The exciting world of virtual tabletops for playing RPGs online just got a little bit more competitive, therefore even more impressive, today with the official launch of Foundry.
Foundry Virtual Tabletop is disruptive. It thumbs its nose at the established conventions. You pay a one-time fee for Foundry, and then your players connect for free. You own your own content, and there is no feature gating.
We’re told that making money isn’t Foundry’s main goal and the desire for a better VTT was. However, my first question about the product was the mention of running a server. That’ll surely cost money and so let us dig into this.
You can self-host Foundry on your own machine (PC, Linux or Mac) and the software acts as a server for your players to connect to with a modern web browser.
It’s hard to say what the minimum requirements of your machine need to be because it depends on the complexity of your world, but you’ll want a discrete GPU.
Running a web server isn’t a given either. Your ISP will need to allow port-forwarding via IP4 or assign your machine with an IPv6 address that does not require forwarding.
Alternatively, and for money, you can work with a Partner and have them run a set up for you, on one of their servers.
There is also a Foundry Patreon with $3, $5 and $10 tiers. These give support, road-map and content access.
Content does not come with Foundry. The software supports 5e and about 15 other settings but does not come lots of tokens and maps as part of your subscription because you have no subscription. The upper Patreon tiers do, however, supply some.
There’s no way to run Foundry for free. You need a GM who’ll pay and host for you.
I’d love to know what you make of Foundry. This blogger is a newbie in the world of VTTs and really needs to roll his sleeves up and master one, at least. If you’re already at that stage and can do a short compare and contrast, then that would be wonderful to hear.
Do you have any thoughts on this article? Let us know in the comments below.
