FoundryVTT

I’ve been running D&D online using Roll20 for the better part of 5 years now, and overall it’s been a pretty good experience. Sure, it has its little quirks from time to time, but what app doesn’t. And sure, it costs me $10 a month to get the most out of it, but the subscription model is unavoidable these days. And yes, those top of the line features could be improved and expanded, and maybe it is those features that most of the bugs come from (I’m looking at you Dynamic Lighting), But what choice did I have? Enter FoundryVTT.

I discovered Foundry about a year ago, and at the time it seemed to hold a lot of promise. It was a one time purchase piece of software that I could run locally to host games for my players. The base app had most of the features offered by the Pro tier of Roll20, and the community created add-ons that existed to take it above and beyond any other VTT were very impressive, if not a bit overwhelming. So I bought a license and started tinkering…. for about a week.

Then came game time, I was nowhere near comfortable enough with the system to attempt running a session in Foundry. My current campaign had been running for nearly a year, with everything set up in Roll20, nice and ready to go. That’s the way it went throughout the next year. I’d get frustrated with Roll20, or intrigued by someone else’s experience with Foundry, and I’d start tinkering again, only to wind up back on Roll20 a few days later. I always knew, though, in the back of my mind, that I would make the switch. I just needed that extra little push.

A Bit About Me

If you’ve read the About page here at The Gray, you’ll know that I’m relatively new to the TTRPG hobby, at least compared to a lot of other people out there. I’ve been involved with D&D in one form or another since about 2015, but I didn’t start actually playing until 2017. The majority of that time has been focused on 5th edition D&D, though I have tinkered with a couple older editions, and I’ve glossed over a few other TTRPG rulebooks out there.

Since my first experience as a Player in the 5e Starter Set adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver, I’ve been hooked. I started DMing pretty quickly and found that it’s the role that works best for me, though I do still get that player itch from time to time. I’ve run multiple full length campaigns, shorter adventures, and one-shots for multiple groups. Ninety percent of that has been online using Roll20.

What I’m Looking For

With all the time I spend working on D&D, I would love to make it my make it my profession. Whether that be professional Game Mastering services, streaming live games, creating YouTube content, or anything else that comes up, doing this for a living is my ultimate goal. Finding a VTT that can add to that experience in some way would be great. While Roll20 and Foundry both are about the same in this regard (they can both be easily captured for streaming video/recording), I think Foundry may have a slight lead due to the available modules that add customization and automation.

Speaking of automation, another big area of concern is prep time. Life is busy, between family, work and other non-gaming responsibilities, anything that can help cut down on session prep is a plus. This is where I think Roll20 might pull ahead, at least at first glance, thanks to the available pre-built campaigns. I almost exclusively run official adventures (for now, more on that in the future!) so being able to just buy the adventure and have everything ready to go is very convenient. In my exploration of Foundry over the coming weeks and months, I hope to find ways to mitigate this difference.

The Next Steps

As mentioned previously, I’ve decided to really dive into FoundryVTT and spend quite a bit of time learning to use it. A big part of that decision was the release of the aptly named video series Transitioning from Roll20 to FoundryVTT by Baileywiki, a content creator who makes a lot of great YouTube videos about FoundryVTT. In this series, Baileywiki and fellow FoundryVTT elite Zephyr, take an active Roll20 GM and teach him to use Foundry. It really inspired me to finally make the switch, and I’ll be following a lot of what they go over in this series.

One of the very first things I’ll be doing differently, though, is the method for installing and hosting Foundry. There are multiple options, depending on your needs. I’ll be discussing each of them briefly next time. Suffice it to say, though, I picked the most complicated. I’m going to be self hosting Foundry from a RaspberryPi and hosting it on my web domain for my players to access! The next post in this series will detail that process, in case you also like to tinker with self hosting applications. So stick around, it’s going to be a blast!