So, I could NOT be more excited to share this news, and say that…
…WorldAnvil is now integrated into one of the best up-and-coming virtual tabletop systems out in the wild, FoundryVTT!
What is Foundry VTT?
Foundry Virtual Tabletop (Foundry VTT for short) is an application built specifically for experiencing multiplayer tabletop roleplaying games with your friends and party members over the internet. Foundry VTT works using modern web technologies. One player (the host) runs an application that hosts the game server, and other players can connect using a web browser.
As a “virtual tabletop”, the software provides a set of digital tools which are designed to imitate and expand upon the experience of playing a game in-person with your friends. Support for character sheets, rolling dice, exploring battle maps, and moving heroic tokens are just a few of the many features which enable this experience. Foundry Virtual Tabletop goes well beyond the basic feature set, though, with rich dynamic lighting, fog of war, audio playlists, video chat using webcams, and way more. Foundry VTT gives you everything you need (and then some) to forge thrilling and memorable moments with your gaming group!
Andrew celebrating the release of the first official version some days ago!
What’s the story behind Foundry VTT?
Foundry VTT officially released on Friday, May 22, 2020. But development of the software began in August 2018, and was in pre-alpha development from August 2018 through November 2018. And it was in closed Alpha testing until February 2019. From February 2019 until May 2020 the software was in closed Beta testing with a large and dedicated community actively working together to get the software ready for release. The beta testing process is now over and the software is available for all of you to enjoy!
Where did this integration come from?
I’ve been talking with Andrew, the sole developer of Foundry VTT, for quite some time now. Even with our busy schedules, we always wanted to work together and bring the Anvil closer to the Foundry! The release of the first version of World Anvil’s API made that possible, and we’ve worked hard to bring our applications together. Now you can enjoy a seamless experience in and out of the session! Andrew and I both share an infinite love for roleplaying and creation – our only real difference is our focus. Andrew wanted to make sure that while you’re playing. you can have the ultimate tactical and vibrant experience. And I wanted you to make sure that, when the session ends, your worlds and stories stay safe and organized. Interestingly enough, the person who brought us together is the person who makes sure you have the most beautiful battle maps and maps for your campaigns – the one and only Caeora!
How do I connect World Anvil to Foundry VTT?
The video above will show you in detail what you can do! Your starting point will be getting an API key that you can add to your Foundry VTT server. You can do that by clicking on your avatar on the top right of the World Anvil interface, and then “User API Tokens“. All Guild members (Journeyman, Master, Grandmaster, Sage, and the whole of the Inner Sanctum) have access to create user keys and link them to applications. (Keep in mind, though, only Grandmaster+ can request an application key).
What can you do with the World Anvil – Foundry VTT integration?
In essence, by integrating the two services, you’ll be able to bring your articles from World Anvil world into Foundry VTT! Once they’re there, you can always refresh them, but this means that you don’t have to jump around through multiple windows or tabs when running your game. Everything will be right at your fingertips.
How do I get Foundry VTT?
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Foundry VTT is a fantastic tool for remote playing. I’m very happy to see WA working with it.
This is one of the most exciting things I’ve heard since I joined WA!
My first question, Dimitris, is how this might work with subscribers to our worlds?
Does each subscriber require a Foundry software? Or is it just GM’s who need it–and then host the game?
I’d like to see how we, as Sages, can provide a package through this combination for special tiers or subscribers….
Looking forward to seeing more of this unfold!!
(already posting this news everywhere I have reach….)
@ Jaime, Foundry only requires that one person have a license. One license allows one game to be “live” at any one point – the person running the game sets up user accounts for the players and GM (note the GM does not have to be the person that owns the license). I’ve been using Foundry for a couple of months now and really really rate it. Has fantastic community support as well with lots of people contributing mods.
@KevS, thanks so much for that response! Very, very helpful.
So then I would be interested in suggesting a way for a world-owner, like myself, to pay for a commercial license to allow multiple games to be played simultaneously—OR (and this is probably a better idea and win-win for Foundry), is to come up with some way that a lesser ‘GM’ license could be purchased that is connected to a particular world.
The idea here is this: As a ‘Sage’, I’m building an interactive world for the readers of my fantasy series, “Chronicles of a Hero”. Now that I know I can create a TTRPG through WorldAnvil AND play it with players anywhere around the globe with Foundry platform, I am trying to find a way to provide a gaming option for subscribers of a certain tier.
So this must be a win-win for both myself and Foundry…and just buying one license wouldn’t be fair to Foundry (OR properly support them)…but also wouldn’t be worth it to me if I have 1000 subscribers, but can only have 1 live game going at any one time.
Hope that makes sense?
