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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 8102456" data-attributes="member: 6796661">I've used a number of VTTs:Map Tool was my main go to for some time. I didn't use it to really host games in the traditional sense, but instead to share a map and reveal it as the party explored. But I had to move all the tokens. For in-person games or for just sharing maps and GM-moved tokens with a screen share, it is great. I can access hundreds of maps and thousands of tokens and quickly search and filter on this. With very little prep I can find a map, open it with fog of war, and find and place tokens. It is one of the few VTT tools that I can run unplanned, improv sessions with.   But setting it up for an on-line VTT experience with each player controlling their own tokens is a pain and requires players installing software on their computers. It is open source and has frameworks for various games but they are created and maintained by volunteers. I think many people would find Map Tool frustrating to set up. I've used Fantasy Grounds and Roll20 as a player. When overseas, Fantasy Ground is almost unusable in the areas I work due to bandwidth and restrictions on the FG game-hosting platform. I have to use a 3G connection on my cell phone with a VPN, which will allow me to play, but there is no way I could run a game.  I liked FG Classic okay and an subscribed to Fantasy Ground Unity for a few months when I was in the USA, thinking I would host games with in in the US and just use it to share maps via Google Meet when overseas, but FGU was too unstable and I gave up on it. Roll20 is great as a player and has worked in every country I've tried to access it from, including countries in the mid-east and Asia. It is great for pick-me up games and has a good international customer base so I can find one-off games in most time zones. But I never liked running games in it and only subscribed for a few months before cancelling. It just got too laggy with large maps and lots of walls. I've tested d20pro and like it but never actually ran or played in games on this platform. I didn't buy it because I didn't want my players to have to install software and because it didn't have the fog-of-war reveal tools that I needed to pull up an run maps on the fly. Astral is very slick but is only useful if you are (a) going to prep all your maps with lighting controls and walls or (b) are okay with just revealing the entire map. A few months ago, I find went all in with Foundry. The base program with a few plug ins meets all my requirements. I ended up hosting with The Forge since I didn't want to bother hosting myself. Having to buy the license and the hosting separately may confuse or annoy some people but overall once you are set up I find it no more difficult to get started with than any other VTT. One of the draws is its extendibility which allows you to expand and customize the program without having to know any coding.  I have extensions that let me take in characters and other content from D&D Beyond and also connect it with World Anvil.  Foundry is also the VTT that finally got me into actually using lighting, line-of-sight, and auto-reveal features. I find it easier than other VTTs and actually use it for most of my maps now. But I can still pull up a map with fog of war and throw tokens on it quickly. Not as quickly as Map Tool, but quick enough.  It is actively and rapidly developed with a very active modding community, several of whom have successful patreons that fund them.  The main thing is is missing is official WOTC content if you care about that, though it does support 5e open game content.   I would also like to see more automation like Fantasy Grounds for 5e. But that is a nice-to-have for me, not a must have.  While I like all of FG's automations, there is a high cost and high learning curve to take advantage of them and I found I could really only take advantage of it if I stuck with official WOTC adventures. For third party stuff, I would have to do a lot of data entry that I have no interest in. I also like how their is a growing community making very slick, fully-prepared adventures for foundry with all the lighting, walls, statblocks, adventure text, etc. preentered. I'm hoping this leads to a lot of content being developed by third-party publishers who can do so without having to contract with Foundry, use Foundry's shop, etc.  If Foundry gains a big enough customer base, I think it would provide one of the more profitable ways to sell VTT-ready adventure content.</blockquote>

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