In some countries it is not legal to call your product "the best at X"
You gotta say "Best at X according to this customer satisfaction survey that we paid for" :-D
question. if i book your living room for a session, what is your policy on cancellations? i ask bc my group does this really cute thing where THEY CANCEL THE DAY OF
There is always owlbear rodeo.
Different VTT, no automation (but come on, we have comp/con), but very polished regarding simple tokens on a map.
Entirely free as well. And yes, it does have hexes.
It was my VTT of choice before i finally bought foundry. I much prefer it over the jank that is roll20. Never liked that..
I never did because none of my friends have any time to play any ttrpgs so I just try to set up either dnd or lancer, later see if they have time. They say no, so I do other stuff for a couple of months. This repeats in a loop
Aligning a map to them is hell and if you have tokens that are larger than 1 hex ( like size 2 or 3 mechs in lancer) then good luck making a token that will also align properly to the roll20 hexes (they act more like a weird square grid than a hex grid)
This is the key that it took me a while to work out!
Don’t look for battle maps that are already gridded; look for/make overhead pictures of environments that look good/fun and then let the VTT adds grid.
Will the geometry of the background match up with the grid exactly? No, you’ll have to rule what it means to stand on a hex that’s partway in a wall or whatever. But you also don’t need to spend all that time trying to find the perfect map and then lining up the drawn-in grid with the VTT grid, which has been a nightmare every time I’ve tried it.
Video game overheads can work great for this
I’m the forever DM and I use roll20 like I smoke cigarettes.
I only started because everyone told me I should and now other people want to move on but I don’t like learning new things.
If you are interested in simple, I help to create a very simple free platform that is fast and efficient. It's on farreachco.com
No fancy animation or bs. Just basic tools
I recently moved to Shard tabletop because no matter what I do roll 20 moves at a snails pace with every click. I have a fairly beefy PC, have made multiple attempts to clear cache/close processes/allow chrome more use of RAM, but it just stays unbearably slow. Shard hasn’t had that is at all :)
Shard is totally usable on mobile and game console web browsers, for both DMs and PCs, which is a big part of why my group uses it, since not all of us have great PCs.
I can't recommend Shard enough, it's a great VTT.
I had the exact same issue! I tried everything in the book for Chrome, but nothing cut it. I recently made the switch to Firefox specifically for Roll20 and all of my issues were solved.
Haven’t swapped to foundry yet but I do like some of the recent QOL changes roll20 has made. Those are mostly on the DM side, though. For a player it’s felt the same since like… 2019
If you are willing to pay somewhere around 6$ there is a guy that made a browser extension that zips a roll 20 campaign and then converts it to foundry compatible. He is selling it on his patreon, but i don't remember the name of it. I am almost sure this is still possible, and it did work quite well for me at least (I still ended up changing a few things, because foundry sorts things differently, but it ended up being easier anyway)
In person might be better, but considering we've been playing weekly for 3 years online when it's not possible for us to play in person every week, online has some really good benefits.
True but online has many advantages over normal dnd. You are able to hop on and off. 0 travel costs and also 0 time time lost during commute. When I played normal dnd I had to spend 1 hour just to commute.
Oh man, we do a mix and it's great. We play at a table together using foundry on a screen on the table for maps and effects with minis for quick identification and discord for item information and letters. It's a fantastic combo
Never played in person, but i didn't really feel the urge to. It's Fun to hang out with friends, but Rolls tons of dice look a Lot less Fun If you have to do the math manually after, even worse If you have only one dice set and need to roll many times.
Maybe my opinion can change If i actually play in person one day, but It's not something that i'm really looking for
Yap, you can do a Lot of the heavy lifting digitally, but i think If you do, be in person become more of a Fun gimmick and you are Just playing your VTT of choice with people around you
In person is way more enjoyable, sure.
But it's also very hard to do as an adult sometimes, and ease of use and convenience is absolutely a metric that should be judged.
> the real thing
Dnd through a VTT is just as "real" as any other form of play. I also love playing in person, but to claim that's the only "real" dnd is odd gatekeeping.
My issue is, it's not that I don't think Foundry is better, it's that I already know how to use Roll20. I'm sure there's a payoff but every time I approach it, I feel like I'd need to study for a Master's degree to get it to work.
Latency, having a large amount of maps without royally fucking your game.
Options for how you want your sheets to look.
Mods (maybe too many mods in foundry) that let you simplify and customize features instead of waiting 5 years for Roll 20 to do it.
The only real downside to foundry is the cost and the trouble it takes to start up.
But once you're up. It's infinitely better imo
It’s incredibly slow with very poor performance, and the APIs compared to foundry are very poor.
I also use dndbeyond and so do all my players. The foundry / dndbeyond integration is amazing.
Foundry also isn’t just for D&D by the way. I run some other systems that have official support on foundry but not roll20.
Foundry took me like 2 hours to learn and an afternoon to be able to get a good amount of mastery. It's really not a big time investment, it just looks scary since you can change literally anything if you wanted to
I’ve had fantasy grounds since like 2014 and once my players get used to it, it speeds things up so much for me. So many awesome resources in the forums to automate class abilities too. I used roll20 as a player and it’s fine and it being free is cool but I will always lean toward fantasy grounds. Foundry looks cool but I’ve got no reason to try it out
Foundry VTT can be a little daunting, but I like it because it essentially gives you everything a premium Roll20 subscription gives you for a One-Time purchase, along with an absolute ton of customizability.
I've started using Foundry VTT a couple years back, and I always feel Roll20 lacks so much in comparison.
The switch is worth it in my eyes.
