Foundry VTT Year in Review 2026: Most Popular Game Systems

[plecostomus]

The Foundry VTT software devs create a Year in Review blog annually. Here's the one for 2026:

Year in Review: Sixth Anniversary Edition | Foundry Virtual Tabletop

A detailed and thoughtful look back at the 2025-2026 year as well as a look ahead at big things to come.

foundryvtt.com

Starting in 2024, the Year in Review began including usage statistics for game systems. I find these numbers pretty interesting. Please see my notes below on Foundry's userbase. These users do not represent all GMs or players.

2026 Top 20 Game Systems

The heartbeat of gameplay on Foundry VTT are the exceptional game systems that you, our community of developers, have created for the platform. We have 475 approved game systems on the platform, growth of +30% since this time last year. Of these 475 approved systems, 144 are already advertised as Version 14 compatible.

The following table reports game systems ordered by which were the most-played over the past year, defined as the system used by the game world that had the largest amount of playtime for each user. We also report the percentage of users who have each system installed. The "Change" column is the change in most-played order since this time last year.

Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
2024 was Foundry VTT's first year with an official Dungeons & Dragons game system. Because of the extremely recent partnership with D&D, Foundry VTT only has the SRD content + Tasha's/Tomb of Annihilation/Phandelver for the 2014 ruleset, and otherwise focuses on releasing 5.5 books.

Despite this, 2014 and 5.5 usage numbers are combined as "Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition". When you download the system, you automatically receive the SRD content for both rulesets.

D&D was installed by 66.5% of users in the 2024 Year in Review, and 64.3% of users in the 2025 Year in Review.

Major new systems

• Daggerheart (#9) had a license-based (non-official) implementation added about 9 months ago. Several fanmade implementations existed before that.
  • "[The Foundry VTT system] is not associated with Critical Role or Darrington Press, but is made possible thanks to the Darrington Press Community Gaming License."
• Cosmere RPG (#19) was added around 9 months ago.
• Draw Steel (#27) was added around 14 months ago.

Notes on FoundryVTT if you are unfamiliar with the software

• "Users" are people who paid $50 to buy the Foundry VTT software, so primarily GMs. Players join through a browser and do not download any software.
• Foundry VTT is an extremely complex software with a steep learning curve. Owlbear Rodeo or DNDB Maps it is not.
  • Foundry does have a 30-day refund policy, so if someone still owns the software they probably navigated their way through the early stages of learning to use it.
• A specific user number is not given, but "Foundry VTT has a lot of users, so even a fraction of a percentage point represents a significant number of people for whom each of these game systems is their absolute favorite!"
• Foundry VTT does not support mobile platforms at this time.
• Some add-ons can make battlemaps usable for in-person games, but I would not be shocked if the majority of Foundry games are played entirely online.
• The typical Foundry user does not purchase any premium content such as the D&D 5.5 PHB ("the typical (median) user has 1 game system installed, 19 modules installed, and does not own any premium content").
  • Modules are unofficial add-ons. A popular one is Dice So Nice, which adds 3D dice to the screen. Some modules must be purchased or require Patreon subscriptions, but most are free.

A Top 30 game systems list can be found at the link above, but you have to scroll down quite a bit.

 

[SteveC]

A thing to note is that Foundry is currently having a sale, so you can get the base system for 20% off. There are sales on some premium content as well. So if you're interested, now is a good time to pick it up. The next sale is typically around Black Friday, so it will likely be a while.

I use Foundry myself, and would be happy to answer questions about it. My other experience is with Fantasy Grounds and Roll20, so I can offer you a comparison.

 

[aramis erak]

Major new systems

• Daggerheart (#9) had an official implementation added about 9 months ago. Several fanmade implementations existed before that.

according to both the installer and the publisher, there is still no official DH module.
The Foundryheart one looks official, but isn't - yet. It is full SRD...

from Daggerheart Tabletop RPG | FAQs today:

Which virtual tabletops (VTTs) support Daggerheart?

Currently, you can play Daggerheart through Demiplane and Roll20, which are our official virtual partners for Daggerheart. Additionally, there is a whitelisted group of VTTs useable with the Darrington Press Community Gaming License and the Daggerheart SRD.

 

[plecostomus]

according to both the installer and the publisher, there is still no official DH module.
The Foundryheart one looks official, but isn't - yet. It is full SRD...

from Daggerheart Tabletop RPG | FAQs today:

Oh, apologies. I edited the entry with the text from the Daggerheart system page.

 

[aramis erak]

Oh, apologies. I edited the entry with the text from the Daggerheart system page.

Yeah, Foundryborne is whitelisted - which is semi-official - but lacks the campaign frames and their specific elements. And it's freaking awesome. (I ran a 5 month DH campaign with it.) It's one of the two Foundry offers up when you put in Daggerheart...

