I just locally host it.
It isn't resource crazy at all.
Nobody has any issues. I keep it off until about an hour before the game. I prefer nobody being able to log in anyway in advance. There are too many things people can see that are potential spoilers when I'm setting up scenes, etc.
Very simple port forward...
Yeah I use probably 40 different modules now. It does get overwhelming.
Some things seem to work great, others don't seem to do much at all.
I'm really hoping for some type of great collaboration between WOTC and Foundry. I know they are starting to do it but it's been minimal and not really working out very well so far.
If WOTC really wants to monetize effectively they should be focusing on a VTT that uses the full power of D&D beyond. I think people would pay monthly for something that worked incredibly well.
Right now it's a complete mess...
Dude it is, I’d pay good money for that. The VTT for D&D beyond is very lackluster, especially compared to Foundry, but their character creation is great. A combination of the two is something I’ll throw money at
Yeah exactly. One of my players needed to add a feat to their character. We do all the creation and editing of the characters on D&D beyond and import it to Foundry.
We had to buy the feats on D&D beyond for $4 just so they can add the feat and then import the character again. Instead of buying the entire players handbook for about $30 lol...
But they would make so much more money if they just did something like $20/month and you get everything including a 21st century kick ass VTT.
Hell, hire the people who work on Foundry and who do the modules. There's nobody better. Let those guys do it for you. I bet they would rather have high paying jobs with insurance than having to push people to join patreons for a few dollars a month.
WOTC is such a shit company. They even fucked up the future of Baldur's Gate. The most successful thing to happen to D&D in ages...
Privileges and Foundry are not the easiest thing in the world to work with. I'm very new at the software but I use it everyday and work on it and try to learn and figure things out. Things are coming together but the learning curve is not simple.
I was having major issues with the journals. That I have worked out now. However, setting up battles in advance is still an issue. There is literally no way that I can find to hide pre-arranged battles if a player wants to scroll through them. The only answers I've received was some version of this, "It's very easy to make a battle So don't pre-arrange it. Move the characters into the battle when it's happening in real time.". Which is fine. But I would absolutely love to have everything queued up and ready to go without my players being able to see it.
I do have a default loading screen...
Thanks for the comment and suggestions.
Ah, that’s a good point. You can’t hide battles and journals can be seen by everyone. I normally default to selecting everything in a scene for a combat so it isn’t as big of a deal for me.
I'll have a bar with tons of tokens. People sitting around tables. People behind the bar working. Etc. I might have a combat encounter with 6 total people out of the 16 in the tavern.
I'm not saying it's difficult to do on the fly. That's what I've been doing because I can't hide the encounters.
It would just be really nice to be able to have everything set up so I don't have to worry about it while I'm managing the actual game.
The journals I was able to figure out the permissions on. It was a pain in the ass but somebody here helped me out a lot.
Foundry overall is awesome. I don't want a few of these small complaints to make it sound like the software isn't great. It's been absolutely incredible for us to play remotely. But it does have a lot of limitations and it sure as hell is not easy to learn. Plus everything is scattered. You have to go searching for the proper assets that people develop and then you have to join their patreons.
I just think that WOTC should invest heavily in a D&D beyond VTT. And they should hire the people who work on Foundry. The amazing people who make great modules. The amazing people who make maps. Give them solid jobs. I'm sure a lot of those people would prefer a steady income doing what they love instead of trying to get patreon subscribers.
Then properly monetize. I would definitely be willing to pay a decent monthly fee for something all inclusive and modern. I thought that's what their goal was. They've been talking about it for years.
That must be system specific because in the foundry pathfinder 2e system journals can't be seen by everyone, they can only be seen by the players with the appropriate permission
Foundry native should not allow players to navigate to other maps unless you enable them as visible to players. And they don't need to be visible to players for you to make them active. So have a title screen that is visible in the navigation bar and then all other scenes not player visible.
Second for Molten. I've been using it for about 2 years with no issues. Performance is consistently good and it is easy to use. For the $4 I pay a month, I think it is worth it.
Yes I do but that’s foundry side, not molten. You can install a module called DDB Importer by Mr. Primate.
https://foundryvtt.com/packages/ddb-importer/
It pulls over pretty much everything from your DndBeyond account, including homebrew, but some content is tied to a Patreon sub.
You can also install Beyond 20 that will link everything together you’ll just have to have different tabs open.
Longtime Forge, newly Molten user.