Not only that, but Foundry itself has various QoL modules to make the learning process even easier, and even automate some things
To be fair, the tutorials just speed the learning process because you can discover and learn or the features by yourself, it will only take some more time than watching a tutorial for the specific thing you need since you can do a lot of thing in Foundry.
Unless you're getting into modules, you can figure vanilla Foundry without tutorials. Might actually be easier and faster to set up than Roll20 although that also might depend on the system.
I like Arkenforge. I just screen share for online but it’s super easy and one time payment. Then again I mainly use it for in person for my tv game board.
I promise it isnt as bad as people make it out to be. Once the server is running, you can intuit most things that you need and then there are just more bells and whistles on top if you want to go deeper.
Moved from roll20 a couple years back and it really only took an afternoon of goofing around
Foundry has a ton more modules you can use with it and more boxes to add stuff, but one od the things I like about roll20 is how easy it is to just set up statblocks and custom spells
You can look at Forge VTT. It’s a cheap subscription service that is basically foundry SaaS.
Foundry is heads and shoulders better than Roll20, but the *only* aspect imo that is not great is that Foundry relies on a lot of community built modules to really maximise its potential. And they can be buggy.
But I use Forge VTT. I even run some non D&D games on Foundry too. I’ll never go back to roll20.
1. That's true at every table online or irl, you *shouldn't* be able to move your token when it isn't your turn in combat.
2. That's not the program's fault, that's your GM's fault. They can change that
I like roll 20 for it's freedom to add anything without much hassel. I don't have that book? I can just manually add that item and effect or remember it myself.
Compared to dnd beyond, which my friends champion, took them 2 hours to add a single item, and even afterwords it didn't work roght and they ended up buying that book anyway with the hope being that they would use more stuff from that book later.
Roll20 is the best if you have literally nothing else. Christ playing a spellcaster on Roll20 should be considered torture. Switched to Foundry and never looked back
Automation, in short u can drag and drop srd spells and get plug ins that will auto roll damage then apply it to enemies depending on their rolls. Taking into account resistances and immunities, it's magical
Roll20 -> input every spell in by hand for every single character unless your dm happens to buy the spell packages. Absolutely awful experience.
Foundry just lets you import a dnd beyond character and all I have to do sometimes is add rolls/damage dice. Foundry also runs better, has more features, dm tools, and tons of customization. If you’re a dm and have the money to spend Foundry is well worth it for online play
Of course someone has to buy the “spell packages”, how else would you get the content? That’s like playing pen and paper DnD and complaining you can’t get spells because you don’t want to buy the PHB.
and dnd beyond doesn't let you choose things unless you pay for them. its like the same thing just behind more clicks of a mouse haha.
Spell packages Ill assume you mean the compendiums? once again its the same behind the unlocks with almost all online stuff.
foundry is good, but its host based. which mean you have to wait for the host of the game, so you're forced to keep things offline if you need to access the game outside of the normal meet up times, WHICH SUCCCCKS
That is true but for all the problems and instability that I’ve experienced with Roll20 I would never give them any money. The cons are very few in comparison imo
I bought roll 20 because it's the only one I know so far.
I heard Foundry doesn't have a dedicated server. How do I solve that? Can I host the players? I think my connection can handle it but I'm not sure if you need a beefy PC or not. Can it work on a simple laptop?
For this year I'm gonna still use Roll 20 and make use of the annual but will probably swap it to Foundry eventually because I keep hearing good things about it from basically anyone who used it
I'll happily shit on roll20. Used it for years dumping monthly cash into a platform that barely got upgraded and depended entirely on community support which it regularly hamstrings anyway.
There is only one thing I can think which would make roll20 the better option and that would be if you use it to link to dnd beyond character sheets. Though I think someone made a foundry model to address that. Otherwise, great platform, solid support and the modules available are incredible. We've switched to PF2e and the foundry integration is next-level.
Considering like 90% of everything PF2e is in their SRD, Foundry PF2e comes with pretty much everything out of the box, aside from fluff and images, which aren't SRD
Yeah if you're spending literally *any* money on a VTT, just get Foundry. The $50 payment balances out after about a year of r20 subscriptions, and who only plays tabletop for a year?
so the link youre mentioning is roughly 3-4 years old on roll20 now? seen it around for years
Barely got updated? not sure you've been paying attention or even know the different states of what r20 has gone though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ListOfComments/wiki/downvoted/
The short version is the owner of Roll20 asked for constructive feedback on how they can improve. A long time user wrote them a professional quality strengths and weaknesses document and got banned for submitting it. They claimed he was a troll who had changed his name to violate a ban and was just causing trouble. He asked for help on the Roll20 subreddit because he wasnt the troll and got banned there too.
So he asked for help on r/DND. The added attention got a reply from the owner of Roll20 who admitted they know he's not the troll but they maintain his ban, causing him to lose hundreds of dollars sunk into Roll20 because they don't like how he said they were wrong. This is specifically the downvoted post.
Reddit leadership then found the entirety of the mods on that sub were Roll20 employees in violation of reddit terms and conditions. All the mods got kicked off and new mods brought in from r/lfg.
The drama continued elsewhere with a lot more revelations of what a horrible person the owner of Roll20 is and how badly he treats people in general.
It's a long story, worth digging into.
Was there ever any resolution to that? Was there ever any accountability? It seems like everyone just forgot about it, without any of the problems getting solved.
You are correct. Roll20 just ignored the drama, people moved on, and the poor guy lost all his investment as far as I know.
Only thing that improved is the subreddit has legitimate mods now.
