[5e] Advice for revealing 'locations of interest' for PCs on a city map

[WinterSoldier7]

I have a large city map filled with pins that tell me, the DM, where each shop, temple, hideout etc is located - the pins leading to a Story with information.

I want some way that the PCs can discover a shop and they, or I, mark it on the map. I want to do this without revealing the pin with information on it, as that's just for me.

Does anyone have an approach to this that works well?

The only idea I've had is to label the location name on a layer and reveal that layer once it's discovered. Could work.

Thanks!

[Zacchaeus]

The player agency extension will do exactly what you want https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/511/view

Otherwise creating layers for each shop/building and revealing those as the players find them would also work. I feel that's an awful lot of work however and using the extension would be a better alternative since players can also make notes on the building whilst you can have hidden DM notes even if the pin is shared.

[Trenloe]

There are a few options in base Fantasy Grounds. If I'm being quick I'll add tokens to the map - sometimes just letters, sometimes a token whose graphic is vaguely representative of the location - then I type the name in chat, don't press enter, and drag the text onto the token - so the name appears when I, or the players, hover over the token. If it's a geographical location that I want the name to appear all the time, I'll quickly make a text image in a graphics application and import that into FG and add to the map. If I have time I'll consider finding some graphics that represent the locations and add those to the map as needed.

[Griogre]

I've used the token idea as well, but if you want something a little more permanent where they just need the name and type of a shop you can just make a story entry with just that information in the title, ie "Gunther's (tavern)", in the player campaign and share it. Thus you would have two pins one for you in the story campaign and a green pin in the player campaign they can hover over to get the name of the shop and type. If they learn more about a location you can just add it in the body of the shared (green pin) story entry that they can click and open.

[WinterSoldier7]

Thanks all, got a few different approaches to look into!

I had no idea green pins was a thing, though. If I'm understanding, you mean a PC can create a Story link and so if I signed-in as a Player I could create this?

[Griogre]

No the DM has to create a story entry then pin it to the map. Then right click the pin and select "share" and the players can click it and see the story entry. It's very similar to token sharing where the DM has to put a token on the map and drop text on the token - just a little more secure since you can't accidently select remove all tokens and kill all the shared info (not that I have done that, you understand).

If you want the player(s) to be able to do everything from scratch then the player agency extension is best.

[Fuffelschmertz]

I'm not sure if it helps, but check out the points of interest extension (https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/1225/view).
It allows you to basically customize the pins in order for them to look like anything (you can just add your icons, i use the icons from oblivion and morrowind :) )
And then you can share the pin and the entry linked to it, so your player can open it.

Green pins are the same as red pins, but your player can see and open them - they're shared.
You could also create 2 pins for 1 location - a player pin, that you share and a DM pin.

[Trenloe]

I had no idea green pins was a thing, though. If I'm understanding, you mean a PC can create a Story link and so if I signed-in as a Player I could create this?
One of the players could make a Notes record that they own, make it public and then the GM can add that to the map and share the link (right-click -> Make link Shareable). Then one player can update the notes entry (the one who created it) as needed.

[WinterSoldier7]

Thanks all! Plenty of good suggestions and extensions to consider here, to solve my issue.

Much appreciated