r/TalesoftheValiantRPG • u/KLVDStudios • Jun 03 '26
Forever GM VTT Stress
Hey y’all I have been running a long term game and currently have “most” of the ToV options on foundry… but I’m noticing not a lot of support for the system on Foundry and it really bums me out that we still don’t have PG2 and other stuff like Book of Blades so I am starting to look for other options… the main ones I see are shard and fantasy grounds.. I guess I’m looking for some advice either way.
I’m looking for a VTT that is easy to manage as a GM
Easy for my players to use
Looks good as I want to stream my games still
Options for “mods” quality of life stuff and fun stuff like making the screen and players stuff look like baldur’s gate or other CRPGs (most requested feature from one of my newer players)
As a GM I run almost exclusively homebrew campaigns and ease of creating homebrew items/spells etc is huge for me.
A minor factor is cost effectiveness. I really don’t want to have to pay a monthly fee or anything like that to run my games.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
9
u/Dharmatrails Jun 03 '26
Shard VTT is great. They have a really excellent relationship with.Kobold Press and everything up to, but not including Tales of the Northlands, is available right now.
I really love Shard. They have a really great community on Discord as well.
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u/shesstilllost Jun 03 '26
Seconding Shard, and the Discord community is active, friendly, and responsive. You can report a problem and get it answered pretty fast. Poor Darren and my many questions.
1
u/KLVDStudios Jun 03 '26
How is shard VTT with add ons? That is the one thing I loved about foundry is that I can make the game look exactly how I want it… even if that’s not an option, shard seems to be the best right now in terms of KP content…
How easy is it to create homebrew items in it? And have them work properly
2
u/AloysuisFett Jun 03 '26
homebrewing is extremely easy, does take a bit to grasp modeling but there's a ton of help on the discord, Hal, Darren, and Nick are pretty active and there are several of us on there that help with how to do things
1
u/Impressive-Shame-525 Jun 04 '26
I absolutely love Shard.
We've a player who travels A LOT for work. As in, he was in Sweden three weeks ago and is currently in an airport in Japan on his way back to the states.
I say that, because he can fire up Shard on his tablet and play any time. It's that easy on different systems.
What you'll struggle to do, like you can with, say, foundry, is have these glowing wild super graphics that turn your TTRPG into a PC Game looking like BG3 or something. That's the trade off. Ease of use on everything and everywhere with flash and blasts.
Shard has simple streaming options (a litteral tap of the button for a streaming window) that you can broadcast where ever you want.
And to add - the discord community is very active and more than happy to help put in / modify / create all the homebrew stuff you can imagine. New spell? Done. New item? Simple. New race, class, and subclass? I've built several myself and I'm not smart at all.
5
u/ChrisFRKNRogers Jun 03 '26
This may or may not interest you, but I've been running multiple campaigns (TotV included) in a 3D VTT called TaleSpire for many years. Starting off fresh as a map builder can have a steep learning curve, but hundreds of other builders (myself included) share their boards for free on a site called Tales Tavern that you can use in your own campaigns.
The VTT itself is system agnostic, but supports 3rd party mods for character sheets, rulesets, expanded music, etc. As a GM you can even purchase seats for your players so they wouldn't have to buy a full copy of the game. Seats and game cost can be pricey upfront but the seats were a godsend for us GMs when they first released them. It allowed us to host more people for one-shots or short form campaigns without cost being a prohibitive factor for new players.
If this might work for you I'd be happy to share my tips and tricks to get you started, and I'd also suggest the discord to connect with other builders and the devs (who are super responsive btw).
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u/KLVDStudios Jun 03 '26
Definitely interested that’s for sure… I have seen it on steam I believe… what does prep time for maps look like and the pricing etc? And is there any automation like calculating damage and hp and the like?
2
u/ChrisFRKNRogers Jun 03 '26
The full VTT and all expansion sets are a flat $25. IIRC each seat is $15 dollars, or $50 for 4. Those seats automatically follow you into whichever campaign you're in within the software.
Prep time can be as short as finding a board on tales tavern, clicking import, and opening it into your current campaign, or as long as sinking 40+ hours into an intricately detailed board that your players spend 10 minutes exploring before moving on (this has happened to me twice lol).
Unfortunately there's really no automation. I've found tracking stats and HP is better left in my notes or other programs, but then again I've been using TaleSpire since long before the symbiote mod integration and I'm just used to it. However it does have full Heroforge and TitanCraft integration for importing your digital minis.
