Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

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IHaveThatPower
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Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by IHaveThatPower »

Hello!

Looooongtime MapTool user, first time poster. Have only barely scratched the surface with macros and such, though, and I think what I'm trying to do lives there. Hopefully, one of the brilliant minds here can help!

The general problem: my players would like a way to indicate points on a map, even "on top" of Fog of War, even when the FOW settings are set at individual token level.

As far as I know, all of the drawing tools respect Fog of War, so my players can't just draw a circle around a portion of the map that they can see, but another player cannot. If there's some other functionality in MT that I've just totally overlooked, please let me know!

Instead, I thought about taking the approach of creating a shared "indicator" token of a round red dot that had a unique Sight type that was just large enough for the token to be visible, but not expose anything beyond. I knew about onTokenMove(), so I figured I could just write a macro for this token in particular that caused it to re-hide any exposed FOW it revealed at the conclusion of its move.

Unfortunately, I think I've hit the limitation of my understanding of the available tools to do that. The test macro I wrote was a very simple "if the token moved was the Indicator, run exposePCOnlyArea()".

Code: Select all

[h:lastPath = getLastPath(1)]
[h:tokenMoved = getSelectedNames()]
[h,if(tokenMoved == 'Indicator'), CODE:{
	[h:exposePCOnlyArea()]
};{}]
But, quite obviously, that runs into the issue that it also hides all the soft FOW for all the PCs! That's definitely not what I want; I just want any area that would be exposed by the Indicator token to re-hide, as though the indicator token never passed through that space at all.

Is there any way to achieve this, or alternately, is there a better way to facilitate what my players are asking for?

Thanks!

taustinoc
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by taustinoc »

Can't you just set ownership to "All Players," and uncheck "Has Sight"?

IHaveThatPower
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by IHaveThatPower »

taustinoc wrote:Can't you just set ownership to "All Players," and uncheck "Has Sight"?
If I do this, the token disappears when it's in the Fog of War. What I'm looking for is some way for the players to have something they can use as a shared indicator or cursor that is always visible to them, regardless of VBL or fog state, so they can use it as a tool for referencing places on the map.

I suggested the A1 coordinate reference to them, but they are not fans of that.

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Full Bleed
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by Full Bleed »

IHaveThatPower wrote:so my players can't just draw a circle around a portion of the map that they can see, but another player cannot. If there's some other functionality in MT that I've just totally overlooked, please let me know!
FYI, there is a built in "live pointer" that each player can use to point out areas on a map. If they hold down the space bar they can gesture to an area on a map. Not sure if this will serve your needs, but we use it a lot in our games to communicate about areas on a map without needing permanent markings.
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

taustinoc
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by taustinoc »

Which version are you using? I just checked in 1.4.1.7, where the Properties window for a token as a VBL tab, and on that tab is "always visible." That puts it over the FOW (to the chagrin if some, according to previous discussions.)

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JamzTheMan
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by JamzTheMan »

taustinoc wrote:Which version are you using? I just checked in 1.4.1.7, where the Properties window for a token as a VBL tab, and on that tab is "always visible." That puts it over the FOW (to the chagrin if some, according to previous discussions.)
Just make sure to set it's ownership to all so the players can see it then yep, it will be visible. *Hint, if you make the token semi-transparent, the players would see any "Soft fow" under it but any unexposed is still black. I suggest a simple flag/pin token.

@taustinoc Not sure what the previous discussions were about, the whole point of always visible is to pop it over FoW so you can hide LOS behind, say, a statue/door, but still be able to see the door/statue.
-Jamz
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taustinoc
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by taustinoc »

JamzTheMan wrote:@taustinoc Not sure what the previous discussions were about, the whole point of always visible is to pop it over FoW so you can hide LOS behind, say, a statue/door, but still be able to see the door/statue.
Yeah, as best I can tell, it works exactly as intended, but I have half a memory that somebody wanted it to do something it wasn't intended to do in the first place. Or I'm confusing it with a discussion of something else that didn't work they way someone wanted it to. In any event, that's the easiest solution for this one, if they can get to a new enough version.

IHaveThatPower
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by IHaveThatPower »

taustinoc wrote:Which version are you using? I just checked in 1.4.1.7, where the Properties window for a token as a VBL tab, and on that tab is "always visible." That puts it over the FOW (to the chagrin if some, according to previous discussions.)
Aha! That sounds perfect. I've been using the version listed as the latest stable one, 1.4.0.5. If 1.4.1.7 is in a solid-enough state, though, then that sounds like a perfect answer. Thanks very muc!

taustinoc
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by taustinoc »

The current beta is 1.4.1.8, but that feature hasn't changed. (1.4.1.7 happened to be the version I had handy to test it on.)

There hasn't been an updated beta for a while, so it seems to be pretty stable. (Others can speak more definitively on that than me, I'm still on the last release version.) Make sure you have a backup of any campaign files you intend to open with it, though, just in case there's backward compatibility issues.

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JamzTheMan
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by JamzTheMan »

@IHaveThatPower Feel free to try out my fork at maptool.nerps.net as well, it has everything 1.4.1.8 has + more! (considering most of those additions come from me. :mrgreen:

You can actually install both side by side to and try them both out...
-Jamz
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Custom MapTool 1.4.x.x Fork: maptool.nerps.net
Custom TokenTool 2.0 Fork: tokentool.nerps.net
More information here: MapTool Nerps! Fork

IHaveThatPower
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by IHaveThatPower »

JamzTheMan wrote:@IHaveThatPower Feel free to try out my fork at maptool.nerps.net as well, it has everything 1.4.1.8 has + more! (considering most of those additions come from me. :mrgreen:

You can actually install both side by side to and try them both out...
That looks great! I'll definitely give it a try. Thanks very much!

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Jagged
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Re: Creating an "indicator" token all players can move?

Post by Jagged »

1.4.1.7 is extremely stable. We've been using it for some time now.

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