E.g. MapTool Light and Vision Tips and Tricks:
1) Add a "Personal" lightsource, with range of 1. Apply it to every character (except the blinded, perhaps?) any time there are other light sources on the map. Now players can still see their own PC's in the dark, and do normal sneaking in shadows with no other light source, etc. Note that adding *any* light source is compute-expensive, so don't turn on the "Personal" lights on "daylight" maps or whenever lighting effects are not needed/wanted.
* Applies to MapTool release xxx on.
2) For more "realistic" reveals of new areas, partially expose FOW areas prior to party seeing the area.
For example, the party intends to hide their lights, then peek through a door into a large, relatively cluttered chamber which has a couple of it's own light sources. If completely darkened by FOW, the interior lights will reveal a harsh demarcation between what they see and what they don't, which is somewhat unrealistic and too exact for "real life", where we can "fill in" shadow details and get a general feel for stuff between us and distant lights -- incompletely and somewhat inaccuratly, of course! Pre-exposing allows the GM to hide things in plain sight, while the party has a better 'sense' of the overall room. The party may not realize that a troll or whatever is lurking just beyond what their light source accurately reveals.
Two methods for pre-exposing:
1 Quick and simple method: Hide critical things (monsters, unexpected/small items), then use the FOW tools w/ the shift-key and draw an oval or rectangle from 50% to 150% of the brightest light source/vision capability the party has handy. Then 'unhide' the things the party should see as soon as light hits them. This is very fast, can be done with minimal pre-planning.
2. Second method: Use a dummy PC with a ~50-150% light source than the party light/vision capability. Hide as above, then place the dummy PC in roughly the location that the party will enter the chamber and expose (even move the dummy PC a space or so side-to-side), then hide the dummy PC "out of view" and unhide the 'obvious' stuff in the room. (2-3 pictures make this clearer!)
Applies to MapTool release yyy on.
And so on. Collect short items that we have gleaned from experience about best methods and practices.
This is a great set of forums, and yet having just tried to track down the macro threads from ~3 wks before I joined, I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland: "Topics come and go so quickly here!"
Somebody would probably need to moderate the forum heavily and/or collect everything on some top-level 'sticky' pages to make it work, else it will suffer the same fate (and with due apologies to those who put in so much effort here, moderator is not something I can volunteer for).
thats one of my biggest complains about the existing software.....