It was super-fun, though running it took a ton of prep time because you couldn't copy/paste into the program from Word or anything like that, so every piece of story dialogue or boxed description/setting info had to be pre-typed into the interface, and then formatted. Images uploaded individually, and so on. So prepping each session took four times as long as running it. Of course it was worth it, because prepping is almost as fun as running games for those who are D&D-starved as I was back then.
I was running Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. For those of you who are familiar with the Ravenloft campaign, you know the castle itself is gigantic and an organizational nightmare. Well, I was slowly building it room by room into the Fantasy Grounds interface in my spare time, when I was contacted by another original poster on the early Fantasy Grounds forums. He said he was just starting to run the same campaign for his players on this new online tabletop system, and wanted to know if I wanted to work together on creating the campaign in FG.
Of course I said yes (half the work!), and he promised he'd prepare the files on Castle Ravenloft in the FG interface format if I prepared all the other encounter areas for the surrounding environment. I had also already screen-captured or scanned-in all the maps for Castle Ravenloft, so I went ahead and sent him all the files I had made as well as my castle maps and early work on the Castle to get him started.
Time passed and I ran my players through the a ton of adventures in the land of Barovia surrounding Castle Ravenloft, which were super-duper fun. When it was getting close to when they'd be going into the Castle proper, my online forum buddy suddenly completely disappeared. I messaged him and messaged him to respond. I had sent him multiple files which he had thanked me profusely for during the previous weeks, but when I asked for some of the Castle prep he completely disappeared. I know, obviously I shouldn't have hoped someone online would keep their word, but it still sucked pretty bad. We had commiserated through the early buggy birth pangs of Fantasy Grounds v1.0 together! But in any case, I had players to attend to. So into the campaign I incorporated some side-quests of my own campaign idea (a Grimm/dark fairy tale land) I had been fooling around with in FG to buy myself time, while I prepared Castle Ravenloft itself.
Anyway, the other day I was thinking about Fantasy Grounds and decided to check to see if it was still around. I went to their website and lo and behold, not only is Fantasy Grounds still around, but the screenshots of my 2007 game I had posted on my blog back in those days are the first three official screenshots of the system on the Fantasy Grounds website. I had linked to my blog on the forum back in those days and someone from FG must have seen them and put them up on the main website.
Just looking at those screenshots brings back fond D&D memories. There's one where I'm doing the Madam Eva Tarot reading. If you check all the screenshots in the old blog posts (linked above) you can see how cool the interface was, as well as how much the freaking thief character liked to whisper shit to me that I had to answer between everything else (all the purple writing is whispers-to-DM). "I'm hiding and sneaking," "I'm going to backstab the werebear when moves toward the Fighter,""I'm searching the coin pouch while the Cleric isn't looking," "Is there anything of value in the blacksmith shop? I steal it if so...should I roll?"
Rogue players take a lot of work to DM online, ...am I right people? (I'm just bustin' yer balls Delp!)
Anyway, I uncovered some very ancient external hard drives while cleaning out some boxes last weekend and plugged 'em in to see if I could find any of the original Fantasy Grounds files I had already run my players through, figuring I could reload at least the initial character sheets and ponder over the golden days. I found the files, but unfortunately they were all corrupt and won't load at all in the (new and improved) Fantasy Grounds software (However, I did find that my license key I found still works in the new version, so that's a plus). All that early FG work is truly lost, and I can't even extract the character files to transfer them to a new campaign. They only exist as screenshots now on the gallery page of the Fantasy Grounds website. Sad.
Oh well, I thought, and gave up on the idea of running Fantasy Grounds ever again. Who has the time, right? And then I noticed another folder in my ancient backups. One I hadn't put in the Fantasy Grounds proper folder that eventually became corrupted. It was simply labeled "Maps." I dragged it over to my desktop before the external drive totally died (it sounded like an airplane engine). Inside were all the map scans I had made of Castle Ravenloft! My early work on Castle Ravenloft that I zipped and sent to that other guy.
So because I had put those Castle Ravenloft map files in a different folder path before sending them to him, that stuff actually survived my hard drive meltdown(s). Had I not sent them to him, they too would be lost due to my poor file management skills of 2007. Well, how's about that for a silver lining?
3 comments:
The game is on pause. We're running out of a crumbling, collapsing, cold, cavern. Garsome has a fellow adventurer slung over his shoulders, and we're high-tailing it to the exit! Oh Noes!
Yeah, I notice that I never posted a report on the last adventure we did back in 2k7. Where Devin finally got to face the Hag who was haunting his dreams and Garsome went mono-a-mono with the Evil Dwarf Ranger/taxidermist. At least, I assume that's how it happened (like I said, all those notes are lost). I do remember you guys entered the cave network behind the waterfall and at every intersection someone stated "Always go left to find the end boss," which led you straight to the Hag's lair. I didn't realize the 'always go left' was a thing until right in front of me on the map I designed it played out exactly as you guys anticipated. Must be a subconscious dungeon design thing or something.
But the rest of that adventure I don't remember that well. I do remember the caves collapsing, but who was the unconscious adventurer Garsome was hauling out?
Oh, about the "go left" thing. I think I said that. That was what one of the characters in ultima 5 said about some dungeon. Whenever I'm in doubt I hug the left wall, so I can find my way out. It's a pretty good adventuring rule. Never write with chalk on the flagstones, because we all know that little creatures will lift them up and rotate them 90 degrees. Everyone knows that.
I can't quite remember who was getting carried. Maybe it was the elf guy who can make time backup/redo a little bit. Leave no elf behind.
Delp = sneaky steal guy
Devin = praying turn undead guy
Brando = chopping guy
??? = elf redo guy
Something like that.
Oh, and I just picked up some bracers of strength +3, to add to the chops. We didn't have a well established treasure division program. Garsome was like "I'mma go ahead and use these, kay? We can take my cut out of the next treasure chest. Anyone have a problem with that? No? Sweet."
They don't quite match the rest of my armor, which upsets me, but whatever. If it helps me chop better, then that's what we do.
High Strength = Harder Chops
Steinhammer totem (Bull Strength) = Harder Chops
Use Two Hands = Harder Chops
Undead Chopping Feat = Harder Chops
Power Attack as much as I can = Harder Chops
Bracers of Strength......... = Harder Chops
It's super fun to play Garsome, because I get to often say things like "47 points of damage coming your way. Now give me a description of what happens to the orc."
Then everyone is like "Um... What? Are you adding that right?" And I'm sitting there smirking.
At one point, Devin was trying to explain to me that I don't need to max Power Attack every single thing (like half dead zombies), because it increases the chance of missing, and I won't get to Cleave.
And of course I'm like, "Yeah, I understand and that makes sense, however that would violate Garsome's Battle Tenants."
1. Hit First.
2. Hit Fast.
3. Hit Hard.
Oh, I only need to do 6 points of damage to drop this skeleton? Well, in that case, I better just hit it as hard as a possibly can. I mean, I'll just really throw my weight into it, with my hips and lats. Flare the heel. The whole 9 yards.
GIVE 'EM THE CHOPS!
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