SmiteWorks Hires D&D Beyond Founder as Chief Development Officer of Fantasy Grounds

SmiteWorks, owner of the Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop, announced today that they hired Adam Bradford as their Chief Development Officer. Bradford was the founder of D&D Beyond, before leaving to join Demiplane, a generic D&D Beyond-style platform aimed at some game systems.

SmiteWorks USA, LLC, the developer behind the leading virtual tabletop software, Fantasy Grounds, is excited to announce the appointment of Adam Bradford as its new Chief Development Officer (CDO). Adam Bradford, a prominent figure in the tabletop gaming industry, brings a wealth of experience and expertise that will be instrumental in driving the company’s growth and innovation.

Adam Bradford is well-known for his pioneering work in the digital gaming space. He founded D&D Beyond, a digital toolset that transformed the way Dungeons & Dragons is played. Under his leadership, D&D Beyond experienced significant growth and was eventually acquired by Hasbro. Following this success, Adam joined Demiplane, another online tabletop roleplaying game company, where he led the development for a digital tools platform for a variety of other games, further cementing his reputation as a visionary in the industry.

In his new role at SmiteWorks, Adam will focus on expanding Fantasy Grounds’ market presence, enhancing user engagement, and user experience. He will oversee strategic initiatives across product development, business development, marketing, community engagement, and user acquisition. Adam’s innovative approach and proven track record make him an ideal fit for SmiteWorks as the company continues to push the boundaries of digital tabletop gaming.

"We are thrilled to welcome Adam Bradford to the SmiteWorks team," said Doug Davison, President of SmiteWorks USA, LLC. "Adam's expertise and vision will be invaluable as we work to grow Fantasy Grounds and provide our users with the best possible tabletop gaming experience. We have a lot of great things in the works for Fantasy Grounds and we believe Adam is the perfect addition to help us achieve our goals."

Adam Bradford expressed his enthusiasm for joining SmiteWorks, stating, "I am incredibly excited to be joining SmiteWorks and to have the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing success of Fantasy Grounds. The virtual tabletop space is evolving rapidly to make playing these games we love more convenient than ever, and I look forward to working with the outstanding team at SmiteWorks to continue driving innovation and growth in the tabletop roleplaying space."[/callout[]

 

[MNblockhead]

Good news and will definitely have me looking at Fantasy Grounds again. Unlike many, I never minded the GUI. The learning curve felt steeper than other tools but I was willing to make the effort for the automation-features FG offered. What made me not go forward with FG was being overseas while most of my players were in the US. I could never get the hosting to work work. Roll20 and hosting Foundry with The Forge just made running games internationally so much easier. I know my issue is one that is likely shared by only a very small number of potential customers, but making it easy to host games is something that I think has drawn many to Roll20. Even Foundry wouldn't be doing as well as it is w/o hosting services like The Forge in my opinion.

But I've always been jealous of the ability of FG GMs to automate and having the best of both worlds of (1) being able to buy professionally well prepped material and also (2) being able to home brew.

Really looking forward to and will be following FG developments.

 

[sevenbastard]

Just random consumer insight I loved Maptolls, but moved to Roll20 for ease of hosting games and low barrier of entry. I don't love it, but it's just easy enough and free makes it's hard to quit.

Its like frozen pizza. It's never great but it's just enough to get the job done and takes little effort.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

It's going to be hard to beat roll20

As a long time user of R20, I do not agree with this statement.

 

[Faith Elisabeth Lilley]

If you're saying there's going to be a Disco Wizard Easter egg, you've just made a sale, sir.

At this point, every VTT should have a Disco Wizard Easter egg - just my thoughts.

 

[humble minion]

Unlike many, I never minded the GUI.

I would cheerfully commit murder (of someone i already didn't like much, at least) if it meant that FG had the ability to pop out stuff like the character sheet into their own windows outside the rest of the UI.

 

[Hussar]

I would cheerfully commit murder (of someone i already didn't like much, at least) if it meant that FG had the ability to pop out stuff like the character sheet into their own windows outside the rest of the UI.

Or even be able to lock windows into place so that you'Re not constantly picking up the whole window when you try to pick up a die roll.

 

[Nylanfs]

An update to the UI is basically the only thing preventing me from using Fantasy Grounds. Players are often turned off by it so I often need to use lesser VTTs with more attractive UIs just so they agree to play in them.

You're the GM, they have to conform to you. ;D

 

[Nylanfs]

I would cheerfully commit murder (of someone i already didn't like much, at least) if it meant that FG had the ability to pop out stuff like the character sheet into their own windows outside the rest of the UI.

The problem with that is that making new windows like that are very complicated programming wise I understand. There's very few programs out there that do this (AFAIK).

 

[Nylanfs]

Good news and will definitely have me looking at Fantasy Grounds again. Unlike many, I never minded the GUI. The learning curve felt steeper than other tools but I was willing to make the effort for the automation-features FG offered. What made me not go forward with FG was being overseas while most of my players were in the US. I could never get the hosting to work work. Roll20 and hosting Foundry with The Forge just made running games internationally so much easier. I know my issue is one that is likely shared by only a very small number of potential customers, but making it easy to host games is something that I think has drawn many to Roll20. Even Foundry wouldn't be doing as well as it is w/o hosting services like The Forge in my opinion.

But I've always been jealous of the ability of FG GMs to automate and having the best of both worlds of (1) being able to buy professionally well prepped material and also (2) being able to home brew.

Really looking forward to and will be following FG developments.

Yea the port forwarding (for non-users of xbox, whom have always had to do this) was a bit confusing to get. The cloud brokered connection system they came up with for the Unity version solves a lot of these problems.

 

[humble minion]

The problem with that is that making new windows like that are very complicated programming wise I understand. There's very few programs out there that do this (AFAIK).

I suspect that this is not a capability that's THAT hard to do. It's far from uncommon. The difficulty, I suspect, will be in the FG legacy code, windowing toolkit/library etc etc. It can be much harder to retrofit capabilities like that onto an old app than it is to build a new app from the ground up that supports it.