How to play Fantasy Grounds on Mac

PlatformsComputer

Game summary

Fantasy Grounds is a hybrid application which allows you to play and create your own RPG games. It facilitates this play and provides some optional add-on Adventure modules which can be loaded and played with very little preparation. Each game will require a GameMaster (GM) and one or more players. Games may be played in a session as short as a few hours or continued with multiple sessions over a series of days, weeks, months or years. A GM will typically install the application and choose their game-system of choice, which we refer to as a Ruleset. Fantasy Grounds comes pre-loaded with Rulesets for FATE Core, Numenera, Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, Dungeons & Dragons 4E, Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition and the Pathfinder RPG. Additional Rulesets are available for free and for purchase from our Workshop. Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, D&D fifth edition and Pathfinder are good places to start for new GMs and for people new to Fantasy Grounds. These Rulesets come pre-loaded with some basic Library modules full of abilities, spells, monsters and items.
First released: May 2014

Play Fantasy Grounds on Mac with Parallels (virtualized)

The easiest way to play Fantasy Grounds on a Mac is through Parallels, which allows you to virtualize a Windows machine on Macs. The setup is very easy and it works for Apple Silicon Macs as well as for older Intel-based Macs.

Parallels supports the latest version of DirectX and OpenGL, allowing you to play the latest PC games on any Mac. The latest version of DirectX is up to 20% faster.

Our favorite feature of Parallels Desktop is that when you turn off your virtual machine, all the unused disk space gets returned to your main OS, thus minimizing resource waste (which used to be a problem with virtualization).

Fantasy Grounds installation steps for Mac

Step 1
Go to Parallels.com and download the latest version of the software.
Step 2
Follow the installation process and make sure you allow Parallels in your Mac’s security preferences (it will prompt you to do so).
Step 3
When prompted, download and install Windows 10. The download is around 5.7GB. Make sure you give it all the permissions that it asks for.
Step 4
Once Windows is done installing, you are ready to go. All that’s left to do is install Fantasy Grounds like you would on any PC.
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