Poll: VTT Users - Do you prefer self-hosted or cloud-based VTTs?

[aramis erak]

If I had to give up on Foundry, I'd probably land on Owlbear - simply because I'm tending away from 'miniatures based wargames masquerading as RPGs' like Pathfinder / DrawSteel / D&D and over to narrative storytelling games masquerading as RPGs.
- I've lost the need for battlemaps.

The game I most heavily used a VTT for we weren't using maps at all...
but tracking actions was a pain without a visual tool. Yeah, on-table tracking for the sake of sanity. (At table, I used tokens on a mat as well. That game: Talisman Adventures.)
It was also great for adding readables.
Foundry is far better for that mode than GTove, which is what I was using.

Foundry also provides for whiteboarding, character sheets and automations. Useful even if tactical mapping isn't used.

 

[Alby87]

Different audiences need different products. I love FoundryVTT self-host, but I'm technical aware enough to create a setup to keep it running (the other game night, one of my player couldn't connect because technical difficulties... could fix for him in timely manner, but this is not for everyone).

Self-host give what every DM loves... absolute power. But I admit that giving the option of subscribe service is necessary too.

Also. LAN nights in disconnected enviroinment. Not that 5G, Wifi are rare today... but the option is in the table, if needed.

 

[Heilemann]

No, it's not horrible. It is, however, optimized for one use case: printing it out the same on any postscript capable printer. From the offset plate cutters to the local inkjet via a .ps to raster algorithm. It largely succeeded. And that's why it's the default.

The problem is a lot of people use readers that don't support the totality of the current standard. I've tried 2 dozen over the last few years... most fail some elements that have been standard for 20 years... like Forms.

Yeah that’s certainly true, and eg. for browsers there’s scant support for certain kinds of annotations (at least in open source packages, including Mozilla’s) which is frustrating. But non-interactive rendering is pretty solid and for the purposes of sharing resources at the table, looking up and sharing rules, PDFs work as well as proprietary formats, and are not extra, nor are they bound to any specific VTT or ‘digital tools’ platform.

If WotC’s license-gate teaches us anything it should be to not shackle ourselves to a platform like D&D Beyond with non-movable content.

And with current tech, PDFs are easy to inquire and interpret.

I’m somewhat surprised that all the handwringing about not wanting to pay for a cloud service, there’s surprisingly little handwringing about having to buy the same books several times to make the most of some platform.

Not to be that guy, buy that IS how they get you ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Not to be that guy, buy that IS how they get you ¯\(ツ)/¯

No, doors and corners is how they get you.

 

[Heilemann]

No, doors and corners is how they get you.

Well, that got me!

 

[LordEntrails]

No, it's not horrible. It is, however, optimized for one use case: printing it out the same on any postscript capable printer. From the offset plate cutters to the local inkjet via a .ps to raster algorithm. It largely succeeded. And that's why it's the default.

In the context we are talking, VTTs, yes I think they really are poor. For printing out something in a consistent way to hardcopy, sure, they are great. For archiving a print formatted document, they are wonderful. For a VTT source that should be searchable, and have re-usable content that can be formatted in a dozen different ways based upon demand/view source (reading for learning vs referencing a spell description vs applying automated game mechanics) they are horrible.

But non-interactive rendering is pretty solid and for the purposes of sharing resources at the table, looking up and sharing rules, PDFs work as well as proprietary formats, and are not extra, nor are they bound to any specific VTT or ‘digital tools’ platform.

See above, but do they really? Can I use that PDF to populate the class abilities that provide automation on my character sheet and in my VTT? No. Not when even in the same company they format the PDF (and the wording) differently from one product to the next. VTT's can be more than just a place to share reading resources, they can be fully fledged databases that remove the hassle of bookkeeping, if they don't rely upon PDFs for their content.

Proprietary formats suck, because they are proprietary, but they can be more functional than a "standard" format that was designed to be used to print consistently. The possibility of standard vtt formats exists, look at the .uvtt map format. And even if such doesn't come (it won't in my lifetime) to VTT content, open xml formats are pretty portable. Converting between well architected xml formats isn't that hard.

 

[Heilemann]

In the context we are talking, VTTs, yes I think they really are poor. For printing out something in a consistent way to hardcopy, sure, they are great. For archiving a print formatted document, they are wonderful. For a VTT source that should be searchable, and have re-usable content that can be formatted in a dozen different ways based upon demand/view source (reading for learning vs referencing a spell description vs applying automated game mechanics) they are horrible.

See above, but do they really? Can I use that PDF to populate the class abilities that provide automation on my character sheet and in my VTT? No. Not when even in the same company they format the PDF (and the wording) differently from one product to the next. VTT's can be more than just a place to share reading resources, they can be fully fledged databases that remove the hassle of bookkeeping, if they don't rely upon PDFs for their content.

Proprietary formats suck, because they are proprietary, but they can be more functional than a "standard" format that was designed to be used to print consistently. The possibility of standard vtt formats exists, look at the .uvtt map format. And even if such doesn't come (it won't in my lifetime) to VTT content, open xml formats are pretty portable. Converting between well architected xml formats isn't that hard.

Well as I said earlier I’m not attracted to the automation side of VTTs; i think the drift towards computer games, even at a relatively small scale, detracts from the grain of TTRPGs. YMMV, so thats not a detractor for me.

 

[Umbran]

It should be simple above all, simple to sign up, start a game, invite people, join, do all the basics like rolling dice and looking up things.

This says most of it, for me. The online experience is already a lesser one, for me, that I generally only use because it is otherwise not reasonable for the group to play in-person. Anything that makes it a hassle is going to push me away from that system.

If, for example, my players have to download, install, and configure an application on their own machines, I'm not using that system for my games. I have, in the past, dealt with firewall rules and making sure ports are open, and I don't wanna do that any more.