table game if I was a player as I can pull up all my info quicker and access rules for talents and roles than I can in using a paper and pencil sheet since that is all linked to the Fantasy Grounds sheet.
Still finding some minor typos in the ruleset, but overall, it is great and I’m currently working on my overall impressions, tips, and problems, list that I started last weekend. The last update is making go back and change some stuff that I had planned to post.
Just curious, if I want to play on Fantasy Grounds will I need to purchase the Core rulebook again?
If anyone missed the Fantsay Grounds Friday livestream yesterday Smite Works has a recording of it up on Youtube.
Star Trek Adventures with Modiphius Entertainment | Fantasy Grounds Fridays #224 - YouTube
Image Hunter, if you are wanting to play in a STA on Fantasy Grounds as a player only the GM needs to have purchased the ruleset. The Core book in the GM’s ruleset can be shared only when you are connected to a game with the GM. If you plan to GM you need to buy the ruleset which comes with the Fantasy Grounds version of the Core book. If you plan to be a player and want to be able to access the ruleset and Fantasy Grounds version of the Core book when not connected to GM’s game, you need to buy the ruleset. The ruleset has a lot of functionality and automation into a Fantasy Grounds which is why the costs are set like that, etc.
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Yes. You are not just paying for the Core book, but you are also paying for the work that is put into programing the ruleset into FG. The difference is much greater than exporting to PDF.
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Wait. People get paid for that? 
BC
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Thanks for clearing that up.
Thanks. That makes sense.
I suppose it does bring up a question of whether someone purchasing the book/module for FG would be able to get the pdf from Modiphius, similar to someone who buys the physical book.
As a former staff member of Fantasy Grounds Academy (FGA), let me start with stating this post is my own and not affiliated with FGA in any way. Fantasy Grounds (FG) is a great VTT, but not the simplest to get up to speed on. The videos and FGA classes will help with installation, launching, creating games, joining games, and the general layout of the interface, aka ‘table’. Each ruleset looks and behaves very differently beyond that though.
In my GM 101 classes, one of the first concepts was that being a great FG GM means being a good GM and a power user of FG. Aside from the built-in automation of FG, the DM can perform any task a player can. This helps keeping the momentum (pun intended) as new players learn how to use FG.
I am allocating time to learn the STA ruleset and will monitor this thread. Anyone else doing so, feel free to reach out so we can compare notes.
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Am I oblivious, or is there no place to track Traits in the FG character dialog?
(I suppose that’s not necessarily an ‘or’ question.)
Edit: Huh. And values.
BC
Values are in the “notes” section (I think people have noted that it’s mildly annoying in the Fantasy Grounds forums). I haven’t paid too much attention to traits, but it looks like on a character that went through the character creator it pulls the species automatically at least, but I’ll have to check what happens when they’re entered in addition to that (as well as what happens when a character is built from scratch).
Below is part of an xml export of a character that went through the FG lifepath character creation, where I entered the values as the step they’re from, not actual values.
<name type="string">Vulcan science guy</name>
<notes>
<id-00001>
<name type="string">Traits</name>
<text type="formattedtext">
<p>Vulcan</p>
</text>
</id-00001>
<id-00002>
<name type="string">Values</name>
<text type="formattedtext">
<p>homeworld value, training value, career value, final value</p>
</text>
</id-00002>
</notes>
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