 

[Thomas Shey]

I do wonder how much of the popularity in some cases is because a number of those game system at least benefit strongly from a battleboard in play? (Though there are obvious exceptions).

 

[CommodoreKong]

Daggerheart being 9 and Draw Steel being 27 despite the games coming out part way through the year is super impressive.

 

[aramis erak]

Daggerheart being 9 and Draw Steel being 27 despite the games coming out part way through the year is super impressive.

Daggerheart rocks, especially if you use the tactical options, and Foundryheart supports them beautifully.

 

[djotaku]

My thoughts on the stats:

• D&D - I'm both surprised and unsurprised that D&D beats Pathfinder. Surprised because Pathfinder is 100% available on Foundry for free while D&D you need to buy the PHB and MM if you want all the classes and monsters without having to homebrew. Also surprised because dndbeyond exists and has WAY MORE 3rd party content than on Foundry. Unsurprised because for new folks to the hobby TTRPG == D&D
• PF2e - unsurprised it's this high. See first bullet on why I'm surprised it's not higher
• Daggerheart - this could be temporary. I've been spending a lot of time on the DH subreddit and the Foundrybourne Devs are burnt out. They really want to have an ability to be the foundation for an official module. ALSO the way DH's SRD is written, people can't make money on 3rd party VTT work which is causing people to get really mad
• Cosmere - I've been running the official Stonewalkers campaign on Foundry and the devs hired by Brotherwise (the licensees of Cosmere TTRPG from Sanderson's Dragonsteel) have done an amazing job on the conversion. They do a great job making use of Foundry features - more than I've seen in some other systems.
• Draw Steel - I'm actually shocked, considering MCDM has their own VTT (Codex) that is supposed to be custom-tailored the particulars of the system.
• Black Flag - my main system is Tales of the Valiant, so I'm sad it didn't make the top 20. However, I'm not surprised. While I really like the work they do and I continue to support Kobold Press, Foundry is NOT their preferred VTT. Shard gets all VTT content for ALL their books. Their work for foundry is also VERY behind. We JUST got the Monster Vault 2 module when it came out last year. Player's Guide 2 (which will probably need some key changes to the underlying Black Flag system) came out in January and we don't' have that yet. I believe KP only plays for one or two contractors to do the work and with Foundry coming out with a new version every year, they just can't keep up. (A lot of their dnd5e modules are still on Foundry v12)

The typical Foundry user does not purchase any premium content such as the D&D 5.5 PHB ("the typical (median) user has 1 game system installed, 19 modules installed, and does not own any premium content").

I didn't realize I was such a mother freakin' unicorn when it comes to Foundry. (Also, I wonder if this will change now that they finally have a marketplace - I think it's around 1 year old?) I have the following "premium" modules:

• D&D 5.5 PHB
• D&D 5.5 MM
• Tales of the Valiant Player Guide
• ToV Monster Vault 1
• Tov Monster Vault 2
• Tov Labyrinth Worldbook
• ToV Labyrinth Adventures
• ToV The Old Margreve
• Tov Dungeons and Ruins
• Tov Player's Guide 2 (to be delivered)
• ToV Game Master Guide
• Cosmere Stormlight Handbook
• Cosmere Stonewalkers Campaign
• Cosmere Mistborn Handbook (to be delivered)
• Cosmere Mistborn Campaign (to be delivered)
• Pathfinder 2e Beginner Box - Troubles in Otari (or something like that - the original beginner box, not the one that just came out)
• Pathfinder 2e - Sky King's Tomb (or something like that... I don't remember)

And I'd like to buy:

• Starfinder 2e Murder in Metal City - in fact I'll probably buy it later today since it's on sale
• Starfinder alien core - all the stuff is included for free in the SF2e system, but this is the art and it helps supposed Paizo, so why not?
• Pathfinder 2e mosnter core - same as previous bullet

Now, to be honest for the 5es - D&D and Tales of the Valiant - I bought them because that's how you get the stuff that's beyond the SRD. It'd be awesome if I could just do like Paizo and pay for art if I wanted to support them and/or pay for adventure paths. But for me it's worth it because I don't feel like spending time homebrewing classes and subclasses into the system. Back when I was on dndbeyond, that was a big limiter to my using 3rd party stuff that wasn't on the platform. If you're playing pen/paper it's frictionless to use a subclass you bought on rpgdrivethru - just do the math. But in a VTT, if you want the math to work you need to properly create the classes and that's more work than I want to put in. And I know we make time for the hobbies we value, but I just have too much other stuff going on in my life to spend to homebrew in those things into Foundry

 

[Rabulias]

• Also surprised because dndbeyond exists and has WAY MORE 3rd party content than on Foundry.

The D&D Beyond Importer module for Foundry allows you to import many elements from books you have purchased on DDB. You do have to pay $4.50/month on the module creator's Patreon to import monsters, but once you import them you can keep them in Foundry, even if you unsubscribe on Patreon. You just don't get updates.