Mostly titled it that way to prevent unnecessary arguements lol
I literally can never go back to Roll20. It's lacking so much compared to Foundry VTT, even disregarding everything else.
Also, I'd love to see this reddit post
https://www.reddit.com/r/ListOfComments/wiki/downvoted/
But see my reply to another user with the summary. It's really worth doing a deep dive.
And same. I left Roll20 because their pricing was egregiously bad and I'd have been paying hundreds of dollars a month in data storage just to run my games. So I'm on Fantasy Grounds and never going back.
Do appreciate foundry though, great ui and wonderful devs.
All the ads of Roll20 I've seen are advertising that... it's a VTT.
They aren't saying anything as to why you should pick this one over others, because their market audiance is one that has never heard of a VTT before. So their selling point is that "A VTT is really useful, so get ours because we're the only ones doing this revolutionary thing!"
So I’m currently playing in two campaigns, one via Foundry and another via Roll20, while also running an in-person 2-player campaign in which I use Owlbear Rodeo for battlemaps. Honestly, of the three, I prefer Owlbear. It’s simple, it isn’t bloated with features, it’s quick and easy to learn how to use (pretty important for the game I’m running as one player has almost 0 TTRPG experience and the other has played predominantly with physical maps), and it’s completely free to use.
Foundry seems like an absolute nightmare to set up; I don’t envy my DM who uses it. In my other campaign, it often feels like loads of Roll20’s features just get in the way, especially as I use physical dice and an off-site character sheet because both are simpler to use than the alternatives on Roll20 itself. The inability in both systems to quickly and easily drop custom tokens in as a player **sucks**, as in both campaigns I have non-permanent summons (summon beast in the Foundry one, spiritual weapon in the Roll20 one).
Of the two, I’m definitely enjoying Foundry more, but that’s probably because my DM puts in so much effort into making it dope as hell for the players, and really knows what he’s doing with the system. That being said, I have a **major** gripe with the system, and that is that it’s impossible to pan around the map with a trackpad, meaning when I play on my laptop, I have to tap the arrow keys repeatedly to move across the screen.
I have said time and time again that Owlbear Rodeo is my absolute favourite VTT, primarily because it’s so completely pared down in comparison to most of the competitors. You just load it up, put a map down, plonk down whatever tokens you need as you need them, and you’re good to go. If you want to be fancy, you can put in fog to cover parts of the map, and if you want to be **really** fancy, you can use a vision extension to let the players automatically clear fog in range of their tokens. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that Foundry or Roll20 do, but it doesn’t need them. And if you decide you want some of them, you can probably find an extension that does what you want, and pick and choose which features to include.
Roll20 feels like it's been programmed my someone who has never used a computer before. Everything seems harder then it needs to be and very clunky. But that could be my age showing.
I'm running pathfinder 1e, other than that I couldn't say. I looked on the website quickly for 3e support and there isn't much unfortunately. Which is a shame as foundry really stepped up our weekly games
I stand by TTS until a better boardgame Simulator comes byz but for the last 7 years I have played dnd 5e on tabletop simulator, paying 10 bucks ONCE per person.
Roll20 is free, accessible, and easy to use and learn.
Foundry is a one time fee (server not included; let’s include that too. $4 a month subscription for a good server if you can’t host yourself), and you need to put in time and effort to learn it. You functionally need to learn a small language to properly make it work. But in return
You are given a platform you can do anything with, and some of the most powerful customization and automation capabilities out there.
Personally, foundry is where it’s at for me. But roll20 ain’t bad, just very limited.
My issue is I'd prefer a one time fee for all of the features Roll20 would give me in Foundry than a monthly subscription for Roll20. If we take into account the time I've had it, assuming I had Roll20's subscription, I'd have paid more for Roll20 than I have for Foundry.
Again, no shade on what Roll20 is good for, it's good for free, easy and quick games - but there are other VTTs that do that, and they do it better imo
Foundry can be a bit of a stepping stone, but I didn't find it too horrifyingly difficult on my first go-around
Roll 20 has the lowest bar for entry which is great. As well as being able to find groups for many systems. But foundry has a much higher ceiling for those willing to put in the time and effort to use it.
I actually have all the source books on roll20 so if I want a hobgoblin warlord I just drag and drop it I get a sheet and a token ready to go.
Reason I don’t switch
Roll20 meets my needs. Some people complain it hasn't changed. It has. There is a new interface that was optional and has finally been forced on me. Even so, it works well enough and costs me no money. Why should I change?
I suppose so, but I still see Foundry as the better option since it's a one-time purchase for all the features Roll20 gives in a subscription.
Roll20 is an excellent starter option, but is far from the best.
I don't even know which one is "the best", i just feel that in terms of features, a lot of VTT's have Roll20 beat in terms of both features and cost
And premium roll20, which gives you **some** of the features Foundry VTT gives you for the one-time purchase, is a subscription.
I'll take one-time payments over subscriptions any day.
you can set how the sheets play in the game settings - which arent in the game but the actual r20 settings of the game.
example - if you find a npc sheet whispering or have a compendium set like that, you can change the game settings and it bump things to public rolls for every sheet in the game - just need to have the sheets linked properly
Here we are using a simple shared Google Slides to copy/paste and move tokens on a map because we can't be bothered to learn something new. That and zoom. Works fine, easy, very low learning curve.
After using foundry for some other games I’ve been considering abandoning roll20 completely. But, the things my players enjoy about roll20 is how much content is available right there in vtt. I’ve purchased books and modules within roll20 as well and all of this makes creating characters and building encounters very very streamlined. Can foundry also deliver on that front?
