Best Virtual Tabletop

[Thomas Shey]

And that's a great reason. The other thing that has me seriously considering a foundry purchase is that only the person hosting the game has to shell out for Foundry (your players can connect to your server for free).

Yeah, that doesn't hurt, either.

 

[Rabulias]

FYI @Celebrim Foundry VTT will be having their anniversary sale May 19 through 29. I don't know how much it will be discounted, but it might be a good time to buy it.

 

[Mageman]

I have played online since 2013. I have many hours in roll20, fantasy grounds and Foundry.
Currently I know use fantasy grounds and Foundry. Roll20 I would never use anymore. It's too outdated.
Foundry is nice but it's just a prettier roll20.
Nothing compares to fantasy grounds. Nothing is as easy to use and simple. It's incredibly easy to run right off the bat. It's like going through a story book clicking pages and automatically setting encounters . The combat tracker is the best hands down. Even for my in person games I always use the fantasy grounds combat tracker. If you want I can demo you fantasy grounds.
I play 5e, CoC, C&C, SF2, PF2 and Aliens on fantasy grounds.
I play 5e, Aliens, PF2 and SF2 on foundry.
If you play 5e, PF2 or Aliens nothing compares to the build in character builders on fantasy grounds. You have to pay for foundry ones that aren't as good.

 

[Celebrim]

I have played online since 2013. I have many hours in roll20, fantasy grounds and Foundry.
Currently I know use fantasy grounds and Foundry. Roll20 I would never use anymore. It's too outdated.
Foundry is nice but it's just a prettier roll20.
Nothing compares to fantasy grounds. Nothing is as easy to use and simple. It's incredibly easy to run right off the bat. It's like going through a story book clicking pages and automatically setting encounters . The combat tracker is the best hands down. Even for my in person games I always use the fantasy grounds combat tracker. If you want I can demo you fantasy grounds.
I play 5e, CoC, C&C, SF2, PF2 and Aliens on fantasy grounds.
I play 5e, Aliens, PF2 and SF2 on foundry.
If you play 5e, PF2 or Aliens nothing compares to the build in character builders on fantasy grounds. You have to pay for foundry ones that aren't as good.

That's a strong endorsement but as I will be playing with house rules I'm really not interested in character builders or rules automation.

What I want is an easy to set up virtual battlemat. I need to be able to create a map with complex features like togglable doors quickly. Can you speak to your experience with the two in setting up large dungeons using tile sets?

 

[MNblockhead]

I have played online since 2013. I have many hours in roll20, fantasy grounds and Foundry.
Currently I know use fantasy grounds and Foundry. Roll20 I would never use anymore. It's too outdated.
Foundry is nice but it's just a prettier roll20.
Nothing compares to fantasy grounds. Nothing is as easy to use and simple. It's incredibly easy to run right off the bat. It's like going through a story book clicking pages and automatically setting encounters . The combat tracker is the best hands down. Even for my in person games I always use the fantasy grounds combat tracker. If you want I can demo you fantasy grounds.
I play 5e, CoC, C&C, SF2, PF2 and Aliens on fantasy grounds.
I play 5e, Aliens, PF2 and SF2 on foundry.
If you play 5e, PF2 or Aliens nothing compares to the build in character builders on fantasy grounds. You have to pay for foundry ones that aren't as good.

If I continue to play 5e after my current campaign, I might take another look at FG and see if the game host servers have improved for overseas users, which was the deal killer for me when I looked into it a few years ago (right about when the Unity version came out). But I'll also be waiting to see how good the official WotC version is.

One quibble with your post however is that I think saying that Foundry is just a "prettier roll20" doesn't hit the mark.

Foundry's great strength, is its customizability. No other VTT on the market that I'm aware of comes close to Foundry's modding community. You can do some amazing things with Foundry that are far ahead of what I see on other VTTs.

But that is also a turn-off for some users. To really get the most out of Foundry you need to be a bit technical and it is best to enjoy modding and playing around with the system. It is almost a hobby onto itsself, which is going to turn off many people who "just want it to work".

It seems that currently, the best VTT to "just run" D&D out of the box if you want the official content and have automation features is Fantasy Grounds. That said, I found FG to have a fairly high learning curve--especially if you want to enter your own content--and I had lots of issues hosting games.

I don't feel any VTT has hit the spot for making a pleasant and simple to use system. I think it will be difficult for any generalist VTT to do so. If WotC does a good job with their VTT, custom-built for D&D and solves the learning curve and "this feels like work" problems, I think it will pull many if not most players of the current edition of D&D away from the other VTTs.

 

[Mageman]

Fantasy grounds is far easier. It has a built in map creation tool or you can import any picture. The next set is you drop an encounter pin. Most rule sets have an automatic encounter generator also. You can easily do it manually. Just drag the monsters you want on the encounter and then you their tokens to the map. When you want to run the encounter you click on the encounter pin on the map and it automatically adds it to your combat tracker.

@MNblockhead I said it's a prettier roll20 because they are both require programming with macros and HTML. They are literally the same type of program.

Fantasy grounds does not need port forwarding anymore. You can to LAN, direct connect or their free server.
Foundry most people have to pay for a server to run their games on and if not you have to port forward.

I can demo fantasy grounds for anyone that is interested.

I still play in three weekly games on foundry. I don't enjoy DMing on it because the prep is vastly longer then fantasy grounds.

I DM all my games on fantasy grounds because I don't have time to search for macros or some mod someone made. I want my game to run smooth right off the bat.

 

[Mageman]

@Celebrim fantasy grounds you can add house rules or change any aspect of the character builders. What every rule set you want you can build you characters and then modify with just clicking the edit button.
Another amazing feature is everything is linked to the products. So it you click on a spell or ability it opens that information. Same with monster or equipment. Foundry and roll20 do not have that.

Also fantasy grounds is officially licensed by wizards of the coast. Foundry is not. So you will never get the same polish or support.

 

[Mageman]

Also do not take my word for it. Try them both out for free. Hop on warhorn.net and get in a one shot game to see them both.

 

[Zaukrie]

Unless FG has changed a lot, that interface is like being stuck in 1980.......

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I honestly don't know what I want because I've never used a virtual table top. Mostly I want to be able to quickly translate pen and paper maps to tiles and store those digital maps. I want a grid that supports tokens of various sizes including non-symmetric sizes. Everything after that is mostly bonus. Ideally, I've heard good things about support for fog of war, so I'd like some sort of automatic lighting scheme around the player tokens that respects line of sight.

That's a pretty simple feature set. Before dropping real cash on a VTT, I would try Owlbear Rodeo for free.