Player Experience

Seeing Through Player Eyes

As GMs, we often get lost in the power of Foundry: managing worlds, building scenes, automating rules. But step back and remember that your players see a different Foundry. They're not backstage with you; they're in the audience, experiencing the show. Their Foundry should feel less like software and more like stepping through a portal into another world.

Great player experience isn't about having the most modules or the fanciest effects. It's about removing friction between imagination and immersion. Every click should feel intuitive, every feature should help rather than distract, and the technology should disappear behind the story.

The Player's Journey

Joining a Game

Players never buy or install anything. Only the host needs a Foundry license; everyone else joins from a web browser.

1. The GM launches the world. Players can't join while Foundry is sitting on its Setup screen; a world has to be running.
2. The GM shares the invitation link. Foundry's Invitation Links window shows a local-network address (for players in the same house) and an internet address (for everyone else). If you use a hosting service, it gives you the address instead.
3. The player opens the link and reaches the join screen, picks their user name from the list, types the password if one is set, and joins the game session.

Each player needs their own user account in your world. Create one per person (with a password) in the user management window under the Settings tab, and give each the Player role, or Trusted Player for people you want to let draw on the map and, optionally, upload images.

The Player Interface

Here's Foundry from where your players sit. The layout is the same as yours (see The GM Interface), but with less in it.

Players don't get GM-only controls such as Walls, Lighting or scene configuration, and the sidebar shows only the documents they have permission to see. Players can still collapse the sidebar, pop windows out and set up their own hotbar.

Vision and the Token HUD

If your scene uses token vision, each player sees only what their character could see. Select your token to look through its eyes; with no token selected, you see through all the tokens you own at once. Walls block sight, lights reveal areas, and fog of war remembers the places you've already explored. In Version 14 the GM can let the party share explored areas, so the whole group's map fills in together.

A token's vision mode (normal sight, or something like darkvision) is set in its configuration, usually by the GM or by the game system.

Right-click your own token to open the Token HUD, a ring of quick controls around it: resource bars, elevation, status effects and a toggle for adding the token to combat. Target an enemy with the Tokens layer's target tool, or by hovering over its token and pressing T.

First Time Player Onboarding

The first session sets the tone for everything that follows!

Character Sheet Excellence

The character sheet is your player's home base. Its design comes from your game system (and sometimes a module), but you control who can open and edit it: give each player Owner of their own character so they can edit it, roll from it and move its token. Players can open their sheet from the Actors tab or by double-clicking their token.

Version 14's Active Effects can expire on their own at the start or end of a turn, round or combat, so fewer buffs and conditions linger after everyone has forgotten them. How much your system uses that varies.

Combat from the Player's Perspective

During a fight, players mostly watch two things: the combat tracker in the Combat tab, and their token on the map.

When it's your turn, drag your token: Foundry draws the path and shows the distance as you go (Ctrl+click, or Cmd+click on a Mac, adds a waypoint to turn a corner; Esc cancels). Then attack or cast from your character sheet, and the results land in chat.

Player Communication Tools

Great communication makes great games!

Player Empowerment Features

Accessibility and Keybindings

Small adjustments make a big difference for players with different needs:

• Configure Controls (in the Settings tab) lists every keybinding from core Foundry, your system and your modules. Each player can rebind keys for their own setup.
• Hotbar macros turn multi-step actions into a single key press (1–9 and 0).
• Light or dark theme: Foundry follows the device's preference, and each player can override it.
• Browser zoom enlarges the whole interface for players who need bigger text.
• Pop-out windows let a player keep their sheet on a second screen or a larger window.
• Performance Mode in the client settings can be lowered on older laptops to keep things smooth.
• Volume sliders in the Playlists tab let each player balance music and sound effects for themselves.

Common Player Pain Points (and Solutions)

The Lost and Confused Player

Problem: "I can't find anything! Where's my character sheet?"

Solution: Make sure they own their character, show them the Actors tab and the double-click-the-token trick, and share a cheat sheet with screenshots of your world.

The Overwhelmed Newcomer

Problem: "There are too many buttons and options!"

Solution: Collapse the sidebar, keep the module list lean, and introduce one feature at a time.

The Connection Troubled

Problem: "It's laggy and keeps disconnecting!"

Solution: Check they're on a supported browser (not Safari) with hardware acceleration on, lower their Performance Mode, and keep your scene images a sensible size. The Performance part has more.

The Forgotten Features

Problem: "I didn't know I could do that!"

Solution: A quick tip each session, feature spotlights, and a practice scene where experimenting is safe.

Try It in Foundry: Player Experience Audit

Player Resources and References

Building Player Engagement

The Engagement Pyramid

Real GM Stories: Player Success

The Technophobe's Triumph

"My 65-year-old player was terrified of Foundry. We set her browser zoom high, kept her sheet to the essentials and put her most-used rolls on the hotbar. Now she's teaching OTHER players tricks. Never underestimate your players!" - GM Janet

The Accessibility Win

"One player has limited mobility. We rebound the controls in Configure Controls and put everything he needs on hotbar keys. He said it's the first time he felt truly equal at a game table." - GM Marcus

The Immersion Master

"My players loved the immersion so much, they started creating their own content: character journals, custom token art, even backstory handouts. They own their experience now." - GM Sofia

What's Next?

Seeing Foundry through your players' eyes turns your digital table into a welcoming space where the technology helps rather than hinders the magic of roleplaying.

Next, Performance covers keeping Foundry running smoothly, even with all these features switched on.