Virtual Tabletops, which one do you use if any?

[Scuba Steve]

Wondering what VTT folks here use (of the people that do use it). I've been using Roll20 for a long while; only the free version. Premium doesn't seem all that worth it in my opinion to justify the cost (not to mention I don't stream the sessions, so it can't be recouped as say a business expense). However lately I've been noticing some real issues with it, and I'm thinking on branching out to Foundry VTT, since I've heard a lot of good things about that; not to mention it's really good with modules. I especially like how it's a one time cost too.

So what sort of VTT do you use?

 

[under_score]

I used Roll20 for years, starting in 2015. Paid for the highest tier for a long time, developed a couple character sheets for it. Got really annoyed with the lack of development in that time, a lot of persistent bugs, and having to pay a subscription to be able to create character sheets. Considering Roll20 would be nothing without the huge bank of community created character sheets, that really bothered me.
I switched to Fantasy Grounds for a while. It's ok if it has a module for your preferred game. I was running a lot of Castles & Crusades and their C&C module is very good. There is a generic system, but I found it clunky to use.
Last year I picked up Foundry and haven't used Roll20 or FG since. Its usefulness is also limited to supported systems (although again, there is a generic sandbox system that can be used, no idea if it is any good), but it has a very fast growing library of community developed rulesets.
Functionality beats either Roll20 or FG for me. I think its journaling, note linking, text editor tools are all better (significantly better than Roll20's, closer to FG's but in my opinion easier to use). The mapping and lighting tools are very easy to use, work great. Downside of Foundry I think would be that the macro/automation tool documentation isn't great, but I don't go for much of that stuff. Rollable tables and monster sheets and journal notes are about all I need.
Got a lot of hours in all 3 VTTs though, so if you have any questions on comparing them, let me know.
There are others like Astral and Owlbear Rodeo, but I haven't looked at them. After Roll20, I'm kind of done with subscription services.

 

[Bunch]

I have been using Fantasy Grounds since around 2005 primarily as a player and in the last year as a GM (Unlimited license). I've used Roll20 as both player and GM but only the free version.

Of those two I vastly prefer FG for supported rulesets. For unsupported it's not clear.

FG automation is pretty awesome. It does have a learning curve but it's pretty manageable. It often gets dinged for not having an audio/video communications component but I personally think that's a crap complaint. There's whole companies dedicated to just that that portion of software with janitorial services larger than Smite works, Roll20 and Foundry combined so I don't see why anyone is expecting a VTT company to do that component in house.

 

[Valdus]

EpicTable is good stuff. Simple does what its supposed to do.
Foundry VTT is a good community driven project that gets many mods for it.
Tabletop Simulator with voice? You don't even need a table!

 

[Scuba Steve]

EpicTable is good stuff. Simple does what its supposed to do.
Foundry VTT is a good community driven project that gets many mods for it.
Tabletop Simulator with voice? You don't even need a table!

Tabletop simulator is good, but it requires everyone to buy a copy of it. It's thankfully not that expensive, but still an issue for running online games.

The other issue I've run into is that while there's a lot of great models for fantasy RPGs, and there's a lot of good stuff for Tabletop wargames, a lot of the "character" models aren't fitting for the kind of historical games I run (lots of burly dudes with beards, not a lot of female 3D models, and the majority of my players are female and only play female characters).

But that's a personal issue I've had with it, and not representative of the product as a whole.

 

[under_score]

Tabletop simulator is good, but it requires everyone to buy a copy of it. It's thankfully not that expensive, but still an issue for running online games.

The other issue I've run into is that while there's a lot of great models for fantasy RPGs, and there's a lot of good stuff for Tabletop wargames, a lot of the "character" models aren't fitting for the kind of historical games I run (lots of burly dudes with beards, not a lot of female 3D models, and the majority of my players are female and only play female characters).

But that's a personal issue I've had with it, and not representative of the product as a whole.

Foundry doesn't come with any built in character models. You've got to setup your own collection. It's self-hosted, so no need for Roll20's awful storage system, but you can put all the burly girls your hard drive can store into it.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Foundry doesn't come with any built in character models. You've got to setup your own collection. It's self-hosted, so no need for Roll20's awful storage system, but you can put all the burly girls your hard drive can store into it.

