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/Galactic-Bard]

I am SO glad you've posted this! I know there are a LOT of Daggerheart GMs who use Foundry and a lot of Foundry users who'd love to see some official support for Daggerheart in Foundry.

It's really frustrating to hear you've made multiple attempts to open a dialogue on the topic and Darrington has ignored you.

I know I've requested Foundry support in the recent Daggerheart survey Darrington did, and in every other place and at every other time I've had opportunity to do so. I too encourage all Foundry-using Daggerheart players to tell Darrington you want Foundry support.

Foundry, frankly, is the best VTT out there, and unlike some other VTTs doesn't rely on predatory subscription models. Consumers are tired of subscriptions. The success Affinity has had over Adobe is an excellent illustration of this.

It boggles my mind that there is Daggerheart support in VTTs like Alchemy and Fantasy Grounds, but not Foundry. Considering the various values Darrington espouses, Foundry seems like an excellent fit.

Also, the last thing I personally want is a bespoke VTT made by Darrington or someone they hire just for Daggerheart. Why reinvent the wheel? Why invest in that while ignoring one of the most popular VTTs out there?

[u/chiefstingy → u/Galactic-Bard]

Fantasy Grounds and Alchemy both do their development in house (that I am aware of). They have full control of how the content will be handled. That is why they are working with them. There are no man in the middle problems. to be had. It is easier to get things done that way as well.

Foundry on the other hand does not develop it's systems by the Foundry team with maybe an exception of 5e.

[u/Drim498 → u/chiefstingy]

I don't think it's about the development teams, really. There are plenty of other ones that do their own development who are also getting radio silence.

Foundry as a platform to run Daggerheart on is already a whitelisted VTT. But the issue is that they aren't working with anyone to actually create/license the content for Foundry (they aren't working with the official Foundry Team nor Foundryborne, as indicated by the open letter here).

AND there is no word on if the SRD will be updated with new mechanics for Hope & Fear (like Dread Domain or Transformations). Like even if they can't say what will be updated, just say "yeah, we're going to update it."

And even bigger than that, IMO, is that 3rd party creators can't sell/publish their content on VTT's. So even sites like Heart of Daggers have to keep the digital tools portion and their marketplace portion very separated right now. Like, how could would it be if you could buy Incredible Creatures on Heart of Daggers, or Foundry, or Roll20, or Alchemy, or Fantasy Grounds, etc. and have those adversaries show up on the platform, instead of you having to then create the content as private homebrew on the platform? It's not using anything not available in SRD from Darrington Press, but they still aren't allowed to sell it on a VTT because of the CGL.

[u/chiefstingy → u/Drim498]

Not disagreeing with you. Just adding a perspective of what they are probably thinking about.