Using Foundry VTT to Play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

Today, we have a new blog post from Charlotte Hamilton on her first impressions using Foundry Virtual Tabletop to play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Charlotte is a long time WFRP gamer who you may know from Discord groups for WFRP, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound and Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory!

Foundry Virtual Tabletop is an application built specifically for experiencing multiplayer tabletop roleplaying games with your friends and party members over the internet. Foundry Virtual Tabletop offers an expansive set of digital tools, designed to imitate and expand the experience of playing a game in-person with your friends. Support for character sheets, rolling dice, exploring battlemaps, and moving heroic tokens are just a few of the many features available, however it goes way beyond these features!

Browse all WFRP Modules available on Foundry VTT here.

Gaming in a Perilous Time

It's no secret that the majority of people who play tabletop roleplaying games have had to adjust their way of gaming to fit the current situation. While we are waiting for the green light to be able to have people over or leave the house, we do have some options available to us.

Enter VTT (Virtual Tabletop)

As a GM, I have never felt that I had much use for a Virtual Tabletop (VTT). My games were either around a table at my local gaming store or using theatre of the mind on a streamed game. The most I have gotten out of one was as a dice roller for a streamed game. I feel that after diving into the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay module for The Foundry, that may change.

The Foundry Virtual Tabletop is a VTT that supports modules for various tabletop roleplaying games. It can take on multiple aspects of a TTRPG, and automate them, which makes running, and playing the game easier. The first official releases of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay on The Foundry were the core rulebook, the Starter Set (including the Guide to Ubersreik), and Rough Nights & Hard Days. I started my journey into WFRP on The Foundry VTT with The Starter Set.

I had very minimal experience with VTTs to start with, so I was thankful for the documentation that goes with the Foundry being informative. After purchasing the modules on the Cubicle 7 website, I downloaded The Foundry which is a standalone program that runs off my PC. The way The Foundry VTT is set up, like most VTTs, is that the GM is the only person that needs to purchase the resources to play. The players have to log into the game to have full access to what the GM provides, and that's it.

Ahead of the Curve

I would be lying if I didn’t say there wasn’t a bit of a steep learning curve to The Foundry VTT and the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay modules. Some aspects are intuitive, others could use some rewording for clarity, but it didn’t take too long for that curve to flatten.

The first time I started the program, I dove right in, not knowing what I was doing. After about two hours of using the program and reading the documentation, I had a map from Bait and Witch pulled in, the walls set up, and the lighting and distances of the characters' vision set up. I was hooked.

When I had the basics figured out, I started to look through the Start Set module from both the GM’s and the Players’ perspective. Being able to run both a GM instance, and a player instance from the same PC was very helpful in learning how to navigate the program. As a side note, not all browsers support WebGL which is required to play from a browser.

The first thing that stood out was character creation, which I completed from the player’s perspective. It took me a bit to figure out where to get the ability to generate a character so I turned to the WFRP module documentation which held the information I needed. With the secret word typed into the chat pane (/char), I was finished character creation within 10 minutes. What typically takes me half an hour per character with pen and paper, was reduced by 66%! What made it quick and easy was the ability to drag and drop stats and careers as well as being able to click on keywords and have the definition right there. No page flipping!

Once I had a character created I moved to the GM side and got the table set for the first mission on the Starter Set. There was some jumping back and forth between the GM and Player side to figure out what settings had to be in place for everyone to see what I wanted. With the scene set, I had the entire Starter Set adventure in front of me on the VTT. Some very handy features I looked through were the ability to push handouts to the players, like the Shopping List, and additional area information that is available on a click of the mouse.

Up to this point, I only have first impressions of The Foundry VTT and the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay modules. I will be running an adventure for some people in the future, and will follow up this post with a bit of an after action report. As far as my first impression goes, for anyone looking to run WFRP online, The Foundry is the way to go. The VTT takes up much of the heavy lifting that you would have to do manually while running WFRP, and for me, that’s worth purchasing The Foundry.

Charlotte.

WFRP Modules Available on Foundry VTT

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Core
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Rough Nights and Hard Days
Enemy in Shadows and Companion Module
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Ubersreik Adventures

Browse all WFRP Modules on our webstore here.

For more information on Foundry VTT, check out this handy FAQ. Register for a Foundry Virtual Tabletop account here or purchase a software license for $50 (+VAT) here to run games for your group — only a single license is required to host a game. Then you can purchase the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay modules from $14.99 (intro price, + VAT if applicable) directly from cubicle7games.com.

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