Foundry vs Roll20 - Which VTT Is Right for You?

in this video I'm comparing Foundry and roll 20. two of the most popular virtual tabletops or vtts for short this is a bit different to my usual videos but I think it might be useful for some people let's start at the beginning what actually is a vtt a vtt is a program designed to Aid playing a tabletop RPG virtually at the most basic level they provide a place to store character sheets roll dice and use battle maps but they can offer a lot more than that while you can play a game remotely without a vtt using one will help to make the game run smoother trying to decide which one to use can be a little overwhelming as they're all packed full of features if you're new to playing RPGs online it can be difficult to know which features are important these days I run all of my games online since it makes it easier to get a group together and to deal with scheduling issues I used to run entirely on Roll 20 but around a year ago I switched to Foundry I've now used both enough to have a good grasp on them both feet teeth have their pros and cons and there's no clear answer to which is better it's going to depend on what you want out of your vtt hopefully this video will help you to decide which is right for you the first thing to talk about is the price roll 20 has a free option whereas Foundry does not the free option limits you to 100 megabytes of storage and only lets you access the most basic features if you're just starting out it can be a great option to dip your toes into running a game online it probably won't be long before the 100 megabytes of storage becomes limiting roll20 offers two subscription options plus and pro the Plus subscription gives you three gigabytes which is plenty of space as well as access to Dynamic lighting this subscription will be fine for most people although several key features will remain locked if you want access to the more powerful modding scripting and automation features that roll20 provides you'll need to upgrade further to the pro subscription I don't personally think this is a great deal as the scripting functionality in roll20 is nowhere near the level of Foundry which I think is a much better system for that kind of thing Foundry has two payment options firstly is the self-hosted route which is what I use this is a one-time payment for the application which you then need to host yourself this will require a little bit of technical knowledge to get set up as you'll have to port forward honestly it's not too difficult and there are plenty of guides on YouTube to help you if you need them since your players only need access to the game when you're playing you don't need to worry about keeping the server application open all of the time either only when you need it if for whatever reason you can't self-host Foundry there are links on foundry's website to partnered hosting providers which will do most of the technical heavy lifting for you since this requires a subscription the cost will end up similar to roll20's premium options on the bright side none of these services will gate functionality behind their subscription if you're using Foundry you have access to all of the features with both Services you can split the cost of your group if they're open to that this can be a great way to reduce the cost of the vtt both Services also offer marketplaces for both free and paid additional content we'll get to that later overall if you're not looking to spend any money roll20 is the only option the main drawback is the 100 megabyte space limit which will blow through quickly in terms of paid options Foundry is cheaper if you're able to self-host as you'll only need to make a single one-off payment if you can't self-host then the price is comparable between both services at first glance the core features of both World 20 and Foundry might seem similar and for the most part they are they both provide a play space for maps and tokens as well as to store character sheets and allow dice rolling the key difference is that with roll20 most features must be tracked manually on Foundry every feature an item is clickable and can be configured to use custom dice rolls and effects this comes with a cost however on Foundry it's a lot harder to see what all of your features do at a glance Foundry can be more powerful but requires more setup time and is less intuitive to use roll20 is easy to use but will require a lot more manual rolling and has limited options for Automation in my opinion raw 20 has a simpler and more intuitive UI than Foundry the key strength for foundries with its customization Foundry provides a searchable mod marketplace with a huge number of mods with these mods you can really customize foundry's looking features to your liking if you want to lean into having the vtt calculate everything for you then you can do that but you don't have to I think for most people world 20 is more approachable as it doesn't require any configuration Foundry generally needs at least a little bit of tweaking to get a good play experience if you just want to jump into a game with as little prep as possible roll 20 is the way to go if you're willing to put a bit more work Foundry can offer you much more one strength of roll 20 being so simple is that it's easy to use your players are unlikely to mess something up in contrast when using Foundry I had a couple of my players create characters by making their own features rather than dragging and dropping the classes from the compendium some of them did the same things for spells items Etc while this was easily remedied it highlights one of the main issues with Foundry as the GM you're often going to know these programs way better than your players with roll 20 this isn't a big deal but with Foundry you may find that your players don't know about all of the features and how to use them properly it's not too much work to teach your players about these features as they become relevant but it does add another barrier to confuse newer players on the other hand being able to do things like level up or handle rest with the click of a button is a nice quality of life feature for players with Foundry you get out what you put in and a well-configured environment used properly will do a lot of heavy lifting for you While most people are probably just playing DND 5e there are other systems out there for all 20 support for these systems varies the further you get away from a D20 DND Style game the less support they generate is even when playing a relatively simple game like 13th of age I found that roll 20 got quite clunky when playing more Unique Systems like Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPGs roll 20 was pretty much hopeless while it does vary from system to system role 20 can cause you headaches depending on what you're playing Foundry owing to its higher mod ability handles these systems a lot better you still need to do some work up front but the end result will be easier to both run and play Roll 20 can get these systems to work although you'll probably need access to the modding API which requires the most expensive subscription when playing non-dnd games you're also more likely