Fantasy Grounds VTT Launcher

General Overview

The Fantasy Grounds VTT Launcher makes it quick and easy to find everything you’re looking for when creating a new campaign, hosting a game, joining someone else’s game, app and module updates, campaign backups, and much more. Below, we’ll go over the sections and options available in the FGVTT Launcher.

The Main Tab

Open

The four primary navigation tabs are Home (main tab), My Campaigns, Join A Game, and the Hamburger Menu. We’ll cover each below in their own sections.

The main launch screen also has an animated, parallax background, a rotating carousel of useful links, new properties, sale items, FG Forge items, and more. This panel will be updated periodically.

The six buttons are also present for such things as the Quickstart Guide, Tutorial Guides, Forums, Support Portal, Release Notes, and the My Library online reader, currently in beta.

Open

Update Available Notification

Open

Open

NOTE: When an update is available for download, you should see a green bar with the words UPDATE AVAILABLE on it appear under the navigation links. Clicking on the bar will pop up a box letting you know that Fantasy Grounds VTT will restart, and giving you the option to continue with the update, or cancel.

When an update is available, there will also be a red dot by the Hamburger menu indicating that an update is available. When the Hamburger menu is clicked, you should also see a red dot next to Update on the menu.

If you wish to manually run an update check, you can do so from the same option on the Hamburger menu at any time.

My Campaigns Tab

The My Campaigns screen has recently been overhauled to be less cluttered, but also more informative, while also offering new campaign tools for each campaign!

Open

Campaign list collapsed to show only name, ruleset and date.

Open

Each campaign has a sub-menu that opens to the right of the line item with the following options:

Open

Copy

This will duplicate an entire campaign and place it below the original campaign with the same title and the word (Copy) appended to the title name.

Open

Rename

Allows you to easily rename a campaign.

Open

Delete

Allows you to delete a campaign. You will also be prompted with a confirmation dialogue. Deleted campaigns cannot be recovered.

Open

Open folder…

Open the native file manager inside the chosen campaigns folder.

Open

Compress to zip…

This will create a zip file containing the entire campaign, including artwork, restore points, etc. The .ZIP file will be placed in the same folder as the campaigns. Upon completion, the native file manager should open to that folder showing the zipped file.

Open

Restore previous

This menu will load all of the previous play sessions / save points and allow you to choose which one to load. This is handy if you believe a campaign file has become corrupted, or an extension that was recently loaded is causing problems within the campaign.

Open

Once a previous sessions is selected, the original campaign folder is copied and the previous session is applied to it. In the example below, we selected the 5/7/2026 12:00:00 AM file, and you can see the same date reflected in the name of the campaign: Tutorial 5E Campaign (20260507).

Open

Creating A Campaign

The “Create New Campaign” button is conveniently placed along the bottom of the My Campaigns tab.

Open

Here, you’ll choose the name of your campaign, then choose a ruleset to use, then click the white circle-plus button to complete the campaign creation.

Open

Open

This image illustrates the completed campaign from the My Campaigns list.

Extensions

Open

The Extensions window allows you to easily toggle extensions on and off.

Extensions with checkmarks (✓) in the boxes will be loaded with the campaign, and those without a checkmark will not be loaded.

Extensions can be searched for by name or keyword in the Search box, and sorted in ascending or descending order by clicking on each column header (✓, Extension, and Type).

When mousing over an extension in the list, the name of the extension and it’s version number will be displayed in a popup box.

Open

Themes

Open

The Themes window allows you to choose a theme to be loaded along with your campaign. Themes change the overall look of the Fantasy Grounds application, but generally do not alter functionality.

Only one theme can be chosen at a time to prevent unintentionally stacking multiple themes.

Themes can be searched for by name or keyword in the Search box, and sorted in ascending or descending order by clicking on each column header (✓ or Theme).

When mousing over a theme in the list, the name of the theme and it’s version number will be displayed in a popup box.

Open

Join A Game

The Join A Game screen has also recently be refactored to easily show all areas in one easy-to-navigate screen.

Open

History / Join Cloud Game

Clicking on a game, either in your History, or in the Join Cloud Game lobby window, will expand the information for that game, showing the ruleset, campaign name, the username of the host, whether it is password protected, and where to enter that password if necessary before joining the game.

Clicking the blue Play button to the right of each campaign will cause you to attempt to join that game.

Open

Join LAN Game

Here you will enter the external IP address that your GM provides to you. In addition, they should provide you with the port number. The port number defaults to 1802.

The Hamburger Menu

Open

The Hamburger menu is always located at the right side of the menu bar beside the username of the Fantasy Grounds account that is currently logged into Fantasy Grounds, as well as the version of Fantasy Grounds, what “channel” you are on (RELEASE, TEST, etc.), and a dot indicating whether Fantasy Grounds is connected to the server or not.

Clicking on the hamburger menu will open the launcher menu. This menu incorporates some of the previous launcher’s options, as well as many of the options that were previously only available in the settings of the Updater app.

In the section below, we’ll further explore the options available in the menu.

