Year in Review: Sixth Anniversary Edition

It has been an incredible six years since the initial release of Foundry Virtual Tabletop in May 2020, and we're once again taking the time to look back and reflect on the amazing progress we've made over the past twelve months. Each year, we post an article like this as an opportunity to share our perspectives and insights on the development, content, and community milestones we've achieved. We can also look ahead towards the key directions that we are exploring next!

For those who would like to look back to the years beyond this past one and remember just how far we've come, our previous retrospectives can be found here:

1. Year in Review: One-Year Anniversary Edition
2. Year in Review: Two-Year Anniversary Edition
3. Year in Review: Three-Year Anniversary Edition
4. Year in Review: Four-Year Anniversary Edition
5. Year in Review: Five-Year Anniversary Edition

This past year was full of milestones: the release of Version 14, huge progress on the development of Ember, sustained growth of our fan communities, and exciting growth of our Official Marketplace. The "content" section of this article has grown so substantial that this year we are splitting it into a separate article entirely as a part-two companion to this article, which will be posted on Saturday, May 23!

Foundry Virtual Tabletop and Version 14

Version 14 has been one of the most ambitious releases we have shipped in terms of the breadth of features delivered in a single release cycle. Packed full of new features and with more than a few revisits to existing ones, V14 set out to reimagine the structure of Scenes and the Canvas in ways that add more levels of control for the GM, both figuratively and literally. Many of the highlights for V14 are ones that we have been working toward for a long time, including a few that were imagined from before the software's release all those years ago.

If you haven't looked deeply into Version 14 yet, the best place to start would be with the Release Notes for the first Stable release, Version 14.359, which provides a summary overview of all the major Version 14 features. Just yesterday (May 20th, at the time of writing) as part of kicking off Anniversary Week we released Version 14.362 with some great improvements and bug fixes as we continue to polish and refine the V14 experience.

Canvas and Scenes

Scene Levels is inarguably the biggest headline feature of V14, enabling multiple vertically-stacked maps with defined elevations to fall under the same single Scene, finally allowing creators to express entire multi-level structures in a 2D environment without having to use separate Scenes. Tokens can move freely between levels using new workflows and the Change Level scene region behavior, and GMs can fine tune the level of visual detail in their scenes by using Regions to define Surfaces, effectively giving Tiles and other canvas objects more nuanced interaction with occlusion. To really showcase the Scene Levels feature, we partnered with Tom Cartos to release a special module, The Restored Keep, that fully configures all of Tom's Restored Keep maps into a single multi-level Scene.

Many of the crucial improvements needed to deliver Scene Levels relied upon Scene Regions, a key feature that we first added in Version 12 and have been improving since. With the addition of Levels, the Scene Region concept begins to play an even more important role, in many ways analogous to Walls except in the third dimension of elevation within a Scene. As part of significantly improving Scene Regions, we absorbed the functionality of Measured Templates which was previously a separate concept and now no longer exists! Scene Regions can do (mostly) everything that Measured Templates could previously do and way more besides, enabling much more powerful layers of automation for how area-of-effect abilities should affect gameplay. In addition to absorbing Measured Templates, Scene Regions also can have new shapes like "Emanation", "Ring", and "Grid Space" types, and can even be attached to tokens, providing unprecedented levels of power!

Application and User Experience

Some level of multi-monitor or detached window support has been in our minds for a very long time, but for a long time the framework required to make it work natively with Electron just wasn't there. However, with recent advances in native JavaScript and the framework we laid with ApplicationV2 development during Version 13, it wasn't surprising that when we put this on the Patreon Prioritization poll last year it took the lead very quickly. Users can now easily detach any ApplicationV2 window from the Foundry VTT Game view, keeping those character sheets and journal pages in separate windows for easy reference without having to obscure the game canvas.

Our work on Scene Levels gave us the opportunity to reconsider how users interact with Canvas objects. For a long time users have asked for some bulk-editing features, and some small improvements to allow for more fine-grained control of where objects like lights are placed. The new Placeables sidebar tab provides a unified, organized view of all objects placed in a given scene, conveniently sortable by type, so that users can quickly find a particular existing canvas object for duplication or editing. To help speed up the placement and bulk-editing of canvas objects, each Canvas Layer (except tokens) now offers a Palette tool that streamlines the workflow for editing multiple objects at a time.

