People that like to DM tend to buy the Ultimate license. One not so secret feature of Fantasy Grounds is that it has been around a while. The only real difference between the two server licenses are that the Ultimate license can host unlimited free players while the Standard one cannot effectively host any free players (it can host one, but if anyone else joins the game, paid license or not, there can be no free players). The two different levels of licenses are Standard ($39 onetime fee or $3.99 a month subscription) and Ultimate ($149 one time or $9.99 a month subscription). You also cannot buy content for the free, demo version of the game, you need to have bought a license. It is the level of license that the server has that determines if the players have to pay for a license to play.

Remember that Fantasy Grounds uses a client/server model and that the person running the game, the Dungeon Master in the case of 5e D&D, is the server. Let me breakdown the cost of the two licenses you can pay for, but the demo software is free and fully functional for playing. There are two levels of license and two ways to pay, but the base software itself is free. If all you want to do is play, Fantasy Grounds is often free. I prefer using Fantasy Grounds, but you do have other options. A VTT like Fantasy Grounds does this better for specialized functions like dice rolling and moving tokens on the map, but I have not seen any VTT that is as good as the meeting software you can find from major corporations like Cisco for basic remote conferencing ability. A lot of companies have spent a lot of money developing conferencing software to make remote business meetings better and if that is all you are looking for, the ability to share your screen (probably for maps) and to have multi-person audio is all you need. Any of these could be used (GoToMeeting is a good example).

There are a lot of quite powerful conferencing software programs that allow for video, audio and sharing of screens. You do not need a VTT to play D&D online. The program uses a client/server approach with the GM running the server and the players connecting to the server as a client. This person is commonly called the Game Master (or Dungeon Master for D&D) and that person will be the “host” for the game. It does not have an Artificial Intelligence and it requires a someone to be running the game for other players.

In many ways, it replicates the experience of playing in person with a table in the middle of the group, and in many ways it is quite different. Fantasy Grounds is a virtual tabletop program designed to make playing role playing games online.

Fantasy grounds ultimate demo