How do you like it? I was hoping a community as sufficiently nerdy as the ttrpg community would have made an open source alternative by now but it looks like selfhosting proprietary software with a modding platform is as close as we can get.
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Foundry is amazing. I used Roll20 for years (5e and a bit of PF2e), found it to be a bit unintuitive, albeit free. You can do most things in the system, but the plug-ins available for Foundry are miles and leagues better. Also, macros are a bit tough. I can’t imagine running PF2e in the system for very long, especially for complex classes like Alchemist or Thaumaturge.
I’m currently a player in a Fantasy Grounds campaign (5e). As a player, it’s fine. I don’t like the interface very much, but it’s fine for 5e which is already a pretty light system. Panning on maps, targeting enemies is frustrating and I feel like I have too many windows open at any given time.
Been using Foundry just shy of a year, DMing 3 games. It’s amazing. Plug-ins for anything you need - ranging from DM QoL upgrades like Simple Calendar, atmospheric upgrades like music bundles, the always incredible Pathmuncher, and class-specific tools like the Thamaturge package. The built-in Compendium for PF2e makes DMing so easy, I can look literally everything up and most things have macros pre-built. Hosting from my PC was a bit harder, but doable.
Currently learning how to make custom macros, which has been tough, but there’s a huge community and usually you can copy-paste details from other abilities.
Do you have any specific questions about the software?
The built-in Compendium for PF2e makes DMing so easy
Does the PF2e system come with the full compendium or do you have to buy it? I’m playing DnD 5.1e and the compendium for that is only the publicly available SRD, meaning it only has a single background and only one subclass per class.
Fully included, regularly updated, and extensively automated.
👀 Maybe it’s time to look into Pathfinder. I don’t like a lot of crunch though and I’ve heard it’s crunchy
Pathfinder 2E is crunchy until you understand that it isn’t. Out of combat healing is fairly free, every Pc should have the same ac or +1 that in heavy armor and most similar things don’t stack with one another. The math of it is pretty tight as getting +10 higher then the dc/ac is a crit on attack and skill checks, meaning that every +1 matters and there are only item/status/proficiency/circumstance modifiers in the game and you take your highest of each.
Haven’t paid for a single thing past the license.
Not a fan of 2d tabletop platforms.
They are very much easier to use, easier to understand (sometimes) and have a wider variety of plugins/features that allow you to use modules right in the software. So, there is that bonus to them.
Personally, I like building 3d tabletops. I use to use Tabletop Simulator and building the maps in Unity together before switching over to Talespire entirely which basically is a easier to use version of both. My biggest criticism of Talespire over Tabletop Simulator is that there is no workshop. At the same time it is far, far quicker to build a map in Talespire for DnD, VtM or other “pen-and-paper” style games.
For Warhammer Tabletop Sim just can’t be beat. Had a blast on there playing some 40k and I don’t have to deal with insufferable nerds at my LGS.
One of the maps I built in Talespire. Some details are missing as this was taken in progress while building.
As much as I love tabletop simulator, I can’t recommend it in good conscience since the chud mods banned people from chat for mentioning they were trans because “No politics in chat”
Wait really? I’ve never interacted with global chat but I’ve seen the shit-heads that roam around there. I always just ignored it entirely.
If that’s the case, I’m glad I use Talespire now. Guest edition is free as well. Only thing I use sim for now is warhammer because sadly Talespire doesn’t have 40k terrain or units.
I’ve been DMing on Fantasy Grounds and I’ve been enjoying it. The organizational tools for DM’s is amazing and I love all the extensions. They’ve also been improving the interface pretty steadily recently (like making panning the map easier which one other person mentioned) especially since the guy from DnD Beyond has joined and made it his number one mission.
Havent used Foundry to compare it to, though. I haven’t used Roll20 and do prefer FGU to that.
Haven’t played in a while but I used roll20 with the 5e tools plugin that gives access to all the 5e content with pre-programmed macros, that was extremely good for being free
If you are interested in something that does a great job of capturing the “D&D” vibe but not crunchy, I recommend https://chasingadventuregame.com/files/Chasing Adventure Free 1.6.pdf
Foundry is a really neat VTT I just wish there was a way for a single host to allow access to unlimited amount of “tables”
If it is your kind of thing it support for animated maps is fantastic.
FWIW there is also Owlbear Rodeo https://www.owlbear.rodeo/
I like Owlbear Rodeo, but the free token offerings are meager compared to, say, Roll20.
