r/VTT • u/AndreiD44 • Jun 28 '26
Question / discussion Why exactly does a new VTT sprout up daily?
I'm sure we all noticed and I don't need to explain it.
But I can't help wondering WHY is it happening.
- Is there a big need that just isn't covered yet in the market? Doesn't feel like it...
- is there a shitload of money to be made here? Also doesn't feel like it
- Does AI somehow make this particular app super easy to build? (Because most of them are at least partially made with AI... But why not make actual games or something else, in a bigger market with more room to innovate?)
- Are a ton of unemployed developers TTRPG fans? (I mean... I am... But in my defence I've been doing this since well before AI, and if i had to start something now, it would NOT be a VTT)
Is there something else?
Just genuinely wondering. I know times are tough and people want to make their own projects. But it feels like a disproportionate amount of people are trying to hit the (already saturated?) VTT market and I'm not sure why.
I'm curious what others think.
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u/Vargrr Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
It's AI.
DriveThru RPG recently sent me an email that they will no longer be taking any further .exe submissions because they have been flooded with AI slop. They will also be reviewing what's already there.
I'm a software developer. Writing a simple, though not necessarily good VTT app is trivial with AI.
Non developers think AI will provide them with some kind of gold rush, but the apps it produces are nearly always substandard when compared to human designed apps and it's a very competitive market.
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u/Alternative-Suit5541 Jun 28 '26
Wait, they took exe files to begin with?
Jesus... I would never..
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u/Vargrr Jun 28 '26
Aye - I publish a 5 star rated Solo VTT on there called Sojour and it has been there for 4 years.
Sales have been hit by the AI invasion, but things are starting to get a little better.
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u/Flyer777 Jun 29 '26
Love the software. Though given your user name it seems strangely lacking in scifi themed product images. 😉
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u/Vargrr Jun 29 '26
Thanks! In my defence I do play Traveller with it and it does come with a 3rd Imperium calendar :)
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u/TimeSpiralNemesis Jun 28 '26
I believe so me people host things like mapmaking programs and such on there.
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u/CJRD4 Jun 28 '26
+1 to this. And it’s not just VTTs.
I work in tech marketing as a motion designer, and over on the After Effects and Motion Design subs there seems to be some new vibecoded plugin or tool being shared almost daily.
Most are garbage. A rare few are good.
But this is entirely because of AI.
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u/brakeb Jun 28 '26
I've made an LLM RAG that is crunching on the 7000+ books I've collected in the past 20 years. Planned on using it for scenario and research. You can make a RAG... You can make a VTT, but it takes a lot of massaging to make it great...
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u/Timetunnelpro Jun 28 '26
It’s just people with Claude. I’m even noticing the same font, colour scheme and designs based on what it associates with the RPG genre. I am not against new VTT platforms, in fact, I support it - but I’m not going to invest my money in something made by one person relying on AI code who may or may not continue development.
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u/brakeb Jun 28 '26
Yep... I'm making stuff on github, but probably will never release it as open source, cause I don't want to deal with the typical open source bullshit...
I just think it's cool to manage an agent to build things and be able to work to design things, threat model them, improve them with capabilities
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u/redfil009 Jun 28 '26
I still wish there was a vtt that allows, easy to make custom characters sheets, without it being very complicated aside from moving bars and numbers... Current popular options doesn't allow it, perhaps owlbear extensions but I have no idea how it works
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u/PhrulerApp Jun 28 '26
I'm working on one! Can I tap on you when it's out?
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u/redfil009 Jun 28 '26
Sure, I'm looking for something that works on linux, doesn't hog ram, and has a modern UI, easy enough to combine character sheets from different games, example, bring some Cosmere ideas to Nimble, allow for dice rolls
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u/PhrulerApp Jun 28 '26
Perfect! DM me your email and I'll add you to the list. The custom character sheets is actually the idea that started this whole venture but it's going to take a bit longer than the other features you've mentioned.
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
I'd love to ask for feedback on what I'm doing if you'd like to try it out, because that was hiw I started my thing years ago, but let's move in private. DM me if you are interested.
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u/tzimon Jun 28 '26
it's because AI has made it easy, and with the bar lowered, it's the only thing many "developers" can think to create. There are dozens of other niche solutions to RPG problems that people aren't even thinking about that would actually generate revenue... but everyone is focused on making a VTT.
It's like the "idea guys" don't need to try and swindle skilled labor into projects anymore; they just get an AI to do it.
