Picture it: A fully booked table for a Tales of the Valiant campaign through StartPlaying. The plot is prepared, the monster stat blocks are ready to go, and you have a group of eager adventurers ready to accept your every quest and challenge… but wait! You forgot this game is online, and you’ll need to run it on a virtual tabletop! There are plenty to choose from, but which one to pick?
When it comes to virtual tabletop options, there are quite a few to choose from that have official support for Tales of the Valiant. Which one you choose will depend on factors related to how much time you want to spend prepping the virtual tabletop for use. Some are simple interfaces focused on providing a digital library you can share with friends, while others let you mod everything from how the user interface appears to the animation of your spells. Before I give my opinion on which one I prefer to use, let's take a quick look at what each has to offer.
Try Demiplane for Theater of the Mind Games
If your play style is primarily theater of the mind, and you just need a way to share the game through a digital library, look to Demiplane. Tales of the Valiant is available through the site’s 5e Nexus as a part of users’ digital libraries; however, as of the writing of this article, the content is not available as a part of the site's character creator. Support is currently listed as “Coming Soon” which is currently one of the drawbacks to choosing their service, but a temporary one. Demiplane also lacks support for maps and has yet to indicate they plan to implement map support in the future, so if you’re not planning to use theater of the mind, you’d need another way to share maps with the party. One of its best features is the service’s built-in video calling feature. In it both players and the Game Master can use a built-in journal system to share notes and track campaign events, privately or with the group. A task tracker keeps tabs on open, completed, and unsuccessful tasks assigned to the party. There’s even a handy spot to bookmark links!
Create an Immersive Atmosphere with Alchemy
But what if you need a virtual tabletop that will amp up the player’s immersion in the story? Created with theater of the mind and immersive storytelling in mind, Alchemy provides the “vibe factor” in spades. Alchemy combines the traditional virtual tabletop experience with stunning artwork and original music, which can be changed seamlessly by the GM throughout the gaming experience. For each campaign, there’s a place to list table lines, veils, and specific content warning tags. Built-in video calling is also available. The map support is very basic, so you’ll be limited to 2D maps and tokens. My biggest con to using this one is that items in systems populate in a pre-made list by name, but their associated stats do not. When going through character creation and recording loot, players will need to input things like weapon damage formulas before they can roll attacks and damage directly from that item on their sheet. If you plan to load your table with magical items and weapons, this could begin to feel cumbersome for your players.
Shard Tabetop Makes for the Most Accessible VTT
If a built-in calling service isn’t something you’re looking for in a virtual tabletop, Shard Tabletop has a clean and easy-to-navigate user interface, which I could see being less intimidating for new players. Shard Tabletop offers full support for 2D maps and even allows you to upload your own audio tracks to contribute to the chaotic ambiance of epic battles. To help new users get their games up and running quickly, they’ve released a series of short and helpful YouTube tutorials and a comprehensive and easy-to-follow series of text guides. Their free tier holds enough content from the 5e SRD and their own digital Bestiary that a GM could get in a decent trial run of sessions before committing to purchasing their Tails of the Valiant content on it.
For Game Masters looking to stream or record their paid games, Shard Tabletop has also made it easy to record a clean version of the virtual tabletop screen with their Watch Mode broadcasting feature. This shares a version of the virtual tabletops similar to what your players see but designed with the audience’s viewing experience in mind, expanding summary windows and changing the map view automatically depending on whose turn in initiative order it is. If your audience likes to know the nitty-gritty of player abilities and creature stat blocks, GMs can share an interactive version of Watch Mode, which allows audience members to click on characters to view their character sheets, or on a monster to view their stat block.
Create Epic Scenes with Fantasy Grounds & Foundry Mods
But what if you want to ramp up the customization? What if you need to tweak every detail of the experience and require 3D maps with weather effects and magic animations? IF that level of customization is what you’re desiring, then Fantasy Grounds or Foundry might be what you turn to! Both options are highly customizable with robust support from community module builders with very similar plug-and-play experiences for pre-written content like Tales of the Valiant. Both also have the same major drawback in that they require a computer to play. Unlike with the previous three Virtual Tabletop options I’ve already covered, if you have players signing up for your game who need to play from a phone or tablet, they won’t be able to properly interact with either option. If you plan to use either of these tabletops, you’ll want to first check with players about their home computer system and ensure they meet the minimum system requirements to interact with them. A nice perk with both is that for a one-time license payment of $50 USD users have the software for both virtual tabletops indefinitely. With most other virtual tabletops requiring a subscription to access and share content, that alone could be a factor that outweighs the lack of mobile device compatibility for some Game Masters.
Fantasy Grounds is available for download directly through their website or through Steam. There’s no cloud version of the software, so all players will need to download a copy but only the GM will need to have the paid version. A drawback specific to Fantasy Grounds is that it doesn’t use a cloud service to store data and will require a peer-to-peer connection. Depending on how much data you have loaded into the software, this can potentially be taxing on the GM’s system and bandwidth as multiple people link to the virtual tabletop.
Foundry, on the other hand, can be used both peer-to-peer and through an additional cloud server subscription service like The Forge. Some users even create their own dedicated server with the use of a Rasberi Pi computer. The software license for Foundry also means, like with Fantasy Grounds, you own the software for life. However, GMs considering this option should not only look closely at the required hardware specs, but also at any additional costs associated with how you choose to allow access, like the purchasing of a Rasberi Pi or the monthly expense of cloud server access.
For me, when all the cost and access factors are considered, Shard Tabletop is the way to go for StartPlaying one-shots and campaigns. Between my player’s internet speeds and one of them needing to play the virtual tabletop from a tablet, it’s been the best and most reliably accessible option. At the end of the day, my top pick for a Tales of the Valiant virtual tabletop may not be YOUR top pick, but it’s nice to know that no matter a Game Master’s preferred style, there is a virtual tabletop out there for everyone.
Sara Roberts is a TTRPG content creator best known for their immersive storytelling as the GM of the Luck & Chaos podcast and original TTRPG character cosplay content on TikTok and Instagram.
