aethedor
Villager
If you like Roll20, take a look at Cauldron VTT. They have many similarities. Cauldron VTT has a combat tracker that is much easier and quicker to use than the one in Roll20.
Let's talk Virtual Tabletops!
ichabod
Legned
That does not look to have anywhere near the 5E support that Roll20 has, and that combat tracker does not look like it solves the problems I had with Roll20's combat tracker. Furthermore, since I can't even get it to upload a jpeg of a map to try it out, I don't think I will be switching over any time soon.
aethedor
Villager
Okay.
Can you describe what went wrong? Many users have been able to do so.
ichabod
Legned
I got something like an 'Invalid map file' error when I clicked to upload the jpg to add a map to an adventure. I tried it with a different jpg and got the same error.
Cergorach
The Laughing One
We use Foundry VTT for our D&D5e sessions, with Discord for video/audio. We were playing occasionally, every couple of months, so paying a monthly fee wasn't something high on my priority list. One of our players primary machine was an iPad Pro, so anything that requires installation went out the window as well. I looked at Roll20 and that just felt old and not very feature rich. I quickly found Foundry VTT, pretty feature rich out of the box, but with modules the sky is the limit! One-time fee, self hosting, self control of not only the server, the system, modules, but also of the premium content you could buy. Both setting up your own server and running the VTT does require someone with technical insight, luckily I'm in IT by day... 
I don't currently DM, that's someone else's job, who doesn't prepare the game in Foundry VTT, but made his own adventure. I have two screens, one running my character and one running the assistent GM, where I ad-hoc build maps and encounters based on what the DM tells us we encounter, almost no automation. This setup we find so nice that we've started playing way more often.
There's officially no support for iPad, but a module called TouchVTT fixes the interface for touch, some lighting setting on Dice So Nice (3D dice), issues with audio I fix with a plugin for Discord to pipe my audio through Discord.
Setting up your own server is tricky because the default assumption with many people is that you have to open up the router, etc. Very cumbersome and very risky from a security perspective. Not something I really wanted to do on my home network, without some very drastic infrastructure changes. Cloudflare has a free service where you can ad-hoc generate a cloudflare subdomain that will tunnel to your installation of Foundry VTT. That worked very well, but every time I needed to generate a new link, which was a hassle and the site was open to the Internet. After some research they also offer a free tunneling service where you can link it to your own domain, create a permanent tunnel via Cloudflare and put access rules on there. Now works very well. I start a Linux Mint VM with FoundryVTT on it, start te service and it's connected.
Since a little over a month there's official D&D5e support. One official module has been released, very slick! I also bought heavily into Pathfinder 2e on Foundry VTT, with official support it's an absolute gem! The big modules, Abomination Vaults and Kingmaker are not cheap but probably the best pnp RPG VTT implementation I've seen to date, it even includes different audio tracks you can mix on the fly!
There are almost 4000 modules, some paid, most for free. I totally feel you that is an extremely overwhelming amount of modules! I would say, start minimalistic, try to start with so few modules as possible. I would stay away from heavy automation and automation modules at first, start small, get used to how it works, then start building out if you want.
Is FVTT the 'best' VTT for online play? Absolutely NOT! But it offers many things I find very important in something I'm spending my money on. It also has the nice bonus to let me build stuff with it, it almost seems like a seperate hobby...
I have this plan for doing a mega dungeon in FVTT, first I was thing Rappan Athuk, but as we keep winding up in the Forgotten Realms, Undermountain it is! Then you go down the mapmaking rabbithole (DungeonDraft and Dungeon Alchemist in my case)... Mostly working on collecting resources an figuring out the art style of the maps and how I'll split up the maps.
I also want to use FVTT to run board games, like Gloomhaven, Kingdom Death Monster, Shadows of Brimstone, etc. But those are not simple games, not from a rules and materials perspective, but also not from a FVTT perspective. So I started with something very simple, something old, something new: Heroquest. Currently working on getting the map and token assets in a scene, adding the HQ dice, trying to program in interaction with 3D dice (Dice So Nice). Creating tokens for the characters and monsters, etc. Learning a lot for the next project, it makes you think in solving problems in different ways.
The biggest issue with VTTs is getting that pnp RPG feel you have at the table, usage should be simple, even if that means someone else sets it up to be simple (with a lot of work). I've tried using the 3D VTT Virtual Tabletop (on Steam), the idea is absolutely awesome, but the implementation seems lacking. I'm spending more time fighting with the 3D interface then actually playing a game and being immersed in it, which is a shame. Foundry has a 3rd party (paid) 3D module, I'll need to play/test with it in the future, but for now I see no reason to use 3D over 2D.
