First Session with Digital Game Table

Tell us how you are using our gaming tools and how your sessions are going.

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Tyren
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First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by Tyren »

Well, we played on my custom rear projection game table (that you might have seen me post pics and video of) using MapTools this weekend.

All in all it went REALLY good. The biggest problem we had was the snap-to-grid being very frustrating since we are using a touch style interface. So all the PCs disabled the snap-to-grid option.

The other oddity was that it seemed we had to have light sources, even though the PCs all had low-light vision. It seemed that it wouldn't reveal the FOW without us having a light. Easily fixed by giving us all torches or something.

The players really liked the realism provided by the fancy graphics and the FOW definitely added some suspense to the game. We found that we all liked using actual figs to track the PCs on the table (along with the maptool tokens), and not using figs for monsters.

I might see about trying to capture a few pictures (or video) of the next session now that we've had a chance to get used to it.

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jfrazierjr
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by jfrazierjr »

Tyren wrote: The other oddity was that it seemed we had to have light sources, even though the PCs all had low-light vision. It seemed that it wouldn't reveal the FOW without us having a light. Easily fixed by giving us all torches or something.
Thats because low light requires light. It's implemented as in the 3.5 definition which means you can see double the normal range in low light(at least thats my understanding)
Tyren wrote: The players really liked the realism provided by the fancy graphics and the FOW definitely added some suspense to the game. We found that we all liked using actual figs to track the PCs on the table (along with the maptool tokens), and not using figs for monsters.

I might see about trying to capture a few pictures (or video) of the next session now that we've had a chance to get used to it.
PLEASE!
I save all my Campaign Files to DropBox. Not only can I access a campaign file from pretty much any OS that will run Maptool(Win,OSX, linux), but each file is versioned, so if something goes crazy wild, I can always roll back to a previous version of the same file.

Get your Dropbox 2GB via my referral link, and as a bonus, I get an extra 250 MB of space. Even if you don't don't use my link, I still enthusiastically recommend Dropbox..

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Tyren
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by Tyren »

My settings for "Sight" in the campaign is

Code: Select all

Normal: 
Lowlight: 
Maybe this is the problem? What is a good setting for this in 4E?

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trevor
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by trevor »

Definitely post some pics and video :)
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

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palmer
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by palmer »

Tyren wrote:My settings for "Sight" in the campaign is

Code: Select all

Normal: 
Lowlight: 
Maybe this is the problem? What is a good setting for this in 4E?
There is no good setting in 4e.
The problem is that maptool currently only has two states for light.
"Lit up" and "Dark". You can emulate shadowy or dim light by setting a color overlay for a light source, but as far as MT is concerned, something is either lit or not.

Lowlight in 4e does not let you see in the dark (that's Darkvision, obviously). All it does it make it so that dim light counts the same as bright light for those characters. However, they still need some light (dim) to see by.

The catch is that in dim light, both normal and lowlight characters can see things! The difference is not in what can be seen, or how far you can see, it's in how WELL you can see.

To normal vision, a target in dim light is VISIBLE, but also has partial concealment. The partial concealment is a matter of rules (-2 to hit, can use Stealth). Lowlight vision simply gets rid of that partial concealment.
But for the part that Maptool handles ("can I see this guy or not?"), dim and bright light are identical for ALL characters.

If EVERYONE in the group has lowlight, and the area you're in has dim (but overall everywhere) illumination, just set the vision mode to "Day" - this makes everything lit up, but still counts topology for FOW and LOS. If set to Night, you will need light sources.

Daeger
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by Daeger »

palmer wrote:
Tyren wrote:My settings for "Sight" in the campaign is

Code: Select all

Normal: 
Lowlight: 
Maybe this is the problem? What is a good setting for this in 4E?
There is no good setting in 4e.
The problem is that maptool currently only has two states for light.
"Lit up" and "Dark". You can emulate shadowy or dim light by setting a color overlay for a light source, but as far as MT is concerned, something is either lit or not.

Lowlight in 4e does not let you see in the dark (that's Darkvision, obviously). All it does it make it so that dim light counts the same as bright light for those characters. However, they still need some light (dim) to see by.

The catch is that in dim light, both normal and lowlight characters can see things! The difference is not in what can be seen, or how far you can see, it's in how WELL you can see.

To normal vision, a target in dim light is VISIBLE, but also has partial concealment. The partial concealment is a matter of rules (-2 to hit, can use Stealth). Lowlight vision simply gets rid of that partial concealment.
But for the part that Maptool handles ("can I see this guy or not?"), dim and bright light are identical for ALL characters.