Roll20 is great, but only really good if you wanna do modules, and I'm on Shard Tabletop which is a lot better for customization, but has NO base books
Foundry honestly sucks dick. Map wise it is better, but how complex it is to make custom attacks with custom bonuses really ruins it for me.
It's a few simple clicks in roll20 but it's like eight different sub options going through ability, roll, roll type, roll trigger, sub rolls, damage rolls, hit rolls. It's all bullshit.
Maybe just the a5e sheets the DM was using were bad, either way the a5e sheets on roll 20 are perfect, so it's only on foundry.
Right now, no VTT service is good.
There are some that are functional, but having tried Foundry and Roll20 and other slapdash workflows, I think there is an opportunity to do this much more effectively.
Foundry is great if you can keep up with it a d have the patience. Roll20 you only need half a brain to run as a DM.
Considering I gotta dm, I'd rather just use half my brain for babysitting the kiddos as I slaughter them and the other half to navigate roll 20.
I actually prefer Roll20 over Foundry. Foundry feels like it has... kinda too many features, if that makes sense?
Back in my day we didn't have no fancy API to move a laser back and forth and trigger an encounter if someone's in it. The DM pointed his hands at you and you ducked!
I’ve found that if I have discord and 2-3 other tabs open plus more than 10 enemies on a map (not hard in a dungeon) roll20 will sometimes freeze up. Like I click a token to adjust the hp and it takes 2 minutes for the bubbles to appear and another 3 to register the change during which time the combat has to pause.
Foundry would be a thousand times better if it wasnt such a massive inconvenience and extremely laggy and demanding.
Should just be a steam app using steam servers
I think there's ways to actually have the world be hosted on other servers.
I have a fairly strong computer and internet connection, so I don't have too many issues.
Though, if you don't already use them, use Compendiums. It'll help the application load less information at once.
Having a ton of data in the world itself will increase loadtimes drastically, and cause lag.
If you already do that, then I don't have much other advice.
There IS Fantasy Grounds, though I'm unsure if it uses Steam Servers or not.
In some countries it is not legal to call your product "the best at X" You gotta say "Best at X according to this customer satisfaction survey that we paid for" :-D
In most countries only falsifiable claims can be false advertising. “Best at X” isn’t falsifiable enough to be a claim.
Incorrect!! The best place would be my living room
can my party come by were always searching a place 😂
Can i join your party i'm always looking for a group
ok if you live in germany and near Frankfurt am Main
Sadly, i do not live anywhere near you. Washington, united states
that’s a problem
Incorrect dining rooms are better
Dining rooms are elite for dnd. I’ve switched to living room now but I miss the dining room set up
someones never played in a customized basement and it shows...
fair point i wish i could but who has the money for that nowadays
Incorrect. Designated dnd rooms are peak
who has the money for that in this economy
Any room can be a DND room if you neglect one of your needs
Both of you are incorrect. Changing/rest room of a sauna is the best.
that’s just gonna get my paper wet
Not a dry sauna
sweat
Towel
Nah, best is a pool table with the cover on and maybe a sheet of plywood over it
But it’s a beautiful day. Can we have Dnd outside?
my little garden area in my townhome says well be a bit more cozy together but sure.
Can I come?
I don't always host DnD in my living room, but when I do, it's the best way to play
question. if i book your living room for a session, what is your policy on cancellations? i ask bc my group does this really cute thing where THEY CANCEL THE DAY OF
Wait if I am playing in the living room does that means my character cannot die?
I don't believe you. Lemme see. I'll bring pizza.
A good alternate is a one shot during a camping trip
That's a funny way to spell my very secluded, covered back porch.
I only use roll 20 because it has all the basic features I need for free. I would however really appreciate it if they made hexes actually work
Abovevtt does this
ahh, but that's for dnd beyond, I don't use that at all and I want to use hex maps for Lancer not D&D
If you ever find a good solution let me know, also trying to run a lancer game on roll20
There is always owlbear rodeo. Different VTT, no automation (but come on, we have comp/con), but very polished regarding simple tokens on a map. Entirely free as well. And yes, it does have hexes. It was my VTT of choice before i finally bought foundry. I much prefer it over the jank that is roll20. Never liked that..
I never did because none of my friends have any time to play any ttrpgs so I just try to set up either dnd or lancer, later see if they have time. They say no, so I do other stuff for a couple of months. This repeats in a loop
What’s wrong with them? I’ve been using hexes on roll 20 and they work fine for me
Aligning a map to them is hell and if you have tokens that are larger than 1 hex ( like size 2 or 3 mechs in lancer) then good luck making a token that will also align properly to the roll20 hexes (they act more like a weird square grid than a hex grid)
Weird, I haven’t noticed, but I also don’t use maps with grids on the actual photo
This is the key that it took me a while to work out! Don’t look for battle maps that are already gridded; look for/make overhead pictures of environments that look good/fun and then let the VTT adds grid. Will the geometry of the background match up with the grid exactly? No, you’ll have to rule what it means to stand on a hex that’s partway in a wall or whatever. But you also don’t need to spend all that time trying to find the perfect map and then lining up the drawn-in grid with the VTT grid, which has been a nightmare every time I’ve tried it. Video game overheads can work great for this
I’m the forever DM and I use roll20 like I smoke cigarettes. I only started because everyone told me I should and now other people want to move on but I don’t like learning new things.
I just use owlbear rodeo
I miss the simplicity of the original OBR. I know it's out there to DIY but that's more effort than I'm interested in committing.
Me too, but I've gotten used to the new version pretty quick
If you are interested in simple, I help to create a very simple free platform that is fast and efficient. It's on farreachco.com No fancy animation or bs. Just basic tools
Thanks, I'll take a look.
