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Cursory Review Summer 2019: Price was lowered in July 2019 for all licences by a few dollar.
Latest (and final) release v1.9(Beta) in 2017-08-22
(developer shifted focus to work on their related product BGE)
Battlegrounds: RPG Edition (aka BRPG) is virtual tabletop software that provides you with all the tools you need to conduct a role-playing game session: a battlemap - with an optional hexgrid or square grid - on which to place and move your digital miniatures and props, a virtual dice roller with both standard and polyhedral dice, text chat functions that support "in-character" and "out-of-character" dialogue, private and group messages, and a Fog-of-War feature that lets you gradually reveal the game map as the players explore (taking into account light sources and any special vision your characters may have).
BRPG can be played online with up to 15 players plus the Game Master. It can also be used offline, with a projector or TV, to enhance face-to-face game sessions. Battlegrounds is easy to use, cross-platform, and supports game play in any genre and with any RPG system. It can also be used for playing boardgames, wargames, card games, and dice games. Creating your own digital game conversions is not hard, and BRPG never requires XML editing or scripting of any sort. All customization is done by editing plain text files or by filling out a step-by-step Wizard.
Battlegrounds supports full-screen maps, high-resolution tokens, card decks, custom dice, audio, and animation. It features a user interface that hides away when you don’t need it, to avoid on-screen clutter and heighten the immersion factor. Many free artpacks are available for download, and commercial artpacks are available to further enhance your games.
There exists purchaseable art assets & Game Boxes for Battleground RPG Edition
Price:
-Demo (free, for evaluation purposes, or for playing games while connected to a GM Client with a Floating License available)
-GM Client $29.00
-Player Client $15.00
-Floating License $15.00 each, or $64.00 for a 5-pack
-Upgrade Player Client to GM Client $16.00
Platform:
Originally Windows & Mac OS X, but now just Windows
Links
- Store link
- Demo (v.1.8b)
- Newsblog
- Tutorials
- http://www.battlegroundsgames.com/forums/ BGG forums
- User Manual
System Requirements
Minimum:
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/NT/Vista/7/8/10:
- Pentium III or equivalent
Macintosh OS X:
- Power Macintosh G3 running OS 10.1.5 through OS 10.6 (aka Snow Leopard)
- Rosetta must be installed on Intel-based Macs (note that in OS 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, the option to install Rosetta is off by default)
- Rosetta is not available in OS 10.7 or higher, so BRPG will not run on those OSes
All Platforms:
- RAM: 256 MB
- Hard drive space: 150 MB
- Display: 24-bit color
- Resolution: 1024 x 768
- Internet connection: 56K
- Network card required for LAN-based games
Recommended:
- Processor: 800 MHz or higher
- RAM: 512 MB or better
- Display: 32-bit color
- Hard drive space: 200 MB, plus however much you wish to allocate to extra maps, artwork, and sound files to expand your games (1 or 2 GB is not uncommon)
- Internet connection: DSL or Cable broadband strongly recommended, especially for the GM*
From their website:
Demo (free, for evaluation purposes, or for playing games while connected to a GM Client with a Floating License available)
GM Client $39.00
Player Client $20.00
Floating License $20.00 each, or $85.00 for a 5-pack
Upgrade Player Client to GM Client $21.00
If you can't find a VTT that has your game rules in it, this is the best option by far. It's essentially a toolkit for just about everything; you create your own custom dice rolls for any system you can imagine, you can upload maps and lay grids on them, put down tokens, snap objects to the grip, and on and on.
You still have a lot of paperwork to do, unless your game system can be loaded into the thing, and even then there may be situations not covered by the rules programmed into this thing. But that's okay; the flexibility you get far outweighs the drawbacks.
So far, this is my favorite of the VTTs here. It edges out Fantasy Grounds 2 simply by giving more free-form power to do whatever you want without having to load some kind of special game system. The interface isn't totally user-friendly as I'd like in Battlegrounds, but the manual is actually well-written and does a good job starting with basics and moving into other things gradually.
Very nice work.
The Player Client is now $19, as is the Floating License.
The 5-pack of Floating Licenses is now only $79.
However, to Upgrade a Player Client to a GM Client now costs $22.
Battlegrounds Games has an all-new website. Come check it out! Same URL as before.
Oh, also, both of the Battlegrounds VTTs (BRPG and BGE) are now also available via a low monthly subscription. Check the Battlegrounds site for details.
I'd provide links, but, apparently, despite being one of the early supporters/promoters of this site, and one of the more frequent contributors, I am no longer allowed to post links here. Seems my karma isn't high enough. Sigh…
I recently launched the first of a series of short Kickstarter campaigns I've got planned. Check it out. This wiki/forum won't let me post URLs, but if you go to Kickstarter site and search for "Content Drive", you should find it.
In addition to the great new content being funded by this project, this campaign should be of interest to a number of you because the Battlegrounds software itself is currently available at a decent discount.
Some examples:
A $16 pledge is all it takes to get a BRPG Player Client license (a 15% savings off the regular $19 price).
A $35 pledge gets you a GM Client license (normally $39).
There's also a Pledge level that covers an entire typical gaming group ( a sort of mega-bundle).
I hope you'll check out the campaign, which could use a boost to ensure it funds. There's even something for the boardgamers among you.
Just 10 days remaining in the campaign! It's not too late to turn things around.
Video Update 1 has just been posted. Please watch it, especially if you’ve decided not to support the campaign. You might just change your mind.
There is currently a Kickstarter campaign underway to develop BRPG v2, which will actually be called Battlegrounds Ultimate (BGU). One of it's goals is to restore full support for Mac OS. A Stretch Goal would add a free play mode, where a license would not be required to use the software in actual game sessions (although the featureset would be somewhat pared down).
I've updated the info above to reflect recent permanent price drops for all BRPG licenses.