I recently purchased Foundry VTT which I found to be difficult to make accessible to the players in front of me. While also doing the DM stuff. I went down this route for the paper maps as a means to combat meta-gaming and allow the players to experience the dungeon/quest without having areas revealed too soon. My issue is which software would be the best for in-person as I have found out very recently about ArkenForge. I don't need a fully interactive virtual table since all my players are locally in my house and their minis will be on top of the TV. Is it possible to use Foundry as a two-screen thing if both screens are connected to my computer? If I need to purchase ArkanForge as the only option I will, just I wanted to know if there are other options with Foundry or Roll20 where I could do it for free or with the software I currently own.
My next session is on March 25th the sooner I can get working on it the better and thank you for any recommendation.
Are you using more than just the TV? Do you have a second monitor? If yes, you could run foundry as a player in one browser on the TV and run foundry as a DM in another browser and just keep each browser in it's own monitor/TV. Not sure if I'm really answering your question, hope that make sense.
my only beef with VTTs as of now, is that they require a second device to be connected...
the problem you are describing is called projection of a window. as an exemple... you have your computer, and then you have the TV. people will all suggest the same thing... open a browser for you the DM, and then open a browser for the player on the TV. that works... but the problem you run into doing that is that you need a mouse for the players as well. you cannot control the players view from the same screen you are seeing the players. so for those like me who are stuck on a tablet and not a computer and have not any access to a mouse. what we want is to control everything from the same tablet. and none of the VTT that exists do that. they all require a player connecting from another device and having an actual device to control that player view.
back in the days, we had maptools with the option of "PROJECTING" the player view to another screen while letting the DM control that screen from his own maptool. but maptool, while its free, still is today... is a pretty harsh tool to learn and a pretty old software working on deprecated java machines.
it seems that none of the developpers of any VTT thinks of other things then a complete desktop or a laptop as a tool for DMing and nonre think that tablets are a thing. or even phones. only owlbear rodeo think of phones and tablets and has a working mobile VTT. but again, even it doesn't have projection capabilities.
so what you need is a program that allows you to pick a window and project it to another TV. that way you can control both the DM and the player view from the same screen ! i have not looked into that, but i will say discord can do it. then all you have to do is to dock out the stream and thats what you are gonna use on your TV. so what the player see is just your stream. while you control the player view from your side of the screen.
this is what i do for now as i use the famous AboveVTT that is a free extension on google chrome store and firefox store. it is a VTT designed to work entirely with dndbeyond. not addons needed aside from it. right now its still in beta as it develops toward its official release of 1.0. but as of today it is still a much better option then many VTTs i know of. even includes their own version of dynamic lighting and walls. works quite well with tablets even. as long as you use Edge or OperaGX. since chrome on mobiles do not has extension capabilities.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
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I recently purchased Foundry VTT which I found to be difficult to make accessible to the players in front of me. While also doing the DM stuff. I went down this route for the paper maps as a means to combat meta-gaming and allow the players to experience the dungeon/quest without having areas revealed too soon. My issue is which software would be the best for in-person as I have found out very recently about ArkenForge. I don't need a fully interactive virtual table since all my players are locally in my house and their minis will be on top of the TV. Is it possible to use Foundry as a two-screen thing if both screens are connected to my computer? If I need to purchase ArkanForge as the only option I will, just I wanted to know if there are other options with Foundry or Roll20 where I could do it for free or with the software I currently own.
My next session is on March 25th the sooner I can get working on it the better and thank you for any recommendation.
Are you using more than just the TV? Do you have a second monitor? If yes, you could run foundry as a player in one browser on the TV and run foundry as a DM in another browser and just keep each browser in it's own monitor/TV. Not sure if I'm really answering your question, hope that make sense.
Would this still require me to buy a foundry server? and what would be the best modules/game sets for this style of play?
If you have purchased Foundry VTT then you already have a foundry server - sitting on your own PC.
You can start up another incognito window on the same PC and log into the server, probably using the address localhost:30000
my only beef with VTTs as of now, is that they require a second device to be connected...
the problem you are describing is called projection of a window.
as an exemple...
you have your computer, and then you have the TV. people will all suggest the same thing... open a browser for you the DM, and then open a browser for the player on the TV. that works... but the problem you run into doing that is that you need a mouse for the players as well. you cannot control the players view from the same screen you are seeing the players. so for those like me who are stuck on a tablet and not a computer and have not any access to a mouse. what we want is to control everything from the same tablet. and none of the VTT that exists do that. they all require a player connecting from another device and having an actual device to control that player view.
back in the days, we had maptools with the option of "PROJECTING" the player view to another screen while letting the DM control that screen from his own maptool.
but maptool, while its free, still is today... is a pretty harsh tool to learn and a pretty old software working on deprecated java machines.
it seems that none of the developpers of any VTT thinks of other things then a complete desktop or a laptop as a tool for DMing and nonre think that tablets are a thing. or even phones. only owlbear rodeo think of phones and tablets and has a working mobile VTT. but again, even it doesn't have projection capabilities.
so what you need is a program that allows you to pick a window and project it to another TV. that way you can control both the DM and the player view from the same screen !
i have not looked into that, but i will say discord can do it. then all you have to do is to dock out the stream and thats what you are gonna use on your TV. so what the player see is just your stream. while you control the player view from your side of the screen.
this is what i do for now as i use the famous AboveVTT that is a free extension on google chrome store and firefox store. it is a VTT designed to work entirely with dndbeyond. not addons needed aside from it. right now its still in beta as it develops toward its official release of 1.0. but as of today it is still a much better option then many VTTs i know of. even includes their own version of dynamic lighting and walls. works quite well with tablets even. as long as you use Edge or OperaGX. since chrome on mobiles do not has extension capabilities.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)