Nightmare on MapTool Street

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Ephestion
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Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Ephestion »

I started my first multiplayer game as GM.

It took a while to set everything up but I was confident everything was done properly. I was playing with new people who never played an RPG before. I although played a few times, am still a rook.

So we start the game and while I am still typing instructions, one player moves their token. Next another resizes someone elses token to gigantic. I try to keep everyone under some discipline by telling them not to play around with stuff. That the token is only a representation of the story I was reading out (Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and was on his way to the humans to give it to them as a gift, but a team of other Gods tried to stop him through their minions, Zeus had turned himself into a Bull to fornicate with a Human woman and couldn't be told at the time without alerting the attention of Hera his Wife.)

Well anyway, we did ok for a while, the game progressed rather well until someone tried to move another Players Token back to the start. The screen was locked but they could zoom in and out and moved their allies token. It took us a while to figure out where the other player went. I had clicked only reveal current visible area but unfortunately I had to do it for every character after every turn to stop that kind of behaviour. We finally get to one of the Bosses on the Map and one of the Players starts attacking repeatedly, despite me yelling in the chat window to stop. I had to move him away and lock all movement. But one of the characters was just outside our LOS and wanted to join the rest but couldn't (probably because they didn't know what to do). So I unlocked the movement and moved the screen to the trapped player and moved their token with their permission back to the rest of the group. By the time I read out the instructions the attacking player killed the mini Boss solo. I was rather sad and tried to revive the dead mini Boss but their token was deleted from the Map Inventory list and I couldn't target them to apply any macro like heal or otherwise.

After much chaos I simply walked away from the screen to calm down. When I came back one player was on a wall that was partly lit, the other killed his ally in a pvp match and we had only gotten 15 min into a good 1 hour campaign. They asked me to restart, but I told them another time because I was busy because I had snails to feed in my garden. So I left went outside and squashed some snails growing on my tomatoes.

I am not sure if this happens to others, or if I didn't lock down the game more tightly. Are players supposed to move freely without move limits? Does anything prevent moving other people's tokens? Anything to stop occupying the same tile? Anyway to stop moving a monster NPC? anyway to stop people from scrolling out when screen is locked? Anyway to .....well run a game under a little more controlled environment and only allow players to take actions when asked to and withing the rules of the game?

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booga
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by booga »

I don't think the problem was maptool or your framework, the problem was your group. You just need to find more mature players, people that can actually show some self-restraint and listen to their GM.

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Full Bleed
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Full Bleed »

Ephestion wrote:I am not sure if this happens to others, or if I didn't lock down the game more tightly. Are players supposed to move freely without move limits? Does anything prevent moving other people's tokens? Anything to stop occupying the same tile? Anyway to stop moving a monster NPC? anyway to stop people from scrolling out when screen is locked? Anyway to .....well run a game under a little more controlled environment and only allow players to take actions when asked to and withing the rules of the game?
Well, first of all, your players are morons. Can you imagine trying to play a game of checkers, chess, or any card game with someone who flat out refused to obey the rules? I.e. moved pieces around randomly for no reason whenever they felt like it when it wasn't their turn, looked at other people's cards, and generally acted like two year old? MT is, by default, relatively unrestricted because there are a lot of games that don't require restrictions for people who actually have an interest in playing the game. I mean, how exactly do you "control" people in real life when you sit down to play a game with them?

That said, there are some simple steps you can take:

1) When starting your Server make sure that you have check marked "Strict Token Ownership" and "Restricted Player Impersonation." You will now have to give ownership to individual tokens (right click>Edit>Ownership). They won't be able to mess with other tokens after that. They still will have control over their own token though... because, well, it's their token.

2) Also when starting Server, uncheck "Players Can Reveal Vision". That way, you select a token and Ctrl-I to expose the FoW instead of letting the players generally act like fools revealing your whole map out of turn.

3) In Edit>Preferences>Application>Initiative Defaults set "Lock Player Movement in New Campaign." Uncheck "Give Owners Permission in New Campaign." This will make it so that when in combat, only the player with initiative will be able to move their token.

4) Outside combat, use Ctrl-Shift-L to lock token movement. Have your players communicate where they want to go by use their space bar to "point" onscreen and describe what they are doing. You can then move their tokens accordingly (and expose the FoW with Ctrl-I if you so choose... or you can use the Preferences to set it up so that it auto-exposes when you move the token, not when players move the token.) For more advanced control inside and outside combat, you can also look up the onTokenMove event. You will be able to control all sorts of things with that.


But, ultimately, the best advice will be to get new players. Ones that want to actually play the game and understand what the responsibilities of a "player" are in *any* game. For example, if they are the kind of person that plays baseball by running straight to second base shouting obscenities after missing a pitch, they might not be the kind of person that understands that games have rules and it's their job to follow them to be actually playing the game.