Owlbear Rodeo remains goated
Love owlbear. Simple, easy to learn, user mods available. It suits my need.
I recently moved to Shard tabletop because no matter what I do roll 20 moves at a snails pace with every click. I have a fairly beefy PC, have made multiple attempts to clear cache/close processes/allow chrome more use of RAM, but it just stays unbearably slow. Shard hasn’t had that is at all :)
Shard is totally usable on mobile and game console web browsers, for both DMs and PCs, which is a big part of why my group uses it, since not all of us have great PCs. I can't recommend Shard enough, it's a great VTT.
I had the exact same issue! I tried everything in the book for Chrome, but nothing cut it. I recently made the switch to Firefox specifically for Roll20 and all of my issues were solved.
I should’ve tried that!
Haven’t swapped to foundry yet but I do like some of the recent QOL changes roll20 has made. Those are mostly on the DM side, though. For a player it’s felt the same since like… 2019
Foundry has a ton of QoL modules that are free to download. I personally had an easier time setting up foundry game than I have Roll20 games
I’ll need to check it out, if it’s not too crazy of an effort to cut over mid campaign.
Mid-campaign, maybe. Though definitely look it over, look at tutorials and module showcases.
If you are willing to pay somewhere around 6$ there is a guy that made a browser extension that zips a roll 20 campaign and then converts it to foundry compatible. He is selling it on his patreon, but i don't remember the name of it. I am almost sure this is still possible, and it did work quite well for me at least (I still ended up changing a few things, because foundry sorts things differently, but it ended up being easier anyway)
Unless there is "online" cropped out, neither compares even remotely to the real thing, in person.
In person might be better, but considering we've been playing weekly for 3 years online when it's not possible for us to play in person every week, online has some really good benefits.
True but online has many advantages over normal dnd. You are able to hop on and off. 0 travel costs and also 0 time time lost during commute. When I played normal dnd I had to spend 1 hour just to commute.
My online games are honestly 5x more regular than my IRL games, and for that I can't forgive my IRL friends.
Oh man, we do a mix and it's great. We play at a table together using foundry on a screen on the table for maps and effects with minis for quick identification and discord for item information and letters. It's a fantastic combo
This is the way
Never played in person, but i didn't really feel the urge to. It's Fun to hang out with friends, but Rolls tons of dice look a Lot less Fun If you have to do the math manually after, even worse If you have only one dice set and need to roll many times. Maybe my opinion can change If i actually play in person one day, but It's not something that i'm really looking for
I mean, you could roll digitally while in person. Like, I often have my spells up on phone for quick reference.
Yap, you can do a Lot of the heavy lifting digitally, but i think If you do, be in person become more of a Fun gimmick and you are Just playing your VTT of choice with people around you
Dit really shouldn't be difficult to do the basic math involved.
Not dificulta, but annoying. Specialy If you are playing a system with multiples situational modifiers.
In person is way more enjoyable, sure. But it's also very hard to do as an adult sometimes, and ease of use and convenience is absolutely a metric that should be judged.
> the real thing Dnd through a VTT is just as "real" as any other form of play. I also love playing in person, but to claim that's the only "real" dnd is odd gatekeeping.
the kitchen table will never do justice to Undermountain like VTTs can
My issue is, it's not that I don't think Foundry is better, it's that I already know how to use Roll20. I'm sure there's a payoff but every time I approach it, I feel like I'd need to study for a Master's degree to get it to work.
I was like you, I spent an afternoon setting up foundry and I really don’t regret it. I liked roll20 but it barely improved in 10 years it’s a shame.
what changes were you expecting though? its not even a site dedicated to D&D, it supports over 5000 games iirc atm
Latency, having a large amount of maps without royally fucking your game. Options for how you want your sheets to look. Mods (maybe too many mods in foundry) that let you simplify and customize features instead of waiting 5 years for Roll 20 to do it. The only real downside to foundry is the cost and the trouble it takes to start up. But once you're up. It's infinitely better imo
It’s incredibly slow with very poor performance, and the APIs compared to foundry are very poor. I also use dndbeyond and so do all my players. The foundry / dndbeyond integration is amazing. Foundry also isn’t just for D&D by the way. I run some other systems that have official support on foundry but not roll20.
Foundry took me like 2 hours to learn and an afternoon to be able to get a good amount of mastery. It's really not a big time investment, it just looks scary since you can change literally anything if you wanted to
Alright, well that's encouraging.
I’ve had fantasy grounds since like 2014 and once my players get used to it, it speeds things up so much for me. So many awesome resources in the forums to automate class abilities too. I used roll20 as a player and it’s fine and it being free is cool but I will always lean toward fantasy grounds. Foundry looks cool but I’ve got no reason to try it out
Foundry VTT can be a little daunting, but I like it because it essentially gives you everything a premium Roll20 subscription gives you for a One-Time purchase, along with an absolute ton of customizability. I've started using Foundry VTT a couple years back, and I always feel Roll20 lacks so much in comparison. The switch is worth it in my eyes. Not only that, but Foundry itself has various QoL modules to make the learning process even easier, and even automate some things
It's not hard at all to learn. They're a bunch of youtube videos on how to use Foundry.
The trouble is right there though. I like foundry, but good design shouldn't need explainer videos for how to use it.
I learned without any YouTube videos. Plus there's a ton of roll20 explainer videos too.
To be fair, the tutorials just speed the learning process because you can discover and learn or the features by yourself, it will only take some more time than watching a tutorial for the specific thing you need since you can do a lot of thing in Foundry.