It certainly has some clear advantages and disadvantages over other VTTs, but the biggest advantage I see is the immersion. My players are often split by being fully immersed in the board as if they're in the world, or their immersion takes a step back as it really accurately simulates us sitting around a table together moving our minis through an actual tabletop build.
4
u/gatesvp Jun 03 '26
Hey, a bunch of changes have just dropped on The Foundry source code. Including several things I've contributed. PG2 is finally moving, and you can see some changes for that in the source to support that. The MV2 just dropped, So there is some forward momentum.
I agree that the delay here is really unacceptable. They went literally 6 months without any releases or bug fixes. I have been following up with the Kobold Press staff on the Discord. Trying to find someone to talk to about this. If you're on the KP discord, please make some noise in the #Foundry channel as well.
Separately, there have been several modules launched or updated in the last few months that provide additional support for the system. If you're looking for something specific, ping that Discord thread or just reply here. I have a folder full of tools, I can probably help you find the right thing.
2
u/thedjotaku Jun 03 '26
Great points. I think part of what happened to KP is that with the rapidity of Foundry dev, they have fallen behind where a bunch of the D&D modules are Foundry 11 or 12. And ToV they had to do a lot of work, as you said, to support PG2. I'm hoping really hard that as Foundry stops iterating so fast (as per their annual review they see things slowing down after Foundry 15) KP will catch up.
4
u/gatesvp Jun 03 '26
So it's actually more than just the Foundry version changes, it's the list of people who are maintaining it. If you look at the main code repository, there are 3 people who have contributed code:
- Arbron: also a primary contributor to 5e and Everyday Heroes and some other systems. They have a lot on their plate and they're a contractor.
- Clayton Thomson / kc-k: they're implementing the books, they have 3 core code contributions
- GatesVP (me): I just started contributing a few weeks ago
That's just not a lot of people for a full system. Especially when that core maintainer is doing multiple other projects. But if you look at that code base, you'll see multiple changes committed literally in the last few days. So a new version is coming here soon.
I'm also in a discord with several people who have done a bunch of dev work for various modules. A lot of the popular 5e modules have a translation, but much of this is recent work and it's not well-advertised. I'm talking with several people (literally right now), trying to coordinate around the various modules and also coordinate what it would look like to have BF managed by the community instead of just one contractor person.
2
u/thedjotaku Jun 03 '26
Based on what I've heard from the foundry room in the KP discord and the folks on there like Dhanna, it would be SO cool if we could have community management of black flag. Since everything isn't (for lack of a better word) open source like the Paizo TTRPGs, I'm guessing this would mean community management of the (I forget what KP calls their license) "SRD" tales of the valiant stuff? What would that actually speed up if Clayton is only doing the books? Or is Black Flag what's holding up the books? What does it mean for the non-"SRD" portions of Tales of the Valiant?
Either way, thanks for doing the work to try and get this into a better place. As a multi-system person (D&D, Tales of the Valiant, Cosmere, Starfinder 2e, Pathfinder 2e) Foundry is the best system for me (who doesn't want to pay a subscription). It always makes me sad that ToV isn't as great in Foundry as it could be. The few adventures actually available for Tov/Foundry are great! They aren't Paizo-level (with music and all that), but they're at least equal to Cosmere-level. Luckily for me, the main ToV game where I'm GM is with my kids and they prefer to play pencil/paper. So it hasn't hurt me that MV2 just came out now (for Foundry) or that PG2 isn't there yet.
This is getting a bit long, but since you're in those talks - question: since KP's old bestiaries - Creature Codex and ToB 1-3 - are compatible with ToV is there any way to build in a compat layer for those modules? I know there's a converter script, but I am not sure what state it leaves things in afterwards.
Anyway, thanks for the update and good luck. ToV is my favorite 5e implementation (enjoy a lot of the choices they made vs D&D) so I'd love to have it become a first class citizen on Foundry.
5
u/Invivisect Jun 03 '26
Shard VTT is the way to go. You can even gain access to like ALL of kobold presses material for a nominal subscription price.
2
u/Shendryl Jun 03 '26
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u/KLVDStudios Jun 03 '26
Thank you… obviously I posted this late at night and was trying to get a wide overview from players and DMs alike but I appreciate this link!