Development on the user experience wasn't limited to our focused work on Pop-out Applications and tools for Placeables, though. We also took the opportunity to iterate on a lot of parts of the Foundry VTT interface, bringing some often-requested changes to the text editing experience, both for inline chat and bigger text editors like the ProseMirror Journal editor. Our implementation of ProseMirror now offers out of the box support for collapsible sections, customizable font size and color options, support for image captions, and improvements for working with Tables. We also took the time to add a new default turn marker for the combat tracker, the ability to search within all compendiums from the compendium search bar, and nearly 800 new icons to the icon library along a sci-fi theme. Since we were actively tinkering with the way users interact with canvas objects, we made sure previews were rendered for all canvas placeable changes, and extended consistent multi-select behavior to all layers of the Canvas.

Visual Polish, Special Effects, and Performance

It wouldn't feel like a new version of Foundry VTT unless we managed to get some kind of visual improvements into the features list. Version 14 gave us a few new opportunities to add some simple but striking visual effects to the canvas, while also letting us lay some scaffolding in place that we can build new features on in the future. By now many of you have noticed that switching scenes provides a simple but aesthetically pleasing animation, where the previous scene fades out and the new scene fades in. Scene Transitions offer a customizable way for GMs to provide a smoothly animated transition when changing scenes; we think this brings a more cinematic appearance to the game.

There have been plenty of community-driven Add-on Modules for differing kinds of effects, animated or otherwise, over the years. Some even offer huge suites of animation collections (looking at you, JB2A!) to really amp up game immersion. V14 gave us the opportunity to explore what it might look like to provide frameworks to build even more robust animations in Foundry VTT, so we leapt at the chance. There are two aspects to this robust API feature worth shouting out. We now offer a Particle Generator API which can be used to generate incredibly lightweight particle effects directly, including shape sampling and mask configuration for very tight fine-grained control. We also took the time to add the Anime.JS library to give our development team (and the community developers besides) access to timeline-driven, composable animations. Combined, these two sections of the API give our developers a very strong suite of animation tools that can be used to provide complex and intricate animations, enhancing the visual experience for everyone. We look forward to seeing what the community does with this new suite of visual tools.

We couldn't consider adding these kinds of improved visual offerings without also taking a crack at improving the overall experience of using the software. During the V14 development cycle, we invested no small amount of effort into improving performance. Combined with a new approach to Document write-batching, a refactor of Data Model handling and revisit of Actor Delta creation during world load, we were able to significantly drop world load times and improve data processing speeds for all Documents.

For Developers and Creators

Our software updates don't only bring changes for front-end users, though. We recognize the importance of our community of developers, tirelessly producing some of the coolest modules and constantly adapting new game systems for use. V14 brought a lot of miscellaneous changes to the API to make their lives a little easier and provided several enhancements to existing frameworks, but it also brought some much bigger features worth highlighting.

Version 14 brought sweeping changes to Active Effects as we launched a "Version 2" pass on restructuring them to provide a broader suite of features. Active Effects are now primary Documents and can be stored in compendiums, allowing them to become more permanent fixtures that no longer require an Actor or Item as a home and giving them a drag-and-drop workflow for application to actors and even tokens on the canvas. Active Effects can now alter key pieces of Token data, as well as Actor data, allowing for a broader scope of data that Active Effects can change. We also built out a more robust system for Active Effect expiration events, so that duration and other ending conditions can be used to terminate Active Affects based on the state of the game.

For the creators in the community, World Creation got a bit of a facelift. Creating a world now provides a more visual preview of game selection and brings in support for the new Quick Start option for Adventures. Modules that contain Adventure compendium packs can now declare Quick Start options that configure the world, import data in advance, and run pre-and-post-import scripts to ensure data structures are retained, making it even easier for users that are planning to run premade adventures— whether Premium Content or otherwise!

Those weren't the only new API features that have come in V14. The Planned Movement API provides an all new high-level interface for game systems and modules that want to implement more robust, action-driven workflows. The Region Placement API offers the ability for system and module developers to provide a workflow for user-created Regions, to mirror and improve on a similar functionality previously offered by Measured Templates, so that 'area of effect' abilities can be better represented and automated on the canvas. For those wishing to represent monster summoners or enemies arriving by teleportation, the new Spawn Tokens API provides a way for developers to create tokens within a given region.

