GM Approved Movement

[Emryys]

Players will indicate their desired move by clicking a path, cell by cell, to their destination. Small, sequentially-numbered movement icons will appear on each cell clicked on (click it again to cancel movement to that cell). No Fog of War has been lifted at this point. The GM now has the option of approving the entire move (by clicking on the final movement icon), or approving just part of the move (by clicking on some other movement icon). The players token is erased from the original location, redrawn at the approved destination, and Fog of War will be lifted as appropriate.

This method makes it possible to control illegal moves (moving too far, or forgetting to take into account some terrain penalty). It also good for situations like "You make it to here, and there's a faint clicking sound. A pit opens beneath you! Make a saving roll or fall in."

The whole purpose of this "approved movement" method is to allow the GM to incrementally reveal each step of the move, to allow the player to change his mind. The GM should really just exercise common sense and only approve the move up until the point that a hazard or some other important detail is revealved that might cause the player to change his mind.

Of course, if the GM did accidentally approve too much of the move, he can simply move the figure back to the desired location (no approval step is needed when it's the GM doing the moving). The players will have caught a momentary glimpse of what lies ahead, since the Fog of War would have been lifted for the full move, but I figure most GMs will quickly learn to not make that mistake...

Thoughts, comments...

[brisingre]

it owuld have to be an option though, as it would be time-consuming.

[rkathey]

I like the idea of leaving a grayed out marker from where your token started along with the trail showing how it got to its new position. You could then do a right-click->approve move when you are done.

This is helpful because with a large number of counters it might be easy to lose track of what's moved and what hasn't.

another 2 cents,
rAk

[Emryys]

it would have to be an option though, as it would be time-consuming.

Definately...
The Path would remain till approved and the GM could also "click" anywhere along the path and the token only moves that far, thus alllowing only partial moves. A simple "right click" and an option is "approve move"

[trevor]

I've added a tracker to "Selectively show the last path a token took".

We'll do that one first, then figure out the partial path approval mechanism

[heruca]

Players will indicate their desired move by clicking a path, cell by cell, to their destination. Small, sequentially-numbered movement icons will appear on each cell clicked on (click it again to cancel movement to that cell). No Fog of War has been lifted at this point. The GM now has the option of approving the entire move (by clicking on the final movement icon), or approving just part of the move (by clicking on some other movement icon). The players token is erased from the original location, redrawn at the approved destination, and Fog of War will be lifted as appropriate.

This method makes it possible to control illegal moves (moving too far, or forgetting to take into account some terrain penalty). It also good for situations like "You make it to here, and there's a faint clicking sound. A pit opens beneath you! Make a saving roll or fall in."

The whole purpose of this "approved movement" method is to allow the GM to incrementally reveal each step of the move, to allow the player to change his mind. The GM should really just exercise common sense and only approve the move up until the point that a hazard or some other important detail is revealved that might cause the player to change his mind.

Of course, if the GM did accidentally approve too much of the move, he can simply move the figure back to the desired location (no approval step is needed when it's the GM doing the moving). The players will have caught a momentary glimpse of what lies ahead, since the Fog of War would have been lifted for the full move, but I figure most GMs will quickly learn to not make that mistake...

Great idea, Emryss, but it'd be nice if you would attribute where it came from.

http://www.battlegroundsgames.com/phpBB ... .php?t=106
(see my first and third posts in this thread)

[trevor]

Players will indicate their desired move by clicking a path, cell by cell, to their destination. Small, sequentially-numbered movement icons will appear on each cell clicked on (click it again to cancel movement to that cell). No Fog of War has been lifted at this point. The GM now has the option of approving the entire move (by clicking on the final movement icon), or approving just part of the move (by clicking on some other movement icon). The players token is erased from the original location, redrawn at the approved destination, and Fog of War will be lifted as appropriate.

This method makes it possible to control illegal moves (moving too far, or forgetting to take into account some terrain penalty). It also good for situations like "You make it to here, and there's a faint clicking sound. A pit opens beneath you! Make a saving roll or fall in."

The whole purpose of this "approved movement" method is to allow the GM to incrementally reveal each step of the move, to allow the player to change his mind. The GM should really just exercise common sense and only approve the move up until the point that a hazard or some other important detail is revealved that might cause the player to change his mind.

Of course, if the GM did accidentally approve too much of the move, he can simply move the figure back to the desired location (no approval step is needed when it's the GM doing the moving). The players will have caught a momentary glimpse of what lies ahead, since the Fog of War would have been lifted for the full move, but I figure most GMs will quickly learn to not make that mistake...

Great idea, Emryss, but it'd be nice if you would attribute where it came from.

http://www.battlegroundsgames.com/phpBB ... .php?t=106
(see my first and third posts in this thread)

You are kinda full of yourself heruca. What may not be obvious, this exact concept was discussed by the development team before a single line of MapTool was written, which I imagine precedes any announcement of Battlegrounds.

You and your comments are welcome, but play nice

[heruca]

Sorry, I'm really not trying to be a jerk, it's just that:

1. Much of my original wording and sentence structure is still in Emryss' post.

2. His posts always come after my posts.

3. He's registered on my forums.

4. This is not an isolated event (see the Map Notes thread)

How much more proof is needed?

By the way, it's not the ideas I care about. If I wanted to keep them secret I wouldn't have posted them on a public forum. And they're not even all that original.

No, what bothers me is Emryss' attempt to pass them off as his own by changing a couple of words. We used to call that plagiarism.

----Break----

I think you guys are doing great stuff with MapTool, and I commend you on offering it for free. If I wasn't making my own virtual tabletop, I'd probably be using MapTool over even the commercial offerings.

Good luck with it.

[trevor]

That's fine, but please take that up with him in directly

That is, you might have contacted him directly, and if there was a problem he could have politely made the attribution, instead of posting a nasty forum message.

[Emryys]

Once again I apoligized as I wasn't so much attempting to present these ideas as my own as to help facilitate development all viable online tools.

To Heruca,
I am very interested in your commercial product, and am quite happy to purchase such products, (as evidenced by my purchase and use of GRiP) and will continue to follow all developement of all similar products, be it commercial or not.

I will refrain from posting near verbatim concepts in the future, and will put forward any concepts in my own words.

Alot of these ideas I've discussed over the years as "dream" concepts with fellow onliners... my excitment at the prospect of them comming to fruition clouded better judgement

[Guest]

OK, sorry for taking this up on your forum, Trevor, but I figure that having done so might help allay any misconceptions that people might have in the future, like:
"OMG! Battlegrounds totally copied MapTools' GM-approved movement system. How lame!"

Emryys, you've provided valuable feedback and suggestions on both forums, and I hope you continue to do so.

[heruca]

Oops! That was me.

[trevor]

You, my friend, are paranoid.

[trevor]

OK, sorry for taking this up on your forum, Trevor, but I figure that having done so might help allay any misconceptions that people might have in the future, like:
"OMG! Battlegrounds totally copied MapTools' GM-approved movement system. How lame!"

Emryys, you've provided valuable feedback and suggestions on both forums, and I hope you continue to do so.

Took a look at your user manual. Hey, nice "default map(open grassland)", now, where have I seen that before .... Default .... map .... grass. Man, it's even the same color and texture ! Heh. And you worried about credit being given where due

[rkathey]

ROFL. The rocks you throw at others can be trown back.