Foundry VTT
Foundry VTT is a virtual tabletop, a digital tool for running tabletop roleplaying games remotely online. Foundry is feature-rich, with a robust suite of customizable tools for creating, streamlining, and in some cases automating the online RPG experience. Foundry is an application that requires a one-time purchase from the Game Master; there is no subscription fee. The GM who owns Foundry can then host their game either locally or on their own server, and anyone they invite to the game can connect via their choice of web browser. Foundry supports several tabletop games officially and hosts a vibrant community of volunteer developers who create unofficial builds, modifications, add-ons, modules, and specialized tools for those games and many others. While Foundry has a bit of a higher learning curve than more entry level VTTs, its customizablity is nearly unmatched, and many of its users swear by its versatility and depth of features. At its highest levels, Foundry can produce spectacular audiovisual experiences, automate complex mechanical operations and math, and create a seamless digital tabletop experience.
Popular RPGs using Foundry VTT
Alien: The Roleplaying Game
The official ALIEN tabletop roleplaying game pits a crew of space truckers, scientists marines, synthetic human androids, corporate stooges, and other explorers against the cold, harsh void and the lurking horrors that haunt it. Save your oxygen—in space, no one can hear you scream.
Tales of the Valiant
Welcome to the Labyrinth, infinite worlds linked by twisting corridors of magic. Here, you find realms like Midgard, Hades, the Dreadful Domains, and homebrew creations tied together by the mysterious will of the Maze. These countless worlds rarely resemble one another on the surface, but share a unifying truth—heroes shape them. The Tales of the Valiant RPG is a Black Flag Roleplaying Game from Kobold Press. This means it keeps all the best parts of D&D 5e and adds a Kobold Press spin to the well-loved game. It combines the Creative Commons foundation of 5th Edition with new elements to create a powerful Kobold-style 5E with teeth.
Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game
A neon-noir wonderland that’ll take your breath away. One way or another. An evocative world of conflicts and contrasts that dares to ask the hard questions and investigate the powers of empathy, the poisons of fear, and the burdens of being human during inhumane times. An iconic and unforgiving playground of endless possibilities that picks you up, slaps you in the face, and tells you to wake up. Time to live. Or time to die. Blade Runner The Roleplaying Game propels you into the streets of Los Angeles as Blade Runners with unique specialties, personalities – and memories. The game pushes the boundaries of investigative gameplay in tabletop RPGs, giving you a range of tools to solve an array of cases far beyond retiring Replicants. Beyond the core casework, the RPG showcases the key themes of Blade Runner – sci-fi action, corporate intrigue, existential character drama, and moral conflict. It challenges you to question your friends, empathize with your enemies, and explore the poisons and perseverance of hope and humanity during inhumane times.
Coriolis – The Third Horizon
Coriolis – The Third Horizon is a science fiction role playing game set in a remote cluster of star systems called The Third Horizon. It is a place ravaged by conflicts and war, but also home to proud civilizations, both new and old. Here, the so called First Come colonists of old worship the Icons, while the newly arrived Zenithians pursue an aggressive imperialistic agenda through trade and military power.
Dungeon Crawl Classics
You’re no hero. You’re an adventurer: a reaver, a cutpurse, a heathen-slayer, a tight-lipped warlock guarding long-dead secrets. You seek gold and glory, winning it with sword and spell, caked in the blood and filth of the weak, the dark, the demons, and the vanquished. There are treasures to be won deep underneath, and you shall have them. Return to the glory days of fantasy with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role-Playing Game. Adventure as 1974 intended, with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery. Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you.
Forbidden Lands
Forbidden Lands is a new take on classic fantasy roleplaying. In this sandbox survival roleplaying game, you’re not heroes sent on missions dictated by others – instead, you are raiders and rogues bent on making your own mark on a cursed world. You will discover lost tombs, fight terrible monsters, wander the wild lands, and if you live long enough, build your own stronghold to defend.
Mutant: Year Zero
Mutant: Year Zero takes you to the world after the great Apocalypse. Humanity’s proud civilization has fallen. The cities are dead wastelands, winds sweeping along empty streets turned into graveyards. But life remains. Among the ruins, the People live. You are the heirs of humanity – but not quite human anymore. Your bodies and minds are capable of superhuman feats. You are mutants.