Yeah, I've got all kinds of tokens that I use on Roll20, so no problem there, or making new ones with Photoshop.

But I'm not a 3D Modeler, so putting stuff into Tabletop Simulator is out of my league (otherwise I'd do it).

 

[Arcane_Avatar]

I've run Mythras games on Foundry VTT (Shrine of the Traitor Gods, Sariniya's Curse) a couple of times apiece. Have recently added Meeros Falling and Meeros Doomed so I have the Meeros sequence done. I'm currently running Vampires of Chrysoplis a Mythic Constantinople game. Have started prepping a Thennla game and have Scum and Villainy, Call of Cthulhu, Alien and Impulse Drive waiting in the wings for me to do setup and tout for players.

I started out running off my laptop and port forwarding my connection but wanted audio and video and the easiest way was to use a 3rd party host and I settled on The Forge. Easy to transfer all my existing stuff over and the Forge interface is also very easy to use. Only issues I've had has been occasional slow downs due to Internet wide issues nothing down to Forge.

 

[ReluctantGM]

I've run Mythras games on Foundry VTT (Shrine of the Traitor Gods, Sariniya's Curse) a couple of times apiece. Have recently added Meeros Falling and Meeros Doomed so I have the Meeros sequence done. I'm currently running Vampires of Chrysoplis a Mythic Constantinople game. Have started prepping a Thennla game and have Scum and Villainy, Call of Cthulhu, Alien and Impulse Drive waiting in the wings for me to do setup and tout for players.

I started out running off my laptop and port forwarding my connection but wanted audio and video and the easiest way was to use a 3rd party host and I settled on The Forge. Easy to transfer all my existing stuff over and the Forge interface is also very easy to use. Only issues I've had has been occasional slow downs due to Internet wide issues nothing down to Forge.

I played in one of your intro to Mythras games and was impressed with the look and feel of Foundry. I've been using Roll20 since forever ago and I've stuck with it because once you've set it up properly it works pretty well - but it's pretty ugly in general. Have you used Roll20 enough to do a quick compare/contrast between the two for running Mythras?

 

[ffilz]

How do the various VTT compare for number of users and particularly for number of users who would play games other than the top games?

I have been using Roll20 and it works ok but I hear other VTT may be better. But a significant number of my players have been recruited via Roll20.

 

[Dyrnwyn]

I've used Roll20 as a player and have liked it, but not as a GM. That's the only platform I've used. We've had sporadic audio/visual issues with it, but it generally works well.

 

[Lunar Ronin]

I prefer Astral. It's a better looking, more modern Roll20 with better support for independent games as you can upload character sheets from various games and make them interactable.

 

[under_score]

How do the various VTT compare for number of users and particularly for number of users who would play games other than the top games?

I have been using Roll20 and it works ok but I hear other VTT may be better. But a significant number of my players have been recruited via Roll20.

Roll20 I believe still has the largest player base. It's free, nothing to download, been around a long time. Barrier to entry is pretty much nil. I think that's one of Roll20's biggest advantages and even though I've stopped using Roll20, I'm still playing with people that I met there.
Fantasy Grounds has also been around a long time but always felt like a very small community to me. It's harder to get into as a player I think. You can join in for free with a demo edition if the GM is running an ultimate edition, but you still have to download a client and it has a higher learning curve. I just don't think there are likely a lot of people just browsing for a game to play that go through the trouble of getting the demo, setting up account, and looking for a game where they have to specify that they can only join an ultimate license.
Foundry is actually even easier than Roll20 on the player side. Don't even have to create an account, just connect to the IP your GM gives. There is a very active discord and subreddit, but I've yet to try recruiting on either, just because I've got a pretty good player base now. But it seems like a good community and I think all the community developed modules helps foster a lot more interaction than you'd normally get.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

I've only played and GMd on Roll20. I like that nobody, including the GM has to pay for it to use it. A player did gift me a paid account as a show of appreciation for me GMing after a few months of play.

