Introduction
We receive a lot of questions about account sharing. We hope to answer as many of these questions as possible here, and explain how you are allowed to “share” your Forge account.
What does sharing mean in this context?
Sharing is allowing someone else to use your Forge account to run a game in a GM/similar role, without being the owner of the Forge account.
Being the account owner, and running games for others isn’t considered account sharing.
Can I share my Forge account?
It depends.
What does that even mean? Can I share it or not?
In some situations, you can share the use of your Forge account.
But as per our Terms of Service , you are never allowed to share your account credentials. If you would like to share the use of your Forge account in a permitted way, you can share via our User Manager, or use Foundry’s in-game user manager to appoint other DMs. Nobody but you (the account owner) should ever know your Forge account login details!
When can I share the “use” of my Forge account?
Currently, The Forge VTT only allows shared usage of your Forge account when you are:
- Involved in the game as another DM or player, or…
- Games are being ran on your account in a shared setting/world, and they are not being ran at the same time, or to an excessive amount.
Basically, every account should have a single constant. It should either be the account owner being a constant participant in a game, or the world/setting itself is a constant- where the shared setting and gameplay choices of one game affects other players.
What is a “shared setting” or “shared world”?
By this, we mean a situation where one game’s actions will impact another. That is to say, the story being advanced in game X will also be advanced in game Y, due to the progression in game X.
These games are often called “shared campaigns”, “living worlds”, or “West Marches campaigns”.
A good rule of thumb is the following- if you can run both sessions on the same Foundry world, with a shared story, it is acceptable use on The Forge VTT.
What is running multiple worlds at the same time mean?
Exactly what is stated. You can leave multiple worlds up at once, but more than one game/session should not be ran at the same time.
Acceptable Example: Two friends run a shared living world campaign together. One friend runs a session at a particular time. The other friend runs another game at another time. The two session times do not intersect.
Unacceptable Example: Two friends run a shared living world campaign together. They both run at the same time each week. The two sessions overlap partially or completely in time.
What is an excessive amount?
We try to be reasonable, and we ask the same in return. If you are running a shared living world and there are multiple games every day, across several different GMs… We would strongly suggest obtaining subscriptions for multiple Forge accounts, or self hosting.
Why do you have these rules? Aren’t I paying for 24/7 hosting?
Here at The Forge, we provide hosting with the assumption that your games will be available 24/7. Our business model does not assume the games will be regularly accessed and ran on 24/7. In order to continue providing competitive prices, we must impose these basic guidelines.
For 99% of the typical Forge audience, these restrictions will not impact their gaming habits in any way.
Does this mean I can’t run 40 hours a week by myself, as the sole GM?
We congratulate you on having that kind of time, and we will take the hit in that situation- though we strongly suggest subscribing at the World Builder tier. This guide is meant to address multiple people accessing an account in a GM-capacity.
My use case isn’t answered here.
Feel free to reach out! Receive a fast response on our Discord, or via email at [email protected].
Can I share my Foundry license?
The Forge VTT does not own the rights to Foundry Virtual Tabletop. We are a host for the software- not the developers. We cannot comment on the legality of sharing your Foundry VTT license key, or in what situations it may or may not be acceptable.
As of right now, The Forge does not allow two accounts on its platform to use the same Foundry VTT license key. This is taken as a reasonable step toward ensuring the security of Foundry VTT license keys, and to make absolutely sure that no improper sharing of Foundry licenses is done on our platform.
For more details on what you can and cannot do with your Foundry license, please see the following page on the Foundry Gaming website: Software License | Foundry Virtual Tabletop