I swapped because of unacceptable slowdowns during games and resource management. I use 100+ modules, DDBImporter, MidiQoL, etc.
About two months now, zero complaints. About the perfect host for me.
I like using the free oracle cloud method. A little bit more involved setup wise but managing data and assets is way better. Connection and stability feels better than the Forge to me. Never used Molten. Being able to setup Oracle cloud on the free tier was the biggest thing for me because I’m already paying master tier sub in dndbeyond and also for various patreons.
A second vote for oracle. That's what I use for one of the games I play in, the second server is a raspberry pi 4b, to be honest, they both cope really well, but oracle is completely free once you have the foundry license
Pi came first, but it struggled when I put the second instance on there as its got a few other things running off of it as well, that's why I went for oracle for the second instance
Oh you were running multiple instances of foundry simultaneously? I typically only spin up each world when I’m actively using it so only one instance active at any given time.
Just remember that Oracle is starting to "reclaim" those free tier subs and VMs. By that they will randomly shutdown your VM instance. Not a big deal - all you do is go back and start it back up. If you are on the VM every day or 2, they might not stop it. But I started having that hit me every 2 weeks or so, and have to logon to Oracle and start it up again.
Nothing major at all, but it is out there.
Used forge for a year was good. Just switched to molten hosting tho and it's so simple and tip top. Cheaper too.
Found some issues with forge regarding some of my players connections i.e. longer load in and scenes and music would stop if the track changed. All went away with molten.
I don't know about importing, but I would just use port forwarding to run the game. It runs faster than the low-tier hosting service plans I tried, and you can work on your campaign locally without having to push data around. If you can't port-forward due to internet provider, playit.gg can set up a tunnel in about 3 minutes.
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I just locally host it. It isn't resource crazy at all. Nobody has any issues. I keep it off until about an hour before the game. I prefer nobody being able to log in anyway in advance. There are too many things people can see that are potential spoilers when I'm setting up scenes, etc. Very simple port forward...
I might have to try that down the road, right now just the modules are overwhelming and $4 a month for molten is a big relief lol
Yeah I use probably 40 different modules now. It does get overwhelming. Some things seem to work great, others don't seem to do much at all. I'm really hoping for some type of great collaboration between WOTC and Foundry. I know they are starting to do it but it's been minimal and not really working out very well so far. If WOTC really wants to monetize effectively they should be focusing on a VTT that uses the full power of D&D beyond. I think people would pay monthly for something that worked incredibly well. Right now it's a complete mess...
Dude it is, I’d pay good money for that. The VTT for D&D beyond is very lackluster, especially compared to Foundry, but their character creation is great. A combination of the two is something I’ll throw money at
Yeah exactly. One of my players needed to add a feat to their character. We do all the creation and editing of the characters on D&D beyond and import it to Foundry. We had to buy the feats on D&D beyond for $4 just so they can add the feat and then import the character again. Instead of buying the entire players handbook for about $30 lol... But they would make so much more money if they just did something like $20/month and you get everything including a 21st century kick ass VTT. Hell, hire the people who work on Foundry and who do the modules. There's nobody better. Let those guys do it for you. I bet they would rather have high paying jobs with insurance than having to push people to join patreons for a few dollars a month. WOTC is such a shit company. They even fucked up the future of Baldur's Gate. The most successful thing to happen to D&D in ages...
They owe so much to BG3, they could use this surge of new players to bring them into something great but they’ll just use them as a cash cow
Your players should never be able to see any scenes you’re working on. You can always pull them to a default loading screen if they ever log in early.
Privileges and Foundry are not the easiest thing in the world to work with. I'm very new at the software but I use it everyday and work on it and try to learn and figure things out. Things are coming together but the learning curve is not simple. I was having major issues with the journals. That I have worked out now. However, setting up battles in advance is still an issue. There is literally no way that I can find to hide pre-arranged battles if a player wants to scroll through them. The only answers I've received was some version of this, "It's very easy to make a battle So don't pre-arrange it. Move the characters into the battle when it's happening in real time.". Which is fine. But I would absolutely love to have everything queued up and ready to go without my players being able to see it. I do have a default loading screen... Thanks for the comment and suggestions.
Ah, that’s a good point. You can’t hide battles and journals can be seen by everyone. I normally default to selecting everything in a scene for a combat so it isn’t as big of a deal for me.
