What VTT(s) do you most dislike and why? (Defenders welcome to defend)

[MNblockhead]

This may be a strange topic, but I like discussing VTTs and have participated in a number of threads asking for VTT recommendations or about what VTTs folks are currently using. I've used a lot of VTTs over the years and I realize that there are none that I can say I "hate" and even none that I dislike. There are some that I tried but they didn't meet my needs and others that I used for a while, but moved on to something else due to changing needs, but there are none I have strong negative feelings for.

For those who really dislike a particular VTT, I'd be interested in what turned you off. Perhaps this is just rehashing discussions with a negative filter, but I think it can be helpful to read what hasn't worked for other when looking into selecting a VTT. I'll start by listing the VTTs I've used or tested and what I don't like about each of them.

Map Tool. Networking was a hassle and I mostly used it for a digital battlemap for in-person play. Also, as a free and open source tool, there is no support other than what you can find from the community.

Roll20. Storage is too low, even at the highest tier. Integrated video and voice wasn't very reliable and everyone I know uses Discord, Zoom, or something else for video and voice. Performance suffered with very large maps with all the bells and whistles (e.g. dynamic lighting). That was a while ago, though, might be better now.

Fantasy Grounds Classic and Unity. All players must install it. Also, even with Public Cloud Games, I had terrible connection and performance issues when you had players in multiple geographic areas internationally and when one or more players had subpar connections. This led me to cancelling my FGU month-to-month subscription after testing it out for several months.

d20pro. I only tested it for a bit, while it was serviceable for d20 games, it felt like it was behind in its feature set. I remember it not having the map tools I was looking for and it seemed that it would be clunky to try to use it with non-d20 systems. Also requires that each player download and install software. I didn't test hosting a game with it.

Foundry. No core support for manual fog of war. Have to use a community mod that has had iffy support and just didn't work for long periods of times after upgrades. Better now that the League of Extraordinary FoundryVTT Developers took it over. But always a risk having such a core feature (for me) not being part of the core product. EDIT: I'll add that I find that I really need to use a hosting service to provide a consistently good experience running games with Foundry. A lot of why I really like and continue to use Foundry is because I really like The Forge, a foundry hosting service.

D&D Beyond Maps. Hard for me to complain about this as it is great for its intended purpose. But I like more feature rich battlemaps and run other games than D&D, and don't want to be switching among different VTTs.

Role. More of a TTRPG focused videoconferencing platform than a VTT. Has very basic battlemap and token functionality. It may fill a specific niche, but most people would rather just use something like Discord for free and a simple low cost VTT like Owlbear Rodeo separately. I like the custom charactersheet builder, but I was never able to get create one for Mage: The Ascension that worked the way I wanted to.

 

[TheSword]

This may be a strange topic, but I like discussing VTTs and have participated in a number of threads asking for VTT recommendations or about what VTTs folks are currently using. I've used a lot of VTTs over the years and I realize that there are none that I can say I "hate" and even none that I dislike. There are some that I tried but they didn't meet my needs and others that I used for a while, but moved on to something else due to changing needs, but there are none I have strong negative feelings for.

For those who really dislike a particular VTT, I'd be interested in what turned you off. Perhaps this is just rehashing discussions with a negative filter, but I think it can be helpful to read what hasn't worked for other when looking into selecting a VTT. I'll start by listing the VTTs I've used or tested and what I don't like about each of them.

Map Tool. Networking was a hassle and I mostly used it for a digital battlemap for in-person play. Also, as a free and open source tool, there is no support other than what you can find from the community.

Roll20. Storage is too low, even at the highest tier. Integrated video and voice wasn't very reliable and everyone I know uses Discord, Zoom, or something else for video and voice. Performance suffered with very large maps with all the bells and whistles (e.g. dynamic lighting). That was a while ago, though, might be better now.

Fantasy Grounds Classic and Unity. All players must install it. Also, even with Public Cloud Games, I had terrible connection and performance issues when you had players in multiple geographic areas internationally and when one or more players had subpar connections. This led me to cancelling my FGU month-to-month subscription after testing it out for several months.

d20pro. I only tested it for a bit, while it was serviceable for d20 games, it felt like it was behind in its feature set. I remember it not having the map tools I was looking for and it seemed that it would be clunky to try to use it with non-d20 systems. Also requires that each player download and install software. I didn't test hosting a game with it.

Foundry. No core support for manual fog of war. Have to use a community mod that has had iffy support and just didn't work for long periods of times after upgrades. Better now that the League of Extraordinary FoundryVTT Developers took it over. But always a risk having such a core feature (for me) not being part of the core product. EDIT: I'll add that I find that I really need to use a hosting service to provide a consistently good experience running games with Foundry. A lot of why I really like and continue to use Foundry is because I really like The Forge, a foundry hosting service.