 

[ffilz]

Roll20 I believe still has the largest player base. It's free, nothing to download, been around a long time. Barrier to entry is pretty much nil. I think that's one of Roll20's biggest advantages and even though I've stopped using Roll20, I'm still playing with people that I met there.
Fantasy Grounds has also been around a long time but always felt like a very small community to me. It's harder to get into as a player I think. You can join in for free with a demo edition if the GM is running an ultimate edition, but you still have to download a client and it has a higher learning curve. I just don't think there are likely a lot of people just browsing for a game to play that go through the trouble of getting the demo, setting up account, and looking for a game where they have to specify that they can only join an ultimate license.
Foundry is actually even easier than Roll20 on the player side. Don't even have to create an account, just connect to the IP your GM gives. There is a very active discord and subreddit, but I've yet to try recruiting on either, just because I've got a pretty good player base now. But it seems like a good community and I think all the community developed modules helps foster a lot more interaction than you'd normally get.

Thanks, I was pretty sure Roll20 had the largest audience, and the point about no one needing to pay to play is a good one. It's going to be the Facebook of VTT... The one many will come to hate, but use anyway because that's where everyone is.

Before the demise of Google+, recruiting off Roll20 was pretty successful. I DO have a few players recruited for VTT or play by post from Facebook (I think 2 of my RQ players are FB recruits, and one of my Bushido PbP players is a FB recruit, I think I had a Traveller player or two from FB). But MOST of my players have come to me via Roll20 and I've devised a way to filter out most of the non-committal types (basically remind them of the play time and ask some questions, if you aren't willing to engage the GM in a chat before joining the game, you're not going to commit).

 

[Arcane_Avatar]

I played in one of your intro to Mythras games and was impressed with the look and feel of Foundry. I've been using Roll20 since forever ago and I've stuck with it because once you've set it up properly it works pretty well - but it's pretty ugly in general. Have you used Roll20 enough to do a quick compare/contrast between the two for running Mythras?

I haven't used Roll20 for about 5 years or so. I last ran a One Ring game using it soon after TOR launched. I've found Foundry easy to use but then I have a tech background and didn't have issues with port forwarding or stuff like that. Adding maps and assets is very easy - just dump them in sub folders in your Data folder preferably sorted into folders to make it easier to find things. Setting up a scene is as easy as picking a map from a folder, making any changes specific to the scene regarding lighting and vision and clicking save. Tokens are the same but each one is linked in some way to a character sheet. There's no dragging a picture onto the scene like Roll20. Now I have moved to a hosted service I added sound and video via Jitsi and it works very well indeed. I'm running with four players and not had any issues. For techie people Foundry ha all the bells and whistles and great community support. For technophobes I'd suggest going with Let's Role or Role or Astral as they do not need any real technical experience to run.

 

[Scuba Steve]

But MOST of my players have come to me via Roll20 and I've devised a way to filter out most of the non-committal types (basically remind them of the play time and ask some questions, if you aren't willing to engage the GM in a chat before joining the game, you're not going to commit).

That's actually a really good way to tell. I think I'm gonna start using this too. Thanks for sharing.

 

[under_score]

Yeah, funny thing about that, I started a new game Tuesday, had two players I knew, a third who was vouched for by one of those players, so I wanted a fourth and recruited from a couple discords I'm on. One of the first people to respond gave me a vague response and didn't join into any further discussion with the group, so I wrote that off and talked to another guy. For a week leading up to the game they were all chatting, together and with me, getting ideas for character creation, setting assumptions, etc. All the usual session zero stuff, just spread out over the week.
Anyway, 10 minutes before game time that first dude sends me a PM that he's not gonna make it. Made me laugh.
Sometimes it's just really easy to spot the flakes.

 

[Johndesmarais]

For the games I’m currently running I use Roll20. Simple enough and has enough functionality for my purposes, and players using free accounts work just fine (more so if the GM has a paid account, but even the GM can use a free account).

I’m also playing in a Champions game using Virtual Tabletop. It’s very shiny, but I find it to be very fiddly and resource heavy (and, as has been mentioned, everyone using it must have purchased a license).

 

[Stan]

I also ask for a character sheet ahead of the game - if they can't be bothered to make their character, they're not into it.

I use Roll20 but I don't fully use it. I find the scripting and character sheets too much much bother. The large audience does make it easy to recruit players, though and I'm familiar enough to be able to drop maps and stuff onto it quickly.