to need to write macros and in row 20 their macro system is a pain to use even for technical users your mileage may vary overall 20 depending on the system you want to play if it's something simple like dungeon world or something relatively close to d d like Pathfinder you'll be fine the further from that you go the more likely you are to have problems both raw 20 and Foundry feature a marketplace with free and paid extensions foundry's Marketplace mostly features free mods to customize your experience there's a lot of options to completely change how your game plays Foundry also has a variety of paid extensions often official support for certain systems like Pathfinder or for third-party Source books unfortunately the official DND Source books aren't on the marketplace there are extensions which will let you copy any owned content from DND Beyond into your game but these are unofficial so your mileage may vary roll 20's Marketplace by contrast is largely focused on paid tokens maps and Source books there's a variety available although I personally find the price expensive and most of the creators offer their work significantly cheaper on patreon since these tokens and maps are just images there's nothing stopping you from using them with Foundry where all 20s Marketplace really shines though is with its official DND content which can be bought and directly used in your game it's worth noting that any content bought in the marketplace does not count towards your account storage limit many official Adventures can be bought on the Royal 20 Marketplace and will allow you to run the adventure with almost no prep as encounters items and Maps can be imported into your game Foundry has no official Wizards of the Coast support and so there is no equivalent for The Foundry Marketplace if you're going to run an official DND Adventure being able to buy on roll20's Marketplace is a big plus for the platform Foundry and roll 20s marketplaces serve different purposes foundries is focused around providing a mod browser with some paid content thrown in for our 20th Marketplace is focused on premium content roll20 doesn't have an easy way to find modifications to customize and extend your game in the way that Foundry does making Maps is something you may or may not have to do as a GM you can often get away with theater of the mind or by finding maps online to use sometimes though you might find yourself needing to make a dungeon in my experience making Maps directly in either vtt is fiddly and painful I wouldn't really recommend making your Maps directly in either platform if you want to make your own Maps you should consider using a third-party program I usually use dungeon draft for my maps which is easy to use and can import into either platform the maps in the two vtts support different features roll20's Dynamic lighting is primitive and Foundry provides many types of walls doors Etc change how player's site works I do sometimes find these features turn the game into too much of a board game but you can just opt not to use them like everything in Foundry the mapping tools can be modified I was able to set up maps with multiple levels where players walking on stairs would be instantly transported to the next area there's a ton of extensions that allow you to set up complex Triggers on certain tiles none of these features are necessary to run the game but they can make your combat encounters more Dynamic whether or not you use these features it's going to depend on the kind of game you like to run if you just want a standard battle map like you might use in person both for all 20 and Foundry support this just fine Foundry has a lot of nice options for more Dynamic maps The Raw 20 doesn't but none of those are mandatory if you prefer a close to tabletop experience roll 20's like of bells and whistles might be appealing there's less to get in the way in terms of play experience roll 20 feels a lot closer to playing in person everyone needs to keep track of their own features and you'll often be rolling dice manually with Foundry there's a lot less of this in my experience Foundry has a Hotbar that you can drag items features and spells onto for quick use during combat this can be a big Time Saver and I often find combat quicker on Foundry through extensions it's possible to automate a lot of combat some extensions take a while to set up but even just using simpler ones you can speed things up a ton how much dead time you have in combat will vary from group to group in some groups Foundry will make combat a lot quicker if everyone knows what they're doing and is quick with their turns anyway then it won't make much difference outside of combat the two systems are similar I've found some nice Quality of Life Extensions but nothing game changing on both Foundry and Rule 20 I find most of the gameplay to be spent role-playing and the vtt is invisible in both cases this is something that's going to vary a lot depending on the style of game you run Foundry allows Advanced users to heavily customize their play experience the UI for doing this can be clunky at times the beginner users might find themselves only installing modules that work out of the box even with simple modules Foundry feels a lot more powerful than raw 20. roll20 does allow you to write macros but the language for doing this is ugly and unpleasant to write if you're at the stage of wanting to write complex macros in rule 20 I'd seriously consider switching it's probably clear by now that I prefer fur foundry's play experience primarily due to how it speeds up combat despite this it's undeniable that the two platforms are quite similar you can definitely argue that roll 20 is closer to tabletop where everything is manual this is really a question of taste and I don't think you can make a definitive call as to which is better their different systems aimed at different people I don't think you can really go wrong with either vtt if you want something simple that's easy to use roll20 is probably right for you roll 20 is free so it's also a great option if you want to try running a game but you aren't sure if you'll stick with it thanks to the marketplace Royal 20 is also a great option if you want to run an official d d Adventure Foundry is more powerful in the hands of an advanced User it's great if you're the kind of person that likes to customize everything to your liking it's the better option for users who want to take advantage of some of the more advanced tools that vtts can offer hopefully this video has helped to clarify the differences between the two vtts and helps you to decide which is right for you if you enjoyed this video make sure to leave a like And subscribe for more content I'm not sure if I'll make any more RPG focused content but if this video does well I'll definitely consider it

Channel: Buzerio

Views: 7,040

Keywords: roll20, dungeons and dragons, d&d, foundry vtt, virtual tabletop, RPG, Critical Role, dnd, tabletop, tabletop rpgs, roll20 tutorial, roll20 dm, roll20 gm, pen and paper, Buzerio, 579, which VTT, Foundry vs roll20, VTT guide, foundry tutorial

Id: bdg-JimDvq4

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 12 2023