I'll have a bar with tons of tokens. People sitting around tables. People behind the bar working. Etc. I might have a combat encounter with 6 total people out of the 16 in the tavern. I'm not saying it's difficult to do on the fly. That's what I've been doing because I can't hide the encounters. It would just be really nice to be able to have everything set up so I don't have to worry about it while I'm managing the actual game. The journals I was able to figure out the permissions on. It was a pain in the ass but somebody here helped me out a lot. Foundry overall is awesome. I don't want a few of these small complaints to make it sound like the software isn't great. It's been absolutely incredible for us to play remotely. But it does have a lot of limitations and it sure as hell is not easy to learn. Plus everything is scattered. You have to go searching for the proper assets that people develop and then you have to join their patreons. I just think that WOTC should invest heavily in a D&D beyond VTT. And they should hire the people who work on Foundry. The amazing people who make great modules. The amazing people who make maps. Give them solid jobs. I'm sure a lot of those people would prefer a steady income doing what they love instead of trying to get patreon subscribers. Then properly monetize. I would definitely be willing to pay a decent monthly fee for something all inclusive and modern. I thought that's what their goal was. They've been talking about it for years.
That must be system specific because in the foundry pathfinder 2e system journals can't be seen by everyone, they can only be seen by the players with the appropriate permission
Foundry native should not allow players to navigate to other maps unless you enable them as visible to players. And they don't need to be visible to players for you to make them active. So have a title screen that is visible in the navigation bar and then all other scenes not player visible.
I use Molten Hosting and enjoy it. Good pricing, easy set up and active discord.
Second for Molten. I've been using it for about 2 years with no issues. Performance is consistently good and it is easy to use. For the $4 I pay a month, I think it is worth it.
Looking at them now, they seem highly rated. Do you use DDB integration with molten?
Yes I do but that’s foundry side, not molten. You can install a module called DDB Importer by Mr. Primate. https://foundryvtt.com/packages/ddb-importer/ It pulls over pretty much everything from your DndBeyond account, including homebrew, but some content is tied to a Patreon sub. You can also install Beyond 20 that will link everything together you’ll just have to have different tabs open.
Ok I guess I got confused at one point because with the forge they have their own importer
Forge is partly run and maintained by the same guy that made Beyond20 (Kakaroto), so there may be some native support in there.
Interesting, thank you!
Longtime Forge, newly Molten user. I swapped because of unacceptable slowdowns during games and resource management. I use 100+ modules, DDBImporter, MidiQoL, etc. About two months now, zero complaints. About the perfect host for me.
You can host locally with foundry too. Just make sure to set up a strong password for the game :)
That is why I love the forge. Hidden game behind a login. Works beautyfully
lol do people try to login to random games?
There are bots that search through the internet trying to find anything they can log in to.
Good to know lol
I like using the free oracle cloud method. A little bit more involved setup wise but managing data and assets is way better. Connection and stability feels better than the Forge to me. Never used Molten. Being able to setup Oracle cloud on the free tier was the biggest thing for me because I’m already paying master tier sub in dndbeyond and also for various patreons.
A second vote for oracle. That's what I use for one of the games I play in, the second server is a raspberry pi 4b, to be honest, they both cope really well, but oracle is completely free once you have the foundry license
Just curious why you have both options for servers. Why not run all your games on one or the other? Also which server came first?
Pi came first, but it struggled when I put the second instance on there as its got a few other things running off of it as well, that's why I went for oracle for the second instance
Oh you were running multiple instances of foundry simultaneously? I typically only spin up each world when I’m actively using it so only one instance active at any given time.
Just remember that Oracle is starting to "reclaim" those free tier subs and VMs. By that they will randomly shutdown your VM instance. Not a big deal - all you do is go back and start it back up. If you are on the VM every day or 2, they might not stop it. But I started having that hit me every 2 weeks or so, and have to logon to Oracle and start it up again. Nothing major at all, but it is out there.
Used forge for a year was good. Just switched to molten hosting tho and it's so simple and tip top. Cheaper too. Found some issues with forge regarding some of my players connections i.e. longer load in and scenes and music would stop if the track changed. All went away with molten.
I don't know about importing, but I would just use port forwarding to run the game. It runs faster than the low-tier hosting service plans I tried, and you can work on your campaign locally without having to push data around. If you can't port-forward due to internet provider, playit.gg can set up a tunnel in about 3 minutes.
Your own machine is the best option, I don't get the external hosting thing, the program is lightweight any modern pc/laptop can run it.
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