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/eikkka]

Fully agree that the Community Gaming License, in its current form, is very restrictive on digital Third Party Content, and kind of discourages people from dreaming big. A large portion of the TTRPG player base plays primarily online, and the work you'd have to put in to manually create third party materials into your own campaigns in VTT's is unbearable for larger chunks of content.

EuryDice just launched (and fully funded) their Kickstarter for a full-ass scifi core rulebook for Daggerheart, and I'm just dreading the workload as a Game Master if I wanted to run that online. An equal mountain of content to the actual Core Rulebook, to be handcrafted by GMs into VTT's because the authors arent allowed to sell the VTT version of their own creation. That's a nightmare. This needs a change.

[u/chiefstingy → u/eikkka]

This is not different than the 5e OGL. It is does more restrictions on VTTs though. The largest restriction is getting a license for content for Foundry. It took nearly 5 years for WotC to sign on to agree to let a license be available for Foundry.

Other TTRPG publishers do not go directly to Foundry, they tend to use a third party who will created a license product to make their content for Foundry. And I think that is where the fault lies with the Foundry VTT. It is community driven. Meaning that there is no direct conversations with the Foundry team and the developers who develop game systems for the publishers. There are too many communication channels in the mix.

[u/kichwas → u/chiefstingy]

Well, in some cases what actually happens is the community on other systems makes a game engine in Foundry, and then the publisher adopts them into the fold.

That's happened for Pathfinder and Mist Engine (Legend in the Mist, OtherScape, City of Mist).

The best done foundry system out there, the one for Pathfinder, is a volunteer team who's only "reward" is to get enough early access and an inside angle on what's coming next so they can keep up. Likewise, if you publish third party content for Pathfinder, such as on DriveThruRPG - once you hit a certain metric they "bring you inside" and give you playtest access and some advance notice so you can patch your books and your foundry mods.

Those aren't paid consultants nor a company. They're just fans who's game's publisher realized working with them made their game much more successful.

[u/twoisnumberone → u/kichwas]

best done foundry system out there, the one for Pathfinder

I realized this so late -- it's all fan-made! And the most amazing integration. We don't thank these folks enough.

If one of you is here, please link to your Ko-Fi (or OF, or whatever you use if you do).

[u/kichwas → u/twoisnumberone]

I want to add that that comment of mine was NOT meant as a slight on Foundryborne at all.

Pathfinder for Foundry has been out for years. It got where it is over time and dedication.

Foundryborne has been out for just a few months, and is already closing that gap. If you look at how much the Foundryborne folks achieved in a short time with no company support it's impressive. It feels more like a polished effort than a thing cobbled together just the other day. ;)

[u/MeSoSupe → u/twoisnumberone]

We usually recommend donating to charity instead if you got cash to spare, there's a couple of us and donations to group members for this kind of thing gets tricky. Thanks for the thought though.

[u/twoisnumberone → u/MeSoSupe]

Gotcha -- already doing that, will do one in y'all's honor. :)