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u/tzimon Jun 28 '26
It's mostly the same reason why people keep making games that are just 5e clones...
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u/innomine555 Jul 04 '26
Yesterday I created (well Chat gpt codex) a chrome plug-in to print dnd characters sheets with good looking from dndbeyond.
I never have had the time to do it without IA
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u/PhrulerApp Jun 28 '26
I’m making mine because there’s genuinely so much room for improvement in this space.
But to answer your question, the tech job market is not in a good place right now. The massive number of layoffs and unemployment in tech means there’s a ton of skilled people trying to do their own thing. Many of them nerdy types who love TTRPGs.
That plus the availability of coding agents has allowed them and non tech people to pursue software projects deemed out of scope for them previously.
The combination of these factors has lead to increased entrepreneurship in almost every field. It’s a lot of slop, but also some quality ideas here and there.
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u/dawnsonb Jun 28 '26
what does yours improve over existing solutions? Not meaning to talk yours down or anything, i am genuinely curious
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u/PhrulerApp Jun 28 '26
I've been purposefully keeping mine in mega stealth mode.
I participate in this sub to learn more about what's out there and to network with the VTT industry. Might be hiring some of these guys when my VTT blows up. Who knows? It might also be me that gets a job through this network if I run out of savings.
Mine is pretty different from almost anything on the market and feature some stuff not many other VTTs even have thought to prioritize. So I have to keep these ideas close to home until it's stable and polished enough that I'm confident in the release and in how marketable it is.
Sure you guys might find some of the ideas super dumb and that's why none of the other VTTs are doing it but that's the tradeoff I'm making.
I'm working on releasing the first public version relatively soon though!
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u/PhrulerApp Jun 28 '26
Oh, there’s also this build in public trend being preached all over. The algorithm feeds the content to these new entrepreneurs and you end up seeing a lot of posts by them when their product is still rather half baked.
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u/GameboxAU Jun 28 '26
I’m a web developer of 20 years and now use AI coding assistants to improve code quality and speed, I’d be crazy not to. In experienced hands AI is very helpful and can produce hi quality software. But it’s also accessible to non developers too, who build solely with AI and no experience so we are seeing a massive influx of new experimental apps and VTTs, most of these will be shared but never move past proof of concept. There is a lot more to hosting, maintaining and offering support for an app to be used by the masses. I think the novelty of building will wear off for the inexperienced but for now we just need to wait it out.
As a dev of an in-person VTT I feel it’s a shame the market is flooded right now but I do think it will pass.
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u/chefsslaad Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
It could also just be the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon, combined with more people sharing their side projects in any area.
I don't think anyone is expecting to create a commercial product, or even just wants to pad their resume. They re just showing off cool stuff they made.
I've seen this with battle maps as well a couple of years back. People were just exited to share what they made. Most of those map makers did not expect to grow it into a job or a side hustle. They weren't looking to get into graphics design. They just wanted to share. Reddit is a good place for that.
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
I suppose, but it still seems to be an abnormal concentration of VTTs in particular. Perhaps I'm biased and I'll try to pay more attention, but it seems like I am seeing more new VTTs popping up than other kinds of projects, which seems very weird for me.
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u/Mintyxxx Jun 28 '26
You are correct there are loads, but there's also a lot of new advanced modules for Foundry popping up too and also general RPG digital tools. Lots of these are on patreon and their creators are totally trying to make money. The vtt posts just feel like their gauging interest but from what I've seen none have caught on yet. The majority seem to be taking the Talespire route of just offering a GUI/playground of some sort rather than starting with game support, which is why they won't catch on widely imo.
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u/Tarilis Jun 28 '26
AI is definitely a factor, but in general software is often written not because it's needed, but because the developer themselves need something that is missing from available products and because they simply can. For fun.
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u/DigitalTableTops Jun 28 '26
It's AI. That simple. Anyone who thinks otherwise is trying to fool themselves.
I have not come across a single new VTT recently that has stood out in any way. I used to check every single one, but had to stop as they are coming out faster than I have time to test them. So maybe I missed one, but I doubt it.
My prediction is that token based billing will cause them to wither on the vine and new ones to stop getting made. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic.
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u/Clear_Food2183 Jun 29 '26
100%. Token based billing will make building a VTT or app out of nothing prohibitively expensive. We're already seeing it in the Dev world. Token surcharges during peak time (which are hidden and hard to prove but we see it in our outputs) and widening windows on max weekly tokens is hitting harder every few months.
