This year, participants entered 22 brand new packages, all compatible with FVTT V10 and enabling many new options for your campaign, and now we need your help choosing the winners!

You may vote for up to three nominees in each category, in up to ten different categories:

• Best Package
• Best Package from a First-time Author
• Most Useful – Many GMs or players will find their Foundry game improved from enabling this package.
• Most Polished – The package author made every effort to ensure full functionality and considered every use case and detail.
• Most Mind-Blowing – This package exceeds expectations of what’s possible inside Foundry.
• Wackiest – This package will make GMs and players laugh, mostly out of absurdity, or is just weird, but in a good way.
• Most Gorgeous – The package author utilized the game canvas, webpage styling, or design principles to provide an elevated experience for their users.
• Most Massive – The effort that went into the package was evident in the number of features, amount of content, or a wide set of configuration possiblities that enables users to try it a multitude of ways.
• Most Educational – The package author used this opportunity to bring real world knowledge/data into their submission for the benefit of their users, or it allows educational opportunities between GM and players.
• Most Integratabtle – The package allows the most flexibility and interoperability for other packages to leverage an API or configuration options provided specifically for other FVTT package developers.

We thank all of our sponsors for this year’s prizes.

• Foundry Gaming – a Foundry VTT merch t-shirt for every winner
• The Rollsmith – a $50 gift card (The Rollsmith) for the winner in the Most Mind-blowing category, and a commemorative D20 (for Dice So Nice!) for every participant
• The Forge – $20 gift cards (The Forge) for every winner
• Wild Magic Surge – three asset packs for every winner
• World Smiths and CZRPG – The Singing Grove, an adventure module, for the winner in the Most Integratable category
• ghost – Michael Ghelfi audio modules for the the winners in the Most Useful, Most Polished and Most Massive categories
• friendlylambda – a $100 gift card (Amazon, The Forge, or another service/site of choice) for the winner in the Best Package category
• BadIdeasBureau – a 1 month subscription to dropout.tv for the winner in the Wackiest category
• ccjmk – a $25 gift card (DriveThruRPG) for the winner in the Most Gorgeous category
• errational – a $25 gift card (Rollsmith, The Forge, DriveThruRPG, or Amazon (winner’s choice)) for the winner in the Best Package from a First-time Author category
• corporat – a $25 gift card for the winner in the Most Educational category

For those that want a real deep dive into every change and bug fix for this update, you can see the full release notes. For those that want just the highlights, then look no further than this article.

New Feature Spotlight

The largest feature of Journal v2 is the new User Interface (UI), which allows for multiple organized, searchable pages. So instead of having one long continuous Journal entry or trying to organize all your Journals in a complex folder structure, you can now have one Journal that acts almost like a book with multiple pages, page types, and navigation options.

On the left-hand side of the Journal, there is now a new collapsible navigation pane with a clickable and searchable table of contents. This table of contents lists all the different Pages within a Journal Entry and also has a list with header depths, showing Heading and Subheadings under each page as well. At the top of this panel, you can find an ‘Add Page’ button as well as a bar to search for specific words within the whole Journal. At the bottom, there are ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’ buttons if you want to feel like you are flipping through the pages of the ancient tome you just found.

Having multiple pages makes it far easier for GMs to organize Journal entries and make it easier for players to consume specific content. What’s more, you can granularly control the permissions of each Journal page so you can have hidden pages, ensuring certain pages are for a specific player or GM eyes only.

Other Journals v2 Features

• The text editor has been updated to ProseMirror with markdown support
• GMs can grant ownership of entire Journals or specific pages to individual players, and a small quill icon will show up on the navigation pane to remind the GM that the page is owned by one or more players.
• If certain pages are hidden, an icon is shown in the navigation pane for that page of an eye with a line through it to remind GMs it’s hidden.
• Live collaboration is now available as multiple users can edit a single Journal at the same time without overwriting each other.
• You can create multiple page types: text, image, PDF, markdown, or video.
• You can create a Map Note pin of specific pages, making dungeon note creation a breeze.
• A new icon on the Journal Notes layer allows you to quickly create Map Note pins without needing to create a Journal Entry for it. Great for signs or wall etchings you want your players to be able to read.
• Sections within a Journal Entry can now be linked specifically, allowing users to share a link to a Journal entry or a page or even a heading that will open automatically at the position linked.
• Custom Font is now supported allowing you to upload your own fonts into your data folder and set the Font Family name, weight, and style.

