Help me choose a VTT

[Nilbog]

Hi all

So I'm not totally new to the world's of VTTs, however I'm looking for people's opinions on which might best suit me.

Prior to the CV-19 lockdown our face to face game of which I am DM is a pathfinder 2e campaign and we used the setup of using a horizontal TV to display battlemaps on, which physical miniatures were placed on top of. This was done via me using an iPad pro running a DM instance of roll20 and a laptop hooked up to the TV running a player instance, and by the by it worked.

When the lockdown hit, we like many others moved online and because of the lack of roll20 support for pf2e I started a new 5e campaign using the same roll20 account, and again this has been fine.

Now, I'm doing some forward planning for my face to face game, and although I don't anticipate it happening anytime soon, I'd like to be ready for when it does. The problem is I'm only a basic subscriber to roll20 and I'm hitting hard limits about what I can upload. So before I shell out for the premium account, I was wondering if there are any more suitable options out there for my setup so:

• Must work on both iPad and pc, so likely browser based
• Ease of map creation (including the ability to import graphic files) is the priority, I'd like something fairly, flexible, intuitive and preferably once the basics have been mastered quite powerful. Animated elements would be a really big bonus
• Dynamic lighting isn't that important as we don't use tokens, but I would like fog of war
• Ruleset integration not needed, it won't be used for anything other than showing battlemaps, all character sheets etc will be outside the software
• Would only need a DM and one player license
• Touchscreen friendly, because I DM on the iPad I'd like it to play well with the iOS touchscreen, something I've found a bit fiddly with roll20

So it maybe upgrading roll20 is the best option, but I'd be happy to know if there is anything out there that would fit my needs better.

 

[MNblockhead]

I've spend a lot of time testing different VTTs this past year, especially in the past few months. Some other things I need to know before making any recommendations.

1. These are your requirements NOW. But eventually you'll be running games in person. Do you want a VTT thats as good for in-person games as it is for remote, on-line games?

2. Do you need to work on the game when you don't have Internet?

3. Do you only care about the battlemap and tokens or do you want to have more advanced automations, character sheets, access to the rules, ability to have all adventure content in the system?

4. Do you want to use it for systems other than Pathfinder 2e or is that the only system you intend to run on the VTT?

5. Are you a heavily prep DM or do you like to do things on the fly? Is your campaign more sandboxy or railroady? Do you need the ability to quickly find and throw up a map and monster tokens in the middle of the game or do you expect to have everything prepped in advance?

6. Do you prefer to run official material (e.g. Paizo APs for Pathfinder) or do you do mostly homebrew?

 

[MNblockhead]

If it helps you, here is what I've recently decided on and why.

I have experience with Map Tool, Fantasy Ground, d20pro, Astral VTT, Roll20, and The Foundry.

For a while now, for the games I run, I've run them in Map Tool. Even when I had the Fantasy Ground Unity Ultimate subscription at $10 per month, I never ran a game in it and continued to use Map Tool. Same with Roll20, loved being a player in Roll20 games, but never got further than experimenting with it as a subscriber. Never bothered to run a game in it.

My MUST HAVES:

1. Ability to QUICKLY pull up a map and run it without any prep.
2. Ability to deal with (navigate, filter, and load) larger images, hundreds of maps, hundreds of tokens.
3. Ability to use for in-person games
4. Ability to use off-line
5. Ability to have basic fog-of-war with ability to manually reveal areas to players
6. Area-of-effect templates

My STRONG WANTS

1. I don't want my players to have to download and install software.
2. I would like to have the advanced lighting, fog of war auto-reveal through player token movement, and line of sight features -- but NOT HAVE to use them
3. Support for automating aspects of combat
4. Ability to import character sheets from D&D Beyond
5. Ability to run games online with players moving their own tokens.
6. Support for multiple systems and ability to purchase published content

After spending a lot of time and some money testing most of the major products, I am not using The Foundry, hosted on The Forge.

With some third-party modules enabled, the Foundry best meets all my must-haves and wants.

The software is $50. You can install it on more than one machine, but only run games from one instance per license. You can run games from your local PC if you are comfortable with configuring port forwarding on your router and have a good Internet connect. You can host it yourself on your own server via AWS, Azure, or other hosting service if you are comfortable with setting up a Linux server. I ended up deciding that managing my own AWS server for this was too much like work and I ended up hosting it on The Forge.