Looking Ahead

With Version 14 successfully delivered, our team is excited to turn our attention and planning towards a new round of challenges to keep building Foundry VTT towards even loftier heights.

Version 14.5 Interlude

We are extremely happy with what Version 14 has delivered, but there are a few big ideas that weren't quite able to make the cut of prioritization for Version 14 stable. When we were faced with tough choices about what to do and what to defer, we decided to postpone some work related specifically to the underlying Electron application and the Setup screen since these are areas that we can improve with non-breaking changes during the stable period. This allows our team to undertake what we are internally referring to as "Version 14.5", a halfway step of further improvements to Version 14 before we start work on a new 15th generation of the software. Some of the key areas we are going to be working on as part of "14.5" are the following.

• HTTPS Certificates: One of the key friction points for users self-hosting Foundry VTT is the decision of whether to undertake the technical hassle of provisioning a TLS certificate. Modern web development is moving in a way that more key APIs and architectures are locked behind the requirement of a secure context; Web Bluetooth (peripherals integration), WebGPU (next-gen graphics), MediaDevices (built in A/V chat) to name a few. We want these powerful modern web components to be available to all Foundry VTT users which means figuring out a solution that enables all Foundry VTT users to self-host in a secure context. We're working on it!

• New Launcher: We envision creating a brand-new installation and update workflow for Foundry VTT which moves certain server management features to a companion Installer/Updater Launcher app. Many of you know the frictions that exist with certain Foundry VTT updates being ones you can make inside the application, while others require you to fully re-download the software from our website. We want to eliminate this friction with a dedicated Manager app that handles Foundry VTT installation and updates, with the added possibility of supporting multiple installation locations and side-by-side Foundry VTT versions in a single common launcher interface.

• Package Search and Discovery: We will be renovating both the foundryvtt.com website and the Foundry VTT application to have a new design for System and Module discovery with improved tools for search, filtering, and understanding of compatibility limitations. This will include removing the limitation that Foundry VTT only "sees" packages that are compatible with its currently running version; adding improved transparency for understanding whether a system or module is available and, if not, why not.

• Official Mac Build Signing: We have gone for six years without an officially signed macOS build, something that is understandably frustrating for many of you. We've been blocked here for technical reasons, but we think with some concerted effort we can break through this barrier and offer a build of Foundry VTT that is recognized by macOS as a properly notarized software.

We cannot guarantee that any of these features will happen, because they still require prototyping or development work, but these are areas we feel are important and where we are motivated to deliver as quality-of-life improvements before setting our sights on Version 15.

Version 15

When the time does come to start working on Version 15, we are going to be able to approach Foundry VTT with a clear view that we've accomplished everything that we felt like we must for the software. This is going to make the Version 15 prioritization process interesting and new in some key ways. Our team has abundant ideas about opportunities for continued improvement, and as always we will headline our prioritization of Version 15 with a community-voted feature chosen through a Patreon feature vote. We're not ready to open the polls on that just yet though, we expect to begin that process towards the end of Summer once we've made some more progress on Version 14.5 first!

Learning Foundry VTT Video Series

Foundry Virtual Tabletop is a powerful piece of software with a long list of features for running an incredible game. With so many bells and whistles it can sometimes be hard for users to know what they need to know to get started and what features are there to help them take it to the next level if they want to.

That's why, harkening back to his Encounter Library days, Matt has been hard at work building a series of video tutorials to help onboard new users to Foundry VTT and make the experience of picking up the core software more approachable and comfortable. This series will take you from zero to hero in Foundry VTT by starting with the basic concepts and building up to more advanced topics.

We don't plan for these to be the last videos we make; we'd love to hear from you about what you would like to see!

Software Usage and Insights

Each year we take the time to organize and share usage details gathered from our analytics for some broad-strokes insights into how the community is using Foundry VTT. As always, these numbers reflect only the users who have opted-in to our Anonymous Usage Statistics, and may not be representative of the entire userbase.

Platform and Usage

We can start with a survey of how people are using Foundry Virtual Tabletop, looking at the generation of the software they are running and the architecture that they are using to host it!