Old-School Essentials
Old-School Essentials is an award-winning role-playing game of fantastic adventure, monsters, and magic. Players delve into forbidden crypts and forsaken ruins, explore haunted forests and perilous mountain ranges, sail the high seas in search of lost lands, recover fabulous treasures, and unearth secrets of ancient magic.
Tales From the Loop
Roleplaying in the ’80s That Never Was: In 1954, the Swedish government ordered the construction of the world’s largest particle accelerator. The facility was complete in 1969, located deep below the pastoral countryside of Mälaröarna. The local population called this marvel of technology The Loop. In this roleplaying game, you play teenagers in the late 1980s, solving Mysteries connected to the Loop. Choose between character Types such as the Bookworm, the Troublemaker, the Popular Kid and the Weirdo. Everyday Life is full of nagging parents, never-ending homework and classmates bullying and being bullied. Explore the secrets of the Loop in two main game settings – one based on the Swedish Mälaren Islands, the other on Boulder City, Nevada. The Mysteries let the characters encounter the strange machines and weird creatures that have come to haunt the countryside after the Loop was built. The kids get to escape their everyday problems and be part of something meaningful and magical – but also dangerous.
Vaesen
In dark forests, beyond the mountains, by black lakes in hidden groves. At your doorstep. In the shadows, something stirs. Strange beings. Twisted creatures, lurking at the edge of vision. Watching. Waiting. Unseen by most, but not by you. You see them for what they really are. Vaesen. Welcome to the Mythic North – northern Europe of the nineteenth century, but not as we know it today. A land where the myths are real. A cold reach covered by vast forests, its few cities lonely beacons of industry and enlightenment – a new civilization dawning. But in the countryside, the old ways still hold sway. There, people know what lurks in the dark. They know to fear it.
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A Beginner's Guide to Foundry VTT
Learn how to set up, host, and (to a lesser extent) play a game on Foundry VTT! Set up your server, choose a game system, install it to Foundry, then create a World using that game system and launch it. To start with characters, the Actors tab will be where you keep character sheets, NPCs, and monsters. To create a player character, you can fill in a character sheet manually, but generally in Foundry, you'll also be able to click and drag elements from rules compendiums or items from Items directly into character sheets. You can also upload and edit the token the character will use on maps.
Scenes are the visual component of the virtual tabletop, whether it's a map of a region, an attractive (maybe even animated! backdrop, or a gridded dungeon map. You can upload an image to serve as the scene background and edit its dimensions, grid, and if you want to get fancy, illumination. You can set the light levels and whether or not characters can see by default in the scene. You can also add walls, windows, doors, and light sources that interact with this as well. Combat uses the turn tracker and has a number of handy tools to automate rolling dice, applying damage, measuring areas of effect, and even creating a hotbar of frequently used actions and abilities. The Items, Journal, and Music tabs allow GMs to share standard or custom items, handouts, pictures, notes, and music and ambient sounds with their players.
Importantly, you'll need to set up permissions for the players in your game, which determines what they can see, edit, and interact with. Finally, you'll want to know how to download, install, apply, and remove mods to Foundry, which is notorious for its vast library of user-generated modules! This should be enough to get you started running a game on Foundry.
Foundry VTT Player Basics
Playing on Foundry as a player is quite a bit easier than hosting and setting up the game as Game Master! This video will show you the basics, plus some tips and tricks to make the most of Foundry's features. You'll learn how to log in and join a game, move the camera, ping, and use the basic player tools, like selecting and drawing. You'll also learn the locations and uses of tabs like chat and its dice roller, and the encounter tab and turn tracker.
The Actor tab will have your character sheet, which, depending on the game, will often be full of automated tools and dice rollers. Generally, you'll be able to click and drag features, items, spells, and other character bits and bobs from the compendium directly into your character sheet to add them there. You'll also be able to edit your sheet, abilities and items, as well as level up/advance your character when the time comes! The Items tab will contain any items you have access to as a player.
The Journal tab allows you to create and organize notes, as well as receive handouts and art from the GM. Rollable Tables let you make random rolls, Cards let you use cards, the Compendium gives you access to rules, many of which you can click and drag onto your character sheet if you want to add a feature, spell, or class, and the Music tab lets you control the volume of music and ambient sounds. You can also edit your Settings tab if you really want to customize your Foundry experience.
You'll also learn some handy tips for controlling tokens, moving, customizing, and editing them, as well as using them in combat. Your GM might also install mods that change or add things for you to play with!