What makes The Foundry amazing is how it is designed to support developers creating modules to expand on its core functionality. You can customize it to make it work how you want it. Through a module, I can bring D&D Beyond character sheets, monsters, spells, and items into it. Through another module I can integrate with with World Anvil. With the Simple Fog module I can simply load a map with fog applied and use drawing tools to remove fog as the players explore. This is how I've been using Map Tool and allows me to use it with a very sandboxy campaign where players may go somewhere that I don't have maps and monsters prepped for in the VTT.

I can have the full, advanced VTT experience with lighting, line of sight, weather effects, etc. Or just throw up a map on the fly.

The 5e system support is not as advanced as Fantasy Grounds. But the combat tracker, character sheets, ability to import from D&D Beyond, meet my needs. And there is a very active community of modders who keep improving on the experience.

Whether running it from your local PC or a server, your players only need a Web browser to access. No need for them to download anything.

While I'm running it from a server. I also have it installed on my PC. If I ever need to I can run locally and off line.

While I'm a convert to The Foundry, its very customizability made it a more complex to get started with than other tools. If you don't want to bother with hosting it yourself, then you have to deal with two purchases. A one-time purchase from the developer for the software and subscription to whatever hosting server you select.

As for the other systems, my recommendations are:

Fantasy Grounds - if you want full support for official WotC content with everything prepped and automated. High learning curve and a love it or hate it interface. I really wanted to love it but Fantasy Ground Unity kept hanging an crashing on me. I could never get FGU to the point where I could run games in it. Also, the hosting service doesn't work from some of the countries I work and travel in. Just to play as a player with Fantasy Ground Classic during virtual Gary Con, I had to use a VPN and a cellular 3G connection. The DM expressed having to do something similar to run games from China in the past. So despite really wanting to make FG work, it just never worked out for me and I cancelled my $10/month FGU subscription.

Roll20. I'm a fan. Roll20 kept me sane when I started my new job and had to spend lots of time working away from home in countries with crap internet and from which many companies block connections. Roll20 always worked, no matter where I was. Even when Internet wasn't great, I could still usually particpate in games, via a tethered Google Fi 3G connection if nothing else. I love the find-a-game feature. But as a DM, it wasn't for me. I subscribed for a few months but never ran a game from it. First, you HAVE to be online for it to be useful. But a bigger issue was that I'm running a multiyear campaign with hundreds of maps and most of the maps are large files. I found it difficult to manage a large number of assets in Roll20. When I did prep a larger map with lighting and line of sight, performance would suffer greatly. It was just too difficult for me to use for the large sandboxy mega dungeon I'm running.

But for most DMs, I think Roll20 is an excellent tool and it is the one I recommend the most.

d20Pro - great tool for DMs running d20 systems like D&D and Pathfinder. Not so good for other systems. By far the easiest to manage combat it. You can get some but not all official WotC content for it. I passed on it mainly because I didn't find it convenient for throwing up maps on the fly.

Map Tool. Huge fan. First, it is free. Second, it has more advanced VTT features than most of the commercial products. Third, there is an active community developing frameworks to customize it for your preferred game system. The downside is that hosting games over the internet requires a good internet connection and ability to configure port forwarding on your router. I was unable to do that when working abroad so I would run two instances of it. The host instance and a player instance and I would share the player instance window using Google Meet. I loved that I could quickly filter through hundreds of maps and many more hundreds of tokens and throw up a map and drop tokens on the fly. No other VTT tools I've used does this as well.

But ultimately, I moved to Foundry from Map Tool because I wanted to host games where players could move their own tokens, even when in areas where I don't have good internet, and didn't want to require my players to download and install software to play in my games. Also, the Foundry is just a nicer tool to work in and customizing the Foundry with its module management system is much easier a less glitchy than customizing Map Tool.

Astral - It is pretty. Great for line of sight and lighting. But terrible for low-prep play.

 

[Bilharzia]

• Must work on both iPad and pc, so likely browser based
• Ease of map creation (including the ability to import graphic files) is the priority, I'd like something fairly, flexible, intuitive and preferably once the basics have been mastered quite powerful. Animated elements would be a really big bonus
• Dynamic lighting isn't that important as we don't use tokens, but I would like fog of war
• Ruleset integration not needed, it won't be used for anything other than showing battlemaps, all character sheets etc will be outside the software
• Would only need a DM and one player license
• Touchscreen friendly, because I DM on the iPad I'd like it to play well with the iOS touchscreen, something I've found a bit fiddly with roll20

So it maybe upgrading roll20 is the best option, but I'd be happy to know if there is anything out there that would fit my needs better.