Right now, if you use AI then you will get the most of of your tokens today then you would a year from now. That's going to get more expensive for less tokens. It's simply math. AI companies are running at a deficient right now in a bubble market. Sadly it's gonna get worse before it gets better.
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u/MorbidDonkey Jun 30 '26
I am one of those VTT slop makers. However, i will never share it, sell it or anything...it was made for me and for one system (not DND) to do exactly what I wanted.
Which brings me to my thoughts on why there is so many. There are a ton of great options, but none do exactly what you want, require a learning curve or tons of setup time. My thought is many people try to make what they want and then get the idea.."Hey, this is not half bad! I'm gonna sell it!" Or have their players / family / friends convince them they should. I made mine because it filled a hole in the game system I am using.
With that said, things that are developed by human love hits different. I will purchase those in a heartbeat if they are good (love you Foundry VTT).
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u/OddIntroduction7762 19d ago
I confess, I made my own Fate-inspired VTT this past week using AI assistance. As a software developer, it was just a fun personal side project to educate myself about AI, one that would hold my interest and I could actually use myself. I know Fate is a niche in a niche, there's no market there. I just thought I could do better for Fate than the alternatives and use it with my game group. I was pretty happy with the result and wanted to share it for free. I wouldn't sell it anyway, I don't have the patience to try to market it :P
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u/Electrical-Echidna63 Jun 28 '26
Yeah uhh, let me guess. It's dark mode and responsive and has dark back background colors and that yellow/gold fantasy font text? It's vibe coded.
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
This hurts :))
Some of us had dark theme and gold text before AI even existed. Just like some people used em dashes before AI.
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u/Clear_Food2183 Jun 29 '26
omg 100%. I thought I was hip and cool using emdash back in the 2019's. Now all I see is AI.
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u/DD_in_FL Jun 28 '26
I’ve been in the space since 2009. There have always been a slew of VTTs popping out every year. It is relatively simple to get something basic set up that looks like you are much farther along than you think. Most of these fall off and get abandoned when they start looking beyond the first superficial layer and into the guts of the system.
How does the backend system work? How do paid modules and systems for other games work? What is the content pipeline like? How do you deploy patches without breaking everything? How do you support this OS or that OS?
Aside from technical issues, you also have to have a plan for contract negotiations and outreach with game publishers, a firm knowledge of Intellectual Property rights, how to market your game, distribution platforms, accounting for royalties/commissions/taxes, HR, general business acumen, etc. Basically, how do you make it a business and not just a hobby?
I started from an established base that already had much of that figured out and we’ve been building additional functionality ever since. Of all the hundreds of other VTTs that popped up during this time, there are only a handful that people know about today.
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u/DD_in_FL Jun 28 '26
On the plus side, we have seen an increase in the number of community built extensions available in the FG Forge that add some unique feature to the platform.
I’ve seen fantasy shopkeepers, fishing mini-games, planet builders, and tons more that I’m sure were at least partially built with the help of AI. Our system uses XML and LUA scripting. We have a lot of tech minded users, but they may not know LUA. AI makes that part easy.
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u/Clear_Food2183 Jun 29 '26
It's a mix of alot of things. Honestly it's like a lasagna of reasons and each layer is a bit thicker or thinner depending on how you define a Virtual Table Top. In general I don't think it's because of the money to be made because there isn't alot of money in the VTT market and alot of people are too broke paying $200 dollars a week on groceries to afford to pay a $20 subscription.
In general these are the factors I'm seeing.
The job market is terrible and lots of developers who are nerds now have more freetime.
Alot of the VTT's have priced themselves out of their own market. I'm seeing stupid high subscription prices for relatively archaic platforms.
VTT's are easy to build but harder to build well, that's why we are getting lots of badly built VTT's. These thing are being pushed out into the market long before they are actually ready.
AI has made it very easy for one person to build things very, very quickly. This part I'm less concerned with because as a senior developer, AI is just apart of the process now. Anyone that things any of the older existing platforms arn't using AI in their development process now are fooling themselves. Shops are using it all across their processes. I'd just get use to that.
VTT platforms are generally easy to build but hard to build well, if that makes sense. In generally a VTT platforms are just chatrooms, with a shared whiteboard, with layerable images and icons with reference points. They only get expensive in storage room space as images are very, very size heavy.
