What is it going to take for Modiphius to take VTTs more seriously? The 2D20 system suffers for the lack of official support compared to things like Symbaroum and Alien, much less the heavy hitters like D&D and Pathfinder, et al., and I can’t for the life of me figure out why Modiphius doesn’t make this a higher priority. The coding chops necessary aren’t particularly rare, you just need to pay a couple of people to do the damn job full-time. Vue and Node devs are a dime a dozen FFS!
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There’s some excellent fan made modules for 2d20 games on Foundry and my understanding is that there are talks underway for something official at some point.
Cool, but I’m talking about proper support from the company, not fan-made stuff that falls off after a few updates.
Modiphius has seemingly allowed whoever raises their hand first to develop systems for their games, and those “companies” are not very professional, strictly speaking. The Nerd Eye crew (very nice, but busy, dudes who handle the rulesets for Fantasy Grounds) are effectively two-to-three people working regular jobs and doing that stuff whenever their lives allow for it, none of whom are software engineers and none of whom are really all that incentivized to deal with customer complaints or feature requests. They made their money on the initial sale of the ruleset and why should they really care if people are unhappy? They don’t represent Modiphius in any meaningful way, so if the product experience tarnishes the brand, why should they GAF? I mean, that’s fine for a fan-made thing, but these dudes charged $50 and are officially supported by Modiphius (i.e. they are cleared to release real published material in the modules/rulesets, not just the game mechanics which Modiphius cannot copyright) … and the experience is just not good enough.
That’s the full story of official Modiphius support for VTTs. There are no other 2d20 systems with official support on any VTT, as far as I can tell.
Over on Foundry, you’ve got a very, very good ruleset for Conan (arguably far superior to the one on FGU, but $50 cheaper!), but nobody has updated it to work with the latest version of Foundry (0.8.x) … which came out two months ago! There are no other major titles who have remained incompatible with the latest version of Foundry this whole time, as far as I can tell. When you ask about it on their Discord, the guys who were working on it are very forthcoming: they don’t have time to update the system because they’re out of work and need to concentrate on getting paid. That a really dumb way to operate in general in the era of VTTs, let alone in a post-pandemic world.
People just spent the last year playing these games exclusively online, and in that entire 12-month stretch Modiphius did precious little to cater to, or capitalize on, the online gaming milieu. That’s a shame and a huge missed opportunity. I am under no illusions about how much any TTRPG company really earns in profit (this industry is virtually microscopic in the grand scheme of things), but you don’t need to pay some huge crew … we’re talking about systems that all feed off XML and JS (or LUA). One team of two or three people could create rulesets for all the systems if they were paid to do so full-time, instead of whenever their regular lives allowed for it.
Hence this topic … I’d love for Modiphius to address in concrete terms their stance/strategy on VTTs and when, if ever, they expect to provide reliable and professional development of their rulesets for online play across more than just one platform and in support of more than just one system. Having all these broken rulesets out there, 99% of which aren’t “official,” as the sole representatives of your brand and games in the VTT space is crazy-town, to me.
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Dune has officially been released on Roll20 and looks pretty good
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When you ask for VTT support though…which one? If I were a publisher that would be a big decision to make because none of them are set up the same way and deciding on where to focus limited resources takes time and research. Is most of my player base using Roll20? Do they use FG? Foundry? Astral? Most people are very particular and will negatively comment if the decision isn’t the one they personally use. “Why is Dune on Roll20 but not Foundry???” etc. Then following that decision, you need to see how many people actually buy the thing you make. Are the sales enough to justify the cost? Especially when your audience is split over multiple platforms?
In the meantime though, if fans are making quality products and then a company can work out something with them, then that’s stellar. That’s why there’s been a burst of Free League products on Foundry and most of them are a two tier type thing. A free module with the mechanics, character sheet etc. and then a paid premium content with all of the things from the core book already added in. It’s a model that seems to work very well. Especially at the price point FL charges (which is yet another consideration…how many times can you ask people to buy the same material and at what price?)
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I am glad to hear that it’s available for players, but it’s one system on one platform and it’s the only one that’s actually been released for Roll20, as far as I can tell. That’s a bizarre choice and it’s probably only possible because someone decided they wanted to build it and Modiphius agreed to let them.
