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Khan
Lucky Punk
8/5/2009 1:53:25 PM
PostID: 298817
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Hey all,
A little preface:
I've been DMing D&D 3.5e for 7 years now. The majority of it has been face to face play using a wet erase gidded mat, which makes showing locations and token movement very easy. When my players and I moved away from each other, we used RPtools's MapTool, which was absolutely fantastic, as long as everyone still had time to set a couple hours aside to log on and play. We coordinated turns and whatnot over Skype. Now, we're all over the country with busy schedules, so PbP was the natural next step if we want to keep roleplaying together.
MapTools (GM view), showing the Fog of War lighting options:
 
I've been trying to figure out the best way to run combat (and other activities requiring specificly mapped out token movement). I was thinking of uploading snapshots of MapTools for every round of combat, but that seems cumbersome (and heavy on bandwidth load), especially for interactions beyond a couple rounds. I know there is a tile-based map system provided on the site here, how has using that worked out for y'all? I've seen some various methods used on the PbP forums I've browsed, but I was hoping you all could provide some input on what you all have found to work best/ be most convenient. Some input from a DM's perspective would be especially appreciated.
This post last edited on 8/5/2009 2:03:35 PM 
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cobaltvector
Dungeonkeeper
8/6/2009 1:04:06 AM
PostID: 298927
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The site's map system works well, although obviously not as advanced as Map Tools. If you want to keep a fog of war, what I tend to do is edit the actual map (not from the game thread, but the map thread).
It's far from perfect, but it's sufficient.
You can add information to character tiles allowing you to keep track of vital stats. (Although there is a minor issue that occurs when you use font or formatting tags inside the text box.)
Since I'm not currently running a fantasy game, I'm finding that I need to create new tiles for my games. If you need to do this often, it can be time consuming. However, I usually make the tiles I create public so there is a small, but growing collection to work with.
The RPM mapper does not support hexes.
Bob's working an a map update that will hopefully introduce things like multiple layers for maps, but that will take a while. (He's just one guy, ya know.)
If you end up trying the RPM mapper, and you think that it's slow going, there are a few tricks to speed things up.
1. If your tiles are only 1x1, upload them through the map thread. When doing so, select the folder that you want to place the tile in first; the uploaded tile will appear in that folder. (You might need to reload the folder first, though)
2. Add new characters through the map, not from the character tracker.
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An interesting thought would be to make your map in Map Tools, save the image, and break it up into large tiles that could then be uploaded and placed on RPM's mapper. You could probably do that with a combination of Fraps and Gimp (or Adobe photoshop).
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Khan
Lucky Punk
8/10/2009 9:35:17 AM
PostID: 299420
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Cool, thanks for the input - it is much appreciated.
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