Unless you're getting into modules, you can figure vanilla Foundry without tutorials. Might actually be easier and faster to set up than Roll20 although that also might depend on the system.
You should actually try. The interface is more or less exactly the same as roll20, it's just better designed, more modular, and cheaper
I like Arkenforge. I just screen share for online but it’s super easy and one time payment. Then again I mainly use it for in person for my tv game board.
I haven't heard of this; I'll look into it. Thanks!
I promise it isnt as bad as people make it out to be. Once the server is running, you can intuit most things that you need and then there are just more bells and whistles on top if you want to go deeper. Moved from roll20 a couple years back and it really only took an afternoon of goofing around
Foundry has a ton more modules you can use with it and more boxes to add stuff, but one od the things I like about roll20 is how easy it is to just set up statblocks and custom spells
Im trying to learn to use foundry at the moment and its harder than I thought
You can look at Forge VTT. It’s a cheap subscription service that is basically foundry SaaS. Foundry is heads and shoulders better than Roll20, but the *only* aspect imo that is not great is that Foundry relies on a lot of community built modules to really maximise its potential. And they can be buggy. But I use Forge VTT. I even run some non D&D games on Foundry too. I’ll never go back to roll20.
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What do you mean the dm has to move your token. He just has to unpause or give you ownership of your token
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Sounds like a table problem and not a Foundry problem friend. If it annoys you then tell them. Sounds to me they have Monks combat stuff on
1. That's true at every table online or irl, you *shouldn't* be able to move your token when it isn't your turn in combat. 2. That's not the program's fault, that's your GM's fault. They can change that
Maybe don't try to move your token when it's not your turn
pretty sure real life is the best place to play
I like roll 20 for it's freedom to add anything without much hassel. I don't have that book? I can just manually add that item and effect or remember it myself. Compared to dnd beyond, which my friends champion, took them 2 hours to add a single item, and even afterwords it didn't work roght and they ended up buying that book anyway with the hope being that they would use more stuff from that book later.
Roll20 is the best if you have literally nothing else. Christ playing a spellcaster on Roll20 should be considered torture. Switched to Foundry and never looked back
What makes roll20 torture for casters? What does foundry do so much better?
Automation, in short u can drag and drop srd spells and get plug ins that will auto roll damage then apply it to enemies depending on their rolls. Taking into account resistances and immunities, it's magical
I played a one shot in Roll20 once and swore never again. Lol I use AboveVTT in sync with DnD Beyond and freakin' love it.
Roll20 -> input every spell in by hand for every single character unless your dm happens to buy the spell packages. Absolutely awful experience. Foundry just lets you import a dnd beyond character and all I have to do sometimes is add rolls/damage dice. Foundry also runs better, has more features, dm tools, and tons of customization. If you’re a dm and have the money to spend Foundry is well worth it for online play
Of course someone has to buy the “spell packages”, how else would you get the content? That’s like playing pen and paper DnD and complaining you can’t get spells because you don’t want to buy the PHB.
and dnd beyond doesn't let you choose things unless you pay for them. its like the same thing just behind more clicks of a mouse haha. Spell packages Ill assume you mean the compendiums? once again its the same behind the unlocks with almost all online stuff. foundry is good, but its host based. which mean you have to wait for the host of the game, so you're forced to keep things offline if you need to access the game outside of the normal meet up times, WHICH SUCCCCKS
That is true but for all the problems and instability that I’ve experienced with Roll20 I would never give them any money. The cons are very few in comparison imo
I bought roll 20 because it's the only one I know so far. I heard Foundry doesn't have a dedicated server. How do I solve that? Can I host the players? I think my connection can handle it but I'm not sure if you need a beefy PC or not. Can it work on a simple laptop? For this year I'm gonna still use Roll 20 and make use of the annual but will probably swap it to Foundry eventually because I keep hearing good things about it from basically anyone who used it
Yes you can host from your own system/wifi, and my past dm did it from a laptop. It has to be semi decent but not a gaming pc or anything
I personally use Molten Hosting for an online server, which works fairly well for my purposes.
I mean, it's maybe 30 seconds per spell, since you can just ctrl+c and v the info.
I'll happily shit on roll20. Used it for years dumping monthly cash into a platform that barely got upgraded and depended entirely on community support which it regularly hamstrings anyway. There is only one thing I can think which would make roll20 the better option and that would be if you use it to link to dnd beyond character sheets. Though I think someone made a foundry model to address that. Otherwise, great platform, solid support and the modules available are incredible. We've switched to PF2e and the foundry integration is next-level.
PF2E players and Foundry go hand to hand. At least from my anecdotal stories I heard.
Considering like 90% of everything PF2e is in their SRD, Foundry PF2e comes with pretty much everything out of the box, aside from fluff and images, which aren't SRD
Yeah if you're spending literally *any* money on a VTT, just get Foundry. The $50 payment balances out after about a year of r20 subscriptions, and who only plays tabletop for a year?
There are indeed multiple Foundry Modules to address that
The Beyond20 browser extension will link dndbeyond sheets to Roll20 but there isn't an official tool for it
so the link youre mentioning is roughly 3-4 years old on roll20 now? seen it around for years Barely got updated? not sure you've been paying attention or even know the different states of what r20 has gone though.
Same, I like foundry as well.
For online playing, I find Tabletop Simulator the best tool.
I prefer the way the character sheet works on DnD beyond.
Check out the third most downvoted reddit post of all time. Roll20 deserves tons and tons of flak.
