Newbie Question: All Players Should Create a Forge Account?

I’m about to run my first game using Foundry VTT on Forge, and just so I am clear: all my players must first create a Forge user account, correct?

Also, when I tested inviting to a Test account (my daughter), once she created her free Forge account and logged in, she saw the main account screen where she could create worlds, add modules, and so forth. Is that normal?

Hi @cosmosis,
Whether players need to create an account on The Forge or not depends on whether your game is set to Private or Public, you can read more about the two modes here : Public & Private Games
If your daughter and/or players are under 13 years old, they shouldn’t be creating accounts (due to child privacy protection laws), so you should set the game to public in that case, otherwise it’s highly recommend that they create accounts of their own.

As for the second question, no, a player account shouldn’t access the Foundry setup page. If you haven’t launched a world yet, they should be shown an error saying they can’t access it because the game is currently being configured, unless you have set an admin access key, in which case the Foundry setup page becomes available to everyone (as long as they can enter the correct access key).
One possibility (trying to think of why it would happen) is if you have set an admin access key, then you authenticated to Foundry, then within the same browser, you logged out of the forge (but not of foundry itself) so when you created your test account and went back to the setup page, Foundry still got access to the cookies it had set and gave the test account access to the setup screen.
Does that make sense?

Thanks @kakaroto! That does make sense, and I think what happened was I set an Admin code for my daughter’s test account (she’s 13, so no worries there). I assumed the access code’s were another layer of protection, but basically if I set one, it gives that user “admin” level rights, correct? If so, do I leave it blank and tell players to just ignore it when launching the game the first time?

Okay, to follow up one more time: I am reading on the Foundry VTT page that access codes should be used for players. So I am unsure how my daughter got access? Here is what I did: (1) I created a new player account called “Test Player” in my world. I gave it an access code and set the role to “Player”; (2) I emailed my daughter the Invitation Link from the “Invite Links” menu in the world settings. (3) When I had her try that link from her email (on HER computer, not mine), it asked her to log in. (4) she created a Forge account, then logged in. (5) When she used her access code, the first page she saw upon logging in was the main setup menu (Worlds/Systems/Modules). That was when I got a little weirded out.

When I sent her the “Game URL” from the “Invite Links” menu, it asked her to log in again, and then she went straight to the game.

So, if we were on her computer-and presumably cookies wouldn’t matter- should she have gone to the main Foundry setup page? I hope this all makes sense! Thanks for your help!

Not quite. I was referring specifically to the Admin access key which you set in the “My Foundry” page here :


This is the admin key to lock access to the main setup screen of Foundry where you can choose the world and install modules and systems.
If you’ve set an admin access key, then you authenticated into Foundry with your admin access key, then you logged out from the forge, created your daughter’s account, logged back in, then access the foundry setup page, all within the same browser on the same computer, you would have still be logged into Foundry itself as admin. I’ve just tested that use case, and can confirm that it behaves that way (which is quite unfortunate).

That’s unrelated though to Player access keys which you set up in the Foundry world to give players access to the world.

No, she never should have seen the main Foundry setup page. I just tried it myself again to be extra sure, and this is the error that The Forge throws if you try to access the foundry setup page from a logged in Forge account that isn’t the owner (the one with the license and subscription), when there is no admin access key set :

And when an admin access key is set, then it’s delegated to Foundry itself which should show this :

From what you described, something doesn’t make sense to me though, you were in the world (as you said you had just created her player and went to “invitation links” within the world) so when she tried to access the game, it should have shown her the world join page, foundry would never display the setup page as long as a world is launched. You also said the first page she saw when she logged in after using the invitation link was the setup page, but The Forge wouldn’t have directed her to the game straight away but rather to the “presentation page” that you’ve configured, something like this : https://forge-vtt.com/game/demo for example in which you could then click “Launch Game” to actually access Foundry.
You then say she had to login again, which I assume is the Foundry join page where she selects her player and the access key you set.
So perhaps the confusion is that she said she was presented with a page that prompted her to “Launch game” and you thought it was the Foundry setup page rather than the game presentation page like this one ?

Thanks again, @kakarota. Yeah, I clearly did something wrong. FWIW, I was standing over her shoulder as she tested the link, so this is all based on personal observation (not on her telling me what happened). I do recall at some point we couldn’t get her in so I told her to try my admin code, and THEN it went to the setup screen. I’m not sure how it did it, but regardless, I’m going to try this again on a completely separate computer after having someone create a test account just to make sure it works as you described. :slight_smile:

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