Top New Features

Let’s dive into the other important features that got added in this version.

That Affect GM Preparation

A handful of updates will make the GM’s work to prepare maps and adventures much easier.

• Adventures – This almost made it in the Spotlight for me because I think it’s one of the best and most fleshed-out new features. But I think only GMs will find any excitement in this one, so I left it here. Adventures are a new type of Compendium that let you package up any collection of elements from your game world to export and share with others who can then import all those elements into their own game world. This makes sharing custom-made adventures way easier. Before, the best way to have a carefully selected amount of content packaged together was to export an entire World. However, using a new world doesn’t have the player characters, scenes, music, homebrew, or 75 modules you’ve already installed (everyone has that many right, it’s not just me?). Now you can use these Adventures to add packaged content to your very lived in existing World and smoothly transition your players into new adventures. The packaging even retains things like token and map pin placements (as long as you package the corresponding actors and journals).

• Levels (lite) – I say lite because the dev team has created the framework for the future full implementation of ‘levels’. While the full levels system won’t come around until a future version, the framework itself allows for some really fun interactions. Essentially, the framework creates synthetic z-axis on the game canvas allowing token height to have a visual impact. Tokens at 0 or ground level go under tree and roof tiles, but if their ‘height’ is increased above 10ft or so, they will fly over the trees or run along the rooftops. It also has an impressive impact on tokens using Tremorsense, which can’t see tokens that aren’t actually on the ground.
   

• Lighting
  • The “Torch” lighting animation has been improved and overhauled to provide a more realistic appearance of the exposed flame. The previous animation has been renamed to “Flicker”, and uses an improved noise generation algorithm, and its approach to coloration should result in a less “washed out” appearance.
  • The “Gradual Illumination” checkbox for Ambient Light and Token light source objects has been replaced with an “Attenuation” slider which allows for fine-grained control over the smoothness of transition between bright/dim/dark lighting regions. An Attenuation value of one produces the most dramatic and most gradual easing, while an Attenuation value of zero produces the most sharply differentiated appearance between lighting levels.
  • Other new lighting animation options include Force Grid, Vortex, Smoke Patch, and Starlight.

• Audio/Video – The Audio-Video user interface has been redesigned to be a full-height sidebar panel on the left side of the interface which can be resized. Camera views of connected players are displayed in a grid layout and can be popped out to separate frames, giving a more aesthetically pleasing UI. There’s also nameplates that rotate between player name and character name, border frames colored based on player color, and even more.

Affecting those Learning the Program

These features are for any user (player or GM) that is trying to learn Foundry VTT or modules (for the module creators that leverage these features).

• Tours – The Foundry VTT team has created a way for ‘Tours’ to be created that walk a user step-by-step through any aspect of the program to teach them how to use it. The settings now have a ‘Tour Management’ button where you can view and reset any tours you’ve already taken.

• Tooltips – Tooltips have been improved to create a more cohesive experience that supports localization and also allows community developers to help their modules have unified tooltips with the Game System.

That Affect Player Immersion

These features will help the world feel more alive and reactive, as well as help you spend less time arguing with other players about what everyone can and can’t see.

• New Vision Customization – Being a D&D DM that has a party of PCs with Darkvision, this is an extremely welcome addition. When you edit vision on a token now, there are three sub-tabs.

• Pings – If you’ve ever had a hard time pointing out to our GM what part of the wall you are searching for hidden entrances or argued with the other players about which tree the hidden Goblin is hiding under, Pings has you (or the wall or the Goblin) covered! Using your mouse and holding a left click over any area highlights it with a nice animation to alert all others about what you’re looking at.
  Holding ALT while doing this will create an “alert” style ping if you need to point out a trap or hazardous terrain. Should any players’ view be too far away, an arrow on the edge of the screen will point towards where the Ping is coming from.
  Finally, GMs will have a couple of unique abilities; holding SHIFT while holding a left click to pull the view of all players on the Scene to the location of your ping and clicking the bullseye icon next to a combatant in the Combat Tracker pings that specific combatant.
   