I have a lot of experience with Foundry and I think it is great. Very easy to run games in person or remote, plenty of modules and buy in from community creators and larger businesses for free or to purchase. There is a learning curve to getting it set up and running smoothly, but eventually it will become second nature. You can get as complex or light with integrations as you want for the most part. My groups started with D&D 5e and switched to Pathfinder 2e and have had a decent experience with both.
Started on actual tabletops with a map drawn on paper, then moved online and through a few VTTs once the pandemic kicked off: Foundry is the GOAT. It’s beyond GOAT. Foundry solves problems you didn’t even realise existed.
The biggest issue it has is setup - installing and running it on a home computer is not particularly difficult, but it does require a decent amount of computing power and internet upload speed, so if you’re lacking either you’re probably gonna need to pay for hosting on something like Forge. It also requires more setup of a world just to bring players in, so you can’t just throw some tokens on a blank background and start playing like in Roll20. You can waste a lot of time installing endless modules to customise things just how you want, too.
After that though, you’re genuinely golden in a way you will never be on something like Roll20. Setting up a character really is as simple as dragging and dropping from the compendium. Drop a weapon in your inventory and it’ll make the macros for attack and damage. Drag an effect or condition onto a character’s token and it’ll apply the bonuses or maluses automatically. Background music and SFX are easy to set up and play, or you can have them automatically play when you load a specific map, or even confine them so they can only be heard when the character’s tokens are in a specific room.
Someone else already mentioned PF2e, but I’ll reiterate it here: While Foundry is already great, PF2e is where it shines brightest. It’ll run pretty much any other system at least as well as its competitors (which means you’ll have to do your own work automating some parts, or do them “by hand”), but the volunteers behind the PF2e system do absolutely immaculate work implementing every possible aspect of the game, sometimes within a few days of the content releasing. Being able to choose any action and just drag it into your character sheet, then click a button to have the computer do the maths, not only makes playing a breeze but helps highlight how even though there are a lot of rules, the mechanical similarities make them very intuitive to use and learn. Add in one of the official premade Adventure Paths or Modules (which can look pricey, but generally come out to £5-£10 each when spread among a group) and you can literally run the entire thing without any preparation beyond importing the module and setting up characters - for the Beginners Box adventure, you probably wouldn’t even need to read the PF2e’s rules beforehand.
I’m glad to hear all the up front effort and tackling the learning curve is worth the time.
it does require a decent amount of computing power and internet upload speed, so if you’re lacking either you’re probably gonna need to pay for hosting
I’m curious what your experience with this is like. I’m renting a VPS with 1 GB of RAM and only a single core and I haven’t had an issue so far. But then again my world is tiny so far and I’m only playing with 2 “players” at once, one for the GM and one for the map screen.
Thinking about it, my perspective on power requirements is probably quite skewed atm - I started using it about 4 editions ago, when there were some particularly bad problems with loading times, but it has gotten noticably faster a several times over the past few years. Loading times when I was on a broadband connection could stretch into a couple of minutes for some players, but now I’m on fibre it’s just the one guy with shitty internet that suffers that. With just a GM and map display I can’t really imagine you’ll be doing enough to cause problems.
If you do need to speed things up, small worlds help a lot, along with limited extra modules. A world is mostly made up of scenes (maps), actors (PCs, NPCs) and items (nearly everything else) - smaller, lower resolution maps help a lot, but so does regularly clearing out unused actors and items. If you need to go back to them intermittently, compendia will let you store all 3 on your hard drive, so the game won’t try to immediately load it all, but you can still access it and load it in quickly if you need to.
Im a little dissapointed that it isnt easier to pirate the paid modules for alot of systems, but being able to speed up combat in crunchy systems is a godsend. No combat turn should take over a minute in any game.
I ran a campaign of the Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG that someone had developed a working module for on it. I liked Foundry, the ability to get plugins easy was pretty helpful and cool. Things like staircase teleporters, pins that can take a player to different scenes, and an almighty calendar. When I tried a in-person Foundry-assisted little campaign this year, I think it worked out well having my tower on a big screen as a player, my cheapo laptop as the GM, and any other devices my players brought.
Unfortunately, self-hosting is too much trouble for myself so I had to go through a service (The Forge) to host. At that point I had to pay for a service anyways, but it was the only way to get a working UESRPG game going.