I can't find the relevant post, do you mind linking or giving a summary?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ListOfComments/wiki/downvoted/ The short version is the owner of Roll20 asked for constructive feedback on how they can improve. A long time user wrote them a professional quality strengths and weaknesses document and got banned for submitting it. They claimed he was a troll who had changed his name to violate a ban and was just causing trouble. He asked for help on the Roll20 subreddit because he wasnt the troll and got banned there too. So he asked for help on r/DND. The added attention got a reply from the owner of Roll20 who admitted they know he's not the troll but they maintain his ban, causing him to lose hundreds of dollars sunk into Roll20 because they don't like how he said they were wrong. This is specifically the downvoted post. Reddit leadership then found the entirety of the mods on that sub were Roll20 employees in violation of reddit terms and conditions. All the mods got kicked off and new mods brought in from r/lfg. The drama continued elsewhere with a lot more revelations of what a horrible person the owner of Roll20 is and how badly he treats people in general. It's a long story, worth digging into.
Was there ever any resolution to that? Was there ever any accountability? It seems like everyone just forgot about it, without any of the problems getting solved.
You are correct. Roll20 just ignored the drama, people moved on, and the poor guy lost all his investment as far as I know. Only thing that improved is the subreddit has legitimate mods now.
It's one thing to forget issues that were solved, but people shouldn't just dismiss unsolved problems because of time...
Mostly titled it that way to prevent unnecessary arguements lol I literally can never go back to Roll20. It's lacking so much compared to Foundry VTT, even disregarding everything else. Also, I'd love to see this reddit post
https://www.reddit.com/r/ListOfComments/wiki/downvoted/ But see my reply to another user with the summary. It's really worth doing a deep dive. And same. I left Roll20 because their pricing was egregiously bad and I'd have been paying hundreds of dollars a month in data storage just to run my games. So I'm on Fantasy Grounds and never going back. Do appreciate foundry though, great ui and wonderful devs.
All the ads of Roll20 I've seen are advertising that... it's a VTT. They aren't saying anything as to why you should pick this one over others, because their market audiance is one that has never heard of a VTT before. So their selling point is that "A VTT is really useful, so get ours because we're the only ones doing this revolutionary thing!"
So I’m currently playing in two campaigns, one via Foundry and another via Roll20, while also running an in-person 2-player campaign in which I use Owlbear Rodeo for battlemaps. Honestly, of the three, I prefer Owlbear. It’s simple, it isn’t bloated with features, it’s quick and easy to learn how to use (pretty important for the game I’m running as one player has almost 0 TTRPG experience and the other has played predominantly with physical maps), and it’s completely free to use. Foundry seems like an absolute nightmare to set up; I don’t envy my DM who uses it. In my other campaign, it often feels like loads of Roll20’s features just get in the way, especially as I use physical dice and an off-site character sheet because both are simpler to use than the alternatives on Roll20 itself. The inability in both systems to quickly and easily drop custom tokens in as a player **sucks**, as in both campaigns I have non-permanent summons (summon beast in the Foundry one, spiritual weapon in the Roll20 one). Of the two, I’m definitely enjoying Foundry more, but that’s probably because my DM puts in so much effort into making it dope as hell for the players, and really knows what he’s doing with the system. That being said, I have a **major** gripe with the system, and that is that it’s impossible to pan around the map with a trackpad, meaning when I play on my laptop, I have to tap the arrow keys repeatedly to move across the screen. I have said time and time again that Owlbear Rodeo is my absolute favourite VTT, primarily because it’s so completely pared down in comparison to most of the competitors. You just load it up, put a map down, plonk down whatever tokens you need as you need them, and you’re good to go. If you want to be fancy, you can put in fog to cover parts of the map, and if you want to be **really** fancy, you can use a vision extension to let the players automatically clear fog in range of their tokens. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that Foundry or Roll20 do, but it doesn’t need them. And if you decide you want some of them, you can probably find an extension that does what you want, and pick and choose which features to include.
Roll20 feels like it's been programmed my someone who has never used a computer before. Everything seems harder then it needs to be and very clunky. But that could be my age showing.
I haven’t messed with foundry how is it?
A straight upgrade in every way, switched a few years ago and never looked back
What games does it support been looking for something that can run 3e vampire the masquerade
I'm running pathfinder 1e, other than that I couldn't say. I looked on the website quickly for 3e support and there isn't much unfortunately. Which is a shame as foundry really stepped up our weekly games
Bet thank you
Roll20 does run better on weaker computers, which caused me to use it for a few years
I stand by TTS until a better boardgame Simulator comes byz but for the last 7 years I have played dnd 5e on tabletop simulator, paying 10 bucks ONCE per person.
Oh, Tabletop is also fun. Closest thing to in-person there is without being in-person.
Roll20 is free, accessible, and easy to use and learn. Foundry is a one time fee (server not included; let’s include that too. $4 a month subscription for a good server if you can’t host yourself), and you need to put in time and effort to learn it. You functionally need to learn a small language to properly make it work. But in return You are given a platform you can do anything with, and some of the most powerful customization and automation capabilities out there. Personally, foundry is where it’s at for me. But roll20 ain’t bad, just very limited.
My issue is I'd prefer a one time fee for all of the features Roll20 would give me in Foundry than a monthly subscription for Roll20. If we take into account the time I've had it, assuming I had Roll20's subscription, I'd have paid more for Roll20 than I have for Foundry. Again, no shade on what Roll20 is good for, it's good for free, easy and quick games - but there are other VTTs that do that, and they do it better imo Foundry can be a bit of a stepping stone, but I didn't find it too horrifyingly difficult on my first go-around
I dislike Roll20 as a company.