Open

Logout

Open

This option will prompt you with a pop-up box. If you click the Logout button, it will log out whatever account is currently logged into Fantasy Grounds.

Once logged out, the Account tab will change from your logged-in username to Guest.

Open

Create Account / Login

Open

If there is no account logged into Fantasy Grounds, the Hamburger Menu will have two different options than when an account is logged in: Create Account and Login.

Create Account

This link will open a browser window and take you to the forum account registration page located here:
Link: Register at Fantasy Grounds Forums

Login

Clicking the Login button will pop up a box allowing you to enter your previously-created username and password. After entering your information, click the Log In button to complete the process.

Open

Open

Note: Logging in may prompt you to update Fantasy Grounds and/or other modules, extensions, etc. immediately after logging in. This is to ensure you have the latest version before creating or joining games.

Link Steam Account

This will take you to the Link Steam Account page where you can link a Steam account with your Fantasy Grounds account, refresh a previous link, unlink accounts, etc.

Link Paizo Account

This will take you to the Link Paizo Account page where you can link Paizo and Fantasy Grounds accounts, refresh purchases on either account and send that information to the other, see what Paizo discounts you may be eligible for, etc.

Update

Open

This option will pop up a box letting you know that updating will restart Fantasy Grounds. Clicking OK will launch the FGUpdateEngine application, which will update the Fantasy Grounds app, search through all owned modules, dice packs, map packs, etc., as well as Forge items, and update them.

Open

Release Notes

This will take you to the Release Notes changelog.

Ruleset Notes

This will take you to the Ruleset Notes changelog.

Data Folder

This will open the native file manager to the location where Fantasy Grounds data is kept. This is the folder that houses all campaigns, the modules vault, images, rulesets, extensions, etc.

Open

Console Log

This opens the Console window and allows you to see launcher and game information as it loads and runs. Sometimes, errors will show in the Console. You can also compile logs directly from the Console, which is handy for analyzing errors or sending to Customer Support for investigation.

Open

Compile Logs

This is another way, as mentioned in the Console Log section, to compile logs to send to Customer Support. This command will create a zip file containing the two most recent console logs, network logs, and player logs. The native file manager should open to the location of the zip file once it has completed the operation.

Open

Display…

This will open the display options for Fantasy Grounds, such as Background Scrolling, Scale UI, Image Quality, and VSYNC. Each section has a brief description for their function.

Be sure to click Save Changes at the bottom of the Display window after making changes.

Background Scrolling

This option allows you to remove any animations from the Launcher UI. When disabled, the background art/animation is removed leaving a smooth, gradient background, and the carousel animation is removed. Carousel items will change without sliding in and out from the sides. See examples below.

Open

Open

Open

Scale UI

This option scales the size of the fonts as well as the individual user interface (UI) elements that Fantasy Grounds uses. There is an option for both the Launcher and Campaign areas of the application that can be set individually.

Launcher UI sets the interface size before you launch a campaign or join a game.
Campaign UI sets the interface size after you are in a campaign or join a game.

Open

You can read more about this option in the following article:
Link: How to Make The User Interface Larger or Smaller

Image Quality

To increase performance, the image quality can be reduced. Lower quality settings result in reduced resolution for lighting, line-of-sight (LoS),and image FX. Changing this setting may help GPU performance.

Open

VSync

VSync allows your computer to limit the amount of frames that your GPU outputs to match the framerate of your monitor.

Generally speaking, if your GPU is processing more frames than your monitor’s refresh rate, you’ll want to lower the number of frames being processed to sync with your monitor’s refresh rate.

Open

Advanced…

This will open a window with two tabs; Advanced and Troubleshooting.

Open

Open

Advanced Tab

• Data Directory: This allows you to change where Fantasy Grounds stores all its data, including campaigns, extensions, modules, etc.

• Build Channel: This allows you to choose which channel you wish to load.

  • Release: This is the “LIVE” channel and will contain the most current version of Fantasy Grounds. This is the recommended channel unless you are testing a pre-release build.

  • Previous: This may be the previous version of Fantasy Grounds. Sometimes a previous version isn’t available, such as when a security patch has been issued.

  • Test: This is the “TEST” or beta channel. This is where the public is welcome to kick the tires on pre-release software, test upcoming features, give feedback, etc. This channel is not recommended for general gameplay, may be unstable, and/or missing features.

  • Developer: This channel is the “DEV” channel, and is generally only used for Developers. This can include module developers wanting to test their modules against upcoming code changed. This channel is not recommended for anyone unless they are specifically requested to use it by Fantasy Grounds staff.

Troubleshooting Tab

• Force App Update: This feature removes data files associated with the Fantasy Grounds Updater and Fantasy Grounds VTT, forcing them to update to the latest version of the software.

• Clear Settings: This feature removes user and application settings from your system and then prompts the Setup process within the updater.

• Clear Vault: This feature removes data files associated with all modules downloaded on your system. This will force every product to update like new on your next Update.

Uninstall

Open

When clicked, a confirmation box will pop up. Clicking Uninstall there will launch the uninstall process to remove Fantasy Grounds VTT from your computer.