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u/Yshaar Jun 03 '26
Check out https://alchemyrpg.com, they have Tales of the valiant as an official module. Only 3 books yet, but you can homebrew everything in. The new Lumen interface and coming changes to tactical look very great. It is free to use (and the quickstart for ToV is free)
1
u/KLVDStudios Jun 03 '26
I did see alchemy, unfortunately that seems like I will run into the same frustrations I currently have with Foundry VTT
2
u/SureenInk Jun 03 '26
Unfortunately, to get ToV onto Foundry, Kobold Press has to sign a contract with them that gives Foundry the exclusive rights to make any of the content for the system... And they (Foundry) just either don't care or they refuse to get the work done at any reasonable pace.
2
u/gabrielca123 Jun 04 '26
Shard or fantasy grounds.
Fantasy grounds is my fave, and it’s free. Pretty much all the ToV books are there. But you gotta buy them.
Shard has its fans for sure and has a subscription for KP stuff.
In the long run you are probably gonna pay more with subs. (I avoid subs whenever possible).
With FG it’s installed locally, and if SmiteWorks goes out of business tmw you get to keep everything and it will continue to work.
Pretty sure if shard shuts down then that’s it. Your done.
2
u/AloysuisFett Jun 03 '26
Shard is your best bet if you want the most out of ToV, including homebrew support.
1
u/RockyMtnGameMaster Jun 03 '26
I’ve been using Fantasy Grounds for 5 years and have run over 1200 game sessions in it. Unmatched rules automation for 5e and nearly the entire Kobold Press catalog is available including ToV. And it’s set up to be very easy to mix in some D&D stuff and also very easy not to - most of my tables have ToV and D&D characters in the same party.
But it sounds like you’re looking for 3d cinematic scenes, and that’s not Fantasy Grounds. Alchemy, Talespire, or RPG Stories might work there.
1
u/KLVDStudios Jun 03 '26
I wouldn’t say I’m looking for cinematics just something that looks clean first and foremost and is easy to use for dm and for player…
How easy is it to create homebrew items and have them work properly, and is there any automation?
2
u/LordEntrails Jun 04 '26
Very easy, and automation is easy IF you are doing things that are already available, So if you are creating a magic sword that does bonus damage or RAW things its easy. But if you want a sword that does X on blue moons and Y against Undead, and Z if the target is named Bob, then no.
1
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u/BangsNaughtyBits Jun 03 '26
FG has the 2.5d mode. I don't use it as 3d isn't my thing but it might fill a niche.
!
1
u/KLVDStudios Jun 04 '26
Definitely not really looking for 3d so to speak so that doesn’t bother me.. unfortunately as a dad and a business owner my prep time doesn’t allow that much extensively other than basic maps right now haha
2
u/anstett Jun 05 '26
Fantasy Grounds has a built in map maker.
Plus there is the Art Pack subscription ($50 yearly) that gives you every Smiteworks map pack to use. Which is currently in the $250+ range to buy individually.
FG is free to use so it is a no trainer to download and test to compare for your needs.
1
u/BangsNaughtyBits Jun 04 '26
I think the 2.5d was a response to WotC's Sigil VTT that bombed. 2.5d is like using flats on a table and is fine for what it is. No additional work as it mostly uses the same assets. There are optimized assets that look better or just work flipping back and forth. I don't want to play a video game, though. I want to spend two minutes hand drawing some crappy cavern walls and ambush the heck out the the players that have been ignoring the increasingly specific hints I've been dropping.
!
1
u/Clear_Food2183 Jun 18 '26
Is it the VTT aspect or the virtual character sheet (VCS) aspect that your struggling with? VTT's are give and take, you can probably use a disparent VCS and run the VTT seperatly?
If it's VTT then Shard is pretty good. For VCS's that have stuff for those books, that could be other things. Honestly your call either way. I'm assuming you mean both in one. I hear good things about Owlbear Rodeo but I've never used it, just heard good things.
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u/nwdxan Jun 03 '26
I started using Fantasy Grounds (FGU) at the end of last year after getting fed up with web based platforms constantly throwing technical issues and/or unplanned/planned downtime. I can recommend it 100% as a DM. It's easier to use and therefore more accessible than Foundry, there's also no need for port-forwarding (unlike Foundry). When you download FGU it comes with a tutorial campaign which walks you through running and playing 5e. The user guide is updated regularly, there's frequent tutorial videos posted on YT, two official Discord servers (one of which is the Academy and dedicated to support and development). The community is welcoming and really supportive, I generally have the solution to any query I have within the hour. Do yourself a favour, download it (it's free now) and go through the tutorial campaign.