So what do you think of v10? Are you looking forward to using these new features? What other features are you hoping will come to future versions? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

*Background map created by Andru using Dungeondraft program with Forgotten Adventures assets.

Update: end of jam delayed

The League of Extraordinary Foundry Virtual Tabletop Developers is proud to announce its third-anniversary package jam!

A Package Jam is an event where anyone can participate by creating a new module or system (called “packages”) for Foundry VTT. It is a great way to start Foundry development or try something new and different from your existing packages. At the end of the event, the players can vote for their favorite packages, and the winners even get a small prize.

Anyone interested in publishing a new Foundry VTT package is encouraged to participate. The primary goal of the package jam is to provide a fun and engaging environment for new developers to explore FVTT package development.

If you aren’t already there, please consider joining the League’s Discord server. There’s no other place like it if you’re interested in FVTT package development!

Submitting a package

There are a few condition in order for your package to be eligible:

• It must be submitted between now and midnight on August 22nd (EST).
• It needs to be approved by Foundry staff for the official package listing.
• An open source license is required.
• It must be compatible with FVTT v10.
• You must include the following field in your manifest file:

"flags": {
    "fvttdevleague": {
        "package-jam": 2022
    }
}

Winning a category entitles you to one of our TBA prizes, including gift cards to The Forge!

Categories

• Best Package
• First Package
• Useful
• Polished
• Mind-blowing
• Wacky
• Gorgeous
• Massive
• Educational
• Integratable

Voting on Foundry Hub

This year we have a two-phase voting system.

First, a panel of volunteer judges will each nominate entries for consideration in each category. The top entries in each category will form the shortlist for that category!

Afterward, we’ll open the voting to anyone with a free Foundry Hub account. Each Foundry Hub member votes for up to three of the nominees in each category. The one with the most votes is the winner! Don’t forget the best overall package, which every package will be eligible for! If it’s your first time submitting a FVTT package, your package will automatically be nominated for the “first package” category.

Become a judge

If you aren’t able to participate by submitting a package, we will make a public call for volunteer judges in August, so make sure to join our Discord server and get the @league-announcements role to be notified for that. People entering into the Package jam are not eligible. Anyone who doesn’t complete their package in time for the jam may submit their interest as a judge instead.

Fine print: Official start time July 22, 2022 12:00 PM. Official end time August 22, 2022 12:00 PM. All submissions must be compatible with Foundry VTT V10, packages that the judges are unable to get running or test will be disqualified from nomination. Judge votes have equal weight. A developer can have a maximum of 2 packages nominated per category. If a category doesn’t get more than three nominees, that category will be removed. For the public voting phase, Foundry Hub user votes have equal weight and are not ranked. A user can cast a maximum of 3 votes. The package with the most votes wins. In the event of a tie for most votes, tied entries share the victory. The prize recipient will be decided according to a 1vs1 Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons Level 14 deathmatch adjudicated by an impartial dungeonmaster. No fudged rolls, all DM decisions final.

Stable does not mean bug free, and also does not mean all of your beloved Systems and modules are ready yet!

If you followed Foundry Hub on the release series, you probably stumbled upon this article which reminds us that community developers are people too, dealing with time, family, and daytime jobs. So please, be careful before upgrading and backup your data folder, and check if your beloved systems and modules are ready.

