Best Virtual Tabletop

[Zaukrie]

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

Agreed. Or Above VTT if you use DNDBEyond.

 

[Celebrim]

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

That's a new name. Thinks for the tip.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

This hardly seems like a great difficulty; I've been doing that with Maptool for years and I'm an old man with distinctly limited technical skills.

 

[Celebrim]

So right now I'm trying to decide between Foundry and Fantasy Grounds.

1) Foundry:

Pros: Cheap (~$50) but seems to support the feature set I need in a way the even cheaper products don't. Self-hosting so I don't lose the product if the company folds.
Cons: Self hosting. Doesn't seem to be a decent way to demo features so have to pay for it and hope it works for me.

2) Fantasy Grounds

Pros: Extensive features and support. Hosting built in. Some people claim its hard to modify and difficult to learn to use.
Cons: Extremely expensive (~$149.00), but can buy a cheap monthly subscription to dabble with it to see if I like it before investing heavily.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

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

It still is but they have begun adding some quality of life improvements. It is easier to copy in text from a pdf, though I would still recommend striping out the punctuation in a text editor first. Character generation has improved a lot. Documentation on the wiki seems to have caught up with effects implementation.
I like it, and think it is good but it is not easy to get the full use out of it initially. I am hopeful that they will modernise the UI sometime soon.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

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.

I have only ever used Roll20 and FantasyGrounds in actual play. I did much about with Maptool; years ago but decided initially to use Roll20 and stitched to FantasyGround when it supported 5e. I did not like Roll20 at the time, though it has improved.
Roll20 will do what you want, and many other systems will as will.
FantasyGrounds strength, in my opinion, is the campaign management tools and the Combat tracker.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Doesn't seem to be a decent way to demo features so have to pay for it and hope it works for me.

If you can put off this decision until August, sign up for GenCon Online and play a few games. 99% of the games use VTTs and every year, it's like a product demo (some are literally product demos by the companies). I was dazzled by Foundry last year, playing (AT LAST!) the Alien RPG through it.

 

[Celebrim]

If you can put off this decision until August, sign up for GenCon Online and play a few games. 99% of the games use VTTs and every year, it's like a product demo (some are literally product demos by the companies). I was dazzled by Foundry last year, playing (AT LAST!) the Alien RPG through it.

I don't think I can hold off until August, but that's still an awesome idea.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

So right now I'm trying to decide between Foundry and Fantasy Grounds.

1) Foundry:

Pros: Cheap (~$50) but seems to support the feature set I need in a way the even cheaper products don't. Self-hosting so I don't lose the product if the company folds.
Cons: Self hosting. Doesn't seem to be a decent way to demo features so have to pay for it and hope it works for me.

2) Fantasy Grounds

Pros: Extensive features and support. Hosting built in. Some people claim its hard to modify and difficult to learn to use.
Cons: Extremely expensive (~$149.00), but can buy a cheap monthly subscription to dabble with it to see if I like it before investing heavily.

The UI in FantasyGrounds is quirky to say the least but the basics are simple enough.
This guy Zacchaeus is the best place to find some easy to follow in fairly short videos. If you dabble in a subscription dabble at the Ultimate level that way the players need not buy a version of the game and can connect with the demo version.
The big plus in my opinion is that you can storyboard your campaign as linked story windows and have links to the maps, and encounters.
You can create encounters by drag and drop. You have the Notes to share information with players.
There are a fair range of custom powers and effect you can create to customise things.
You can bypass the automation if you want and your house rules need it.
If you want to play with it on your own you can run the server locally on your machine and run a second instance as a player and connect to it.

 

[Mageman]

Fantasy grounds has 3 months free trial for ultimate now.

Fantasy Grounds Unity Discounted Fantasy Grounds Game Day Subscription

www.fantasygrounds.com