I don't currently DM, that's someone else's job, who doesn't prepare the game in Foundry VTT, but made his own adventure. I have two screens, one running my character and one running the assistent GM, where I ad-hoc build maps and encounters based on what the DM tells us we encounter, almost no automation. This setup we find so nice that we've started playing way more often.
There's officially no support for iPad, but a module called TouchVTT fixes the interface for touch, some lighting setting on Dice So Nice (3D dice), issues with audio I fix with a plugin for Discord to pipe my audio through Discord.
Setting up your own server is tricky because the default assumption with many people is that you have to open up the router, etc. Very cumbersome and very risky from a security perspective. Not something I really wanted to do on my home network, without some very drastic infrastructure changes. Cloudflare has a free service where you can ad-hoc generate a cloudflare subdomain that will tunnel to your installation of Foundry VTT. That worked very well, but every time I needed to generate a new link, which was a hassle and the site was open to the Internet. After some research they also offer a free tunneling service where you can link it to your own domain, create a permanent tunnel via Cloudflare and put access rules on there. Now works very well. I start a Linux Mint VM with FoundryVTT on it, start te service and it's connected.
Since a little over a month there's official D&D5e support. One official module has been released, very slick! I also bought heavily into Pathfinder 2e on Foundry VTT, with official support it's an absolute gem! The big modules, Abomination Vaults and Kingmaker are not cheap but probably the best pnp RPG VTT implementation I've seen to date, it even includes different audio tracks you can mix on the fly!
There are almost 4000 modules, some paid, most for free. I totally feel you that is an extremely overwhelming amount of modules! I would say, start minimalistic, try to start with so few modules as possible. I would stay away from heavy automation and automation modules at first, start small, get used to how it works, then start building out if you want.
Is FVTT the 'best' VTT for online play? Absolutely NOT! But it offers many things I find very important in something I'm spending my money on. It also has the nice bonus to let me build stuff with it, it almost seems like a seperate hobby...
I have this plan for doing a mega dungeon in FVTT, first I was thing Rappan Athuk, but as we keep winding up in the Forgotten Realms, Undermountain it is! Then you go down the mapmaking rabbithole (DungeonDraft and Dungeon Alchemist in my case)... Mostly working on collecting resources an figuring out the art style of the maps and how I'll split up the maps.
I also want to use FVTT to run board games, like Gloomhaven, Kingdom Death Monster, Shadows of Brimstone, etc. But those are not simple games, not from a rules and materials perspective, but also not from a FVTT perspective. So I started with something very simple, something old, something new: Heroquest. Currently working on getting the map and token assets in a scene, adding the HQ dice, trying to program in interaction with 3D dice (Dice So Nice). Creating tokens for the characters and monsters, etc. Learning a lot for the next project, it makes you think in solving problems in different ways.
The biggest issue with VTTs is getting that pnp RPG feel you have at the table, usage should be simple, even if that means someone else sets it up to be simple (with a lot of work). I've tried using the 3D VTT Virtual Tabletop (on Steam), the idea is absolutely awesome, but the implementation seems lacking. I'm spending more time fighting with the 3D interface then actually playing a game and being immersed in it, which is a shame. Foundry has a 3rd party (paid) 3D module, I'll need to play/test with it in the future, but for now I see no reason to use 3D over 2D.
GrimCo
Adventurer
During the pandemic, played in PF1 game on RollD20 with Discord for audio. Not bad, but nothing special.
My regular group plays online sometimes, but we always play TotM, with role play/ narration heavy and combat light style. So, we just use google meet. Yes, free version has 60 minute limit, but that's ok, just in time to take toilet brake. Also, since this is a group of very good long time close friends, we use honor system when rolling. If you say you rolled 20, you rolled 20, although there is dice roller add on for google meet.
My regular group plays online sometimes, but we always play TotM, with role play/ narration heavy and combat light style. So, we just use google meet. Yes, free version has 60 minute limit, but that's ok, just in time to take toilet brake. Also, since this is a group of very good long time close friends, we use honor system when rolling. If you say you rolled 20, you rolled 20, although there is dice roller add on for google meet.
Thomas Shey
Legend
Are you talking about accessing the router configuration or something else here? Because depending on how much you need to do there (Maptool mostly just requires fiddling with port forwarding (which does have some theoretical security risks, but you've got to get the information back and forth somehow, and I've yet to hear of anyone who hosts it having a problem so far). Its not necessarily an error-free process, but if you've got good instructions it shouldn't be that painful--I'm a 66 year old ex-library assistant and editor and I manage.
Genuine question; why use Google Meet with its restrictions when you could also use Discord for something like that? Is it because of advantages of Google Meet or because there's aspects of Discord you dislike?
aramis erak
Legend
And incomplete.
GTove. gTove
It's free (as in beer) and free (as in open source), and uses your Google Drive as its file cache.
It's most novel feature to me is the grid-fitting method, and it's really slick there. It also is DPI independent.