We have today received Foundry VTT 0.8.6 as a Stable release. This version is accumulated work including all release changes and features throughout 0.8.0 up to this one. 0.8.6 by itself is not as significant as the entire series, but rather a combination of bug fixes and changes occurring during the last testing cycle. Thus, here you can find the articles that cover each of the important changes in the previous releases (We will however provide a summary of the biggest features here below):

Foundry VTT 0.8.6 Stable Release

May 31, 2021 No Comments

It’s really out! Foundry VTT released 0.8.6, and it is considered stable! Stable… but… wait,…

Read More

Foundry VTT 0.8.3 & 0.8.4 Beta Release

May 17, 2021 No Comments

With last week’s 0.8.3 release, we entered the beta phase for the 0.8.x series, and…

Read More

Foundry VTT 0.8.2 Alpha Release

May 2, 2021 1 Comment

Foundry VTT is taking big steps forward towards the 0.8.x series, and if it wasn’t…

Read More

Foundry VTT 0.8.1 Alpha Release

March 28, 2021 2 Comments

We’re all getting excited about Foundry VTT 0.8.x series, and even though it is still…

Read More

Foundry VTT 0.8.0 Alpha Release

February 18, 2021 6 Comments

It has been about 7 months since the start of the Foundry Virtual Tabletop 0.7.x…

Read More

PS: 0.8.5 Was not exclusively covered, as it was mostly internal bug fixes and changes that were covered. A similar scenario we have with 0.8.6.

For a thorough list of changes on this release and previous ones, check out the official release notes here.
On this article, we will keep a non-technical human language, by smoothing out the vocabulary and technical details.

Features Overview in Foundry VTT 0.8.x

Updating from 0.7.x

Due to some technical changes updating from 0.7.x might not be as straight forward. Here are a few things you need to consider:

• If you are self-hosting using the desktop (Electron) application, it is not possible to update directly to 0.8.6 and instead, you must re-install Foundry Virtual Tabletop using the latest version.
• If you are currently using version 0.7.10 AND hosting your server using Node.js (not the Electron app) you can update directly to version 0.8.6 within the application UI.
• This requirement is due to a change in the required Node.js and Electron versions used by the software where 0.7.9 and older depended on Node.js 12+ and Electron version 10, while 0.8.x onward requires Node.js 14+ and Electron version 12.

So, this is a very quick overview of what Foundry 0.8.x means! Feel free to read the official release notes or our previous articles for a human-interpreted list of changes. We are as always, glad to have readers aboard the hype train, and looking forward to your comments and opinions.

And remember to BACKUP before you update and check out this post on Reddit that might help you figuring out if your favorite module or system is already compatible with the new release.

Have fun, readers!

There are only a handful of new features, and most of them are small minor ones however we will highlight a couple that might be interesting for you.

This release will most likely end the beta phase, and if all goes according to plan, you can expect the first stable release by the end of the month or early next month! If you follow the updates from module developers, you can already see many modules already being ready for the changes of the 0.8 release, so it’s a good time to get hyped!

Overview

• Overhead Tiles and Layers
  If you want to stop with the suspension of disbelief, and want your tokens to stop walking on top of the old tree, well, now you will be able to! Tweak and configure tiles to either appear on top, under or fade away when tokens come near.
  
• Game Quality of Life Enhancements
  Small changes all around the application to lower the amount of work needed to get things done. Changes in token configuration so you can set them up by default, journal setup to make it easier to include images, and chat as a floating window, make the whole experience in Foundry better.
  
• Vision and Sight Improvements
  Although implicit in many of the changes all around Foundry, further improvements in performance and accuracy are part of 0.8.2 too. This also includes changes in the Padding area.
  
• Worlds, Modules and Systems Management
  A lot of work was spent improving the system and module management. Better detection and warnings about compatibility, locking modules and systems to fix them on a certain version or better tools for finding problems with your game are now possible.

Overhead Tiles and Layers

Game Quality of Life Enhancements

Vision and Sight Improvements

Worlds, Modules and Systems Management

Wrapping up

Phew, what a long list! 0.8.x is becoming bigger and bigger. What do you, lovely readers, think about the direction Foundry is taking with 0.8.x? This being the last ALPHA build on the series means we will soon be entering the BETA stages and maybe, a stable release before next month!

So, let’s get hyped together about the changes that are coming to Foundry VTT 0.8.1 Alpha, which means that eventually, these will be part of a STABLE release some time down the road soon.

