Thoughts on Foundry Virtual Tabletop?

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Neon

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As the title reads, does anyone have any experience with Foundry? It seems like it has an extensive list of features.

Additionally does anyone know if these types of applications pose a security risk wtv you are storing on your PC?

Thanks
 
Foundry and various other options are discussed quite a bit in this thread: https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/random-vtt-rant.6393/
I use it for my online games and am a fan, but everyone has their preferences.
Foundry can be self-hosted or run from a cloud service. There's always some security risk in self hosting. But there's risk in cloud hosting as well. What is your risk tolerance and what sort of people are you gaming with?
 
Foundry and various other options are discussed quite a bit in this thread: https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/random-vtt-rant.6393/
I use it for my online games and am a fan, but everyone has their preferences.
Foundry can be self-hosted or run from a cloud service. There's always some security risk in self hosting. But there's risk in cloud hosting as well. What is your risk tolerance and what sort of people are you gaming with?
Thanks. I'll check out that link.

Risk tolerance is hard to say. I guess I'm willing to take as much risk necessary to not have my personal data stolen lol.

Initially I'll be playing with lifelong friends (little risk from uninvited I assume) but may expand if I enjoy the experience.
 
OK as regards security. FVTT uses port forwarding to get data through your firewall on port 30000 (or what ever you choose). Nothing vital listens on that port except FVTT. FVTT does not have access to the operating system for writing to anywhere except your FVTT data. You as GM have admin rights and you should give yourself a decent password. You can set passwords for players as well and only people who you have given invitations to can get to the password screen. If you use external hosting there are several options: set it up yourself - more risky than self-hosting unless you know the UNIX variant being used, and using a hosting partner - paid service, but they know what they are doing regarding security on the 'Net. Your choice.
 
As the title reads, does anyone have any experience with Foundry? It seems like it has an extensive list of features.

Additionally does anyone know if these types of applications pose a security risk wtv you are storing on your PC?

Thanks
With respect to security, I am not an expert. I can say that folks have been playing online with virtual table tops (vtt) for years, so it is not a new thing. I've been a Fantasy Grounds user since 2005! That may alleviate some concern for you or it may not. You can see on this site that vtts have been discussed before if you search. Fantasy Grounds also allows you to set a password to control access.

You can see some information about setting up a campaign in Fantasy Grounds, including the cloud or LAN options, the public or private options, and setting the password here. You can search around for more information or just go to the forums and ask away.

With respect to Foundry in particular you can see my comments in the random vtt rant thread here based on my having played in groups on both Foundry and Fantasy Grounds over the summer both using Savage Worlds. I suggest that you do a thorough comparison as I think for most uses Fantasy Grounds comes out ahead. And, my comment that a lot depends on what systems you plan to run is absolutely true. So, check them out, decide on what things are important to you, and then make your choice. You will be able to have a great time gaming using either of them.
 
I’ve only just started using it, and I’m loving everything so far. It helps that they have a thriving Discord community that will answer your questions quite rapidly.

There seems to be a module for just about anything that you need beyond the basics (which are already comprehensive).

I’m using one of their hosting partners, though, because I don’t trust my wifi
 
I’ve used Foundry to run Pathfinder 2e and Old-School Essentials. The Pathfinder support is excellent. The OSE support is not too bad. I’ve heard the 5e experience is not great.

I liked it more than roll20, but that’s not a very high bar to clear. I haven’t used the 0.8.x series, but A/V support in 0.7.x was pretty flakey if not everyone could use IPv6 (most of my group). I and one of my other players were the only ones whose ISP supports IPv6, so when everyone would have their connection flake, ours would remain solid.

I ran it self-hosted on a Linode, so I can’t speak to any possible issues with running it locally and having people connect to one’s machine. I’m currently happy that we’re meeting in person, but if we had to go back online, I’d not hesitate to set the Foundry server back up again.
 
Foundry is my favorite VTT for Pathfinder/DnD. It has great support for those systems and kills Roll20 in UX and UI as it uses modern and fast html design. YMMV in systems that are less supported, but it was far and away my favorite, and I've tried most.
 
New mapping module called "Dungeon Draw" just came out. Still missing a few features, but I just tested it, and you can improvise a dungeon map quite well.

140859282-ca8e78bc-0d9c-4c06-8b0d-e6d876a8cb5f.png
 
One group I'm in recently moved to Foundry and I'm slowly getting the hang of it.
I'm not really seeing any big advantage over basic Roll20, but my own tastes run to ToTM... with the ability to do a quick sketch/layout if needed. Another group I'm in is Discord only, and that's fine by me.
 
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New mapping module called "Dungeon Draw" just came out. Still missing a few features, but I just tested it, and you can improvise a dungeon map quite well.

View attachment 38027
I played around with that as well this weekend. Set my colors to an old school blue and mapped out a small dungeon on the fly. It's a very impressive tool, even laying down the wall/door controls as it maps.
It does need a few things - some basic symbols like stairs and statues, and the ability to create just a wall to divide a room.
Still, this kind of thing makes me want to create a completely random, funhouse dungeon mapped on the fly, rolling up each room just moments before the door is opened.
 
Yes, without an interior wall tool it's not that usable, but it's a start. For the symbols, you can just have them as tiles.
 
Yes, without an interior wall tool it's not that usable, but it's a start. For the symbols, you can just have them as tiles.
The regular polygon draw tool works ok actually for adding walls. Just have to manually through on the wall lighting tool after.
1636996113776.png
 
I'm using it to run Mythras, and after about 4 sessions, the biggest advantages I can see with it over Roll20 are as follows: A one time cost; $50, vs. the $5/month I was paying for a Plus membership on Roll20, a more "readable" character sheet, and a turn tracker that allows me to keep the turn cycle and round cycle separate, with action points refreshing automatically when the round turns over. Being able to host over my own fiber 1gig connection hasn't been an issue, and the map features seem pretty comparable (though I don't really use it for dynamic lighting and whatnot, I just got Roll20 Plus for the image upload storage/bandwidth).

Where it's not as good, is that the Mythras ruleset is still pretty much in a beta state, and I miss some of the Roll20 map features like being able to "ping" a location and have everyone's view snap to that point. If it ever gets the ability to create creature templates that can generate variants like the BRP ruleset does in Fantasy Grounds it would almost have everything I want.

There is no perfect, one-size-fits all VTT solution in my experience, but Foundry comes pretty close to ticking all of the boxes I need right now.
 
The regular polygon draw tool works ok actually for adding walls. Just have to manually through on the wall lighting tool after.
The thing for me is that a tool that's in the game needs to be able to do a lot on the fly, with minimal player interruption. Draw room next to the current one, don't reveal anything to the players in the meantime, no flashes of half drawn rooms.
Dungeoncrawl has a nice technique that should work for this. I wrote the author, let's see if that's on the menu soon.

Honestly, I still like fog-of-war best, so regarding maps, I'd be okay with something much simpler than what Foundry offers. But gee, those character sheets are really, really nice for games that are way too complex for their own good (I'll never play Pathfinder 1 again at a real table).
 
BTW there's a module that does the ping thing so you can have it work just liked Roll20.
 
The DungeonDraw module just had an update and adding interior walls is now much easier, plus some great theme presets that make it easy to improvise a cavern or dungeon map.

Or, well, just blue yourself:
Screenshot 2021-11-24 at 17.11.49.jpg
Edit: There seems to be a slightly annoying bug if you add the door first and then add the adjacent room later (while improvising a dungeon), but I just reported this to the author and hopefully it's fixed soon.
 
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