D&D Beyond Maps. Hard for me to complain about this as it is great for its intended purpose. But I like more feature rich battlemaps and run other games than D&D, and don't want to be switching among different VTTs.

Role. More of a TTRPG focused videoconferencing platform than a VTT. Has very basic battlemap and token functionality. It may fill a specific niche, but most people would rather just use something like Discord for free and a simple low cost VTT like Owlbear Rodeo separately. I like the custom charactersheet builder, but I was never able to get create one for Mage: The Ascension that worked the way I wanted to.

I use Forge for foundry too. My biggest beef with Foundry is that it is quite technical. Feel like I have to do an IT degree to get it to work how it should.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Out of all the VTTs I've definitely had the worst experience with Existenz. I signed up for the beta, and they promised it would be a really immersive VR RPG experience. But it's so immersive that I keep thinking I'm quitting the game and then it turns out I'm just in another level of it. It's quite frustrating.

Now please excuse me while I eat my dinner / make a gun out of a disgusting bug carcass.

...

Okay in reality I have experience with three VTTs:

1) Tabletop Simulator. This is what we started with during the pandemic. It's not great at doing any of the math of D&D, but it does most accurately replicate the experience of sitting around a table. The fact that you can accidentally knock over miniatures or roll your dice off the table was actually fantastic. That said it was very slow and clumsy to use.

2) Roll20. This is the VTT I got to know best. To me it's the most extreme of things that are great (simple to use, quick to load) with things that are maddening (trying to integrate music, lighting slowing everything down, no way to free draw with a pad or touch screen).

3) Foundry. The DM running our 5e game loved Foundry. But she spent more time playing with all the fidgets and mods than prepping an adventure.

When I'm running or playing in an RPG online, I want to really feel like I'm at a table. Extra bells and whistles, like animated backgrounds or macros that calculate everything for me, actually take me out of the game. So between all three I've had the most positive experiences from Roll20.

 

[Bomberooski]

1) Tabletop Simulator. This is what we started with during the pandemic. It's not great at doing any of the math of D&D, but it does most accurately replicate the experience of sitting around a table. The fact that you can accidentally knock over miniatures or roll your dice off the table was actually fantastic. That said it was very slow and clumsy to use.

Same story here. It was my first online play experience and I really want to say I love it but that UI is so bad and like you said it was very slow. No fog of war or anything like that obviously. Very very similar to sitting at the table live, but feels like you’re at the table live and your arms have magically stopped functioning properly.

That said, if someone asked me to jump in a one shot one day on Tabletop Simulator I’d be all in.

 

[Joshua Randall]

All of them have such awful user interfaces that fail to address the most obvious, core use cases that they literally make me angry. So all of them. I dislike all of the them most.

 

[Distracted DM]

Roll20 burned me so hard years ago when I bought a weather animations pack off the marketplace, it ran like complete crud, I went to customer service who told me that their platform really didn't run animations like that well and then refused to give me a refund or credit of any kind.

They were the big fish in a small pond for too long.

 

[Joshua Randall]

it is quite technical. Feel like I have to do an IT degree to get it to work how it should.

Lots of them are like this. They are living fossils of what software design was like in the bad old days.

Apparently people are OK with that? Or there are no better alternatives? IDK.

 

[payn]

I grew to dislike roll20 quite a bit. To be fair to roll20 its a popular system, I just feel its outclassed by Foundry in every way possible. I just keep thinking id rather be using Foundry every moment of a roll20 game.

 

[Distracted DM]

I grew to dislike roll20 quite a bit. To be fair to roll20 its a popular system, I just feel its outclassed by Foundry in every way possible. I just keep thinking id rather be using Foundry every moment of a roll20 game.

Yup. Prep with Roll20 never felt worthwhile to me, whereas Foundry (and its mod community) make your prep actually feel like it's paid off with a better experience.

 

[numtini]

Yup. Prep with Roll20 never felt worthwhile to me, whereas Foundry (and its mod community) make your prep actually feel like it's paid off with a better experience.

I also feel like it's actually fun to do in Foundry. I compared it to the endless adventures I wrote (and never ran) as a teenager when I was new to the hobby. "The game when you're not playing the game."

For dislike, it would be Alchemy. I should be a slam dunk for a "theater of the mind" oriented VTT, but it's just an excuse for a lack of features and the UI is a masterclass in what not to do. Bonus hate for its business model yanking publishers away from better VTTs.