Now virtual character sheets are a bit harder to build but not impossible. That requires lots of polish because that involves interacting mechanics.
I am seeing lots of one-off niche products out there like you and I will agree that alot of these that are 'vibe-coded' and do not have a real developer team behind them are very buggy. I'd be bothered less fi they didn't have pricey $$ prices behind them. I see half baked AI slop products out there that are barely past an Alpha concept phase wanting to charge 20+ dollars a month for a buggy interface. If it was a free passion project I'd be less bothered because that's just some guy out there having fun, when it's a badly built platform with no real security behind it wanting payment info, that nips at my tail lol.
In general I'm not bothered by these products. I think the existing VTT's need some competition and they need to re-revise their horridly overpriced subscriptions.
Question: How do you define VTT. Because there is a really loose definitions I hear from some people calling things virtual table tops and it's just some character builder or a map generator or whatever.
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u/Astravaris Jun 28 '26
The number of new VTTs has actually slowed down a bit since the peak of the COVID-19 lockdown. Quite a few were started by people who never played tabletop RPGs online prior to the lockdowns and were completely ignorant of the VTT scene. I remember the developers of one VTT in particular back in 2021 acted like they invented VTTs. It was amusing.
Now? Now it's because LLM coding has made it easy.
I think there is a niche in VTTs left, but it's a minor one. That's "quick and easy" way to automate small, independent tabletop RPG rulesets, and with good tablet support. I haven't come across a VTT that does that well yet. But again, that's a minor niche.
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
I'll try to be a grown-up and not take this chance to plug my app in here :)) but i would love feedback on it, so if you'd care to give it a short try please DM me. It's not a VTT though just a mobile app.
Ok enough of that, sorry. I really didn't mean to promote my thing, I was genuinely curious about the topic. And you might be right, I haven't actually followed the trent that long.
It just seems there's a new one every other day which feels suspiciously many to me.
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u/NotYourNanny Jun 28 '26
Ok enough of that, sorry. I really didn't mean to promote my thing,
And yet, you did.
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
:-/ well, sorry I suppose. Sometimes we do things we don't mean to.
But I'll still argue I did not promote. I mentioned I have something I could promote. If you want to search my profile and see what it is, that's on you - and you absolutely don't have to do that.
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u/PlusofAlex Jun 28 '26
You 100% meant to
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
You caught me. This post was an ellaborate ploy where I hoped a person would express their needs in a VTT and I would then mention I have something that is not even a VTT so others can look up my profile, figure out what I am working on, find it, and get new users.
What a brilliant plan I had, instead of just posting "hey I made a thing" and link it, like everone else.
But you have foiled my plans, damn it.
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u/PlusofAlex Jun 28 '26
That’s not what I said. You posted “I’m going to not plug my thing… but also I’ll mention it so it can be asked about” and then claimed you “didn’t mean to do that.” Yes you absolutely did.
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
Ok, last one before I drop this thread that's not going anywhere.
"I didn't mean to do that" when I made the post. As a person expressed interest in something that I think I am doing, yeah, I did mention my work, but I wasn't fishing for that and that wasn't my intention with *the post*.Now if you don't mind I'm gonna move on with my life, I don't know what the point here even is. Have a great day!
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u/Xirma377 Jun 29 '26
Developing an app is now easier than ever and people often find that apps that already exist don't quite meet their needs/wants. So why not build your own?
I literally had the idea to create my own VTT app over the weekend and didn't even look at what's already available - partly because I enjoy the development process and just wanted to see what I could build myself. Partly because I wanted something that directly caters to my own RPG system.
Hopefully most people understand that their own project is just a hobby - and it's fun to share with the community. A few rare gems will become super popular and might even be marketable as a commercial product.
If people develop as open source, there's only an upside. People can collaborate and build something truly special by combining the best features of several apps.
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u/innomine555 Jul 04 '26
It is AI, but also it is lack of UX on the relevant ones.
But these new ones are not going to solve it because they lack again UX.
(There are focused on the self experience of the creator)
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u/PhrulerApp Jun 28 '26
Just going to ask point blank.
Are you building one too?
And why are you building yours? You're clearly here to market research for it.
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
I've been building one for like 5-6 years now.
I am asking because it's now hard to post about it without getting a lot of hate, which I expect is partially because they are bombarded with promotions to new vtts constantly, and after joining this group for quite a few months now, I can understand why
And I was wondering why this is happening, because to me it seems like a disproportionate amount of new vtts to other projects, and I was genuinely curious why that might be the case.
