RPTools.net

Oh, my gosh. This thing is freaking awesome.

When the roleplaying bug hit me again and I decided to set up a web game with old college friends across the diapsora, my priorities for a web tool were 1) Simple to use and 2) Low cost. I didn't have much hope for quality and was prepared to live with Microsoft Paint maps with circles and squares for tokens.

I had no idea that I would find simple to use and free combined with out of this world capabilities. Not to mention narrated video tutorials!

I just laid out the map of the first level of Idylls of the Rat King in about two hours, complete with line of sight limits and secret doors/rooms on the hidden layer. It would have taken me less time, but for a couple of mistakes. I made the walls and doors too similar in color, so when I tested what the players could see, the doors weren't very obvious in the wall. I started drawing on the token layer, so I had to undo a few minutes work.

Beyond amazing. I will add more when I do a dry run of networking.

Heh-heh, thanks. We're glad you like it!

If you would care to take notes on what you like/don't like while you're building up your first set of maps, we (the development team) would like to hear your impressions. You're likely to get stuck on some of the same spots that others do ( ) but a different perspective (or suggestions on how best to work around the problem) is always a good thing.

If the networking part doesn't work right the first time, be sure to check out the Networking FAQ. There a thread for it under MapTool > HowTo.

Your a programmer right?

MapTool at it's most basic use is simple to use, discounting networking problems.

Especially if the user has watched Brad's screencasts and sort of "followed along" with him while he's doing stuff...

I am a programmer, but I haven't touched the macros (yet) other than to load Lindsay's teleport square. The map layout was a breeze, thanks in no small part to the videos.

I plan on running the first few games with a lot of pieces of paper next to me and trusting my players to do their own calculations. As the levels increase and my own facility at MapTool increases, I may incorporate more automation. All I ever expected to find was the same OpenRPG I used in 2000 with a few updates.

I forgot to give a parallel gush to person who put together the Torrent file of images. That was unbelievable. My only two complaints on that are 1) I spent way too long trying to decide which color/pattern of asphalt best captured the dungeon I was laying out and 2) The sheer enormity of it (3 GB!) meant that I couldn't put the whole MapTool bundle in my DropBox folder, so I could sneak a few minutes of design while at work.

Honestly, this thing is way too good to be free. I am going to drop 25 votes for a movement control layer into the development plan page. (I am worried my players are going to accidentally or "accidentally" spy over stone walls.)

Heh. Yeah, MT is quite a shock if that's what you're familiar with!


The CSUAC is put together by Cecil (darn, can't remember his last name!? ).

There's also http://oldguygaming.com/smac-–-the-new-csuac which is a relatively new work and as mentioned at the link, doesn't appear to duplicate the CSUAC.

(Edit: whoops. The link in that article appears to be dead now.)
(Edit2: Okay, the ProFantasy forums had the final resting place of the site. And that's "final resting place" in a good way, not a bad way. )


Heh-heh. This is one of those cultural stigmas we aim to correct!

Not only can free be "as good as" the commercial stuff, it can be BETTER!

We are going to be revisiting the donate-to-get-a-feature scheme towards the end of 1.4, most likely. We'd like people to be able to support the development by contributing to server expenses and such, but funding individual features probably isn't the right way to handle this. We may just remove the Wall of Features entirely (after adding the entries to our feature request list) and go with a simple "Donate" button. We won't decide any of this until after 1.4 has gone through a few public builds.

More gushing, I guess.

I didn't realize that player's can't move their tokens across the sight blocking lines.

In the video, Brad accidentally revealed a room in the house during the tutorial video and I thought that was a real peril of having a player do. That resolves my request for a movement blocking layer.

Tonight, I did a dry run. Between connecting my wife's computer (ie. behind the firewall) and remotely logging in to my work computer, I was able to figure out the port forwarding, how to get players to be able to reveal fog on their movement and that player's cannot walk through the sight blocking lines.

I can't wait to play!

As for the wall of features, it seems like a good way to gauge interest and encourage repeat tithing from regular players. It should be obvious, but may bear repeating in big letters on the page that the priority for implementation is a product of the general interest and the difficulty. The wall of features is just one metric for determining the interest level.

I've done some cleanup on the WoF page, but I've never even looked at the code before so I didn't actually touch it much. Just some text updates.

We'll get something set up for 1.4 as we get close to the first build...

Just to be 100% clear, you can't move into solid FOW... In most cases, this distinction may not make a difference, but when you have a sliver of fog on a wall, there is nothing keeping the player from jumpfroging over the wall into another room if that room has been cleared of FOW.

jfrazierjr beat me to it.

I was going to give you a warning that players can drag their tokens across the slight blocking lines/Fog of War if where they are dragging to has already been revealed.

And if they drag over an area that hasn't been revealed, it does get revealed.

Skester

This is true, but in a weird way.

If there's a big black rectangle of hard fog in the middle of the map and the player drags their token towards it, since it can't enter the area the token will no longer move. But if they continue to drag to the other side of the rectangle, the token becomes visible again and can be moved! Of course, the ZoneWalker (the object that controls the token's movement path) will go right through the rectangle and expose it as it moves.

Hm. I wonder how tough it would be to modify the ZoneWalker to use the same validateMove() function that the mouse and keyboard movement use. That would allow the user to move the token out the other side of the rectangle, but when they let go, it would stop at the edge of the hard fog... Double-hm.