Newish maptool user needs fog of war help

Developer discussion regarding MapTool 1.4

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proseneau
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Newish maptool user needs fog of war help

Post by proseneau »

So I've been playing around with VRPTs for just a little. I love maptool from RPTools. I just need a little help. Here is what I've got:

I'm going to do a dual screen using a player screen on my TV and GM screen on my laptop. My players and I are gonna use a combo of paper and virtual maps. One player screen with all the features and a GM screen I'll use. I'm not planning on creating a server cause honestly don't know how and I don't really want to get into it. I need the fog of war for the player screen so my players don't see ahead. So far it doesn't look like that is working with my test map. I'll put in a player token and switch to player view and then playing around things and it just doesn't look right.

I'm sure someone else is doing this and maybe there is another topic somewhere I can be directed to. Just need to know the simple steps to get this feature going on my maps or the process to enable this kinda feature or game play.

*using one PC and opening the same map twice, one in GM mode the other in player
*all player tokens are wanted to be able to be used on the player screen

If anyone wants to help me out that would be great. Thanks a bunch.

taustinoc
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Re: Newish maptool user needs fog of war help

Post by taustinoc »

First, if you're running one screen in GM mode, the other as player, that's a client/server situation. And if they're both local, it's not really a big deal.

Second, are you talking about fog of war, or the visual blocking layer? Are you going to manually reveal hidden stuff as the tokens move about, or do you want it to auto-reveal? VBL uses FOW, but they're not the same thing. (And VBL has a number of subtle failure modes - it's very easy to have it not work.)

proseneau
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Re: Newish maptool user needs fog of war help

Post by proseneau »

Thanks for the reply

Well I was going to open the program twice but a client/server thats local sure I think I wont have a problem doing that.

It's fog or war. I'll have access to the player screen and my idea is a GM screen in player mode or sight. Is that gonna work or should I create the local and just log in as a GM and then as a player, and display the player on the TV?

I was probably going to reveal hidden objects myself BUT allow fog of war reveal NPCs, monsters, and map areas like normal.

Thanks again.

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aliasmask
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Re: Newish maptool user needs fog of war help

Post by aliasmask »

I use my PC with a dual monitor video card. One monitor is for the GM screen and the other is a TV I have at the other end of the table with three players on each side of table. I open 2 instances of MT, one for GM, the other for players. I set all the PC token ownerships to all players and I move them around as directed by the players. The GM instance runs a server and the player connects to it via the LAN tab. I then set the setting under tools on the GM instance to center on my view (continuous).

The TV is 43" and I can see it well enough to control from the other side of the table as well.

taustinoc
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Re: Newish maptool user needs fog of war help

Post by taustinoc »

I actually use two PCs (plus a couple of remote players at the moment), and have three wireless mice for the players so they can move their own tokens, but basically, it's the same setup as aliasmask. What you describe shouldn't be a problem. Just start the GM instance as a server, then log into it with the player instance.

If you want any automatic reveal on stuff, you'll have to figure out the VBL stuff, which is a tad complicated. If you're willing to manually reveal stuff as tokens move around, that's just fog of war, and is fairly simple. Play around with it to get used to the controls before the game starts.

proseneau
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Re: Newish maptool user needs fog of war help

Post by proseneau »

Thanks guys. I've been playing around since the first post. I've been playing a lot with the tools. Light and Fog of war will be a challenge to get it right but starting a LAN has fixed my problem.

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