#maptool — Public Fediverse posts

@action_jay

I like your idea, but you should have a look at this:

Not Fediverse, but free, self-hosted (without a server) and open-source / copyleft:

https://www.rptools.net/

I can't believe this VTT is not more widely known. If anybody wants to seriously think about a comprehensive RPG solution it should start here, not with any of the for-money subscription models.

The only hurdle is that you need to establish one or two port-forwarding rules for the host.

I have had my data stolen from Roll20 and gladly I never paid for it or I probably would have lost real money. This is way better.

#MapTool #VTT #OpenSource

I have to say I do actually like #maptool a lot, but that one needs players to install stuff. And it needs a server with good internet connectivity

@Domille Looks like a pretty sweet deal and I don't even use any fancy VTTs like Foundry, only good old #MapTool

I'm definitely considering becoming a patron.

#maptool is great when it works, when the server stops working in the middle of the game it's less so.

#ttrpg

[Labyrinth Lord] Tomb of the Serpent Kings Session 1 (also MapTool)

A while ago I started playing with some people on an online server. That was about the time when I decided that I should maybe be playing more often than just GMing. Unfortunately life intervenes a lot, and lately there haven’t been that many games in the main campaign to keep me busy. I am also co-DMing a Shadowrun game lately, so there’s that, but I am missing the OSR fantasy fare. So I decided to run a game on the server, specifically with MapTool, which I have been hovering around for a while, but never actually used. In fact I never used a proper VTT to play, so this would be a first.

I decided to use Tomb of the Serpent Kings for it because it’s nicely done and available for free, and I already had it played before, and Labyrinth Lord as a game system because that has been my basic system for a while (yeah, I never updated to OSE even though I use some of the material for it).

Game Report

The group consisted of 2 elves (Damion and Eltariel) and a MU (Frondo) with his torchbearer/muscle (Big Boris). They originally were rustled up by the local bailiff to apprehend the bandit Wild Man Roberts and his two not-so-merry-men, who were seen digging somewhere at a hillside a short way off.
The bandits were easily located inside a hole they opened in the hillside. This turned out to be a hallway going into the dark, with the bandits lying dead just a short way in. Having determined they were done in by a simple poison trap in the ceiling they decided to investigate a bit further (and do some not-graverobbing) when they encountered sarcophagi with clay statues of snake-men inside. Inside the statues were small amounts of treasure and snake skeletons (turning it to actual graverobbing). Also poison gas.
A large door at the end of the hallway was trapped by a mechanism, which they devised to disable with various methods, giving them access to a larger room with three wooden coffins. Soon enough those turned out to have skeletons of snake-like beings inside that started attacking the newly minted graverobbers. Unfortunately a series of good attacks cost the life of two of the party (both elves), and the unlife of two snakes, while Frondo and his torchbearer took off almost immediately.
Out of sight of the skeleton the two decided to rearm the trap outside and trigger it after baiting the last skeleton into it’s area. The giant stone hammer coming out of the ceiling took care of the last opponent.
Frondo returned to give his companions a proper burial (and loot their bodies), then turned back to civilization to collect the bounty on the bandits.

Notes regarding MapTool

• MapTool worked great until it didn’t. At the end we had some issues when two of us got disconnected while the others still could see things move around. I think I should have restarted the server in that case, but as it was in the very end of the 2-hour time slot we just played out the rest without it.
• MapTool now has a function (marked as experimental) that allows to create a server and connect to it directly from other clients. No more futzing around with port forwarding in this case. Unfortunately maybe not as stable as it could be (see above). Still, the lack of such a function was one of the reasons I did not use the software before, as it would have been too much work to get it running with my network setup. Now that problem is gone, it literally has become a matter of creating a server, having players connect (they are prompted for a PIN), and their computers downloading the media files from my computer.
• Speaking of media files, MapTool allows to use media files from the players computers to use in the game. Those are also added to the campaign file automatically. In fact it even allows to run a remote server where the campaign file is stored, I just haven’t been able to try that one yet. But other than that? Want to have a new token? Drop a picture in the related TokenTool, make a suitable token, then just add it in a folder and use it as you will. Nice.
• I do find the use of MapTool surprisingly convenient. There are a few things that one can’t do in the tool (e.g. animated maps would be nice, but can’t be done in the current architecture), and some stuff that can be done but needs to be configured properly (no one has bothered to create a script framework for OSR games yet it seems), but I have a lot of options to show the players exactly what I want them to see. Still there are a few things that I still have to figure out.
• The dynamic lighting in the dungeon is of course the star of the show. One can add a vision blocking layer and have PCs walk through the dungeon and have them see whatever it is that they have a) lit and b) what they can see. This can make for some interesting tactical gaming where some monster or character can see some things, but cannot see others. I noticed that it also takes a lot of mental strain from me as a DM as I don’t need to track either light or walking order in this case.
• The other thing that helps a lot is the way one can organize a scenario here. Players can generally see 3 layers on the screen: tokens, objects, and background, and they can interact only with the first one. Another hidden layer is present, but is only available to DMs. This is useful, as it allows you to drop information (e.g. attached to a numbered token) at the appropriate places, and just call it up by going over it on the token layer. As it’s hidden it is not actually visible for players, and you can have your whole adventure in there, slowly following along as the PCs explore. Incredibly useful.
• That said, there was an annoying issue with players moving tokens over specific (invisible to them) GM tokens with information, and me not being able to access them then. I think this might have a button that allows DMs to get a hold of tokens under others. but if it has I haven’t found it yet.
• Not every part of the lighting system is perfect though. I still can’t make head nor tails out of elevations and depressions. I don’t quite know what to think about them. They don’t update in ways that I would expect from either. I would for example depressions with a light source inside expect to be lit inside, but they aren’t. The lighting system also takes a little to register someone has updated settings. More than once we got stuck in a place with a newly lit lantern not lighting anything because we didn’t move.
• Doors are one of the things I will have to get into more. It is possible to create movable doors, but how is still a bit of a mystery to me.