 

[Johndesmarais]

I also ask for a character sheet ahead of the game - if they can't be bothered to make their character, they're not into it.

I use Roll20 but I don't fully use it. I find the scripting and character sheets too much much bother. The large audience does make it easy to recruit players, though and I'm familiar enough to be able to drop maps and stuff onto it quickly.

Different strokes, different folks. The character sheets (that other people have built) are one of things I like about Roll20. I have no desire to create my own - I'm here to have fun and that's too much like my job - but for most of the games I run, there are already existing character sheets and those are usually pretty easy to use.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

We use Roll20. I pay to avoid the ads and for the storage space (I use a lot of graphics and tend to have multiple games going at once). The other selling point is that it doesn't require a PC - just a web browser - so my players can use their tablets if they prefer.

That said, I am considering migration to Astral, as it loads and runs a lot faster and smoother than Roll20.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Different strokes, different folks. The character sheets (that other people have built) are one of things I like about Roll20. I have no desire to create my own - I'm here to have fun and that's too much like my job - but for most of the games I run, there are already existing character sheets and those are usually pretty easy to use.

That's the big things I like about Roll20 as well. Not that Astral is all that difficult to set up a character sheet, but I like that for pretty much all of the games I've played regularly, Roll20 has a sheet that I can use, and you can roll directly from it, so if a player doesn't know what to do I can just say "Press the button that looks like a dice, next to "X" skill".

 

[Bilharzia]

Since about 2016 I have used Roll20 and Discord. Roll20 has a great, if processor-demanding Mythras character sheet which is one of the big plusses of Roll20, without that I could be anywhere, the sheet is a big draw. There's almost nothing else I like about Roll20 except for accessibility and price, which is nothing. I am not using maps anymore so I don't care about that stuff, I do use a lot of images though.

The big annoyance for me with Roll20 is the lack of good offline campaign management, and even the online system is not that good. Foundry VTT looks like a very good replacement as it gives you a lot more control over documents and other resources. The Mythras character sheet is very nearly there so Foundry looks like it's going to be the one for me in the future. There are more technical hurdles though, and/or hosting cost. I probably would have paid something towards Roll20 but nothing that it offers is that attractive for the price.

Discord is a great partner with Roll20 as it handles audio very well, and acts as an OOC text channel and a mini-forum for the game as well.

 

[Scuba Steve]

I'm really liking the Mythras character sheet for Roll20 as well, though the recent issue the site has been having with character sheets has been a pain to say the least. None of the changes to the name section, or the journal visibility have been saving, so of late every time I have to make a new NPC, I have to keep changing it from the random name Roll20 generates every time I load into the game.

 

[PolarBlues]

I am kind of late to the party in the for a lot of 2020. After we had to suspend our regular face to face games, I just took a break from roleplaying. I started running a wild west game with the group just using Google Meet

I couple I've been doing which may be a little different.

1. I have been using Google Jamboards extensively as a generic visual aid. This is Jamboard we used for the cooperative town creation we did in the first session.

I've also used the Jamboard for combat - but just in a very abstract way, with no actual grid and just geometric shapes to indicate roughly who is where or otther occasions where in an ordinary game I might just sketch something on a piece of paper.

2. I use the "Share screen" function on Meet during the game. My players have access to the Jamboard, but in practice most of them are just on a sofa, using their phones rather than at a desk with a full keyboard. By sharing my screen I can do a lot of more fiddly stuff myself and switch between panels on the Jamboard in the knowledge that everyone are looking at the same thing.

It works reasonable well. It's not as visually compelling as Roll20, but it's easy, no fuss and the informality of it kind of works in its favour.

 

[ReluctantGM]

I use ZOOM for video chat and Roll20 to run Mythras. The character sheet on Roll20 is a beast but it works really well. Half of my group of players are total RPG noobs but they still got the hang of it pretty quick.

I think, though, that I'll likely move over to Foundry once the Mythras character sheet is up to standard.

 

[Arcane_Avatar]

I've found that the FVTT sheet works fine. Ok you can't cast spells from it so you have to know the rules - it's not point n'click automation but then I do not particularly want to play a video game. It can roll all the skills from the sheet, you can drag and drop armour etc onto the sheet and clicking on the Combat Skill rolls the attack and clicking on the weapon damage value rolls damage.

