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Poll: VTT Users - Do you prefer self-hosted or cloud-based VTTs?
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<blockquote data-quote="djotaku" data-source="post: 9866277" data-attributes="member: 7054471"><p>I actually read all 6 pages. Here's what I have to add to that:</p><p></p><p>1. Self-hosting is a must for me</p><p>2. One-time payment is a must for me. I can't with 2026 and everything being a mother-flippin' subscription. Somehow we went through a huge history of computing without everything being a sub. I refuse to believe it's a requirement now. Go the Valve route and run your own "steam" and use that to continue sustainment of the VTT OR take a page from Red Hat. Sell your own self-hosting for those who don't/can't host. (Basically run your own Forge and use that to fund development)</p><p>3. For the 3 types of players - I think I'm mostly #2 with some small dips into #3. Something I've learned from Home Automation - the more stuff you try to be clever and automate, the more stuff there is to go wrong. However, computers are essentially calculators that can do other cool stuff, so it's dumb to not have the VTT facilitate subtracting HP during battle, etc. This saves time vs at the table when people are trying to do math in their head and erasing and re-writing their HP.</p><p></p><p>ALSO, I find that being able to click on the character sheet to do stuff is AWESOME for onboarding folks to the hobby. Otherwise not only do they have to learn how to play pretend with a bunch of other adults (something we unlearned from our time as kids unless you're a theatre kid), understand all the actions you can take during battle (or conversations and exploration), AND figure out the math. It's a lot to ask of folks. I've onboarded people to D&D via VTT and they found it painless to understand to click on things. Now, should they eventually grow a bit and understand ACs and DCs and so on - sure. But just like we don't throw kids into the deep end to teach swimming anymore, we can also ramp people up to the hobby.</p><p></p><p>4. As I started to read a lot of the replies I looked back and saw that the original question (despite being a "stealth" ad for a new VTT) asked what it would take to SWITCH. At this point, for me to switch it would require a new VTT to do something that's not legal (AFAIK) - bring all the modules I paid for into the new VTT. I ALREADY bought a few books for dndbeyond before realizing it wasn't for me. Now that I've re-bought for Foundry AND bought new stuff ($300+ ... maybe even $400?) - there's no way I'm switching unless Foundry stops working and/or my favored publishers stop putting out material for Foundry.</p><p></p><p>5. Even if you could legally import all my previously purchased stuff into Realm, you would have to do something better than Foundry. And it would have to appeal to me. Because I have some content for Alchemy that I got as part of kickstarters (and one that I got for free from a publisher giveaway) that I'm not using in Alchemy. I <strong>HATE</strong> the Alchemy UI. This doesn't mean it's bad. It doesn't mean anything except that <strong>I</strong> hate it. I don't like it and I won't even use the "free" stuff I have there. So, not only do you need to be self-hosted, bring my content over (from WoTC, Paizo, KP, and others), you also need to have a UI that feels better <strong>to me</strong> than Foundry.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="djotaku, post: 9866277, member: 7054471"] I actually read all 6 pages. Here's what I have to add to that: 1. Self-hosting is a must for me 2. One-time payment is a must for me. I can't with 2026 and everything being a mother-flippin' subscription. Somehow we went through a huge history of computing without everything being a sub. I refuse to believe it's a requirement now. Go the Valve route and run your own "steam" and use that to continue sustainment of the VTT OR take a page from Red Hat. Sell your own self-hosting for those who don't/can't host. (Basically run your own Forge and use that to fund development) 3. For the 3 types of players - I think I'm mostly #2 with some small dips into #3. Something I've learned from Home Automation - the more stuff you try to be clever and automate, the more stuff there is to go wrong. However, computers are essentially calculators that can do other cool stuff, so it's dumb to not have the VTT facilitate subtracting HP during battle, etc. This saves time vs at the table when people are trying to do math in their head and erasing and re-writing their HP. ALSO, I find that being able to click on the character sheet to do stuff is AWESOME for onboarding folks to the hobby. Otherwise not only do they have to learn how to play pretend with a bunch of other adults (something we unlearned from our time as kids unless you're a theatre kid), understand all the actions you can take during battle (or conversations and exploration), AND figure out the math. It's a lot to ask of folks. I've onboarded people to D&D via VTT and they found it painless to understand to click on things. Now, should they eventually grow a bit and understand ACs and DCs and so on - sure. But just like we don't throw kids into the deep end to teach swimming anymore, we can also ramp people up to the hobby. 4. As I started to read a lot of the replies I looked back and saw that the original question (despite being a "stealth" ad for a new VTT) asked what it would take to SWITCH. At this point, for me to switch it would require a new VTT to do something that's not legal (AFAIK) - bring all the modules I paid for into the new VTT. I ALREADY bought a few books for dndbeyond before realizing it wasn't for me. Now that I've re-bought for Foundry AND bought new stuff ($300+ ... maybe even $400?) - there's no way I'm switching unless Foundry stops working and/or my favored publishers stop putting out material for Foundry. 5. Even if you could legally import all my previously purchased stuff into Realm, you would have to do something better than Foundry. And it would have to appeal to me. Because I have some content for Alchemy that I got as part of kickstarters (and one that I got for free from a publisher giveaway) that I'm not using in Alchemy. I [B]HATE[/B] the Alchemy UI. This doesn't mean it's bad. It doesn't mean anything except that [B]I[/B] hate it. I don't like it and I won't even use the "free" stuff I have there. So, not only do you need to be self-hosted, bring my content over (from WoTC, Paizo, KP, and others), you also need to have a UI that feels better [B]to me[/B] than Foundry. [/QUOTE]
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