Looking to play Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition online? There are numerous tools and options available in the Virtual Tabletop space. Each platform has its own pros and cons, primarily depending on your preferences and needs for playing or running a Vampire chronicle. Let's explore some popular options to help you determine which might be best for your situation.
Roll20 - Free Character Sheets And Automation
Roll20 was one of the first VTTs to host fillable character sheets for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition and remains one of the most popular virtual tabletops today. For Vampire: The Masquerade, Roll20 offers numerous useful tools. While you can create a game and use character sheets entirely for free, Roll20 also offers paid subscriptions and marketplace tools that can enhance your gaming experience.
On Roll20, you can purchase many Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition books to integrate directly into your campaign for easy reference. Though not essential, these purchases include loresheets, player token packs, in-world lore articles with drag-and-drop functionality, and storyteller characters, Predator Types, Advantages, and Disciplines with in-app support.
These features can significantly streamline chronicle building and provide convenient access to 5th edition materials, though Roll20 doesn't currently offer every VTM 5e sourcebook in its marketplace.
Unlike other Roll20 games such as D&D, character creation doesn't include a "charactermancer" wizard, so you'll need to build characters manually using the virtual character sheets. Once your character sheets and chronicle setting are ready, Roll20's shared dice rolling system becomes a major advantage—you can set difficulty levels for rolls, and the system calculates successes while identifying messy criticals or bestial failures. This automated dice tracking can be very useful for virtual play.
Since Vampire: The Masquerade emphasizes personal horror and political intrigue rather than tactical combat, you'll likely have less need for battlemaps compared to games like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, or Cyberpunk RED. Because of that, many of Roll20's other features may be less essential for your Vampire game, though they remain useful for running TTRPGs in general.
Demiplane - Digital Compedium And Guided Character Maker
Demiplane has released an entire Nexus of Vampire the Masquerade tools available, and marks itself as the official toolset for Vampire: The Masquerade. The tools include a game library, digital compendium, and character creator at their disposal.
The best feature that Demiplane has over other VTTs for Vampire: The Masquerade is its Character Builder. This character builder is extremely intuitive and will guide you through each step of character creation for Vampire the Masquerade. All of the character tools featured in Demiplane’s Vampire Nexus make character creation and EXP spending a breeze, as the tool will calculate all point spends for you based on the rules in the 5th Edition Core rulebook.
Once you build a character for your Chronicle, there are many customization settings included, as well as an easy sharing tool to share out your character sheet with others. On Demiplane, you can create a campaign for both storyteller and players to join, it can be a bit more limiting than other VTTs such as Roll20 and Foundry.
In order to use the Character Builder to its full potential, you will need to purchase a Demiplane subscription. If you also want to include certain expanded lore sheets or disciplines found in certain Vampire: The Masquerade sourcebooks, you will also need to purchase the book on Demiplane’s marketplace. If one player or the storyteller has purchased the books and subscription, they are able to share out these resources to others with Demiplane’s content sharing feature.
Demiplane also includes a digital dice roller on their Vampire the Masquerade character sheets, but it can be a bit limiting. These dice rolls cannot be shared publicly with other players like you can do with Roll20, and it also will not calculate messy criticals and bestial failures, so players will need to keep track of their rolls carefully.
The Digital Library and Compendium for Vampire: The Masquerade on Demiplane are also very handy and easy to look through if you do purchase them for your digital library. If you’ve purchased Vampire sourcebooks on other digital platforms, however, it does not cross over to Demiplane – meaning, if you already own the Camarilla sourcebook elsewhere, you will need to buy it again on Demiplane.
Foundry - Fan Tools And World Of Darkness Connection
Foundry VTT has a bit of a steeper learning curve compared to other options, but excellent customizability if you have the time and resources to invest in it. While the Foundry VTT Marketplace doesn't yet officially support Vampire: The Masquerade, fan-made packages are available to run your game.
Unlike other VTTs, Foundry requires more setup time rather than allowing you to jump straight into playing. You'll need to purchase a subscription and then decide whether to self-host your games or pay for an external server.
The Vampire: The Masquerade character sheets on Foundry are intuitive and user-friendly. Packages include appropriate dice rolling mechanics that track successes and hunger dice based on your character sheet information.
For those looking to expand beyond basic character sheets and dice rolling tools, Foundry offers numerous customization options. You can spend hours discovering custom modules, setting up hotkeys, and adding visual elements that enhance the immersion of your Foundry VTT experience.
Foundry VTT also features fan-made toolkits for other World of Darkness 5th edition games, including Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Hunter: The Reckoning. If you're interested in running these other World of Darkness titles, you won't find virtual tools or character sheets for them on other VTTs— making Foundry VTT an invaluable resource for all World of Darkness storytelling.
The Verdict
All three VTTs offer valuable features depending on your specific needs. With Roll20's recent acquisition of Demiplane and the gradual integration of features between the two platforms, we may eventually see a hybrid that combines Demiplane's tools with Roll20's VTT experience. For now, a practical approach is to start with Demiplane's Vampire Nexus while using Roll20 as a shared campaign space for players. If you're ready to dive into the world of customizability and explore fan-made content for World of Darkness games, Foundry may be your best option.
Now that you understand the various Virtual Tabletop resources available for Vampire: The Masquerade, it's time to get a chronicle going! If you're looking for a game, StartPlaying is the ideal place to search—you'll find hundreds of games ready for you to join.
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Tracie “Miss Magitek” is an award-winning World of Darkness Storyteller who crafts stories in Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Hunter: The Reckoning. She is also a published writer for various books from R. Talsorian Games’ Cyberpunk RED.
