Episode 97: Anthony Ronda and the League of Extraordinary Foundry VTT Developers, games, and Open Source

Nov 12, 2021

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Guest

Anthony Ronda

Panelists

Richard Littauer | Eric Berry | Ben Nickolls | Eriol Fox

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we have an amazing guest, Anthony Ronda, who is one of the leaders in the League of Extraordinary Foundry VTT Developers. Foundry Virtual Tabletop is a standalone application built for experiencing multiplayer tabletop RPGs, which helps you play games like Dungeons and Dragons and other games virtually. Anthony fills us in on the history of the League, the background of Foundry, and the open source module that was created. He also tells us about a really cool game he made, how he found it easier to make friends through the league, more about the Open Game License, and advice on how you can get started in this community. Go ahead and download this episode to find out more cool stuff!

[00:01:40] Anthony explains Virtual Tabletop (VTT) and gives us the history and background of the League.

[00:03:53] We find out the background of Foundry and how it’s geared more towards Dungeons & Dragons and tabletop role-playing games, and Anthony tells us how the adoption has been over the past couple of years.

[00:07:29] In talking about the API developer community, we learn how this relates to open source and what type of contributions exist. Anthony mentions a book by Nadia Eghbal that helped him make sense of what was going on, especially with making sure games run smoothly.

[00:11:15] Anthony tells us about a cool game he made in Foundry.

[00:14:30] The topic is gaming communities and Richard is curious to know more about Wizards of the Coast and what their involvement is with open source and Anthony explains how his league is doing newer novel things. He also explains the Open Game License.

[00:19:05] Anthony shares his thoughts on the barriers to entry.

[00:21:32] We learn from Anthony how he found it easier to make friends through the league than other open source communities.

[00:22:47] We find out how many people in the open source gaming community are there on behalf of their company.

[00:25:17] Anthony tells us how you can get started in this community.

[00:29:24] Find out where you can follow Anthony online.

Quotes

[00:15:09] “First off, rules aren’t protectable by copyright. However, a specific implementation of rules into texts are protected by our copyright.”
[00:15:33] “Being a market leader doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re the best game, but it’s the game that everyone knows the rules too.”
[00:17:47] “You can at least see the correlation if not show causation, that open licensing allows your game to be more popular and go everywhere.”

Spotlight

[00:30:20] Eric’s spotlight is an open source project called Voxelmade.
[00:30:55] Ben’s spotlight is an open source astronomy tool called Stellarium.
[00:31:27] Eriol’s spotlight is The Homebrewery, to turn pages into parchment and Dungeons & Dragons formatting.
[00:32:19] Richard’s spotlight is the computer game Commander Keen. Also, if you know John Carmack, who is one of the creators of this game, please let him know we are very interested to have him on this podcast! ☺
[00:32:57] Anthony’s spotlight is Codidact.

Links

Special Guests: Anthony Ronda and Benjamin Nickolls.

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