What Foundry Is, and What You Have to Do
Foundry Virtual Tabletop is the program your table runs in. The map, your character sheet, the dice, the turn order, the chat — all of it lives in Foundry, and all of it runs inside your web browser. The software itself is paid, but only the Game Master needs a copy. As a player you pay nothing and install nothing. The GM runs the server; you point your browser at it and you are in.
If you have played Baldur's Gate 3, a great deal of this will feel familiar — a map you move a figure across, a sheet that holds your abilities, buttons that fire your actions, a tracker that shows whose turn it is. The difference is that a human GM is running it instead of a computer, and the rules are the ones in our books rather than a video game's interpretation of them. If you have never touched a virtual tabletop at all, do not worry. The two short videos below will carry you most of the way, and the rest of this page fills the gaps.
Join the Game
When a session is live, this is where you connect. Open it in your browser, pick your name from the list, enter your password if you have one, and you are at the table.
Connect to the ServerWatch These First
Two short videos. The first is the ten-minute version — the fastest way to understand what you are looking at. The second is a fuller, more recent walkthrough. Watch one or both; either will get you table-ready.
The ten-minute version — start here.
Prefer to watch on YouTube? Open it here →
The fuller walkthrough — more detail, more recent.
Prefer to watch on YouTube? Open it here →
Joining the Server
There is no account to create and no software to download. The process is short:
- Open the link. Use the Connect button above, or paste the address your GM gives you into your browser. A desktop or laptop is strongly recommended — Foundry works on a phone, but the screen is too small to play comfortably.
- Pick your name. You will see a login screen with a list of users. Select yours.
- Enter your password if the GM has set one, then join. After a short load you will land on whatever scene is active.
- Use a real browser. Chrome, Edge, or Firefox, kept up to date. Avoid in-app browsers and avoid Safari for the smoothest time.
If the page will not load at all, the game is simply not running. The GM's server has to be on for the link to work. That is normal, and it is not something you can fix from your end — message your GM.
Finding Your Way Around
The screen looks busy the first time. It is not. Almost everything you need sits in three places, and once you know where they are the rest is detail.
Your actions live in the action bar
Down near your character (around your token or along the edge of the screen) you will find a ring or bar of buttons holding everything your character can do: your attacks, your spells, your items, your special abilities. This is your action hub. If you are coming from Baldur's Gate 3, it is the same idea as the hotbar at the bottom of that screen — your whole turn's worth of options, laid out and ready to click. You do not have to dig through your sheet mid-combat to find your sword swing; it is right there. Click an action and it fires, rolls, and posts to the chat.
Turn order lives in the tracker
When a fight starts, a row of portraits appears showing everyone in the encounter in initiative order (allies and enemies alike), with the current turn marked. This is how you know whose go it is and how long until yours comes round again. Again, BG3 players have seen this exact thing: the line of faces at the top of the screen during a fight, showing the turn queue. When your portrait is the active one, it is your turn to act. When the GM advances the turn, the marker moves along.
Your character sheet holds everything else
Click your token, or your portrait, to open your full character sheet — stats, inventory, spells, biography, the lot. You will roll from here too: most numbers on the sheet are clickable and will roll the appropriate dice when you click them. The action bar is for the heat of combat; the sheet is for everything else, and for setting up before the session.
The rest (chat down one side, the GM's scene controls, volume sliders for music and effects) you will pick up as you go. The videos above show all of it in motion, which is far clearer than any description.
Moving, Rolling, and Acting
The handful of things you will do every session:
- Move. Click and drag your token to walk it, or select it and use the arrow keys for small steps. You cannot walk through walls the GM has placed — Foundry will stop you and tell you so. That is the map doing its job, not a bug.
- Roll a check or save. Open your sheet and click the relevant skill, ability, or save. The dice roll and the result drops into the chat for everyone to see.
- Attack or cast. Use the action bar in combat — click the attack, the spell, or the ability. It handles the roll and the damage and posts the outcome. No mental arithmetic required.
- Talk. The chat box takes ordinary messages and dice commands alike. Typing /roll 1d20+5 (or just /r 1d20+5) rolls it manually whenever you want a die outside the sheet.
- Target. When you need to aim something at an enemy, you target their token first (the videos show the exact key), then fire your action. Foundry works out who you hit.
When Something Goes Wrong
Problems at a virtual table are almost always small and almost always fixable. In rough order of how often they are the answer:
- The page will not load. The server is off. The GM has to have Foundry running for the link to work. Wait, or message them.
- It loaded but looks broken or half-empty. Refresh the page first — this clears most glitches in seconds. If a refresh does not do it, close the tab and rejoin.
- Your sheet or actions are missing or wrong. Refresh once. If they are still wrong, tell the GM — it is usually something they can correct on their end in moments.
- Everything is slow or stuttering. Close other heavy tabs and programs, and make sure your browser is current. Foundry leans on your browser, so give it room.
- You cannot move or do something you think you should. Often the GM has not handed control over yet, or it is not your turn. Ask — do not assume it is broken.
Refresh first, ask second. Between those two, the overwhelming majority of trouble simply goes away.
Further Reading
If you want to go deeper than the videos, these two are the best references for players. Neither is required — the videos and this page are enough to play.
Encounter Library — Player's Guide Official Foundry — Player OrientationRead them or do not. Show up, watch the ten-minute video, and click things. You will have it inside a session.
Pre-Flight — Five Minutes Before the Session
Run this list before the session starts and the first ten minutes belong to the game instead of to troubleshooting. (Ticks reset when you leave the page.)
Pre-flight: 0 of 5