If EVERYONE in the group has lowlight, and the area you're in has dim (but overall everywhere) illumination, just set the vision mode to "Day" - this makes everything lit up, but still counts topology for FOW and LOS. If set to Night, you will need light sources.
Well actually, I saw this code posted before on the forum and there does seem to be a slight difference in luminescence: (I stuck them in categories since trying to rearrange their order doesn't work how you'd expect it to.)

Code: Select all

D&D 4e - Item Light
----
Sunrod - 20 : square 20.50 
Candle - 2 : square 2.50#000000 
Torch - 5 : square 5.50 
Lantern - 10 : square 10.50 

D&D 4e - Environmental Light
----
Campfire - 10 : square 10.50 
Lamp - 15 : square 15.50 
Magma - 40 : square 40.50 
Phosphorescent fungi - 10 : square 10.50#000000 
Fireplace/oven - 5 : square 5.50 
Forge - 2 : square 2.50 
Sacrificial brazier - 10 : square 10.50 

D&D 4e - Monster Light
----
Small fire creature - 5 : square 5.50 
Medium fire creature - 10 : square 10.50 
Large fire creature - 20 : square 20.50 
Huge or Gargantuan fire creature - 40 : square 40.50 
Tiny fire creature - 2 : square 2.50 

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palmer
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by palmer »

Daeger wrote:Well actually, I saw this code posted before on the forum and there does seem to be a slight difference in luminescence
Yes, as I said...
You can emulate shadowy or dim light by setting a color overlay for a light source, but as far as MT is concerned, something is either lit or not.
The candle and fungi make the light LOOK different. However, when MT is figuring out light, vision and the like, they make no difference. Appearance, not function.

Furthermore, they don't change anything as far as setting vision. As it is, there is no way for Maptool to handle the difference between normal and lowlight vision - it entirely comes down to the rules.

And it doesn't change the fact that low light vision still needs light.

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Hawke
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by Hawke »

Curious, I want to hear more about this light stuff if you don't mind the threadjack (?) I think I've been doing it wrong in my game.

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palmer
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by palmer »

Go post your questions about using light in the main MapTool forum and I'll be happy to help

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Tyren
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by Tyren »

Okay, I took some video, but haven't pulled it in yet. But here is a pic I grabbed with my phone:
Game Table Picture with Maptools

Sorry for the "middle finger shadow". Seems the newness hasn't worn off completely yet.

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Tyren
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by Tyren »

Here are some more pics with MapTools and my rear projection game table:
Blurry (no flash)

Clear (flash), but the flash drowns out the color a bit

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trevor
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by trevor »

Super awesome ! Thanks for sharing the pics !
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

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jfrazierjr
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by jfrazierjr »

For those who have or are looking into using a projector with Maptool, I found this awesome site last night, projectorcentral.com. The cool thing about this site is that they allow you to fairly easily see the distance from the "screen" surface required to get a specific image size(http://www.projectorcentral.com/project ... or-pro.cfm). This is really important for those who are looking to use the projector either above their table or who want to create a rear projection system to be able to know if the projector can properly scale the image based on the distance.

In general, I have found that projectors that allow for throwing the image from real far away, can't get a good image close up, so if a projector has a max distance of way 30 feet, it probably won't be good for above the table.

I think I have settled on getting an Epson EX50 which allows a 34x27 in around 3'9" throw range, which is a very tiny amount of space compared to most projectors and for $650, it's a fairly decent deal for XVGA resolution.
I save all my Campaign Files to DropBox. Not only can I access a campaign file from pretty much any OS that will run Maptool(Win,OSX, linux), but each file is versioned, so if something goes crazy wild, I can always roll back to a previous version of the same file.

Get your Dropbox 2GB via my referral link, and as a bonus, I get an extra 250 MB of space. Even if you don't don't use my link, I still enthusiastically recommend Dropbox..

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Tyren
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by Tyren »

Well we broadcasted a live feed last time we played. I meant to post it here in case anyone wanted to tune it. I planned to save some video of it, but there were a few technical issues with the camera. =[ Next time.

Anyways, our second and third sessions on the game table have been really good and the DM stated that he would probably use maptools just to track the enemies, even if he wasn't projecting to the table.

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trevor
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Re: First Session with Digital Game Table

Post by trevor »

Cool, thanks for the update.
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

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