Roll20's Latest Usage Report: D&D Steady, Cthulhu Down!

Barantor · Nov 12, 2021

These lists always make me wonder if other VTTs like Foundry skew different as more of a community uses it over roll20 for certain rpgs.

J.Quondam · Nov 12, 2021

JThursby said:
As a customer of various VTT services, I would prefer they just not report on my activity to a third party. I value my privacy over assembling a report on RPG trends.

I strongly doubt there's any personal info attached to the stats. But the "snooping" is off-putting, or at least as off-putting as snooping is on any other online platform. But that's the business model to keep things free-ish, so I can't really complain, I guess.

That said, I do have a (sadly neglected!) Roll20 account, with several campaigns setup & tagged for a number of different systems. So I wonder how exactly my account figures into the report, if at all.

teitan · Nov 12, 2021

Samurai said:
Original Pathfinder is still beating the heck out of the 2nd edition (3.2% vs 1.4%)!

As stated it has to do with the platform more than the game itself.

Weirdok · Nov 12, 2021

Marc Radle said:
Ah … two things that bring back memories for me …

I was a huge Star Trek fan back then and LOVED the FASA Star Trek game! We played the heck out of it! I even still have my original boxed set

I haven’t heard Last Unicorn Games in a while! I worked with them for a number of years … mainly on the Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth RPG and Heresy card game. In fact, I stopped working with them when they got the Star Trek license, but had to move to California as part of the deal, so they were closer to Paramount.

Good times!!

The Star Wars game was great back in the 80's. My friends were hooked on TSR stuff, so, I couldn't get anyone to play ☹

Retreater · Nov 12, 2021

teitan said:
As stated it has to do with the platform more than the game itself.

Even if Roll20 isn't the preferred system for PF2, it is the biggest VTT. PF2 should have a greater proportion of players.
My very personal bias: I don't think significant numbers of people are playing it.

Erdric Dragin · Nov 12, 2021

Samurai said:
Original Pathfinder is still beating the heck out of the 2nd edition (3.2% vs 1.4%)!

As it should. Still dunno what the heck was the point of cutting 1e and creating the undesired 2e.

Gammadoodler · Nov 12, 2021

Retreater said:
Even if Roll20 isn't the preferred system for PF2, it is the biggest VTT. PF2 should have a greater proportion of players.
My very personal bias: I don't think significant numbers of people are playing it.

I don't know your experience in either VTT, but I can say that my experience with 2e on foundry was vastly to superior to roll20. Frankly I suspect the only reason that 1.2% exists on roll20 is that they haven't tried foundry, or they're too invested in the roll20 ecosystem to switch.

Retreater · Nov 13, 2021

Gammadoodler said:
I don't know your experience in either VTT, but I can say that my experience with 2e on foundry was vastly to superior to roll20. Frankly I suspect the only reason that 1.2% exists on roll20 is that they haven't tried foundry, or they're too invested in the roll20 ecosystem to switch.

I've tried Foundry, and I'm firmly staying in the Roll20 ecosystem.
If we're ok with a little thread detour, I can explain myself.
1) Roll20 is browser based. I can access my campaign from any computer. I can update the campaign on my break at work. I don't need to create servers. In short, it just works.
2) Foundry is unstable. You add the wrong module, it collapses. Something gets pulled from the service, it collapses. You create a campaign and Foundry updates to a new version, it collapses.
3) It's not actually intuitive. I learned Roll20 in a week. Can't get Foundry working in months.
4) You can't really buy stuff already done on Foundry. You have to do a lot of it yourself.
5) Importing tokens, maps, art, etc on Foundry is a chore. It's drag and drop and instantly works on Roll20.
6) More people use Roll20, so in the event you don't want to play PF2 (or want to try anything else) you have assets, friends, UI knowledge ready to try any other RPG in existence.
7) You don't have to have a great computer and internet speed to run a game on Roll20.
8) Too much automation can be bad. It can get in the way of the game if you make an error.

TheSword · Nov 13, 2021

Retreater said:
I've tried Foundry, and I'm firmly staying in the Roll20 ecosystem.
If we're ok with a little thread detour, I can explain myself.
1) Roll20 is browser based. I can access my campaign from any computer. I can update the campaign on my break at work. I don't need to create servers. In short, it just works.
2) Foundry is unstable. You add the wrong module, it collapses. Something gets pulled from the service, it collapses. You create a campaign and Foundry updates to a new version, it collapses.
3) It's not actually intuitive. I learned Roll20 in a week. Can't get Foundry working in months.
4) You can't really buy stuff already done on Foundry. You have to do a lot of it yourself.
5) Importing tokens, maps, art, etc on Foundry is a chore. It's drag and drop and instantly works on Roll20.
6) More people use Roll20, so in the event you don't want to play PF2 (or want to try anything else) you have assets, friends, UI knowledge ready to try any other RPG in existence.
7) You don't have to have a great computer and internet speed to run a game on Roll20.
8) Too much automation can be bad. It can get in the way of the game if you make an error.

Couldn’t agree more. I’ll add that after paying £50 I expect a bit more technical support than is available.

I had issues opening my computer as a server and the links on the website suggested downloading freeware. I was extremely uncomfortable asking players to download freeware I didn’t trust onto their computers… particularly when it involved bypassing firewalls. I ended up paying extra to use The Forge through a browser which added a whole extra step to uploading after what was already an annoying process.

Even then there was always at least one other player who struggled to connect - leading to 15 mins at the start of every session tinkering.

It felt like I needed to be an expert in programming just to get to a place where Foundry would start.