Notes regarding Labyrinth Lord

• we were playing by the book, but that might have been a mistake. The game might need to become a bit less deadly, so next time we should use the splintering shield rules, a death and dismemberment chart, and some rule about helmets I should first figure out (stock LL doesn’t seem to have a bonus for helmets
• one house rule I already used for XP is XP for exploration: every new room discovered/mapped gives 50xp
• I do wonder if I should have used Labyrinth Lord or maybe have gone even more minimal with White Box Fantasy.

Notes regarding Tomb of the Serpent Kings

• I already played this one with another online group at the beginning of the pandemic. Unfortunately that didn’t last long, and we never managed to get to some of the more interesting parts of the dungeon.

Note: I did post a previous version of this article on the campaignwiki.org newsnet forum.

Rate this:

https://gmkeros.wordpress.com/2024/04/17/labyrinth-lord-tomb-of-the-serpent-kings-session-1-also-maptool/

#dnd #labyrinthlord #maptool #osr #totsk #ttrpg #ttrpgs #vtt

So our venture into the Tomb of Serpent Kings was going so well, and then the two Elves in the party were eviscerated by snakemen skeletons while the third ran for his life (but came back for his comrades. To loot them, sure, but he also gave them a proper burial).

#MapTool was actually quite convenient with a few hiccups: one was that just before the end the connection gave up and we couldn't see each others moves anymore...

#osr #ttrpg

so, tomorrow I have planned a 2 hour session of #LabyrinthLord, playing Tomb of the Serpent Kings on #maptool
I do wonder how far they can come in two hours.
It's not a long adventure, but it certainly has it's challenges.

#ttrpg #osr

@marcusm Nicht in der Hauptsache, aber wenn's praktisch ist als Ausweichmöglichkeit #VTT ganz nett. #GURPS mit #MapTool funktioniert ziemlich gut. Aber wir sind auch nicht Leute, die alles automatisieren müssen.

Pro:
-kostenlos mit kostenlosen Ressourcen
-Drag & Drop von Bilddateien
-relativ gute Wiki und viele Funktionen
-variable Tiefe des Systems: kann man einfach mit einer Karte im Hintergrund, Würfeln und ein paar Figuren nutzen oder ganz intensiv mit Beleuchtungsregeln, Fog-of-War und viel Firlefanz - schreibt einem nicht vor, was man machen muss

Cons:
-wenig "fertige" Szenarien für die man nichts machen muss
-verglichen mit kommerziellen Systemen wenig Bekanntheit
-es muss jeder immer die gleiche Version installiert haben; doof wenn jemand zwischendrin updatet (aus Versehen oder weil man mit anderen Gruppen spielt)
-für den Host muss man selber einen Port forwarden (also nicht für absolute Laien oder Systeme, wo man keinen Zugriff auf den Router hat)

https://www.rptools.net/toolbox/maptool/maptool-faq/

got the weird idea to have a look at RPTools' #MapTool again, which of course led to me getting derailed from making the #RPi #ttrpg utility system. which then got derailed into looking at all those pretty pretty #battlemaps I collected during the last time I had exactly this kind of thing going.

I sometimes am nothing if not predictable.

Well I did it. I self-hosted #FoundryVTT on my #OpenShift cluster. It's time to move my party off #DnDBeyond.

Moving to the #TalesOfTheValiant 5e fork as soon as it's out of playtest.

I was going to go full FOSS as I usually do, with #MapTool, but eh not sure if I'm ready for that lift.

The last few weeks I started getting interested in using VTTs for my next few games. I seem to have slept through the rise of those for the last few years, mostly because my kids were not at an age where playing online regularly was feasible.

So when I was looking for tokens I found a lot of options, many of them free. What i didn’t find though was stuff that had that OSR kind of charm of reusing old public domain sources, which I think might fit beautifully with, e.g. Dyson’s style of maps.

So I went and spent a few hours with Wikimedia Commons and TokenTool, making a small collection of tokens sourced from public domain illustrations.

I also found a few new artists that I should look more into, so even if I never get around actually using many of them I have at least that. I think I need to expand this thing though. It still is missing a lot of the monsters and NPCs I think I might need for my game.

Download: Stuffed Crocodile PD Token Collection (GDrive, 7zip, 18mb)

Note: the map above is the Desert ClanHold from Dyson’s Maps

Rate this:

https://gmkeros.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/download-pd-token-collection-170-tokens-for-fantasy-games/

#battlemaps #dnd #download #foundry #maptool #RolePlayingGame #Roleplaying #roll20 #tokens #virtualTabletop #vtt

as I am planning an online campaign lately I have been looking at #vtt apps lately. so far #maptool actually seems to be my favorite, although it looks a bit basic. but at least it doesn't demand a subscription fee.
seems to do a lot of stuff though.

@hypnobeard Oh the weekly #VTT survey 😁

Still #MapTool

In passato ho usato tanto Roll20, ma non mi è mai piaciuto (a parte questioni economiche ecc., a me la roba solo online e via browser dà un po' noia)

Ultimamente ho ripreso a smanettare con #mapTool tanto per sperimentare e ho scoperto cose davvero grandiose, come questo framework per #DnD 5e: https://github.com/rtakehara/5e-Framework

mi sa che lo testerò un po' in giocate soliste, magari in futuro proverò con un party (anche se preferirei Dungeon World da quel lato)

#GDR #giocoSegreto