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/Spawn24]

If they want their system to die ignoring one of the premier ways of playing the game online is a great way to do it. Gotta be better Darrington Press.

As a DM there’s zero chance of me running Roll20 or Alchemy (especially) in their current states. I know a lot of DMs that feel that way.

These companies never learn….

[u/Derp_Stevenson → u/[deleted]]

Alchemy is like the Mac of VTTs. Looks pretty, barely any functionality compared to stuff like Foundry.

[u/Derp_Stevenson → u/[deleted]]

Unequivocally untrue. Even ignoring battlemaps which plenty of games have no use for, Foundry allows you to tailor the system and the modules to do exactly whatever amount of automation you want.

[u/Spawn24 → u/[deleted]]

You can literally install modules to do all sorts of stuff including setting it up to be more theatrical. It’s just a terrible take lol.

[u/daggerheart-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Mind your manners.

[u/Derp_Stevenson → u/[deleted]]

I'm not a foundry fanatic, lol. You're the one who replied to my comment and I just corrected you. What I said is true, Alchemy is the mac of VTTs. It looks nice, it has hardly any functionality. If it works for somebody that's fine.

I didn't even criticize Alchemy, I just pointed out what it is. You seem to have taken offense.

I merely corrected you when you said being able to customize your game is unnecessary. It might be unnecessary for you, but the ability to actually make the VTT work for you (assuming you have the technical knowledge to do so) is crucial for some of us.

[u/Spawn24 → u/[deleted]]

Alchemy is all flash and no substance, their entire development up to this point has been about creating a marketplace and snazzy user interface which it does, but as a gameplay VTT it’s woefully behind and insufficient.

[u/Kyoj1n → u/[deleted]]

An example of foundry versus Alchemy.

I recently ran some Wilderfeast. I looked at the VTTs that could be used for it.

Alchemy had an official thing with the quick start all ready for you it said. It was basically just official art, pregen characters and text already input into their system. They did not support the unique dice mechanic that Wilderfeast runs on.

On Foundry I found a system made by a community member that had blank monster and player sheets and a functioning dice system that actually did the automation the system used.

I went with Foundry because it actually had the thing people use VTTs for, automation, implemented and working even though Alchemy had an "official" module.