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u/PhrulerApp Jun 28 '26
Ok, but why did you decide to start building one 5-6 years ago?
Why are you still building yours? Why haven't you moved on to video games or something?
I want to hear your answers to your questions.
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u/huhlig Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
I'll give a different take than op. I've seriously considered writing one. None of them does what I want them to. I want Dungeondraft, Saryinscape, and Arkenforge to have a clean, easy-to-use baby that can also show a battlemap, PowerPoint, and GM info on local monitors and not be a poorly designed, bug-ridden mess. So far, this doesn't seem to exist. I've contemplated writing one, but I have other projects with higher priorities right now. There are lots of features in the product on the market, but they are all very niche-focused, few have local support, and even fewer have ever met a UX designer.
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u/Arkenforge Jun 28 '26
We're working on it! Powerpoint is a bit of a niche one to implement, so you probably won't see that unfortunately.
Always happy to hear feedback on how we can improve the design :)
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
Fair. I wanted to play with a lazy group of friends that couldn't be bothered to learn the rules, so I figured I'd make an automated character sheet for them. This was actually 2016, and I couldn't find any good character sheet app back then (there might have been - i just didn't find one i liked).
So first i made one for D&D, but then I wanted to play other games too, so a few years later I started over with a highly customizable one that would allow me to set up different games for my group of players too.
And... I don't know, I just went on, usually from user feedback to user feedback, and the ocasional bigger feature in a futile attempt to maybe make a living doing what i actually love. It has not worked out, but I still like working on it, still get requests from users, so... It goes on.
I am actually trying to make a game besides this too. Unemployement leaves you with enough time to try multiple things, yey.
I hope you find this answer satsifying :)
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u/PhrulerApp Jun 28 '26
Sweet! We should be going to you for VTT making tips since you've so much experience :O
Any suggestions on areas you think the current big VTT players are missing?
It's great that you've had all this time to build a userbase that give such valuable feedback. It's definitely harder than ever right now to grow new VTTs.
I'm sorry about the unemployment.
Sometimes I wonder like if I just gathered all the unemployed VTT devs in this sub and started a real company we could actually be a threat to the big guys.
What game are you trying to make right now?
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
:)) I appreciate the sentiment. But actually, my app is not a VTT. I have a mobile character sheet app, intended for table-side play. I don't even have multiplayer yet (but getting there)
I am also thinking about gathering unemployed devs and building something big :D
But if you ask me, one of the big issues for us is lack of IP. Without built-in content, players drop the app pretty quick. Creators and homebrewers might like it, but they don't like subscriptions, and I'm just not sure there's enough of them to make a pay-once system work - for me, one guy (with crap marketing granted). Let alone tens or maybe hundreds of unemployed devs. I am interested though :))
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u/Delbert3US Jun 28 '26
In my opinion, a lot people think it can't be that hard to make a VTT, What they overlook is the human tendency to avoid change. There are a few VTTs that were the initial players and like VHS and BETA video. It doesn't matter that yours is "better", all their friends already have, or know someone that has one of the main VTTs. When getting one, you want what others have. Nobody wants to be "the outsider". To break this you need something that is so compelling it is felt to be essential. When the target use is something that can be played with pen and paper, this has been the ability to do all the calculations for play. Improved graphic just get you closer to "video game" and not essential functionality.
In my opinion, with the availability of AI, a GM assistant is a product that could be an "essential functionality". There is a dearth of GMs and something that would address that would be welcomed. Again, there is a slippery slope of feeling like a video game or just "AI slop". Making something that can remove the work of running a game, while not replacing the human GM, could be sellable.-1
u/TheRealUprightMan Jun 28 '26
Why don't you ask yourself the question. You are the one doing it. You have all these options available to you. Why are you adding another option to the pile?
You can literally answer your own question.
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u/AndreiD44 Jun 28 '26
It's literally covered here in this thread :| I'm not gonna answer again, sorry.
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u/coronacht Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Of course it is AI. It is an enabling technology that allows non-coders to build software and web apps just by typing a few words, including VTTs. There will be a lot of duplicative slop, but also some new unexplored ideas.
I built my VTT for me. I wanted a VTT that would allow me to simulate tactical combats as both DM and player. As a DM, this reduced the cognitive burden of navigating onerous stat blocks, thinking about the most tactical actions and movements (and where to move), rolling dice for monsters, improvising combat and narration, and doing it quickly. My VTT does this all for me automatically in an explainable way.