 

[chuckdee]

I prefer Astral. It's a better looking, more modern Roll20 with better support for independent games as you can upload character sheets from various games and make them interactable.

There was something in the TOS that turned me off Astral when I first took a look. They probably didn't mean what they said in regards to your rights, but I couldn't be assed to find out, especially as the interface turned me off. We used roll20 with Discord for voice and its fine, but not what I'm going to use for my next one. I'm either going to use Foundry, or go more barebones- something like owlbear.rodeo or MythicTable or Role.

 

[ForestShepherd]

I'm too much of a stubborn hipster to use Roll20. For my weekly Blueholme game I'm using Discord for audio, chat, and hosting of stuff like character sheets, overland maps, handouts, etc. For dungeon exploration I like having a map that reveals itself in real time to the players, and for that I'm using Shmeppy. It's crude but the minimal style appeals to me. I draw the maps beforehand and then use the Fog of War feature to cover what they haven't seen yet.

 

[chuckdee]

I'm too much of a stubborn hipster to use Roll20. For my weekly Blueholme game I'm using Discord for audio, chat, and hosting of stuff like character sheets, overland maps, handouts, etc. For dungeon exploration I like having a map that reveals itself in real time to the players, and for that I'm using Shmeppy. It's crude but the minimal style appeals to me. I draw the maps beforehand and then use the Fog of War feature to cover what they haven't seen yet.

How do you use Shmeppy? There's not much in the way of explanation on the page- unless that's all there is to it, i.e. draw shapes, draw shapes on top of shapes, and drop shaps on that for the tokens.

 

[ForestShepherd]

This is from my Caverns of Thracia game from last year: https://shmeppy.com/game/1147591890

It's pretty bare-bones, but I don't mind that. The only thing I dislike is that from the players' perspective, they can't tell the difference between where the map ends and where the fog of war begins, if you know what I mean. I guess a way to simulate that is to draw a coloured line around the actual edges of the map that the players can see, showing them where they've reached the explorable limits.

Edit:
My problem with the high-detail, five-feet-at-a-time maps on VTTs is that they are too detailed and too zoomed-in. I also don't need or care for individual icons for monsters and players and dynamic lighting and such. I haven't used miniatures in-person for years and don't need them online either. A program somewhere between the simplicity of Shmeppy and the delux-o VTT high-res dungeon maps would be the sweet-spot for me.

 

[Bunch]

There was something in the TOS that turned me off Astral when I first took a look. They probably didn't mean what they said in regards to your rights, but I couldn't be assed to find out, especially as the interface turned me off. We used roll20 with Discord for voice and its fine, but not what I'm going to use for my next one. I'm either going to use Foundry, or go more barebones- something like owlbear.rodeo or MythicTable or Role.

Owlbear rodeo looks pretty interesting.

 

[ForestShepherd]

Owlbear Rodeo lags out like mad for me, I don't understand it.

 

[chuckdee]

This is from my Caverns of Thracia game from last year: https://shmeppy.com/game/1147591890

It's pretty bare-bones, but I don't mind that. The only thing I dislike is that from the players' perspective, they can't tell the difference between where the map ends and where the fog of war begins, if you know what I mean. I guess a way to simulate that is to draw a coloured line around the actual edges of the map that the players can see, showing them where they've reached the explorable limits.

Edit:
My problem with the high-detail, five-feet-at-a-time maps on VTTs is that they are too detailed and too zoomed-in. I also don't need or care for individual icons for monsters and players and dynamic lighting and such. I haven't used miniatures in-person for years and don't need them online either. A program somewhere between the simplicity of Shmeppy and the delux-o VTT high-res dungeon maps would be the sweet-spot for me.

Looks pretty interesting- but I'd want a bit more detail that that.

 

[chuckdee]

Owlbear Rodeo lags out like mad for me, I don't understand it.

I thought I'd replied- what kind of images are you loading in owlbear.rodeo? I haven't had any problems with it.

 

[EOTB]

I’ve had Roll20 since the Kickstarter but making content on it is counterintuitive to my thinking process.

