Best way to use map masking?

[zogmrbill]

I’m new to FG Unity. The process of revealing a map seems awkward unless I am doing it wrong. You have to enter mask mode then reveal. Often, u have to be very precise as not to reveal a hidden door.

Then you have to exit mask mode to move tokens around. It all seems a bit clumsy. Am I missing something?

[Three of Swords]

That's how it works. But some suggestions might help:

1. Note that you can unmask with rectangles or free-hand.
2. Free-hand 'finishes' by making a straight line from your current cursor to where you started. This can be useful when doing angles. Start at one end, of the angle, finish at the other, and it'll make a nice line between the two point.
3. If you make your own maps, don't mark secret doors. Keep them 5' apart when possible. Then use secret door tokens to show the door when it's found so you don't have to worry too much about showing it.

Note: I use FGC. So it could be different, but I believe they work the same way.

[LordEntrails]

FGU also has LOS occulders you can use instead or or with Map mode. Those include secret door occuluders which will appear just like a wall to the players until you reveal them.

Note that how you handle this is highly dependent upon how the map was drawn. Older style 'blue-type' maps do not work well since they often have no consideration made for VTT's or directly showing the maps to players. Many of the current cartographers are aware of and accommodate VTT users by having 'player' versions of the maps and by having walls between locations/rooms actually have some thickness to them.

[srbongo]

Many of the current cartographers are aware of and accommodate VTT users by having 'player' versions of the maps and by having walls between locations/rooms actually have some thickness to them.

It can be difficult on older maps, to be sure. Thankfully, I find that many popular modules have community made maps beautifully drawn for them that are easily found with a quick search.

As far as the best way to use masking: I generally mask the dungeon prior to my players loading in. In newer rulesets I have the top toolbar showing and then use that, as opposed to the radial menu, to select the unmask feature. I aim for the outside of interior walls, so that my players can see them, often times I get somewhere in the wall itself. When I was starting as a GM had the maps really zoomed out - to see the entire dungeon or encounter. Note that may players are far more zoomed when they play to see their tokens and the action - if you set a "player view" while unmasking it may help avoid mistakes.

Note, I use FGC and my computer runs it well, but FGU less so - it lags far more with masking.

[zogmrbill]

I am back to playing after 20+ years out of the game. I am using the Lost Mine of Phandelver module to get going with our group. I found out the hard way a couple of days ago that it was only a 30 day trial that comes with the FGU Ultimate license. I really like the program. It keeps track of so much and lets you play at a faster pace. I haven't tried other tabletops but what I hear if FG is the most feature rich. Is that the case?

I have a nice gaming desktop and a 42" wide, curved monitor which really helps with this program. I have not experienced any performance issues.

I am gong to try the LOS when I get a little more comfortable with the whole setup.

[zogmrbill]

I have noticed sometimes the tokens are to scale, each fitting into a 5x5 grid square. Other times they are massively over scaled like the map wasnt built to handle FG. Not sure if I am dong something wrong or maybe some maps are built differently than others within the same module- LMoP.

[Griogre]

The wrong scale could be because: 1) You dropped a token on the map that is not from something on the Combat tracker. 2) You dropped a token on a map where there is not a grid or the grid is larger than 5' squares (ie an outdoor map of an old one with 10' squares). 3) You have turned scale to grid off in the FG options. If you want to show us a screen shot of the problem showing us the map and combat tracker we might be able to narrow it down more.