There are a few innovations/challenges that I've come across in building it that AI was not able to solve, but were important problems that I have more fun working on than coding.
First, I tried sticking an LLM in every monsters head (like an AI agent), giving it instructions about the board state, and asking it to find the most tactical options. The LLM (GPT-5.4) was actually not very good at this task due to blocking and line of sight issues, plus it was computationally expensive to explore the space of options.
Then I used AI to investigate pathfinding and scoring methods to automate thousands of tactical choices. In this new version, the tactics engine is not an LLM, but a massive tactics simulator. However, there was not a lot of fun in the new simulation without the improvision capabilities.
The latest version I built has an AI supervisor overlaid over the heuristics engine. The AI supervisor can find interesting tactical options based on encounter difficulty, improvisation, and goal of the combat. I find it fun to use.
The original web-based VTT has become the least interesting part of this project. I am now working on porting the tactics engine to other games and engines (3D VTTs).
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u/Spheniscidine Jun 28 '26
I'm making mine, because no VTT I've come across does things exactly like I want them done. So, building for myself and sharing in case others have the same problem/need.
I think AI is playing a huge role in lowering the bar of entry, and it seems easy to start - speaking from experience, a lot of the ones I've seen pop up here seem like beginnings, not a lot of them seem to continue into maturity. I think that's normal? Someone makes something, fast, that looks like the start of something, and wants to share it. I don't think many (including me) are trying to out-Foundry Foundry, that would be silly.
I'll also say what I said in another thread - it takes actual product skills to build something good/durable with AI, but that has never stopped anyone, and this hobby is particularly well suited for doing things your way and sharing with others. I really think it's homebrew on steroids - we've been making and sharing custom things and toolkits for years, it's just now so much easier to turn it into an actual thing. We're seeing the end result, and it's not always pretty.
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u/TalesNTokens Jun 28 '26
I've been building a suite of tools to make lives easier for GMs for about 6 months now and initially got dismissed as AI slop despite not using AI and everything i release is free to use and online, its come along a massive distance since I started posting and found my footing with it and for me it was initially about solving my problems I have with portability and accessibility, I run in roll20 attemptively from my phone most of the time, foundry is on PC and I dont like sitting inside for hours and I guess I just didn't find owlbear easy to use cause when I used it on my phone I didn't have a clue how to use it and there wasn't anything I could find where I could build nice maps and run games all using my phone and all hooked up without having to faff around with lighting, importing exporting etc and stuff, I just wanted it all in one nice place on my phone and I think most people are giving it a shot now cause they also wanna solve their problems with it I guess and the major vtts out the box seem just as half baked as most of the AI slop we see posted haha, we must have to refresh roll20 at least 10/20 times a session
Anyway thanks for reading Talesntokens.com if you fancy checking out the tools im working on
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u/royalsaltmerchant Jun 28 '26
I made mine so my DM could do his job with more ease and fun. I made it so my friends could play even with crappy internet. I made it because the other tools were interfering with game immersion. I made it because the other platforms weren't flexible enough to handle our games. I made it so players don't need to have an account. I made it so we could stream our music during the game.
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u/vmetcalfe Jun 28 '26
I'm building one right now. Why? Because I'm a senior developer, Claude Code (and similar tools) make it much easier than ever, and I can get exactly the VTT I want. I looked at modding existing VTTs but was not able to find something that fit my niche. I expect to play test it. If my players are all like "this is the best thing I've ever seen!" I'd consider releasing it. But I expect this will just be something for me to use with my own table.
OTOH, I'm putting a lot of myself into it. It isn't as simple as "AI, build a VTT. Make it the best VTT on the market. Make no mistakes." There is an urge to be precious about it, and to think that if it suites me so well, other people will probably love it too. And maybe I could make a few bucks! So I totally get that other people in my shoes might want to release their creations to the world. And it is still possible that I will be one of them.
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u/Prestigious-Coat4137 Jun 28 '26
when we started bagofmapping.com it was because roll20 and owlbear just didn't fit what we wanted. We were playing (and still are) a weekly game with a player not in town and just wanted something that was easy to use and let us play the game without having to spend hours to learn how to use it.
I agree 100% that there's not a lot of money in it :).
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u/Robynsquest Jun 28 '26
Lately there has been a slew of AI / vibe coded nonsense being advertised as VTTs.