Previously, Alpha 0.8.0 began with mostly under the hood changes. 0.8.1 starts getting into perceptible changes for users. In this article, we are going to focus on the changes that actually have user impact. Technical topics will be only mentioned on the high level so at least you get an idea. The idea is to make it easier for you, as GMs, to catch on what’s going on, so hopefully this helps.

I recommend checking our previous article on what’s going on in the 0.8.0 Alpha release here, the official release notes here and check out Foundry VTT’s official twitch here.

Overview

These are the major feature changes that are introduced with 0.8.1. Check Foundry VTTs 3 hour Stream Preview for details.

• Audio System Improvements
  Audio System is one of the main focus areas of the series. Improvements in Playlist management, Tracks control, Ambience audio and Infrastructure will be covered in detail down below. These will certainly allow GMs and users have a more detailed control and management of audio, including crossfading, playback mode by playlist and mass import.
  
• Dice System Improvement
  New modifiers will extend system support and functionality, while also starting to allow external sources of dice rolls, which are becoming common in these times. Physical electronic dice rolls, web services, and other external systems will soon be able to define the dice results.
  
• Improvements in other areas as a side effect
  As development goes by, some times developer find areas of improvement as a side effect of other improvements. This is always good and it means things start getting each time more flexible and flexible. Journal entries and lighting also get some love in this release.

Audio System Improvements

Core Background Changes

This of course means little to normal users and GMs, but basically the backend audio was completely rewritten. The previous technology, called howler.js is being replaced with a more standardized modern approach called the Web Audio API. The benefits are mostly towards more streamlined development approaches where howler.js proved to be too much for what was needed by Foundry. This will also directly impact Macro usage and the way audio trackers are used by developers and avoid an issue where HTML 5 was running out of browser sockets.

New Features in the User Interface

Better UI feedback on buffering
When the audio is not yet loaded on the client, it will show a loading-loop to indicate that the audio track is not yet playing. This is one of the side-benefits also of the new technology behind Foundry VTT.

New Functionalities in Audio Controls

Fade & Crossfade support
This is if not, one of the most exciting new features we get. We can set Fade in/out time per both, track or playlist, and this will automatically slowly and smoothly fade in/out the song or crossfade to the next song coming up.
Individual settings on Audio Tracks will override the more general Playlist configuration.

Ambience Audio

(Audio that is placed on the map)

Wall configuration for Audio Passthrough
We will be now be able to precisely set the behavior of each wall (or group of walls) to define whether we want the audio to go through it or not. This will improve immersion significantly in dungeons, for instance.

Darkness Thresholds and Activation Range
For those super-pro scene builders, night and day can have different ambient audio tracks. So you can set up people talking during the day and the sound of insects during the night. This brings a side effect to scene audio control of darkness thresholds, now called Darkness Activation Range.

Behind the Scene Changes

.m4a and .opus audio format supported
Increase the compatibility with different audio formats.

Fading & Crossfading behavior
Fading applies when stopping and starting, as well on scene change, except on pause, which immediately stops playing audio.

Better preload buffering
Audio Tracks will automatically preload 20 seconds before the next audio track begins. This will help players stay more in synch with the GM. Tracks can be marked for preloading as before, but overall the functionality has been improved significantly.

Better client volume controls
Global volume levels apply to each user independently, and now variations in the volume are better handled and should act more precisely as expected, improving the synchronization between levels and the predefined volumes.

Better synchronized Shuffle
Randomness should now be less random and more predictable Shuffle playlists now ensure everyone starts the same audio track in randomized playlists.

Playlist sorting
Playlists will be sorted alphabetically by default, but also users will be able of drag & drop audio tracks on top.

Dice System Improvements

Dice Rolls Metadata
This impacts mostly developers, but a wrapper around dice rolls allows enhanced functionality in general. One of the user oriented benefits of this is that now rolls may now contain flavors related to their numerical components. For example a +1 Bonus can now come with “Strength Bonus from Thanos Glove”

_{Atropos writing code at the speed of light An Insight onto Dice Rolls Flavour text}

New Roll Modifiers
– minimum and maximum: Allows for defining absolute results on dice rolls
– even or odd: Allows for picking up certain roll results
– recursive rolls: Advanced logic allows re-rolling under a custom condition

Backend API Improvements and External dice rolling support
The Roll function will become asynchronous. This has several technical consequences of course, but the main reason behind this change, is to allow external inputs that provide dice results, for example results from rolling dice physically, the new Pixel Dice or external services, among other benefits.

