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

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 SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) Anthony
Ronda Twitter (https://twitter.com/nthonyronda) Anthony
Ronda-GitHub (https://github.com/anthonyronda/) Foundry Virtual
Tabletop (https://foundryvtt.com/) Foundry VTT Twitter
(https://twitter.com/FoundryVTT) Foundry Virtual Tabletop YouTube
(https://www.youtube.com/foundrynet) Working in Public: The Making
and Maintenance of Open Source Software by Nadia Eghbal
(https://www.amazon.com/Working-Public-Making-Maintenance-Software/dp/0578675862)
Open Game License (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game_License)
Awesome OGL Projects-Anthony Ronda-GitHub
(https://github.com/anthonyronda/awesome-ogl) Voxelmade
(https://voxelmade.com/) Stellarium (https://stellarium.org/) The
Homebrewery (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/) Commander Keen
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Keen) Codidact
(https://codidact.org/) Special Guests: Anthony Ronda and Benjamin
Nickolls.