That Dune ruleset is $65 and you don’t even get the PDFs, it’s just Roll20-specific content. Will it be supported in six months? Who knows. Will they ever release any additional modules? Who knows. If they don’t, and you come here to complain, what will Modiphius do? They didn’t develop it, and they don’t take any ownership or responsibility for those VTT products afaik: so, go ahead and make a post here about how Conan doesn’t work in FGU and is missing half the rules or content, you will not get the type of customer service response you might hope for from a publisher who has a scaleable product strategy, you will get told to go speak with three guys who have day jobs and mess around with the rules when their real lives allow for it. (No shade on those dudes, btw, I don’t know them personally in any meaningful way and I have no interest in disparaging their efforts, I’m just saying that it’s frustrating for a consumer to pay premium prices but not to receive premium customer service from the master brand.) I suspect the same is true for the Roll20 implementation of Dune.
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I would say FGU, Roll20 and Foundry are the obvious choices.
Roll20 and Foundry could both easily be derived from a common set of (mostly XML) documents with some clever regex and XSL work as they both run Node.js and operate using standard webapp design patterns. And although FGU is a shambolic mound of archaic software architecture and Unity, you could still bang out most of the big XML libraries (i.e., Talents, Items, etc.) using the same methods. You would admittedly need to reconstruct the business rules/logic of your ruleset in LUA, but given that all the 2d20 systems use similar structures, you could potentially build this one time and merely mutate it for various specific system implementations.
Also, while I agree that it’s great that individuals have their passion projects and make rulesets for games that otherwise would never have rulesets, it all sort of falls apart when they decide not to keep updating the software … since Modiphius is willing to give their aegis to companies like Nerd Eye, they get to charge a premium price for the software but there doesn’t appear to be any obligation to continue supporting the products; there is no accountability baked into the arrangement. This is folly of course because these products represent your brand in the marketplace, regardless of who built them … it’s a symphony of bad customer experiences that all have the Modiphius logo on it, whether they were directly involved or not. To me, that’s an insane model to adopt in a world where the majority of TTRPGs are played online.
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i completely agree, other companies are cranking out content for the two major VTT systems FGU and Foundry. free league publishing already has modules and adventures for both coriolis and recently released twilight 2k. I would love to have some actual official modiphus module support for all their 2d 20 games.
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Forbidden Lands is knocking it out of the park when it comes to Foundry Support. I think all ten or so of their major game lines have official Foundry versions. They usually launch at an absolutely ridiculous price point (Twilight 2000 is like $10 USD right now) and you can get bundles of the core/pdf/foundry.
I honestly don’t think any other company comes close to how they approach VTTs.
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Would rather have more content for Roll20 (the only place I purchase) myself, but agreed more VTT support
The big thing with Foundry is the amazing community who develop a ton of stuff. Modiphius just needs to come to an agreement with those folks who are already putting together tools for playing Conan, Star Trek Adventures, Fallout and others. They are all barebones but playable (and look great) because the folks volunteering their time are making sure that they’re not including copyrighted material.
Working with the community is how FL pushes out the Foundry content. They don’t develop it in house but work with the folks already doing the work and come to an arrangement of some nature.
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All VTT’s have great communities that do work.
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I’ve recently learned of Sandbox on Foundry VTT, and I’m studying all the YouTube tutorials to see if it’s possible to create a 2d.20 system (in my case for John Carter of Mars) using this Rule-Set building tool.
I’m sure it’s challenging to license their games for VTT, but they own the 2d.20 system, so it seems like the smart thing would be to pay someone (possibly someone who has already written the code!?) to make a modular 2d.20 rule-set where you upload a form fillable character sheet, enter the necessary details, and the VTT crunches the numbers. Then you have one system they that does all their products.
I’m sure people would be willing to pay for it. I know I would.
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A good amount of VTT stuff was planned for Fantasy Grounds, but never materialized. Fantasy Grounds does have some good fan made stuff for John Carter, Star Trek Adventure, Dune, and some one was working on a generic 2d20 ruleset that could be modified for specific games, I downloaded that a few years back.
They have an official Fallout and Conan stuff for them out now. I don’t own the Fallout one but the Conan one is problematic. The Fallout one was done by a different designer and doesn’t have any of the problems the Conan one does from what I’ve read online and is worth getting the designer of it has done some good quality fan stuff for other games. And, I’m more likely to give Fallout a try because of the past work of the designer.
One thing with VTT support is Modiphius needs to make sure that who ever does any official stuff for a VTT needs to be competent and not take forever and do a bad job and present stuff unfinished, leave long standing bugs in that could easily be fixed, or say more releases are planned and then have none show up years latter.
Also if they could set up some sort of implementation to give a discount on the PDF product if you buy the VTT one or have the Physical/PDF version would give you a discount on the VTT one would be nice. Paizo does this if you buy a Fantasy Grounds version you can get the PDF discounted or free as you can link your account.
