ENWorld Survey: Your VTT of Choice

[LordEntrails]

What's your VTT of choice? | EN World D&D & Tabletop RPG News & Reviews

Interesting to see the discussion. Makes me aware that what I want in a VTT is often very different from what someone else wants.

[Muagen]

I've been trying Foundry out for Imperium Maledictum, since I am simply too dumb to craft an FGU ruleset for myself.

I do not care for the Foundry UI/controls at all. One of my favorite aspects of FGU is its context sensitivity. If I am on an image record and I need to draw on it or measure I am a right click away from that control.

Everything is modes in Foundry. Want to read your map notes? There's a button for that mode. Want to measure distances? There's a button to access that mode. I don't want to have to switch modes in the client to do things, and the lack of a radial menu in Foundry is a pretty major pain. Atop that, the whole image-management system is absolutely silly. It feels like digging around in an Explorer-like window for Linux. I have no beef with Linux, mind you, but when I am GMing something, the last thing I want to have to do is keep changing mindsets in the moment when I'm already improvising narrative/reactions.

The Scene system is silly, as well. Maps are images. Just give me image tools. I don't want to have to functionally change the desktop every time the players move from one map to another. I don't like the Actor system. I have no use for the Permissions system. I don't want to have to create Player accounts/whatever for players to join my client.

A lot of this is probably on me. Maybe I should evolve or die. And I might be being inflexible here. It could just be me getting old-brained and set in my ways, but out of the box, Foundry simply doesn't do what I need it to do. I need it to give me the tools I want when I want them and stay out of the way the rest of the time.

It is a prettier client than FGU. No escaping that. But I also think that with some poking and prodding, SmiteWorks will eventually roll out reskinning tools akin to what Wintermute crafted back in the day.

Reading this back, I suspect I might have become old, cranky, and opinionated, and that's fine, too, I guess. That's my two cents.

[Nick Frost]

I mean, this happens even here. FG being so versatile, there are features I don't care about that other people love (and vice versa).

[Mytherus]

VTT of choice for me is FGU, but in spirit of total honesty and be transparent -- its not that I assume its the ultimate best necessarily. I mean there's tons of VTTs out there in fact I'm sure there some I don't even know exist. But FGU is my choice because it does what I need it to do, and after the years (2025 is my 7th year of using the software and running games with it) I'm comfortable with it. I'm not a professional DM, in fact I'll be the first one to say I've run many games over the years where I was disappointed in myself because I thought I did poorly. But the players keep coming, so I guess I'm doing something right to provide for a fun session. My point with that is I'm a simple guy who just likes TTRPGs as a simple hobby, I have a "real job" that is stressful at times...I don't want to learn all the time just play TTRPGs in my precious spare time.

So I stick with one that does what I need. I also have a lot of money tied up into FGU, dare I say I probably spent $1000 over the years in modules, dice sets, art subs, the ultimate license when I bought was like $130 or something like that , extensions I bought.. and on and on. If you are not a rich person (Hi I'm not a Rich person nice to meet you) you can't just easily walk away from a system you invested time and money like that into and have no qualms about it.

I have Foundry I've tried Roll20 (barely tried it I might add, and that was 7 years ago before I discovered Fantasy Grounds) Foundry is gorgeous, but trying to learn how to customize and setup games I find frustrating, I also loathe their lack of OFFICIAL support for many game systems. Foundry to me anyway feels a lot like "so here's our VTT -- now figure it out yourself".


I ain't got the inclination to dump that kind of free time into something I just enjoy as a hobby one or two nights a week.

So FGU it is for me.

Here's my likes and dislikes, and I don't really seek anyone's agreement and I don't really care for anyone's disagreement these are my views of the system raw honesty.

Good things

I like how its organized --- and how you can easily edit the story entry link things (ie. In a story I put a map link and an encounter link...its easy its fast and it works)

I how how its supported -- This is probably one the greatest strengths to Fantasy Grounds if not *THE* greatest strength , the community behind it and the company support. Its fantastic. People practically jump to answer questions, the head dogs of the company even post sometimes to answer questions. In an age where frankly a lot of Customer service sucks, the service Smiteworks and the community as a collective whole show its fellow customers is definitely a level that stands out above.

I like how it officially supports a great many TTRPS -- this isn't a small thing, I mean you buy a VTT because you like playing TTRPGs, its kind of big deal that investment SUPPORTS many different rulesets no? More bang for your buck.

