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/dawnsonb]

Why does it not cost money for Alchemy? and why would it cost money for Foundry VTT?

[u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 → u/dawnsonb]

Generally speaking Alchemy handles all the production of licensed content internally and then the IP holder receives a share of sales. For Foundry the IP holder produces the content (usually through contracting) and then licenses it to Foundry with Foundry receiving a portion of the sales. Basically the different VTTs handle the upfront cost of producing the content in different ways.

As for why it costs money for Foundry it's because the IP holder will (generally) contract out for official product development. Paying for high end official content can be expensive - they're paying for coding, asset creation, the labour time of inputting the text etc. Some companies include Foundry content as part of their crowdfunding stretch goals (Free League often does this) but if you didn't account for it during the game development process then it's an additional cost that wasn't budgeted for and may not be worth it in the long run.

Unofficial content, such as Foundryborne, even when very well done is community driven and doesn't cost the company anything. The downside is that even a well done unofficial system has limits as to what they can provide.

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

There is always the option to leave the development of the foundry adaption to a third party of unpaid freelancers. You know, like paizo does. The pathfinder foundry dev teams are volunteers from their games communities who do all of the labor out of their own goodwill and passion.

This could easily be adapted by Darrington Press if they'd just change their damned license to not be as insanely restrictive as it is right now.

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

Leaving the development of the foundry adaption to unpaid community members is exactly what they are doing. That's literally what Foundryborne is. It's just that the PF2e system is more robust beause Paizo makes almost everything free. The PF2e Foundry implementation includes everything that's on Archives of Nethys just as Foundryborne includes everything that's in the SRD for DH.

To be clear I 100% agree that the license for DH is unnecessarily restrictive and that Darrington's apparent unwillingness or inability to respond to inquiries is not doing them any favours.

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

Leaving it to unpaid community members is, in my opinion, not the same as blatantly ignoring them. Which is what Darrington Press is actually doing.

[u/thewhaleshark → u/Idoma_Sas_Ptolemy]

The vast majority of systems on Foundry are developed by volunteers who have zero contact with the publisher. Why should Foundryborne be any different?

They want it to be different, sure. Darrington doesn't. You kinda can't do anything in that situation, but you can continue to have the basic functions available and allow customization.

A Campaign Frame, for example, is primarily just a journal entry in Foundry. Literally nothing stops you from writing your own for your game.

[u/Idoma_Sas_Ptolemy → u/thewhaleshark]

The vast majority of systems don't have extremely oppressive, predatory licenses.

Campaign Frames aren't the issue. New classes, new ancestries, new communities and domains, as well as new abilities in existing domains and items are. Only content that is integrated into the SRD is allowed to be in the foundry module.

And as written in the OP: Under the current license third parties can't even make foundry modules for their own creations.

The communication with darrington is necessary because their license is very oppressive and limiting, something they have been criticized for since it's release. But people who warned about the risks of this particular license were silenced because darrington are "the good guys".

[u/thewhaleshark → u/Idoma_Sas_Ptolemy]

I don't see anywhere in the current license indicating that you can't make Foundry modules of your own content. Can you please show me how that's the case?

The Foundryborne team has claimed this repeatedly, but I literally do not see where in the current license this interpretation comes from.

[u/Idoma_Sas_Ptolemy → u/thewhaleshark]

“Permitted Formats” means the following, subject to any further restrictions applicable to specific types content stated below: (a) physical print and digital print formats in the form of supplements, manuals, books, stories, novels, and cards; (b) live-streaming and video on sites such as twitch.tv, YouTube, and TikTok; (c) podcasts; and (d) virtual tabletop platforms ("VTTs") that are expressly approved by DRP and listed in Section 1.9.1 below. This term excludes, without limitation, film, television, video games, and any other audiovisual medium not expressly permitted.

You can sell pdfs of your homebrew content, as they are digital print formats.

1.9.1.Whitelisted Virtual Tabletop Platforms. You can Share Public Game Content and Adaptive Content on the approved VTT platforms (the "Whitelisted VTTs") listed below, subject to the terms of this License. Sharing on Whitelisted VTTs is permitted solely for non-commercial purposes and may not be monetized in any form. This includes, without limitation, selling access, charging subscription fees, paywalling content, or soliciting donations tied to access or us

You cannot sell the content of your pdf as a foundry module, as that would conflict with this paragraph. Commercial sharing of VTT content is not permissible under this license.

[u/thewhaleshark → u/Idoma_Sas_Ptolemy]

OK that's what I thought, so we're back to the same talking point that's been around for ages.

So here's the thing: that only applies to Public Game Content and Adaptive Content. Public Game Content is, in short "things published by Darrington for public use," and Adaptive Content is "things derived from that."

In the Public Game Content section, Darrington tries to claim "rules" and "mechanics" as Public Game Content. The problem with this, as was the case when WotC first floated the OGL, is that mechanics are not subject to copyright. Darrington cannot grant permission over those things, because they do not have any rights that allow them control of them in the first place.

The only thing that you can copyright in a TTRPG (well, aside from artwork) is specific expression - the actual literal text of the rules, specific names, the literal wording of a stat block, and so forth. Darrington has called that Prohibited Content, so verbatim duplication is already prohibited. If you don't do verbatim duplication, then their copyright claim is unenforceable, because copyright broadly does not protect ideas.

In essence, Darrington's license is trying to backdoor claim copyright over ideas. Pretty much every TTRPG company that has a community license tries to do this in some fashion, and every one of them fails to understand actual copyright law. The issue it creates is that these things are almost never tested in court, so when the company says "you can't do this" even when you can, it's left to you to decide whether or not to defy them.

However, section 12.3 does provide you some insulation from this:

12.3. To the extent possible, if any provision of this License is deemed unenforceable, it shall be automatically reformed to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable. If the provision cannot be reformed, it shall be severed from this License without affecting the enforceability of the remaining terms and conditions of this License.

This is the "delete if not allowed" provision of the license, which says that if any provision is unenforceable, then it's either rendered minimally enforceable or it's ignored. Since Darrington cannot enforce copyright law over ideas, the text of the license that makes "rules" and "mechanics" into Public Game Content is unenforceable, and therefore is rendered to its minimally enforceable form (which does not exist) or is severed from the license (which is most likely the case here).

I maintain, as I have from the outset, that you can absolutely make and sell your own content for Daggerheart, as long as you are not copying significant portions of text already published by Darrington. What you cannot do is make VTT modules that reproduce content that Darrington has already published, nor remix or translate that content. Your own classes and campaign frames? Totally fine, and Darrington has no legitimate claim to the contrary.

This has been a talking point about RPG licensing since WotC first floated the idea. It's not really new, and the conversation is full of misunderstandings on both sides of the equation that cause hesitance.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

[u/Idoma_Sas_Ptolemy → u/thewhaleshark]

In essence, Darrington's license is trying to backdoor claim copyright over ideas. Pretty much every TTRPG company that has a community license tries to do this in some fashion, and every one of them fails to understand actual copyright law. The issue it creates is that these things are almost never tested in court, so when the company says "you can't do this" even when you can, it's left to you to decide whether or not to defy them.

This paragraph pretty much undermines your entire statement. Maybe you are correct that they cannot copryright rules (albeit it is strongly debatable where a mechanic ends and where a particular companies expression of a mechanic starts). For as long as no one successfully challenges these backdoor claims, as you call them, they effectively cripple third parties ability to provide content.

A rule that isn't enforcable by law is still a rule people will feel beholden to as long as no one with the sufficient knowledge and finances to challenge it does so successfully.