The most notable insight from this data is to understand that our users have become (understandably) slower to adopt new Foundry VTT major generations. This is mostly a good thing, and the byproduct of us carefully encouraging people to consider when is the right time for them to update, rather than immediately jumping to the newest available thing. Version 14 has been stable now for a month and a half, observing that 13% of our total users have upgraded already feels like a good number, and one that is certain to grow over time. Also interesting is that Versions 11 and 12 continue to have some staying power from users who are comfortable with their current setup. Understandably, adoption of Version 14 is a byproduct of system and module compatibility, which we can speak to later in this section!

On the architecture front, we observe that 73.47% of our users self-host the software using Electron, with Windows being significantly the majority operating system for that self-hosted usage. Of the remainder, 10.76% of our users self-host their own dedicated server using Node.js while 15.77% of users utilize one of our partnered hosting service providers.

We can also survey module usage of our users, observing that the typical (median) user has 1 game system installed, 19 modules installed, and does not own any premium content. Average usage is significantly higher due to a number of "super-users" who do quite a lot. In contrast, the average user has 3 game systems installed, 34 modules installed, and owns between 2-3 pieces of premium content. Kudos to the extremely dedicated users who have kept a Foundry VTT server running for close to 6 years of uninterrupted runtime. There were a few users clustered near to this impressive mark!

Game Systems

The heartbeat of gameplay on Foundry VTT are the exceptional game systems that you, our community of developers, have created for the platform. We have 475 approved game systems on the platform, growth of +30% since this time last year. Of these 475 approved systems, 144 are already advertised as Version 14 compatible.

The following table reports game systems ordered by which were the most-played over the past year, defined as the system used by the game world that had the largest amount of playtime for each user. We also report the percentage of users who have each system installed. The "Change" column is the change in most-played order since this time last year.

It's amazing to see so many and such a diversity of systems receiving actual significant gameplay. It's important to remember that Foundry VTT has a lot of users, so even a fraction of a percentage point represents a significant number of people for whom each of these game systems is their absolute favorite!

Our own fledgling system of Crucible is not big enough to make this list yet, but we are looking up from 65th spot and feeling inspired to grow the Crucible system as much as we can over the coming 12 months! We also want to specifically shout out three systems who have led the way with a groundswell of popularity growth. All 3 of these systems were either unreleased or well outside the top-30 at this time last year, please join us in congratulating Daggerheart, Cosmere RPG, and Draw Steel for their excellent debuts!

Daggerheart

Daggerheart is a new, up-and-comer roleplaying game from Darrington Press, the publishing company created by Critical Role. We're excited to be one of the first Virtual Tabletops that was approved to have a game system using their CGL content. The Foundryborne development team has taken that permission and run with it to create a lovingly crafted implementation of the Daggerheart rules for play using Foundry VTT which, while wholly unofficial, implements all the major mechanical systems of the game.

The system has taken Daggerheart's unique 2d12 "Duality Dice" system and integrated it with Dice So Nice for beautiful rolling, made it easy to find content with a Compendium Browser, and they provide a custom application for tracking Daggerheart's Hope and Fear mechanics. There's even a custom GM Tools panel for handling refreshes and various types of falling and collision damage. It's not a surprise that Daggerheart and the team working on it has forged an extremely enthusiastic fanbase over the past year; we're excited to see what new goodness will come this year!

Cosmere RPG

Foundry Virtual Tabletop is now part of the Sanderverse! Or, at least, we have access to it. The Cosmere RPG is an original system designed for heroic, character-driven stories based on the best-selling novels by Brandon Sanderson that has blown up on Foundry VTT this year. It builds on familiar D20 rules to make it easy for GMs and players to focus on storytelling, enhanced by their unique Plot Die mechanics. The Cosmere TTRPG launched with content from Stormlight Archive and it will only get bigger as more Cosmere content from series like Mistborn are added. We can't wait to explore all of them with you!