Looking at your requirements I would say any screensharing application that works on iOS would work for you. You are not using tokens, not using character sheets, not using a ruleset reference, all you want to do is show a map (and images?) and reveal it, if so why not control all that with the software on your tablet/PC and just screenshare with your players?

 

[Nilbog]

Wow, that's an incredible reply thank you.

My wishlist is very similar to yours. I will check out the foundry. To answer your questions:

1) this will be for in person play only. I will be continuing my roll20 campaign as the only game when we can't game in person

2) internet access is desirable, but not a necessity, as long as the system can support a DM and player client I'm happy.

3) battlemaps only, I won't be using tokens or any other form of effects for characters, this will be handled via physical miniatures. Area effect tools would be a nice to have but not essential

4) no system rules integration required, it's purely for battlemaps, as long as it supports squared grids and fog of war I'm happy

5) prep is about 70/30 for upfront/on the fly, it's a sandbox campaign, where I will have most of the key locations mapped, but I would like to be able to quickly generate something if the players go someone unexpected

6) it's all homebrew, no official module support needed

 

[Nilbog]

Looking at your requirements I would say any screensharing application that works on iOS would work for you. You are not using tokens, not using character sheets, not using a ruleset reference, all you want to do is show a map (and images?) and reveal it, if so why not control all that with the software on your tablet/PC and just screenshare with your players?

That is a very good point, and one I did consider, however I tend to have all my notes and monster details in onenote that I flick over to during the combat and I wouldn't want my players to see this. If there was an app that could be shared rather than the iPad screen that could work, however I'm not sure this is something that is available

 

[Bilharzia]

I tend to have all my notes and monster details in onenote that I flick over to during the combat and I wouldn't want my players to see this.

That makes sense, Microsoft Teams might be worth a try, it can share the application and not the screen, at least on PC.

 

[SavageCole]

My experience is similar to MNBlcokhead's and I am a big fan of The Foundry VTT, but it does not meet your requirement that players an use iPad/tablet to play. It's an incredible tool and gets better and cooler all the time.

 

[MNblockhead]

Looking at your requirements, I highly recommend Map Tool. It is free and makes it simple to display the player map on another screen, size and apply fog. It has a good set of tools to remove fog of war, including freehand reveal. I've been running Rappan Athuk, with over 100 maps and I have a collection of hundreds of digital tokens. It is a big sandbox and I am never sure where my players will end up. I can throw up a new map and plop down the players in under a minute. I can filter through hundreds of tokens and select the one I want and drag it to the map in seconds.

The reason it was so hard for me to decide among commercial tools was that it was hard to find a tool that was as convenient as Map Tool.

Fantasy Grounds Classic is also good for this, but why spend that kind of money if you are not going to use all bells and whistles.

Foundry is awesome, but really more for folks that like to mod, tweak, and customize.

Start with MapTool and if your needs change, then spend the cash on a commercial product. If you are interested I'll post a quick demo. Map Tool can scare people away but you really can be up and ready in less than an hour. Probably less than 30 minutes if you are are installing on a computer where you already have your maps and tokens (if you are going to use them) saved and organized.

Wow, that's an incredible reply thank you.

My wishlist is very similar to yours. I will check out the foundry. To answer your questions:

1) this will be for in person play only. I will be continuing my roll20 campaign as the only game when we can't game in person

2) internet access is desirable, but not a necessity, as long as the system can support a DM and player client I'm happy.

3) battlemaps only, I won't be using tokens or any other form of effects for characters, this will be handled via physical miniatures. Area effect tools would be a nice to have but not essential

4) no system rules integration required, it's purely for battlemaps, as long as it supports squared grids and fog of war I'm happy

5) prep is about 70/30 for upfront/on the fly, it's a sandbox campaign, where I will have most of the key locations mapped, but I would like to be able to quickly generate something if the players go someone unexpected

6) it's all homebrew, no official module support needed

 

[MNblockhead]

My experience is similar to MNBlcokhead's and I am a big fan of The Foundry VTT, but it does not meet your requirement that players an use iPad/tablet to play. It's an incredible tool and gets better and cooler all the time.

Missed the iPad requirement. Not sure I understand this if for in person games that will use miniatures. Is the idea that you want to run it from the iPad? Will you be casting from your iPad to a horizontal display? ProCreate is popular for an iOS run battlemap, but I have no experience with it. I remember testing another app a while back but the name escapes me, "Battle Map 2" I think? It didn't work well for me, although I didn't spend a lot of time trying to make it work, since I run everything from my laptop which has a touch-screen.