Sharing Sheet Question

[pjrake]

when i open a combat map and place the PC tokens (by dragging the icon from the combat tracker), do the players see the map and tokens automatically or do i have to choose share sheet.

the reason i'm asking this is because something i do is to place one creature on the map, zoom in the map (which has the grid drawn in already) until the token fits the grid, then lock the scale. after that, i drag the other tokens and it automatically scales to fit. finally, i drag the player tokens and adjust their size by scrollng the wheel mouse over the icon next to the combat tracker.

while i'm doing all of this, do my players see this? (i really don't want them to see my setup or the process). or do they see everything after i send them the map image.

-PJ

[Ghoti]

I believe that players to not see maps and such until you have shared them, so you would spare them seeing all of the setup if you share after the map's set up.

I, for one, try to get the map grid, token scale, and such set before we're even started whilst I'm working on the modules.

Also, you can spare the players the 'loading' screen if you start the image (map, in this case) preloading to the players while you are fiddling with the grid and tokens. As I understand it, only the base image is preloaded, the rest is 'added' to the image in another 'layer'. Think of the map as raster graphics, and the tokens and scaling as vector graphics, if the analogy helps.

[Foen]

Just a quick tip: the mask/fog of war doesn't hide tokens! I once made the mistake of putting all my kobolds in place, ready for when I un-hid a room by editing the mask. A kind player tipped me off that the whole thing was visible.

Cheers

Stuart

[joshuha]

Well tokens do have a property to set them visible/hidden.

[Foen]

Do they? Well, FG has many hidden features that I never stop learning something new! I suppose you right-click and toggle it?

Can you change the default to 'hidden'? That way tokens would remain hidden until they are revealed by the GM.

(no irony/sarcasm - I didn't know that one).

Stuart

[Griogre]

If you place a token on a masked map the placed tokens are now hidden by default. If you are not using the mask the only way to do what you want is to place the tokens and hide them before you share the map with the players.

As a side note this has also encouraged me to mask DM maps and just draw on the mask instead of unmasking the map at all.