Map Support

[CdrDave]

I'm shopping for a VT and have narrowed it down to FGII or BGrpg. Both look like great programs. I have to say that I love the dice feature of FGII. My biggest concern, however, is after having used the demo for a few days, I see no way to resize (expand) the map. This is a great concern to me, as maps are a huge focal point of rpg's, especially played online. And, as it stands, the current window for the map is way too small imho.

I understand that you can zoom and drag the map, although not as intuitively as one would expect (right-click and drag the map), but it's just not the same as being able to see a full map. Am I missing something, or has this feature just not been added yet?

Thank you.

[Griogre]

First, you can resize the map. Start the demo and open a map. Move the mouse the lower right corner of the map and hold down Ctrl and drag the map out. Note - you can't drag the map open any taller or wider than the actual map graphic in pixels so you may need to find a map that is bigger than the default map size to see this.

Second there are issues with making the map too big. The biggest is the GM controls the size of the map, but if you have a player in a low resolution (like on a laptop) if you drag the map out too big you will cover up his entire screen and he won't be able to get to his hotkeys or see the chat window. The smallest screen size FG uses is 800x600 and the default map frame size (if the map is larger) is about 700x700. A good deal of how much area of a map you can show at once is determined by the size you scale your medium sized monsters to. IE if you use 30x30 pixel tokens for medium creatures you can show an area with 20x20 squares in a 600x600 pixel map. On the other hand if you use 90x90 pixel tokens the area you can only show a 6x6 square area with a 600x600 area.

Battlegrounds and MapTools are both very good VTTs. However, they are both "map-centric" - it is all about the map for them, displaying, manipulating, showing. FG has character sheets, dice, a combat tracker. It's emphasis is more of an all around RPG utility. Which is better for you really depends on what games you play - and just how important the map really is to that game. I would definitely recommend you carefully check out the demos and ask questions about anything that seems strange to you.

I use FG because I think it does the best overall job of simulating a face to face role playing game over the net. Each VTT has its own strengths and weaknesses, though. I suggest you find the one that complements you and your game's style the most.

[Xorn]

Griogre really did a good job of summing things up--I'd add the recommendation to check out the Gallery to see some examples of FG2 in use. I myself try to include some shots that give a good idea of what I'm doing as a DM during a game.

[Vergence]

First, you can resize the map. Start the demo and open a map. Move the mouse the lower right corner of the map and hold down Ctrl and drag the map out. Note - you can't drag the map open any taller or wider than the actual map graphic in pixels so you may need to find a map that is bigger than the default map size to see this.


THANK YOU.. I'm so glad i decided to search for resize and map because I've been agonizing about how to resize the map in my game for weeks. You've made one very happy GM and probably a bunch of happy players.

[Elvedui]

I like FG II, but I do wish the mapping functions were a bit more user friendly such as setting or changing scale and automatically determining ranges. I am a DM and FG is a bit more difficult to use for the tabletop aspects that other programs. Party marching order and location relative to NPCs and monsters as well as the layout of the room/location are an important part of any RPG. The tutorials are somewhat helpful, but i would be useful to have a much better manual and some more functionality for the mapping portions. I am not programmer.

[Sigurd]

So long as you work in a grid FG2 does a great job of range. Simply zoom the map in or out (with the mouse wheel) until you see something in the map graphic that is a 5' square. Then go to the Layers section of the map and define a 5' square. Lock the token scale so the tokens fit and voila, the map has ranges.

Next - the part that isn't well documented.

Call up the combat tracker and drag the character graphics you choose onto the leftmost circle. That associates the graphic with the entry. After that make sure you pull the graphic from the encounter matrix to the game map. The section occupied by that token will be in green and the distances etc... will be measurable with pointers.


Sigurd