Other improvements

Lighting Improvements in Darkness Threshold
As part of the audio improvements done, Foundry will allow setting up a Darkness Activation Range that affects illumination based on darkness level, but now, in both directions, rather than only lights off or on in Darkness.

Journal In-Line rolls flavor
In line rolls in Journals will allow a flavor text on top of the button, improving the user experience of this specific functionality.

Wrapping up

Phew! That was a LOT of info right? Well, the point was to give you an insight (yes, this is not all) of what’s going on in Foundry after all. So, what do you think about the changes mentioned? Foundry is growing up immensely and it comes together accompanied by it’s community. It’s main developer, Atropos, creates these Alpha builds not for just testing, but also for gathering feedback.

You can find the official patch notes here. Looking forward the next release will focus on a new feature Overhead Tiles as well as improvements to A/V and package management. So I hope everyone get’s on the hype train with me and get prepared for more roleplaying stuff to come in these online times

With the warning out of the way we will take a brief look on what this release has to offer and what you can expect going forward with the 0.8.x release series.

This release is mainly focused on Next-Gen infrastructure which means its mostly intended for developers and not as much for the regular user. That’s not to say you shouldn’t be excited for this release as it lays the foundations for future features!

So WHAT can you expect from this release? Well, first off, expect a lot of BREAKING changes which means some things will no longer work the same way as they did previously. You might ask why make breaking changes in the first place? To answer that, let me allow to quote the creator himself:

The main feature of this release is going to be the development of the Common Document Model, which will continue to take shape over the course of the 0.8.x release series. This feature is fairly technical, but the gist of it is unlike before where the codebase was strictly separated into client and server there will be a third set of libraries under the name common which can be used by both the client and the server.

Some of the other features in this release are amongst other things the possibility to disable the canvas completely while retaining all other VTT features and thus greatly improving the performance for the people who just do Theater of Mind play, the possibility to have combat encounters that are not linked to a specific scene, and a new icons library for consumables because I for one love giving players the option of gathering 10+ different kinds of nuts!

We asked the League of Extraordinary FoundryVTT Developers to comment on this first 0.8.x update for their thoughts and advices.

You can find the detailed Patch notes here. If you wish to see an extended preview of these changes, you can check the VOD from the last Twitch live stream where Atropos goes in-depth into the new architecture and what’s to come in the next versions.

And this is just the beginning of this new release series. The next release 0.8.1 will focus on overhauling the way audio is played and presented but don’t get too hyped up just yet and expect that it will take another couple releases for a stable one to arrive.

Editor’s note

Posted on February 2, 2021

Goin’ Virtual

I was hesitant for a long time to try the virtual tabletop experience – it just felt like it couldn’t compete with having a group gather around a table in person. I wanted to actually participate in some games as a player, though, not just as a GM to the limited audience of just my immediate family- but COVID made that difficult without going online.

I ended up playing in a D&D campaign and a series of short Mighty Protectors ones on Roll20, both of which are still ongoing. While I was correct in my assessment that it’s just not the same as in-person play, it did turn out to be decidedly non-horrible! There’s something to be said for being able to join up with players from all over the world without having to leave the house. Another, unexpected advantage I discovered, is that it’s a lot easier to get even the local folks to show up regularly if there’s no travel and they can just roll into bed after the session ends.

There’s been a campaign setting idea bouncing around in my head for a year or so, and a couple of old friends have pestered me to start up a regular game ever since they heard I’d gotten back into the hobby. In December, I decided to give in to both urges.

What follows is a very-much-not-exhaustive overview of the systems I considered in trying to make this happen and which one I ultimately decided on.

To Roll20 or not to Roll20?

The obvious choice was to just jump into Roll20 since I was familiar with it as a player and had spent some time watching videos about setting up games there. It’s a highly viable option with a lot of support and a lot of users, with at least rudimentary options for playing nearly any RPG I might choose to run.

