So. I just picked up Harnmaster 3e, and I knew it was a really crunchy system that I knew I’d probably never be able to get my players into, but lo and behold there’s a system on Foundry. The combat works great, there’s so much detail, and there’s modules out already for NPCs, and merchants.
I’ve been showing it off, and people are actually excited to try it. That’s saying a lot for a game that uses multiple charts for damage.
Funnily enough the first time I used foundry was as a player in a 5e game, and even though that’s probably the weakest game integration on the whole platform it was still enough to convince me to buy it. Now I’m using it to run PF2e and it’s phenomenal, I can’t imagine anything else getting anywhere close in terms of QoL and useful automation.
I do wish it wasn’t so reliant on third party developers though, while I love the amount of modules that are available it sucks that when a new foundry version releases you pretty much still need to wait until the modules update, if they even update at all. Some module’s functionality should just be absorbed into the base system.
As a third party developer on Foundry, I really wish the system would update less often, I’m worried a lot of systems and modules stuff will just stop being updated, because it is a lot of work to update to the latest Foundry version all the time. It would be great if they could just get Foundry to a stable point and then leave it to minor updates after that, or maybe like 1 major update a year or something.
I agree on the overall point though, I can’t imagine trying to run PF2e or any other similarly complex game without something like Foundry making it all super simple.
Like a lot of GMs, I’ve started using VTTs in the last few years. It really does change the calculation on what RPGs I’m willing to run.
I’m a lot more willing to try crunchier games if they’re supported by VTTs - Foundry specifically.
At some point, I wonder if designers will start making RPGs specifically designed with VTTs in mind.
I’ve started to wonder if there will be games coming out in the future that are almost unplayable without using a VTT. It’s already how I feel about some more complex games
It almost seems inevitable.
I’ve seen a lot of old crunchier games from the 80s that somehow seemed like they required a VTT, despite them not existing at the time.
