Does anyone use Fantasy Grounds to game?

[Lord Soth]

I downloaded the demo for Battlegrounds and went and bought the full version of Fantasy Grounds, and so far I'm liking Battlegrounds better, and regretting the $46 I spent on Fantasy Grounds. I'm gonna see about joining a game, though, to see how it actually plays. Sadly, it isn't as easy as Battlegrounds. For instance, I haven't found anything about putting down monster icons. Battlegrounds, on the other hand, is quick and easy in that regard. The built-in sounds were pretty nice, too. There's one map which features a camp site at night and now only is the fire animated, but you can hear the crackling of the flame, as well. It's pretty nice.

[Nikolas of the Mists]

What do programs like this have that something like NetMeeting can't do?

Interactive mapping, fogs of war, a number of things that are graphics related. I am d/ling the battlegrounds demo right now to play around with.

[Lord Soth]

Here's an example of the Fog of War. This is what the players see, and this is what the DM sees.

[Nikolas of the Mists]

one thing I don't know if I can actually see in the brpg demo is how the chat interface works, or if there is an output for dice rolling to that window.

Oh, and I am getting an error shortly after loadup of brpg with it saying to reload it, but it seems to chug along okay if I cancel out of that.

[Valacan de Brek]

Those pictures remind me of Hero Quest. I don't know if anyone ever played that one but it was a precursour to AD&D for me. It's old school with a board, reminds me of being the DM in that game and having a complete map.

[Nikolas of the Mists]

4E is the new heroquest. Not kidding, I am actually going to run 4E games with the board, room tiles and everything.

[heruca]

BRPG actually looks like it'd fit in solidly nito 4E because of the mapping features.

Certainly. And BRPG now supports the light and vision rules of both D&D 3E and 4E, and includes new Area of Effect templates for D&D 4E (i.e., Wall, Blast, and Burst shapes). It also very easy to use house rules with BRPG, since there isn't much automation, beyond the dice macros.

[heruca]

one thing I don't know if I can actually see in the brpg demo is how the chat interface works, or if there is an output for dice rolling to that window.

The chat window is only available once you've hosted a game or joined someone else's game session. Not much point in chatting before then.

And yes, dice rolls are logged in the chat window, in addition to having the visual dice roll history to browse through.