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.

Blair’s Guide

Creating a Foundry VTT module can be quite daunting, time-consuming, and fiddly. I created a module generator to make it easier to get a module up and running quickly. Depending on your requirements, you may not even have to open a text editor.

Visit the generator, fill in the form and download your module zip with all of the values filled in.

The generator supports two modes:

• Scene Packer integrated
  • This mode (listed as “new module” in the generator) creates a new module for you, with Scene Packer module functionality already integrated. This mode is particularly useful for content creators who have an adventure and want to make use of Scene Packer’s functionality, but don’t know any JavaScript or aren’t wanting to fiddle around in a text editor.
• Standalone Module
  • This mode creates a module without any dependencies. You could use this to quickly create a Shared Compendium Module to share your actors/items/journals between worlds. Alternatively, this mode can be used as a starting point for any custom module you wanted to build.

Module generator: https://sneat.github.io/scene-packer-module-generator/

Are you a content creator? Might you become one now that creating adventures is a much easier process? Drop us a line in the comments and let us know your thoughts!

Recently Updated

New Modules this Month

What are your favorite modules that came out this month or new features you enjoyed? Let us know in the comments!

Recently Updated

New Modules this Month

If you are a module developer and plan on releasing a new, exciting module or have big update coming up for one let us know and there might be a chance it gets featured in the next Roundup. You can contact us on the official Foundry VTT Discord Server where we have a #foundry-hub channel.

With this list of modules to explore as a starting point, you can get high quality play from a text-based game. What modules do you prefer for text-based gaming? Let us know in the comments, and happy gaming!

The selection of these modules will be the authors choice and there will always be some awesome modules that won’t make the list. Feel free to leave a comment if you think a module missing or if you really want to highlight a specific module we are happy to work with you to help you out to submit an article of your own.

Recently updated

New Modules

Due to Foundry Hub’s release in February we missed out on highlighting some new modules from January. It would be a shame not include them. So here is a bonus round.

Bonus

The key to making this landing page truly interactive, is the use of a few modules.

• Trigger Happy for clicking on things to activate other things
• Forien’s Quest Log for the quest log system
• Inline Web Viewer for accessing an interactive website through journals
• LootSheetNPC5e for the loot chest if you’re in 5e. It’s available for other systems like Pathfinder2E and 3.5e as well.

Trigger Happy is a powerful module, and if you are not familiar with how to use it, we recommend you start here. Here is a sample of Toldori’s landing page triggers for the Trigger Happy module:

// Click to change the scene
@Token[AndoranMap] @Trigger[click] @Scene[Andoran]

// Click to open character sheet
@Token[YorikCard] @Trigger[click] @Actor[Yorik]
@Token[PartyLoot] @Trigger[click] @Actor[Party's Loot Chest]

// Click to call macro that opens up Forien's Quest Log
@Token[LandingBook] @Trigger[click] @Macro[QuestLog]

// Click to open up journal
@Token[InnerSea] @Trigger[click] @JournalEntry[httpspathfinderwikicom]

// The macro used to open up Forien's Quest Log

QuestLog.render(true);

The key to the creation of triggers is to use the module’s ‘transparent token’ to cover the area of an image you wish to trigger with, then make sure that you toggle the token to be “Invisible” to the players. Combining this with using the “@Trigger[click]” inside the journal entry will create an illusion for your players that they are interacting with things placed on the scene. The transparent token, macros and a helpful README will appear in your compendium after activating the module. Follow the provided instructions (and check youtube for additional helpful videos) and you will be activating things in no time!

Huge thanks to Todori for sharing this fantastic landing page!

This landing page makes use of two modules.

• Parallaxia for the scrolling player images. Additional information on how to use this module can be found here.
• Multilevel Tokens for the teleportation effect. This module also has a great deal of possible uses. Start here.

Cystere.Orling says: I got the scrolling image idea from this post by u/DragonbeardNick and when I asked him how he had the images cycling through what appeared to be an image wider than the screen, he said that it was one long image. For the scrolling I created a tile that was the height of the image I used (using photopea to simply put five separate player images onto one wide image) and the width of the poster. I used the very long image of five as the “fill” image for the tile so when I placed it, it appeared stretched to fit. Then when I selected the tile and activated parallaxia, the image became its actual size and only showed what is currently in view (or in frame), so it appears that it is cycling through.

