Foundry VTT?

#1

I prefer PbtA games, but every so often I get the urge to try something like Wrath and Glory or Forbidden Lands. I wondered if many people had a majority negative experiences with Foundry? I haven’t ponied up for it, and was about to, but a player and a good friend said that the experience was enough to make him want to strangle its creators. Admittedly, this player is a little non-technical, but I searched around for reviews and could mostly only find positive reactions.

I was hoping to ask a wider selection of people to see if maybe it would be okay to at least test out (obviously not with that player as it would send him into paroxysms of rage, apparently). I’m thinking, even if the client-server setup is problematic, I could at least use that VTT and share my screen to do a lot of the heavy lifting of those less narrative and more “rules heavy” systems.

I’m not a huge fan of Roll20, personally, and though I like the direction that PlayRole and Owlbear Rodeo are going, they’re still very nascent, and don’t have the modules for these more trad systems like Wrath and Glory, The One Ring and Forbidden Lands.

4 Likes
#2

I don’t know, but I’m also curious.

1 Like
#3

I haven’t dabbled in it, but everything I’ve heard people say about Foundry made it sound like way too much work for me to set up. But apparently it’s really good if you get through the setup process or if someone has already done it for the game you want to play.

2 Likes
#4

For me, Roll20 has “enough” features for our group’s middle ground between theater of the mind (art and setting pictures) and general positioning on maps and diagrams (using ’fog of war’ and not much else). We use their simple dice roller. Then we use the Google Sheets from The Gauntlet community to track other stuff.
Maybe there is more value for the connections and features for Foundry with a more trad game? But you probably could have just as much success with not as much of a “heavy lift” using some more approachable tools.

2 Likes
#5

Okay-- doesn’t sound like it’s worth the price of admission (either financially or in time & effort). I think I’d rather just play a story-focused game and just evoke the core themes of the settings rather than muck about with stuff that costs moulah.

Since I posted this thread, a friend has churned out some PbtA rules from ChatGPT for WH40K that look more than passable.

2 Likes
#6

In general, Foundry is MORE work than Roll20 to setup. That said. It’s more customizable and the rules lookup is GREAT with prebuilt modules. I Use it with Mutant Year 0 rulesets but generally I prefer Playrole

2 Likes