I’ve been running games with Fantasy Grounds and the Syrinscape Online Player for a couple of years now, and recently took the plunge on the Syrinscape Sound Links module/extension on DMsGuild along with the Chat Triggers add-on. I have to say it’s the missing piece of the puzzle that’s turned my audio game up to 11. If you’re a FG/SS GM you owe it to yourself to try it out.
Here’s what it’s given me
- I’ve never been able to use one-shots consistently effectively, as I’m usually too busy with the running of the game to find the right one-shot button when needed. The Chat Trigger add-on scans the chat window for key words or phrases and triggers appropriate one-shots. So if someone rolls to hit with a Longbow, it plays a longbow sound, when someone is brought to 0hp it plays a Wilhelm Scream, etc. It’s fairly easy to customise too, if you want something special for a special action. Now fight scenes are full of dynamic sound effects that reflect what’s happening in the game.
- Even though I’ve got the SS console open on another screen, when GMing in the moment I often forget to switch moods for scene changes and combats starting and ending, and when I do I find it a little clumsy shifting focus away from the FG window. The Sound Links extension lets you put links to trigger moods or elements directly into Story entries, or into hotkey buttons. I now have all my generic music playlists hotkeyed, making switching them an instantaneous action and as part of my prep I can embed clickable links for mood changes and manual one-shots into the adventure text right alongside Encounters, Parcels etc.
- Updating the module to support new or custom sounds is now a doddle - export the links CSV from the SS console, run it through a web-based tool the author has setup and it recompiles an updated version of the FG module for you. Prepping for this week’s sessions I found it a painless process to drop into SS to setup custom moods, quickly update the mod then back to FG to embed links to the new moods into the adventure.
I ran a session for the first time this week with everything setup and it ran incredibly smoothly. Links to mood changes were right there in the adventure text so I didn’t miss any of them, and the players seemed quite engaged by hearing the sounds of their attacks and spells happening seamlessly.
I’m not a shill for Syrinscape, Smiteworks or Rob2E, just a GM who’s been struggling to get the most out of running Syrinscape Online effectively. But this has been such a “road to Damascus” moment for me, I can’t recommend this extension highly enough.
Especially if you can galvanise a bit of a group of other users behind, so your call doesn’t get blow away in the wind. Check out a few of the older threads to get a feel for where they are up to.