What would be more useful would be to see VTT assets for purchased and also if your buying a PDF of maps including the jpegs or pngs of them for use with VTT. Having any map images in adventure as separate download for use in a VTT would be a great help too.
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I just don’t understand how Modiphius seems so far behind Free League in this regard. Modiphius is the larger company and Free League seems to be killing it on the VTT support.
I don’t know anyone still using Fantasy Grounds. It’s all Foundry or Roll/20 as far as I know.
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I know a few people that use VTT’s, but not a lot.
I have looked into multiple VTTs and they are pretty much loaded with irrelevant BS while not providing the basic requirements that are actually usable for NORMAL PEOPLE.
There are only 5 things needed
1 The MAP so people can see it
2 Markers that can be moved around
3 A way for the GM to hide/obscure the map as needed
4 A way to write simple notes and draw simple lines and arrows.
5 A reliable easy to use built in voice chat.
I should be able to drag and drop the map, drag a small scale slide to set scale and then pick hex or square grid.
All the extra is just waste and added complication. Die rollers and character sheets are anti-gaming and only serve to jack the price up and over complicate things.
I am waiting for a company with an IQ to put out a SIMPLE usable program. When that happens all the existing ones will be bankrupted in a few weeks.
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@Spence The free & Open Source VTT “PlanarAlly” includes 4/5 of your list (built-in Voicechat is missing, it would add a lot of complexity and can be substituted by tools like Mumble, TeamSpeak, Skype or Discord etc. rather easily) while actively trying to reduce clutter. Check out https://www.planarally.io/ it might be worth a glance. 
Note that hex-support is kinda experimental, though. 
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MisterX
Thank you. I appreciate the pointer. I spent some time a while back and couldn’t find anything. Even popped the cash for some of the big name software to just be disappointed for either all the resources wasted while lacking the basics or needing to have a PHD to wade through the anti-user guides.
I’ll take a look.
Again thanks.
I should add that the documentation is a bit outdated as the whole project is done in the free time of the programmer(s). @Spencer
But there’s a Discord full of friendly people (including me) who are always willing to help.
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I’ve been gaming online since a year after R20 came out, i think 2014. I’ve rehabbed the Conan sheet for r20, played on and built the Conan sheet for Astrallvtt and now am trying out Foundryvtt, which is much less user friendly but has many more bells and whistles.
I have poor vision and playing online for me is the only way i can play role-playing games; just reading or looking at a map at a distance greater than a foot is when things become too hard to do and causes headaches whereas online, a browser makes this issue nonexistent.
Playing Online allows the opportunity for pick-up games to be much easier. Also, people from all across the Globe can play with each other, even if they don’t comprehend the same language.
Playing Online allows for those necessary features like digital character sheets, virtual miniatures, extra features such as journals/notes, music, system compendiums, and immersive features such as map walls, doors and fog, occluding tree canopies, audible and visual battlemap cues, ease-of-speed NPC calculations, sequenced events/visual effects, automatically calculated conditions, and many more.
I understand the frustration; it seems many smaller, more independent publishers are producing greater Online support for their systems than Modiphius is for our beloved 2d20 system; I am taking a break from GMing Conan 2d20 and doing everything needed to run another system to try it out. One of the main reasons for this is that I don’t know how to use much CSS or any JS and I desire to use Hit Locations with both my Toughened and Nemeses NPCs which is unsupported at all, along with a few other issues with the freely-supported-but-not-officially-supported system.
I bring this up because the other system did have Foundryvtt support which i was happy to pay for; it also continues to have errors that are slowly fixed in updates, but the modules were still worth the purchase.
I am aware that Modiphius is continually approached by Web Developers for a position of Online Support Staff, but I also understand that they are not only a role-playing game publisher, but a Board Game and Wargaming Miniatures publishing company as well.
The future of role-playing as I and others I’ve spoken with will be a combination of the virtual table and the physical world for most people. A home group that I know is playing with a horizontal flatscreen TV as their “game mat” and using a cool tool called Pixel Dice which allows for VTT integration with a physical die as well as a few specific vtt features/modules that almost makes their game night an Augmented Realtiy.
I remember a video game that my younger cousin had called, i believe, Spyro which in one version had an electronic platform attached to the game console that interacted with physical minatures that he purchased and i remember thinking to myself then that i wanted to role-play like that; thanks to technology, this is now possible.
I hope this point of view is helpful to Modiphius and I look toward a future with Official Foundryvtt Conan 2d20 support.
I conclude with a quote from R.E.H.: “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”
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