Player Mapping in Fantasy Grounds

**Reynard203** · January 10th, 2018, 19:50

One of the key components of old school play was that the players had to map their way through the dungeon, hoping not to get lost in winding passages and cavernous ruins. With the virtual tabletop being what it is, i am wondering how to go about this. The players should be able to all see the map they make, but I do not want to give them the map. I can use discrete battlemaps for any individual room in which a battle occurs or something else makes it important to know exact placement, but I am trying to run this game as close to the "old style" as possible.

Thanks.

**Trenloe** · January 10th, 2018, 19:56

You'll be limited to the players drawing on a map - I recommend sharing a basic blank JPG image that is large enough for mapping. The drawing functionality is fairly basic though. Info here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/...mages#Drawings

Plus you can share some basic tokens with the players - walls and a few other things, that they can put on the map.

**LordEntrails** · January 10th, 2018, 21:49

When I'm doing a dungeon delve (i.e. Undermountain) my players map on grid paper and I never show them a map/image of the full dungeon or level. If I were a player, I would use a mapping program to do it, but they choose paper.

The tools in FG are too basic in my opinion to use when there are other options.

**JohnD** · January 10th, 2018, 23:15

I wonder, with a blank jpeg. You apply the grid for scale. Could you use a stylus/tablet drawing combo to make a good hand drawn map in FG? Would the tablet/pen input work?

**damned** · January 11th, 2018, 01:59

You could use a variation of the method below to create individual rooms each time they enter and they must offline map it themselves.
Or create maps for each room and share/unshare the room each time and again they map offline...
They would need some way to share the map amongst themselves... external to FG...

**Nickademus** · January 11th, 2018, 04:38

I've never had a situation where all of the players could see the drawings of all of the players. There is always one or more players that can't see someone's drawings. So I avoid using the draw tool.

**darrenan** · January 11th, 2018, 19:07

I believe the GM has to draw on the image first to allow all players to see all other players' drawings. If you don't, then only the person drawing can see it. That's been my experience anyway.

**Varsuuk** · February 5th, 2018, 19:42

To aid in this, a future FG improvement could be (in 3 or Unity) to have a setMaskStart#/setMaskEnd# button where it records what you unmask into a table for like 1-N (3 sounds like a good number) “sets” of masking. This way, the GM can “undo” the masking in a jiffy as players advance past masked areas. If it allows more than 2, last/current...then the gm can keep a “record” of masking settings to turn on and off as desired.

Just spitballin’ here.

**TheSwartz** · May 13th, 2019, 01:35

Originally Posted by darrenan

I believe the GM has to draw on the image first to allow all players to see all other players' drawings. If you don't, then only the person drawing can see it. That's been my experience anyway.

AAHHHHH!!!!!!!

After much searching. That's why.....

I wonder if someone could update https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/...mages#Drawings with this fact? Would be extremely helpful

Thanks a bunch!

**Zacchaeus** · May 13th, 2019, 01:40

If it isn’t doing what it says on the wiki that may be a bug.

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