But I’d experienced enough performance issues on days when their servers were busy that I wanted to investigate other options. Add to that the fact that a lot of features I would want to use would require a paid subscription – including taking advantage of any of the wide array of plug-ins developed by the community.

(I already had a paid subscription because I was working on overhauling the existing Mighty Protectors character sheet there, and they charge would-be developers for the privilege of enhancing their site for them. This, and the cumbersome nature of the development process under their system, was a further turn-off.)

So I started looking into other options. There are a number of simple map-sharing packages, but I wanted something more complete than that – the ability to host character sheets, set up click-to-roll actions, etc., at the very least.

Fantasy, Grounded

The second VTT I looked into was Fantasy Grounds, which has been around for quite some time but received a major overhaul in 2020 with its “Unity” release.

I fully admit I didn’t really spend as much time researching this one as it might deserve and I didn’t actively try it out beyond maybe a dozen or so clicks in the online demo. My understanding is that the big strengths of FG are its ability to automate almost any in-game process and its large collection of user-created scripts to do so.

The thing is, though, that there’s only so much I would want to automate. I’m not sure at what point the virtualization of a pen-and-paper RPG turns it into a video game, but it’s not a line I want to cross. On top of that, if I’m running a game I want players to actually learn and understand the underlying system, not memorize what buttons to click to fire off some process. To me, firing attack and save rolls off from a character sheet is fine, for instance, but having the system manage the PCs’ hit points for them goes too far. Not that FG would force this, by any means, but I wouldn’t really be playing to its strengths.

Its user interface, even in the new version, has a reputation for being confusing and difficult to work with. Instructional videos on setting up games confirmed this in my mind. It’s not horrible, but seems like it could have been better thought out.

The list of supported (official and user-created) games is smaller than Roll20’s, and there’s no free option at all beyond the demo. You either spend $149 a year for the “Ultimate” subscription so you can host games and invite non-paid players, or choose the $30 option where your players also all have to pay the same.

Editor’s Note: The editorial team would like to issue a correction in that the price point of $149 is a one off purchase, and not an annual subscription.

So… kind of a non-starter for me. Lots of folks who use it love it, but I just didn’t see it offering significant benefit to me even leaving the price point aside.

I Foundry what I was looking for

Foundry VTT is a new entry in this market, released in 2020. It’s competing against two reigning juggernauts, but it seems to have an enthusiastic and growing community. Foundry takes a different approach to the virtual tabletop paradigm in a number of important ways:

• There are no subscriptions. You buy a software license for a one-time $50 fee (I actually got it on a Black Friday sale for less) and you have access to all its features forever. All the lighting and sound features, all the community-created plug-ins, all the game systems, the ability to create custom compendiums, everything – up to and including the ability to build plug-ins and game systems yourself, should you be so inclined. (There’s a 30 day window for a refund, should you make the purchase but decide not to use the software. Also note that there are for-sale third party add-ons that are not free.)
• The base software is self-hosted – meaning it runs on your own PC. I’m lucky enough to have a relatively fast and stable internet connection, and Foundry’s performance for my players has thus far been significantly smoother than my normal Roll20 experience. There are a number of options for external hosting as well, ranging from “free or very cheap but complicated to set up” – Amazon Web Services – to “pretty much point and click and still comes out cheaper than the paid options on those other services unless you splurge for the mega packages”. (I’m probably going to blow any savings I might have made in switching from R20 on the purchase of a recent-model Raspberry Pi to host my games in the future, but that’s not at all necessary and entirely because I have trouble resisting the lure of a shiny new gadget.)

I frankly don’t have enough experience with the nuances of all three systems from a GM perspective to be able to do a fair direct comparison. Their feature lists have more in common than not, though the details vary.

Instead, I can point out some of the aspects of Foundry that I like, which contributed to my choosing it over the other options.