The Next piece of good advice I can give you is to familiarize yourself with what the settings in Preferences do and what the Server Settings do. Use the wiki. The Forums. And the video tutorials to get you up to speed. Maptool is a very powerful and flexible tool. One that has lots of options because people play many different games and they play the same games very differently. MT is built to accommodate all who are wiling to put in the time to mold it to do their bidding.
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

Ephestion
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Ephestion »

[q]But, ultimately, the best advice will be to get new players. Ones that want to actually play the game and understand what the responsibilities of a "player" are in *any* game. For example, if they are the kind of person that plays baseball by running straight to second base shouting obscenities after missing a pitch, they might not be the kind of person that understands that games have rules and it's their job to follow them to be actually playing the game.[/q]

I don't know how to break that to my kids though.

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booga
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by booga »

Well,

if switching players is not an option, I'd recommand following Full Bleed's recommendations to enforce scrict token ownership. He explained the process very well. You can test on your side by opening Maptool twice, then connect the second Maptool to the first one as Server-Client. That will show you how tight you can enforce ownership. Ultimately, not giving them any permission is not going to be very fun for your players, but maybe it will make them think about what they are missing and maybe improve their behavior.

Ephestion
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Ephestion »

I made the changes you pointed out and I will try them out later or tomorrow. Thanks for the advice.

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aliasmask
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by aliasmask »

If you open the "connections" window you can right click and boot a player. Just tell them its a MapTool feature for douchebaggery.

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Bone White
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Bone White »

Another reason to look forward to (hopefully) permission-style control of MapTool assets and context menus. Unfortunately everyone who's ever been a GM has had these problems, and will until the end of days, such is human nature. Those bad apples only serve to make the good apples sweeter, so don't give up hope.

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aliasmask
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by aliasmask »

I think I've been fairly lucky with my games. Usually the bad apples drop out sooner than later and my games have a lot of player overlap. Usually, if you only have one miscreant player in group and good players for the rest then they either drop or straighten out. But if you have 2, they'll just feed off of each other and ruin game.

I also find a "please don't do that" to go a long way.

Ephestion
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Ephestion »

Is there are good character sheet based framework other than DN's Character Sheet? I think that would be safer to use than packs with super powered macros. I just want to translate exactly what you would find in a DnD 4 table setting. Dice, Character Sheets some tokens and a map. Having some calculated fields for the Character sheet would be a bonus, and a premade list of standard Fest, Powers, Skills etc would be appreciated. Does anything like that exist?

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Bone White
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Bone White »

It'd take you a few minutes to knock up a character sheet just how you want it in a spreadsheet program if you wanted to do this. You complete your character sheet and at the end of every session (and at character creation) send the updated copy to the GM to ensure continuity.

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Full Bleed
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Full Bleed »

Ephestion wrote:Is there are good character sheet based framework other than DN's Character Sheet? I think that would be safer to use than packs with super powered macros. I just want to translate exactly what you would find in a DnD 4 table setting. Dice, Character Sheets some tokens and a map. Having some calculated fields for the Character sheet would be a bonus, and a premade list of standard Fest, Powers, Skills etc would be appreciated. Does anything like that exist?
Look for Rumble's Dice Box mod to handle most of your simple dicing needs. It's pretty easy to apply to new campaigns.

As for a D&D4 character sheet centric framework... I don't think so. Character Sheets in MT often become pretty intertwined with the inner working of the framework. But I'm sure you could reverse engineer something with a bit of time.

Alternately, you could begin by using an external character sheet manager/generator: Hero Labs, The One Sheet, and PCGen all come to mind.
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

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Toby
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Toby »

Ultimately, there is no perfect technological solution to this problem as it's not a technology problem. It's a sportsmanship problem. Especially if your players are your kids. I think it would be pretty straightforward to sit down and talk to them about how to play the game. If they can't handle that, they can't play. No, its not just like a computer game, yes, they have the ability to do all sorts of disruptive things. However, if they act like they have been, you wont play with them.

I have never had this problem, but then I'm playing with friends that I have played with in person, they understand its a table-top role-playing game that is facilitated by the VTT, not a semi-manual video game. Maybe play with them on a real table top first.

Good luck,
Toby

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Xaelvaen
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by Xaelvaen »

Ephestion wrote:Is there are good character sheet based framework other than DN's Character Sheet? I think that would be safer to use than packs with super powered macros. I just want to translate exactly what you would find in a DnD 4 table setting. Dice, Character Sheets some tokens and a map. Having some calculated fields for the Character sheet would be a bonus, and a premade list of standard Fest, Powers, Skills etc would be appreciated. Does anything like that exist?
If I might ask, what is it about DN's framework that you are trying to avoid, or doesn't perfectly work for you? (As specific as you believe you can describe it at least)
"An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life - becoming a better person." - Leo Tolstoy

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CoveredInFish
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Re: Nightmare on MapTool Street

Post by CoveredInFish »

Other than "talk to your group" I have two additions ...

* Try using MapTool as simple whiteBoard for a while. No macro-goodies (maybe just a simple die rolling macro), just a map and some tokens. It is less "inviting" to play around and when player go out of bounds it is easier to "reset" them. (I do realize that your wish to find a simpler framework already goes in this direction)

* I like to give the players - especially when they are new to MT or a particular framework - some time to play and goof around with the system. Let them battle each other, toy around with the lighting system, battle a dragon, whatever. I usually have a map for that that will load first. Let them get used to the new tool and start the gaming when the curiosity has been satisfied.

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