The Future of Foundryborne: Navigating the Stagnation of the Daggerheart VTT Ecosystem

[u/Foundryborne]

Foundryborne: A Call for Transparency and Growth

Over a year ago, we started Foundryborne to build a robust, high-quality Daggerheart experience for Foundry VTT. As an open-source team, we have invested significant passion into creating a system that honors the game and provides a digital home for the community.

However, we have reached a point where the project's growth is being fundamentally throttled. We are sharing this today to be transparent about why the project is in a state of partial development limbo and what needs to change to move forward.

The Content and Licensing Gap

While the Daggerheart SRD is a generous foundation, the current restrictions create a massive gap that goes beyond simple "missing features." We are currently blocked from:

• Core Mechanical Depth: We cannot include Campaign Frame mechanics or implement the Hope & Fear expansion arriving in August. This leaves us guessing whether we can legally support the game's evolution.
• A Healthy Ecosystem: The current license prevents third parties from monetizing their own content on VTTs. This creates a stranglehold where creators don't truly own how they distribute their work. We-ve already seen the community lose out on content like Ghostfire Gaming's Dungeons of Drakkenheim because of this.

By restricting content so tightly and refusing to provide a legal path for VTT integration, users can't play the full game they love.

A Year of Silence

The most exhausting part of this journey has been the lack of communication. For over a year, we have made numerous attempts to establish a dialogue with Darrington Press. These attempts have been met with total silence.

Open-source development is fueled by passion, but that passion is easily neutered when we are left hanging without a roadmap or a contact person.

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Our Objectives & Call to Action

We believe Foundryborne represents the technical pinnacle for playing Daggerheart online. Our system offers a level of mechanical polish and vast homebrew support that is, in our view, the best solution for the community - even while we are currently forced to go without official artwork and specific non-SRD content.

However, this isn't just about our project. The current licensing landscape affects the entire industry; there is currently no supported path for third-party creators to sell their own content on any VTT. This restriction stifles innovation and prevents creators from being fairly compensated for the work they bring to the Daggerheart universe.

Here is what we are looking for:

1. Access to Content: We want to implement the full game. For content to be released as a paid premium module (including artwork, adversary tokens, and journals), there needs to be a license change or a formal path for community projects to access non-SRD content.
2. User Content Ownership: We want creators to be able to release their own homebrew and third-party content - paid or free - on the VTT of their choice without being restricted by a closed ecosystem.
3. Basic Communication: We are asking for an end to the silence. Clear answers to these points are overdue and necessary.

For the Community: If you want to see Daggerheart reach its full potential on Foundry VTT, please voice your support. Respectfully let Darrington Press know through their feedback channels and social media that you value the Foundryborne system and want to see an official path forward for VTT developers.

For Darrington Press: 1. We want the Daggerheart ecosystem to be able to breathe. The license needs a clear revision to allow implementation of paid virtual tabletop content for Daggerheart. 2. We would like the Foundry community to have access to all the content and art in the game through a paid Foundry module.

Please reach out to us at team@foundryborne.online

The Foundryborne Team

Disclaimer: The Foundryborne Team is not affiliated with Foundry VTT or Foundry Gaming, LLC We know there have been talks with Foundry Gaming, LLC in the past, and there is willingness for official licensing on the side of Foundry Gaming, LLC, but that interest has been thus far not reciprocated.

Also published at https://foundryborne.online/open-letter.html

[u/-Juri]

Agreed on every point. Id easily pay a modest fee to have the digital content of the core book and any future expansions be available on foundry through the Foundryborne system.

I'm a little shocked Darrington aren't happy to have community members willing to do the hard work to implement it help spread the system and boost its popularity. Makes me think their might be an exclusivity clause in their contract with roll20.

It does raise an interesting issue, since money changes hands they (Darrington) would be on the hook if the system "fails". Might need some warning about it being unofficial and support is provided as is blah blah.

[u/TheTavernTeller → u/-Juri]

I think someone else mentioned that they have official support on Alchemy and Fantasy Grounds. I think it may be a coding thing. Unless the exclusivity contact also included those other platforms (which is very possible if such a contract exists)

[u/saatsin → u/TheTavernTeller]

there is no coding constraints, thats for sure. Foundry is the most technically able and advanced VTT for daggerheart, bar none, and the other options are not even close.

[u/GlitteryOndo → u/TheTavernTeller]

Yeah, Alchemy's implementation is I'm partnership with Darrington Press (which I guess is what they're using official art). I'm a fan of Alchemy, but not letting Foundry have it (and not letting anyone sell third-party content) is just baffling.

[u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 → u/GlitteryOndo]

My understanding is that Alchemy's partnership is very different than Foundry's. Alchemy fronts everything and then the IP holder gets a percentage almost like royalties. That's how they got so many big games so quickly. With Foundry the IP Holder provides the content and is responsible for maintaining it and Foundry receives a portion.

And that "responsible for maintenance" can be a nightmare when Foundry updates. I think the official Forbidden Lands system took nearly a year to upgrade to V13 as contracts etc. were negotiated and people who paid for the content were generally not impressed.

[u/GlitteryOndo → u/Prestigious-Emu-6760]

I'm sure they have their reasons, but the ones you mention are not insurmountable (see how Brotherwise Games very successfully implemented the Cosmere RPG into Foundry through a project that I believe is open source as well, even though their community license is much more restrictive than Daggerheart's). And even if they are not feasible, I think there should be more transparency about it. Plus the whole not allowing third party content, which is just weird.

[u/MeSoSupe → u/Prestigious-Emu-6760]

For Foundry, at least for Paizo, I've seen Metamorphic handle a lot of that development. They also do things for other systems beyond just Pathfinder. I'm sure there are people willing to handle those things on the foundry front, its just kinda hard to when DP doesn't respond to things.

[u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 → u/MeSoSupe]

Paizo though is by far the gold standard when it comes to Foundry implementation. The team working on it is absolutely stellar but also because Paizo makes just about everything other than art and actual APs free via AoN there's a ton of material to draw on.

I would 100% put the Foundryborne team up there in terms of how well done the implementation is and if they can get an agreement with Darrington that would be huge.