Under_score is the one who got me on to Fantasy Grounds - the supported 2nd edition AD&D ruleset has a 1st edition extension that makes running 1E AD&D a snap, and its dev is constantly improving it, very well supported.

But the reason I’m sold on it is how easy it is to make content, actually faster now for me inside the VTT than outside of it. I’ve recreated enough of the game’s tables and monster/NPC types (or imported other fan/community-made content), and linked the two, to the point I can generate huge swathes of busywork at the touch of a button - an entire AD&D pilgrimage, included treasure with specific gems (and auto value variances). Then just ctrl-c/v if wanting it outside the VTT for in-person play.

All that busy work that adds depth when the DM can access it on command now takes a trivial amount of time, leaving me with more time for the creative stuff - no longer a choice between depth or splash.

combat runs friction-free - a casual player doesn’t need to understand the underlying math or how they got to an AC of 4 in order to play and see if they like the game; if they dig it that stuff can come later. That removes a big barrier to entry.

I do have the ultimate license, which you can usually pick up on Black Friday for a one-time fee less than a year’s sub to Roll20

 

[under_score]

I’ve had Roll20 since the Kickstarter but making content on it is counterintuitive to my thinking process.

Under_score is the one who got me on to Fantasy Grounds - the supported 2nd edition AD&D ruleset has a 1st edition extension that makes running 1E AD&D a snap, and its dev is constantly improving it, very well supported.

But the reason I’m sold on it is how easy it is to make content, actually faster now for me inside the VTT than outside of it. I’ve recreated enough of the game’s tables and monster/NPC types (or imported other fan/community-made content), and linked the two, to the point I can generate huge swathes of busywork at the touch of a button - an entire AD&D pilgrimage, included treasure with specific gems (and auto value variances). Then just ctrl-c/v if wanting it outside the VTT for in-person play.

All that busy work that adds depth when the DM can access it on command now takes a trivial amount of time, leaving me with more time for the creative stuff - no longer a choice between depth or splash.

combat runs friction-free - a casual player doesn’t need to understand the underlying math or how they got to an AC of 4 in order to play and see if they like the game; if they dig it that stuff can come later. That removes a big barrier to entry.

I do have the ultimate license, which you can usually pick up on Black Friday for a one-time fee less than a year’s sub to Roll20

Are you running the Unity version yet? I had backed that but it was extremely buggy when I tried it, and after Foundry came out I kind of lost interest. Although Foundry doesn't have an AD&D rule system (or Castles & Crusades - FG's C&C ruleset is great), so I might give the new FG another look whenever I'm looking to run one of those again.

 

[Bunch]

Are you running the Unity version yet? I had backed that but it was extremely buggy when I tried it, and after Foundry came out I kind of lost interest. Although Foundry doesn't have an AD&D rule system (or Castles & Crusades - FG's C&C ruleset is great), so I might give the new FG another look whenever I'm looking to run one of those again.

I use FGU to run my 5e game. No bugs I can recall.

 

[Bunch]

I’ve had Roll20 since the Kickstarter but making content on it is counterintuitive to my thinking process.

Under_score is the one who got me on to Fantasy Grounds - the supported 2nd edition AD&D ruleset has a 1st edition extension that makes running 1E AD&D a snap, and its dev is constantly improving it, very well supported.

But the reason I’m sold on it is how easy it is to make content, actually faster now for me inside the VTT than outside of it. I’ve recreated enough of the game’s tables and monster/NPC types (or imported other fan/community-made content), and linked the two, to the point I can generate huge swathes of busywork at the touch of a button - an entire AD&D pilgrimage, included treasure with specific gems (and auto value variances). Then just ctrl-c/v if wanting it outside the VTT for in-person play.

All that busy work that adds depth when the DM can access it on command now takes a trivial amount of time, leaving me with more time for the creative stuff - no longer a choice between depth or splash.

combat runs friction-free - a casual player doesn’t need to understand the underlying math or how they got to an AC of 4 in order to play and see if they like the game; if they dig it that stuff can come later. That removes a big barrier to entry.

I do have the ultimate license, which you can usually pick up on Black Friday for a one-time fee less than a year’s sub to Roll20

I might ask you about the 1e rulesets later if you don't mind