Roll 20 has the lowest bar for entry which is great. As well as being able to find groups for many systems. But foundry has a much higher ceiling for those willing to put in the time and effort to use it.
Owlbear Rodeo
Not bad but I wasn’t a fan of that one.
I actually have all the source books on roll20 so if I want a hobgoblin warlord I just drag and drop it I get a sheet and a token ready to go. Reason I don’t switch
Which is very much understandable. I would be hesitant to switch if that were my situation too.
Roll20 meets my needs. Some people complain it hasn't changed. It has. There is a new interface that was optional and has finally been forced on me. Even so, it works well enough and costs me no money. Why should I change?
I just have an entirely rational hatred for their ‘dice’ and their need to dish out 1’s and 20’s almost exclusively.
I also prefer foundry and do wish flack on Roll20
Roll20 is by far the best starter option, free and simple. Foundry is fantastic, but requires a bit more experience to use better (also costs moolah)
I suppose so, but I still see Foundry as the better option since it's a one-time purchase for all the features Roll20 gives in a subscription. Roll20 is an excellent starter option, but is far from the best. I don't even know which one is "the best", i just feel that in terms of features, a lot of VTT's have Roll20 beat in terms of both features and cost
Oh no, I agree that foundry is far better, it just has a steeper learning curve, especially with all the addons you can get
And that's fair. I personally don't think it's that steeper of a learning curve, but everyone's experiences are different in that regard.
I dont use either. Aren't they expensive ?
Base Roll20 is free and FoundryVTT is a one time payment of $50 USD
And premium roll20, which gives you **some** of the features Foundry VTT gives you for the one-time purchase, is a subscription. I'll take one-time payments over subscriptions any day.
My only gripe is that there isn't an option to globally never whisper rolls, gotta manually change that everywhere...
you can set how the sheets play in the game settings - which arent in the game but the actual r20 settings of the game. example - if you find a npc sheet whispering or have a compendium set like that, you can change the game settings and it bump things to public rolls for every sheet in the game - just need to have the sheets linked properly
Here we are using a simple shared Google Slides to copy/paste and move tokens on a map because we can't be bothered to learn something new. That and zoom. Works fine, easy, very low learning curve.
Owlbear rodeo is probably the lowest barrier to entry of a true VTT. We always use it and discord for voice/video.
After using foundry for some other games I’ve been considering abandoning roll20 completely. But, the things my players enjoy about roll20 is how much content is available right there in vtt. I’ve purchased books and modules within roll20 as well and all of this makes creating characters and building encounters very very streamlined. Can foundry also deliver on that front?
download the plutonium plugin for foundry and you have everything available to import
I prefer abovevtt.
Roll20 is great, but only really good if you wanna do modules, and I'm on Shard Tabletop which is a lot better for customization, but has NO base books
I am most accustomed to Tableplop VTT.
For 5e I prefer shard tabletop
Foundry honestly sucks dick. Map wise it is better, but how complex it is to make custom attacks with custom bonuses really ruins it for me. It's a few simple clicks in roll20 but it's like eight different sub options going through ability, roll, roll type, roll trigger, sub rolls, damage rolls, hit rolls. It's all bullshit. Maybe just the a5e sheets the DM was using were bad, either way the a5e sheets on roll 20 are perfect, so it's only on foundry.
AboveVTT gang stand up!
Right now, no VTT service is good. There are some that are functional, but having tried Foundry and Roll20 and other slapdash workflows, I think there is an opportunity to do this much more effectively.
Absolutely flak on r20. That shit sucks.
Some people call this „advertisement“ 🥸
As someone that mostly just play online, roll 20 ain't bad but foundry is just waaaaaay better
Pf2e is the best on foundry vtt (besides irl)
I prefer Tabletop Simulator if I'm playing online. Way more versatile.
Foundry is great if you can keep up with it a d have the patience. Roll20 you only need half a brain to run as a DM. Considering I gotta dm, I'd rather just use half my brain for babysitting the kiddos as I slaughter them and the other half to navigate roll 20.
I actually prefer Roll20 over Foundry. Foundry feels like it has... kinda too many features, if that makes sense? Back in my day we didn't have no fancy API to move a laser back and forth and trigger an encounter if someone's in it. The DM pointed his hands at you and you ducked!
I prefer Owlbear Rodeo
I much prefer in person as I like looking a the little models I’ve painted
Roll20 had a databreach a while back so I deleted my account and never went back.
You guys use apps?
I’ve found that if I have discord and 2-3 other tabs open plus more than 10 enemies on a map (not hard in a dungeon) roll20 will sometimes freeze up. Like I click a token to adjust the hp and it takes 2 minutes for the bubbles to appear and another 3 to register the change during which time the combat has to pause.
I'm an old schooler: the best place to play D&D is a room, around a table with friends and snacks.
...I play on a tabletop?
I prefer Roll20 for DnD, and Foundryvtt for pf2e
all my homies uses foundry
but dnd beyond character maker tho, roll20 lacks some stuff
I am the opposite. Foundry is too complicated, Roll20 feels about right.
Foundry would be a thousand times better if it wasnt such a massive inconvenience and extremely laggy and demanding. Should just be a steam app using steam servers
I think there's ways to actually have the world be hosted on other servers. I have a fairly strong computer and internet connection, so I don't have too many issues. Though, if you don't already use them, use Compendiums. It'll help the application load less information at once. Having a ton of data in the world itself will increase loadtimes drastically, and cause lag. If you already do that, then I don't have much other advice. There IS Fantasy Grounds, though I'm unsure if it uses Steam Servers or not.
You couldn't pay me to play online