• Of the three choices, I prefer its user interface. There’s nothing magical about it, but for the most part it feels better organized to me.
• I don’t like the way it does everything by default (I’m looking at you, 5e dice rolling without the “Better Rolls” plugin!) and there are features I’d like to see added or expanded… but in almost every case I was able to find something among the community created mods that granted me the capability I wanted.
• Did I mention it performs well?
• I’ve played a bit with setting up (subscription-only) dynamic lighting in Roll20 and have found Foundry’s (no extra cost) implementation much better, allowing for open-able and close-able doors and windows as well as sight blocking features that don’t stop tokens from being moved through them – such as bushes and trees.
• One of my favorite features is the ability to add sounds to a map and have the volume scale up as characters approach the point it emanates from. For instance, a small underground waterfall might not be heard from the cave entrance, but as the party delves inward they start to hear the sound of running water. Scenes can have their own playlists attached, and the GM can set up libraries of sounds to play with a click. Gnolls are a problem in the low-level area of my new campaign, and the players have learned to expect something’s about to go down when I play the sounds of yipping hyenas…
• Casting area effect spells can automatically pop up a place-able template for the area they’re supposed to cover.
• Yesterday I discovered that for a druid character I could set up a list of potential Wild Shape forms that they have read-only access to; now the player can drag and drop an animal onto her character sheet and it will pop up a selection screen with “Wild Shape” as an option – clicking that will transform her character sheet to show the physical properties of the animal with her INT/WIS/CHA/etc, along with converting her token to show the new shape. An “undo transform” option on the character sheet then turns everything back to normal!

There’s a great set of tutorial videos at a YouTube channel called Encounter Library. In particular, their “Foundry VTT Basics” playlist was very useful not only when starting to get my campaign set up, but in selling me on the idea of trying the product out.

There are, of course, trade-offs.

• As a relatively new system, it doesn’t yet support a library of games as large as Roll20 does…but thanks to community efforts, the list is already long and growing quickly. It also doesn’t yet have a large library of ready-made content, although this is changing as well both through official support from game makers (Savage Worlds and Warhammer Fantasy as of this writing) and through user-created adventures, etc.
• For D&D players, there are compendiums included that cover everything that’s part of the public 5th Edition SRD – as is true of Roll20 and FG. Those systems allow you to purchase the other Wizards of the Coast material in digital form to add those compendiums as well. Foundry doesn’t have this capability in a direct way, but there’s a (user-created) solution that in many ways is better because it’s not directly tied to Foundry: if you use D&D Beyond and purchase any of the WOTC rule books, adventures, etc., for sale there, those can be imported and cleanly integrated into Foundry. If you’re like me and refuse to pay WOTC hundreds of dollars more for books you’ve already bought in hardcover, it’s relatively easy to add in non-SRD items on an as-needed basis.
• Pathfinder 2nd Edition is also well supported for the PF players out there. Sadly, Mighty Protectors is not yet one of the systems Foundry directly supports – but the development process looks much more straightforward than Roll20’s did, so I’m hoping to try my hand at it myself.
• It’s still being actively developed and enhancements and fixes are relatively frequent. Overall this is a good thing, but it raises the possibility that something your game (or your favorite plug-in) depends on might change. It doesn’t force you to update, though, so it’s easy enough to wait a week or so after each new version to make sure any plug-in incompatibilities get addressed.
• There may be technical challenges to setting it up because of the need to grant your players access it on your home network. For the base PC-hosted install the steps to do this are usually simple with easy-to-follow instructions, but might still be daunting to some.
• Similarly, if your internet connection is slow or unreliable, you’re going to have to use an external host or choose a different option.
• There’s just one guy who’s the owner and sole developer of the base product. He’s enthusiastic and does it full time, but if anything happens to him, the future of Foundry becomes questionable.
• It doesn’t yet have the vast library of commercial supporting material such as the token packs, custom adventures, map packs, etc. that can be purchased through and for the Big Two. Not a huge consideration for me but it might be for some… and it’s changing as more people adopt FVTT.

So, in summary… yeah, I kind of really like Foundry at this point.

A Guided Tour

A few screenshots from a recent encounter built using a ready-made-for-Foundry scene from The Mad Cartographer‘s Patreon. (A sampling of free TMC maps can be downloaded as a module inside Foundry as well.)

– Edited by SecretSquirrel