Really awesome news! If you could import maps on the fly with their WA Markers and links already applied I would be so super happy, a proper VTT linked to WA is what missing for my GM-Experience, way too many tabs are open when I’m GMing.
I am not sure why I’d want all my stuff in Foundry………I’d like links to WA (which I suppose I could do w/o an API)…..for example, I want a place where players can go and see all the NPCs, with pictures, and details they know. WA is a much better tool for managing that type of information, why replicate that in Foundry? What I’d really like is WA to manage all the fluff and maps and stuff, and Foundry to be for rolling the dice…….and not try to import stuff back and forth.
I’m quite exited with all those new possibilities, and it makes my brain bubbling! 🙂
Will there be a sort of mash-up of this and Project DEOS??
Thanks for all those new tools!
It is very early in the development of DEIOS to have any specifics but we always said that our wish is for DEIOS to have a deep integration with World Anvil.
I’m having trouble with the way links are handled in this module.
If I import a series of WA articles that have links to each other, those links are preserved as relational links inside World Anvil, so when it tries to open the article from inside foundry it tries to find the address at the same url as my foundry game. ie http://localhost:30000/w/salzgeist-skotothalamos/a/dana-article instead of https://www.worldanvil.com/w/salzgeist-skotothalamos/a/dana-article
Further, I would rather it just linked to the also-imported Foundry article that was linked in the first article, instead of launching the World Anvil site. So I overwrite the nonfunctional WA link with the internal Foundry link and all is well. Until I edit that article in WA and resync and it puts the bad link back.
So I tried parallel links. One that links to WA and one that’s Foundry-readable alongside (in the WA article). This imports great. Just ignore the orange link and click the Foundry button. But the formatting of the Foundry link in the WA text editor ( @JournalEntry[Elrs9Nly5wodGQWu]{Dana} in this case) blows up the wysiwyg editor, I presume because of the @ symbol. It looks bad on the article (I’m can live with that). Worse, it makes the article almost impossible to edit.
This looks amazing. Here’s hoping these issues can be smoothed out.
Thanks!
Does this mean that there is an ability to access the world anvil API now? And if so, how would I be able to do so for my own projects?
Yes the first version of the API is now ready to be used. I am adding new endpoints as we go.
The link for the documentation is at the footer of the website or you can go here:
https://www.worldanvil.com/api/aragorn/documentation
Keep in mind that in order to request an application key you will need to have a Grandmaster+ membership.
Is there a way to control what is copied across? Tried it with an NPC, and the Foundry Journal was filled with all the “Ggm” stuff (like desires and “cool”) in plain text.
I would really like a way to click on stat blocks and roll on characters from WorldAnvil and have it roll the dice in Foundry VTT, akin to the way that the Beyond20 plugin works to merge DND Beyond with Foundry VTT. For me Foundry VTT is used for the table maps and tokens and dice rolling, and I manage all PC sheets and monster stat blocks elsewhere (mostly on DND Beyond). Now that I am looking to bring our homebrew campaign more to life, WorldAnvil will be playing a bigger role for us to organize our campaign, and the ability to roll NPCs or custom monsters from WorldAnvil directly into Foundry would be awesome.
Hi all, I’m obviously already onboarded with both platforms since they’re so great 🙂
However, I’ve been wondering about the mapping for the bbcodes between the platforms. Is there a way as of today, to map bbcodes [aloud] into Foundry, or create the bbcode equivalent of the DivClass from foundry, for the article in WA to smoothly integrate in FVTT.
So far, it doesn’t seem we can do any of this natively, is there any way or plan to do so ?
Again thanks for the great work !
Is there a way to get a shorter API key? The Foundry VTT app won’t let me cut and paste into the app, and the key is 250 characters long.
I love this integration and I have used it for a while now, it is so very handy. The one thing I’m really missing is a synchronization of statblocks. It would be amazing to only have to create a NPC / monster statblock once and have it synchronized to the second platform.
Very exciting news! Love the idea of integrating these two platforms!
I would also love to see the formatting of World Anvil articles preserved in Foundry vtt (stuff like sidebar sections being visible as sidebars in Foundry). Is there any workaround way to do this or are there any plans to further increase formatting combability in the future?
Thanks for the great work!
Hello, I love both World Anvil and Foundry, but I’m wondering if there will ever be an update to the integration – to make everything smoother and look slightly less clunky in Foundry? My players want to have everything in one place while we play, but I prefer having my NPCs and locations on Foundry as a wiki and just import everything into Foundry for my players. And a couple of day ago it stopped working entirely. Articles are no longer imported at all.
Hi Anne, we’re looking to do more with the API, so you should see more integration there soon! We haven’t received bug reports from others but I’ll look into what you said about it not working.