Check out the modules, pull together some fantastic art, and start creating! See what you can build and post your results in the forum for everyone to see!

Nothing. There is no such list, and there never can be.

First off, I apologize for the clickbaity title and flippant answer (“Hey guys, don’t forget to smash those like and subscribe buttons!”), but I feel this is an important topic which deserves a little bit of sass.

While lists of recommended modules can be useful resources when used properly, they can also be unhelpful and even counterproductive without proper context. This is particularly true for users who are new to Foundry VTT, and unfortunately new users are the ones (understandably) looking for such lists to help them get started.

Issues with recommended module lists

As much as I personally love modules (I’ve even created a few), and even though there is a vast universe of amazing modules for Foundry Virtual Tabletop that can improve the online tabletop gaming experience for you and your players, there is no magic one-size-fits-all-list of modules. This is true for a variety of reasons:

• Both Foundry VTT and its modules evolve constantly and static lists do not.
  Over time, modules may stop being maintained and/or their functionality may be incorporated into core Foundry. When people find outdated lists that contain such outdated modules, it can lead to confusion and significant problems.
  
  For example, if you see a module list that recommends Deselection or Teleport modules, move on. That list is dangerously outdated and should not be used.
  
  
• Some modules may not work for your game system.
  Many lists of modules assume that you are playing D&D 5E. Even modules that claim to be “system agnostic” may have issues in a particular game system or be much less useful.
  
  
• Each person has different preferences and needs.
  Even if you are using the same game system as the person who created the list, such as D&D 5E, people want different things. Some people want as many rolls automated as possible to make things easier and faster, and others want a fully manual process they can control fully. More people fall somewhere in between. Also, just because a module is widely used, such as on that provides 3D dice, you may personally not like it or remember to use it. Unused modules bloat your game unnecessarily.
  
  
• Some modules are incompatible with other ones.
  The module on the list may be great by itself, but it may conflict with another module you are using and love. In particular, try not to install more than one module that extensively overhauls the same part of Foundry, particularly ones that roll dice and generate chat cards with the results. If you do this, be cautious and be prepared that modules my just not play nicely with one another.
  
  
• Lists can encourage installing many modules at once.
  Installing every shiny module on the list can be tempting, but in practice this is not a good idea. It results in a “blob” of new functionality that is confusing and makes it very hard to know where one module starts and the next ends. To get the most out of each module, install one at a time, view its documentation, play with its settings, and try to understand what it’s doing.
  
  
• It’s important to know how “core” Foundry works before adding modules from a list.
  Similarly, try using Foundry with as few modules as possible at first. You may find that you prefer the core Foundry functionality over popular modules in some cases, and it helps greatly to understand what your modules are actually doing once you do add them. It also makes it much harder to debug issues when they do occur.
  
  Find things that you wish you could do, and specifically find modules that add that functionality or smooth out processes that feel rough or awkward to you. When you do, add them slowly.

Not a good idea if you installed Foundry yesterday (or ever, probably).

Okay, fine, but really, where’s the damn list?

With all that said, a list of module recommendations can obviously be very helpful if you keep all the above cautions in mind. You can discover things that you didn’t know existed, or you can think about a module in a new way.

Finding other users who play the same game system and who have similar philosophies and tastes and discussing your favorite modules is preferred over a list, but if you really must… Reddit, YouTube, and the Foundry Discord, have many such lists of recommendations that you can find, just make sure that they are no more than a month or two old at most and only then if no major new stable Foundry VTT version has come out recently. If it has, all bets are off and you need to be even more careful than usual.

Here at Foundry Hub, there is a list of modules sorted by their popularity, as measured by their install rate on the excellent Foundry hosting service The Forge. Additionally, ratings and reviews are available in these listings. The Foundry Hub forums are also a great place to discuss modules and see what other people are using. Upcoming articles will present examples of how to use combinations of modules to achieve amazing results. The Foundry Hub even has plans of listing modules you love right in your user profile.

Just remember kids: view any list of recommended modules with a critical eye, keep an eye out for shiny new finds, and have fun out there!