The Official Cosmere RPG game system developed by Brotherwise Games fully adapts Cosmere’s rules for Foundry VTT including a robust implementation of improvisational magic, and the powerful talent-based character advancement. The full catalog of premium content is also available for purchase on the Foundry VTT Marketplace:

• Stormlight World Guide
• Stormlight Handbook
• Stormlight Advanced Adversaries
• Speak the Words Adventure
• Stormlight Scenarios
• Stormlight Stonewalkers Adventure

Draw Steel

Draw Steel is the brand new action-oriented RPG from MCDM. It's a game for heroes by heroes. If you want to fight baddies and rescue beautiful dragons from ravening princesses then this game is for you. And based on our numbers that's a lot of you! It's not surprising that folks come to RPGs to play larger than life, extraordinary heroes plunging into battle against terrifying, monstrous enemies and Draw Steel delivers that in spades.

The Foundry VTT implementation produced by Metamorphic Digital Studios leans into the implementation of Draw Steel’s tactical gameplay to really make it feel like strategy matters to the gameplay, while still keeping things feeling cinematic. You can get started today and pick up the full range of premium content to take your adventures to the next level.

• Road to Broadhurst
• Draw Steel: Heroes
• Draw Steel: Monsters
• The Delian Tomb

Add-On Modules

No Foundry VTT setup would be complete without your favorite module (or favorite 19 modules, in the case of the typical user). We are thrilled to support 5,338 approved add-on Modules, growth of +38% since this time last year. Of these modules, 2,138 are premium content and 1,590 are advertised as Version 14 compatible.

The following table reports add-on Modules, excluding Premium Content, ordered by the percentage of users who have them installed. The "Change" column is the change in most-played order since this time last year. Congratulations to the module developers whose exceptional work is reflected in this list, and our sincere thanks to all community developers for the thousands of modules you have created to help make Foundry VTT great.

The following table looks specifically at Premium Content, and presents the 30 most-installed pieces of Premium Content in the Foundry VTT ecosystem. Congratulations to the publishers and creators who have crafted work that is enjoyed and beloved by so many users!

Our own first-party products of The Demon Queen Awakens, A House Divided, and Ember enjoyed a strong year, each gaining ground and breaking into the top 100. Ember surged the furthest, buoyed of course by the 3,808 exceptional Kickstarter backers who helped support us in bringing the project to life. We'll have more to share about Ember, but we are thrilled that all 3,808 backers are now included in Ember's ongoing Early Access test phase. I hope we can continue growing support for these products throughout the year to come, our team is very proud of creating them!

Foundry Virtual Tabletop wouldn't have existed without the support of peers, creators, and fans on Patreon, so the cottage industry of Patreon creators is one that we feel strong kinship towards. We want to especially call out the 10 most-subscribed Patreon creators who offer premium content for Foundry VTT through our Patreon integration system.

Congratulations especially to the many new creators who have swept into this top-10 list since this time last year, it's inspiring to see so much fresh and imaginative content being created. Thanks to all of our community creators, whether you are just starting your development or creative journey or whether you are an established publisher we partner with, Foundry VTT would be an empty sandbox without the spectacular systems, modules, and content that you create. We love and appreciate you all very much!

Business and Community

Just as our software and content ecosystem has changed a lot over the past year, our team, business, and community have also gone through some noteworthy changes!

Team Additions

During the early months of this year, we undertook a hiring process to recruit a new full-time writer for Ember and for some of our team's other creative projects. The outpouring of applications was truly impressive. We received nearly 350 applications from talented and experienced applicants. We followed a very thorough evaluation process, and we're thrilled with the outcome of that which resulted in us hiring two very talented writers who have been working with us now for the past couple months.

• Jess Levine (@jessfromonline) joins the team in the role of Game Writer. Jess blew us away during the interview process with her sharp instincts for game design, her effective writing, and the self-starter ethos she's demonstrated on various projects in the TTRPG space including her work on projects like Galactic & Going Rogue, I Have the High Ground, and more!
• John Webb (@jkwrpg) also joins the team in the role of Game Writer. John's fluency with D&D as well as other game systems and his experience creating monthly adventures and setting products on Patreon is well suited for the work we do writing Ember gameplay events and their related content.
• We've also onboarded some fantastic new part-time help from folks who have been helping with our content creation and development efforts on Crucible, Ember, and Pathfinder products including Michael (@hi25114), Josh (@featurejosh), Rigo (@pedrogrullo), and Kyle (@KoboldDM).

We hope you all welcome Jess, John, Michael, Rigo, Josh, and Kyle to the team and look forward to seeing how their work helps shape Ember as much as we do!

