Paizo VTT

[OsirianLegacy]

In light of DnD Beyond's VTT DnD Direct, it would be cool to see Paizo create their own VTT to make running their systems effortlessly, smoothly, and with good visuals.

I currently use Fantasy Grounds Unity to run Pathfinder 2e. Still, the number of Activities is daunting, and although I've found ways to make it easier, having a dedicated VTT just for running Paizo's content would be cool.

However, that's just my thinking and may not be how others feel, so, what are your thoughts on this? If they did make it, what would you be willing to pay to use it? Should it be a box price or a subscription?

What features would you want?

For me, I don't care much about 3D or Isometric, and I would rather they focus on smoothness, Intuitive controls, and great organizational features.

Let's talk :D

[Mark Moreland]

Many years ago, before Roll20 was a thing, we were working on what would have been the first browser-based VTT, which we called "Game Space." It was intended to work seamlessly in our forums, and allow people to play realtime or asynchronous (PbP) games. Game Space was never completed and we opted to focus our tech resources on other priorities.

Given that there are now several VTTs available from companies whose primary function is making tech rather than publishing books, there's not really the need for Paizo to reinvent the wheel. We love our partners at Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, FoundryVTT, and others, and we're happy to work with them to make playing Pathfinder on their platforms as positive an experience for GMs and players as they can.

If you're interested in trying out a VTT other than Fantasy Grounds, I recommend you check out FoundryVTT and Roll20, both of whom have sizable Pathfinder player bases. Or provide feedback to FG about what you'd like to see improved upon, and they can hopefully help make Pathfinder play the way you want on their platform.

[Plane]

Foundry runs P2 mechanics as close to flawlessly as possible. It's an upfront price, not a subscription. It's under constant development to keep it up-to-date with new content.

Try a game someone's hosting on Foundry to experience it yourself for free. Once you get it, there's no going back to any other system.

[Dr. Frank Funkelstein]

Foundry also works really good out of the Box with lots of automatizations like flanking.
There are a lot of modules that customize and improve it further, but they are not required.

[Tridus]

I doubt they have the budget for that, since it would require a bunch of staff with specific technical knowledge focused on that. VTTs are a big endeavour!

Especially since right now they have VTT partners doing that for them. PF2 is pretty big on Foundry especially and the team over there has a ton of amazing stuff going on in terms of automations.

Foundry itself can be somewhat intimidating to get going and maintain (especially if you use a lot of mods), but the system support is top tier and now that you can buy APs already ready to go, getting a game up and running there isn't that much harder than it is anywhere else.

[Trip.H]

One aspect of this is that there genuinely is no way for any professional development team to keep pace with an open-ish source system like Foundry. If Paizo were able to magically reach parity, they would fall significantly behind within a year. You just cannot beat a pool of anonymous devs who each have their own pet module they want to perfect.

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The best method that works in these scenarios is for Paizo to recognize the golden goose situation they've found themselves in, and to nurture & protect the golden goose that is Foundry for as long as they can.

The sad part is, this kind of symbiotic relationship just about always breaks down. Suits see any amount of "leaving money on the table" as justification for killing the goose. And the suits *never* loose the tug-of-war, they are only temporarily delayed.

This means that like clockwork, every time you get a symbiotic relationship like Foundry + Pf2, it's an inevitability that some suit controlling Paizo burns their own limited capital to make an inferior copy, while making changes intentionally designed to hurt the goose as best they can.

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And to be clear, D&D Beyond is literally an example of this. D&D once had a symbiotic relationship with non-WotC VTTs, but they got greedy, and now they hurt everyone's experience to drive more $$$ to Beyond.

If you are willing to cough up $$$ for the Master Tier subscription to Beyond, you get:

Quote:

The Master Tier

• Two week early access to core rulebooks
• Create unlimited characters
• Create unlimited encounters
• Add publicly shared homebrew content
• Exclusive subscriber perks every month
• Host epic game sessions with Maps
• Share unlocked content with other players

Because yes, Beyond is already so far down the enshittification pipeline that you are arbitrarily limited so badly as to only have 6 character slots, and you must pay money for the privilege of additional character sheets. And yes, DMs need to pay the top tier sub fee to not be limited in the number of encounters they can keep in a virtual folder. It's difficult to not get angry about the state of things, sometimes.

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So when you next ask Paizo to walk in the footsteps of another company in the industry, it would be wise to first check if the product you are referencing is something of the quality that you actually want to repeat.

IMO, Foundry is the very best I have ever seen.
The combination of module-based simplicity and library of possibilities for the power-power users makes it the outright peak general-use VTT.

It's endlessly frustrating that Roll20 can be so genuinely painful to play in comparison, yet have the cash on hand (or maybe they bought w/ debt, who tf knows) to outright purchase a competitor in their space.

Never forget that any time that kind of money is spent to gain market dominance, it could have instead gone toward making a better product.