D&D 5th edition support. Ok I admit my favorite and by an enormous margin, most played ruleset on FGU is D&D 5th edition. All the browsing of websites I've done all the ads I've read for other VTTs, I've not found one that has more "stuff" both community created and official content from Wotc for D&D 5th edition.

Finally...its the automation stupid! Not a lot of explaining needed here FGU and its automation is fantastic. I mostly DM, I like telling story and explaining the world so players can react more than anything else about being a DM, so the automation is nice -- it helps me focus more on the story telling / world building more than anything else.

The "Bad" or Frustrating Side to FGU

All the modules and all the rulesets , extensions, etc. are nice but there's a cost --- lots of errors and things seem to always need to be fixed particularly after an FGU update.

The above flows in my next thing -- The system being updated/patched is nice...but since it almost always breaks something (however small at times) , it does get annoying how OFTEN the game is patched. Multiple times a week is annoying. Especially on Fridays. Like seriously you guys update on Fridays?! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I'd bet a large number of players game Fri-Sat-Sun.

Finally -- performance. Performance in FGU sometimes is terrible, painful even. The painful times are admittedly few and far between, but they happen. Now that said a lot of times the culprit may be extensions, but sorry its the way business works -- your product will get blamed for stuff made to run with your product...if its sound at a store you support (FG Forge). So maybe have a certification program or something and any dev that ones to sell extensions for FGU on an official Smiteworks / FGU store needs to have quality testing standards met or something that are in line with the updates.

Pre-emptive reply for the "That already happens" ...well its not good enough! Stuff breaks, stuff slows down the VTT TOO OFTEN and sometimes for weeks before its fixed.

So that's the bad.

Either way, I like more about FGU than stuff I don't like. I'm invested. Time and Money. So I'm here for a while still. Lord willing of course.

[Lazybones1969]

I've only used Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds; the latter has been my VTT of choice for the last six years or so. My impression of FGU is that the learning curve is steep, but it's a powerful engine for the advanced user. I appreciated the addition of lighting and LOS, and the awesome drawing/mapmaking tools; really all I'd want to see moving forward is a few of the top-ranked items on the public wish list implemented and a bit more stability for the base engine. I think the automation has come a long way, especially with the character builder, but it seems like it should be possible to place a fireball on the map and have it target everyone in its radius, or drop a potion of healing onto a character sheet and have it just work. The community has been great creating extensions that add functionality to the game, but I've had so many issues with them being broken with updates they're almost more trouble than they're worth.

I think Project Sigil is a potential gamechanger, since it will be built directly into the D&D Beyond/WotC ecosystem. From what I've seen so far it looks like they have a ways to go to catch up to what FGU has now. I know 3D is the new "hotness," but unless it has a super-easy way to make maps I don't see it becoming the first choice for homebrewers. Plus I would not be surprised if Hasbro screwed it up somehow with microtransactions or some other feature that alienates the community.

[Nick Frost]

What I find tiring of "VTT discussion" is a lot of people commenting stuff like:

"XXX is amazing! If you press 'a' on your keyboard a letter 'a' shows up on your screen! This revolutionary feature has never been accomplished by any piece of software in history!"

[Pharoid]

That's a very small sampling. I don't think its accurate at all. In what world would fgu (or any VTT) be almost tied with Roll20? I'd expect Roll20 first, then FGU and Foundry to whatever degree, then the rest. :-) right? Roll20 catches the casual users and sometimes holds on to them. FGU and Foundry are advanced enough that it typically boils down to whichever you learned first or your buddy talked you into learning first. :-) Its all about "free". If foundry or FGU had a crippled free version then they'd be right in there too eventually.

and it should only ask GM's. A players experience on any VTT is heavily influenced by the GM's expertise. A good GM can take a lot of the complexity out of a new players experience by doing stuff for them until (if ever) they get the hang of it. It makes the GM'ing harder, but for some less tech savvy players, its totally worth it!

[LordEntrails]

Of course it's not accurate. It's a sampling of ENWorld frequenters. My experience there is it sway heavily towards GM/DMs who are rules heavy and like lots of crunch. These are the folks that have over 1000 posts about orcs and drow not being in the 2024 MM. I would 100% expect that group to weigh heavily towards Foundry. Then you have a large contingent of folks that don't think they should have to pay to play RPGs, hence the Roll20 crowd. And then the group that begrudgingly uses a VTT cause they have to but don't want it to do more than it has to, maps and tokens, hence the Owlbear Rodeo group.

TLDR; for that audience, about exactly what I would expect.