Team Departures

During the past year, we've also had the bittersweet experience of saying farewell (for now) to some team members who had a meaningful impact on Foundry Virtual Tabletop.

• Erin Roberts, who was responsible for much of Ember's early-game writing has moved on to a position writing the next generation of D&D content at Wizards of the Coast.
• Viviane Charlier (@cora) was a leading force behind the success of Pathfinder Second Edition on Foundry Virtual Tabletop, responsible for beloved products like the Beginner Box, Abomination Vaults, Kingmaker, and more.
• Roman Trevisanut was the first full-time writer that we hired and had a foundational impact on our forays into first-party content creation. Roman worked with me writing Demon Queen Awakens, House Divided, and Ember.

Our team is thankful to have worked with Erin, Viviane, and Roman, and we wish them the best as their creative journeys take them to new and exciting places.

Official Marketplace Growth

Since its launch, the Foundry Virtual Tabletop Marketplace has continued in its goal to provide a single central storefront for Premium Content, and to increase discovery of new products in ways that benefit both creators and customers. We've got some pretty amazing statistics to share about how the marketplace has grown since this time last year.

• Increase from 557 available products to 1,227 (+120%)
• Increase from 65 creators to 107 (+65%)
• Increase from 19k marketplace users to 60k (+216%)
• Seven marketplace-wide sales events (including the currently active one)
• 371 product reviews have been posted by customers

The Marketplace is dedicated to improving discoverability for premium content available for Foundry Virtual Tabletop by offering a centralized browsing experience. Over the past year they've made substantial improvements to the Search experience by adding increased filters and sort options, including the ability to include or exclude specific tags, or to filter by price, rating, publisher, and supported Foundry VTT Version. In order to make it easier for creators to bring their content to the marketplace, the team also made enhancements to the Creator Portal, with a layout overhaul that allows creators to more easily see their products at a glance, perform quick actions for publishing or pricing, and a whole host of other quality-of-life improvements like a new gifting checkout flow.

Community Growth

Our Community discord server continues its steady trend of growth, cresting over 110,000 members in the past year. Our users are amazingly active and engaged, with a monthly total of messages sent resting around 35,000. Ruling out system channels for most active (as they almost exactly mirror the system install numbers above), our most active chat channels are the #install-and-connection and #core-how-to channels, where users get assistance with initial software setup and usage, and surprisingly the #system-development channel where users help one another create new game systems for use on Foundry VTT.

The unofficial Subreddit also saw some pretty great engagement over the past year, with 85,000 members it's gaining quickly on our Discord membership! Thanks to the moderator team of r/FoundryVTT we can share that on average the subreddit saw 16.6 million views in the past year, with more than 8,000 posts published and 75,000 comments made. While we try to keep a polite distance from the community subreddit in the name of Reddit etiquette, we do look in from time to time and some of you may see periodic comments from Anathema in particular.

We're very proud of our official Community Discord and unofficial Subreddit, and the welcoming places that they remain to this day. Our moderators on both sides, and the discord community helpers work tirelessly to keep things running smoothly, and we feel the friendly atmosphere that our community fosters is unmatched. Thank you all for continuing to keep Foundry VTT's community wholesome and welcoming!

PAX Unplugged 2025

In November, we descended upon the city of Philadelphia like a pack of frenzied Thornlings to attend our second year on the show floor for PAX Unplugged. It's always a lot of excitement and a tremendous amount of work to run the convention booth, but it has quickly become a highlight of our calendar. We love being able to meet members of the community, see live reactions to Ember, and introduce new people to the Foundry VTT ecosystem. It's also absolutely lovely to be able to spend a few days deeply steeped in the broader tabletop industry in which we exist, meeting other creators in the space and building new connections. We look forward to seeing you all again this year!

Content Showcase

Whew, we made it! This article is only part one of what we have to share this Anniversary, however. This "Year in Review" has grown so long that in order to keep ourselves sane we needed to split it into two different sections. The second part, which focuses on our team's content creation efforts will be published on Saturday, so please stay tuned for that!

We have many more events planned throughout the 10-day period of our Anniversary Celebration, so please join us for as many of those as you are interested and able. We are eager to celebrate this fantastic milestone with you all. Thank you again for being such a wonderful, supportive, and creative community. These six years have been exceptional and I can't wait to see what the next year brings for us all.