Hiding Terrain/symbols by Dungeon Master
I have tried to find the answer to this question in the manual and TOUM but, if it's there, I couldn't locate it. I'm sure it has been asked before - so please forgive me if I'm repeating it.
My grandson suddenly announced he wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons and would I teach him. His father has all the old books we used to use when he was a child, so I told my grandson to do some reading, I'd prepare a dungeon and we could play it through. This also gave me the opportunity to use DD3 for the first time and I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience. I'm now close to being ready to start revealing the terrors I have prepared. However, I suddenly realised, there are all the monsters and traps in full view. How do I hide them and reveal them when appropriate? I want to use the internet to play the game as my grandson lives 150 miles away and I'm hoping there's some software available (a bit like Vassal) that will allow us to do this - does anyone have some recommendations?
My immediate thought on hiding the monsters was to have a graphics file that did not show them and then another that did - but they're not all in the same place so simply hiding a layer or sheet is not an option. I can't believe I'm the only DM to have encountered this and I'm wondering if there's a built-in solution or work around I can use?
My grandson suddenly announced he wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons and would I teach him. His father has all the old books we used to use when he was a child, so I told my grandson to do some reading, I'd prepare a dungeon and we could play it through. This also gave me the opportunity to use DD3 for the first time and I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience. I'm now close to being ready to start revealing the terrors I have prepared. However, I suddenly realised, there are all the monsters and traps in full view. How do I hide them and reveal them when appropriate? I want to use the internet to play the game as my grandson lives 150 miles away and I'm hoping there's some software available (a bit like Vassal) that will allow us to do this - does anyone have some recommendations?
My immediate thought on hiding the monsters was to have a graphics file that did not show them and then another that did - but they're not all in the same place so simply hiding a layer or sheet is not an option. I can't believe I'm the only DM to have encountered this and I'm wondering if there's a built-in solution or work around I can use?
Comments
http://rpgmaps.profantasy.com/hiding-and-showing-map-features/
(Credit to Remy Monsen for both writing this article and making me aware of it just a couple of weeks ago
Because you can have as many buttons as you like, and as many layers as you like, it would be possible to hide everything individually and each thing have its own button.
Using the macros you could even forget the buttons and just attach the macro to an invisible rectangle covering the grid square where the monster was hidden, then click the square to find out what lies there.
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Other than that you might have to invest in a game engine like Fantasy grounds... though I wouldn't know where to begin with one of those.
They all have helpful communities for those who need help figuring stuff out. (All are pretty easy at the most basic level.)
I don't like subscription software either.
Forgive me, seycyrus. I obviously didn't scroll my screen down far enough. You are quite right. $39 seems reasonable, so Fantasy Grounds could be back in the running. The website says the $39 version does not allow the owner to "Host Games for Demo Players". I'm not clear on what "demo players" are; does this mean that the other players in a scenario must download the Demo version of FG to become "demo players" and participate in a game whilst, under these circumstances, the GM must own the Ultimate version? If so, this means that, either the GM must pay $149 for the Ultimate version or the other players in a scenario must also buy the "Standard" version.
My requirements are for my son and his son to play a scenario so I can teach AD&D to the latter. He doesn't have £30 to splash out on a game he might not like and I certainly don't have £125 or so for a trial that might prove abortive after one game. I need to resolve this small issue to make a decision.
I re-googled MapTool and added the letters VTT before the search. This led me to a completely different website and I've downloaded the software. From an initial look, it seems exactly what I want - but I'll need to spend a bit of time playing around with it. So, a vote of thanks to taustinoc and Remy for their recommendation. I'm still going to look at Epic Table and any others that look promising but I would think I shall find something that works for me - thanks everyone for being so helpful (and patient!)
1. Export the map from CC3+ to jpg or png. It needs to be a reasonably high quality export to look good in a VTT when zooming in. MapTool doesn't have an absolute file size limits like some of the hosted VTT's do, but the bigger the map, the more meory it will require from each computer involved, and the longer it will take to send the map to other computers.
2. In MapTools, just select Edit Map from the Map menu, hit the Map button in the dialog, click the filesystem button to get a browse dialog that lets you brows through the files on your computer, then just browse to and pick the image, and hit open
3. The Distance per cell and pixels per cell are just to set the grid in MapTools correctly. For example, if you have a map that is 100' by 100', and you export it in CC3+ as 2000 by 2000px, the distance per foot would be 20, but if you want 5' cells (a commonly used number), then the pixels per cell would be 100.
Note that You can create many maps in MapTool instead of just editing the same one, just select New map from the Map menu.
Bless you for that. I really like the look of MapTools and it seems to cover every need I have plus it's free! The forum there is friendly and helpful (I renewed my communication with taustinoc there) and I'm hopeful that I have found what I was looking for.
Thank you to everyone on this thread who has contributed to my question - I think we can consider the subject successfully completed.
All-in-all, a very satisfying result - I'm obliged to everyone who assisted.
Note that there are a lot of nice things you can do in maptool even if you import a map from CC3+. I use it myself for my inhouse games, to be able to show a digital battlemap on a projector (I prefer that to physical miniatures), and I take advantage of features such as vision distances, light radii, vision blocking layers and fog of war. Takes some manual work after importing the map, but it is worth it. Just remember to get the scale correct when exporting&importing, that is the key to make a lot of things behave properly.