Online Games using Maptool: Need advice from the Pros

[jbear]

Howdy, I have a few questions about maptool, as I gear up to carry on my tabletop campaign online after a move from one side of the earth to the other. Many are system generic so I decided to post here in the general forum rather than the 4e forum, though I do have one system specific question. I have posted on the rptools.net forum but my thread never appeared.

SO here goes:

1) How do you deal with campaign/encounter/NPC/Organisations etc notes, or jotting down ideas during the game etc. There seems to be no function for this built in to maptools. Do people use sites like Obsidian Portal or programs like masterplan and just flick from screen to screen or am I missing something?

2) How do you give your players a handout during the game, an image of a city, dungeon, or object, or just a picture of an NPC that you don't want to make a token for? Do you have to send them via another method (eg email) or is there a feature that can handle that which I have also missed?

3)What if I want to give the players a handout that I expect them to use during the course of the game for reference, like a regional map, or an image of a puzzle that needs solving. This goes quite closely with question 2 but differing slightly by the fact that I want my players to have a way to pull it up quickly and refere back to it as need be. How do people deal with this? Again ... have I missed a feature?

4)This one is perhaps too system specific, but you never know ...

I use the framework DN Character Sheet (latest version). I chose this because I thought it was the most atttractive character sheet, which I felt was the most important feature for my players. Much of the other stuff we can manage manually like when we played at the table, I reckon. But from what I see there is no 'import monster stats' function which means monster statting is quite time consuming. Is it possible to include features from other frameworks? This is probably quite tricky isn't it? Is there a 'best combination'? Opinions on the three major frameworks? Rumble, Veggians? DN Character Sheet?

5) If I can't stat monsters quickly I want to create a resource where I can pull up tokens I have already statted up again. Is this possible? How do I tackle this or do I have to remember which map each token was left on and drag them onto the new map?

6)How do you jump from map to map quickly? Is there a fat way to get tokens (especially PC tokens) from one map to the other or is it copy paste?

Hopefully someone can answer one/some/a few/all of my questions. I really appreciate any help and tips in general on how best to run things in a smooth organised awesome way!

Cheers
J

Edit: My post has arrived on RPTools.net, there must have been a delay while they checked content before allowing it to surface (I'm guessing). Still, two heads are better than one. So please any help on this is still massively appreciated!

 

[MINI]

I cannot answer these questions for Maptool very well but I can answer them for OpenRPG which is also free (www.openrpg.com):

1) How do you deal with campaign/encounter/NPC/Organisations etc notes, or jotting down ideas during the game etc. There seems to be no function for this built in to maptools. Do people use sites like Obsidian Portal or programs like masterplan and just flick from screen to screen or am I missing something?

OpenRPG has text nodes for this. You can incorporate quite a bit of game data and campaign data right into the gametree at the upper left of the program.

2) How do you give your players a handout during the game, an image of a city, dungeon, or object, or just a picture of an NPC that you don't want to make a token for? Do you have to send them via another method (eg email) or is there a feature that can handle that which I have also missed?

Use a weblink node or a text node to give the info to your players. Maps and images need to be hosted on the web to use the weblink feature. This can be done using a simple program called dropbox to host your image or by using imageshack or photoshop.

3)What if I want to give the players a handout that I expect them to use during the course of the game for reference, like a regional map, or an image of a puzzle that needs solving. This goes quite closely with question 2 but differing slightly by the fact that I want my players to have a way to pull it up quickly and refere back to it as need be. How do people deal with this? Again ... have I missed a feature?

Again with OpenRPG host it on the web and send them the link node which they can save in their gametree so they can save and use it at any time.

4)This one is perhaps too system specific, but you never know ...

I use the framework DN Character Sheet (latest version). I chose this because I thought it was the most atttractive character sheet, which I felt was the most important feature for my players. Much of the other stuff we can manage manually like when we played at the table, I reckon. But from what I see there is no 'import monster stats' function which means monster statting is quite time consuming. Is it possible to include features from other frameworks? This is probably quite tricky isn't it? Is there a 'best combination'? Opinions on the three major frameworks? Rumble, Veggians? DN Character Sheet?

With OpenRPG you can create a character sheet using nodes or you can use a mythweavers character profile with either MapTools or OpenRPG.

5) If I can't stat monsters quickly I want to create a resource where I can pull up tokens I have already statted up again. Is this possible? How do I tackle this or do I have to remember which map each token was left on and drag them onto the new map?

I have created monster nodes for 3.5 and 2e D&D that have monster attack rolls, damage rolls and other stats as well as miniature libraries to load miniatures directly to the map.

6)How do you jump from map to map quickly? Is there a fat way to get tokens (especially PC tokens) from one map to the other or is it copy paste?

To load a map in OpenRPg you simply change the url link to the map on the background tab to change maps.

Hopefully someone can answer one/some/a few/all of my questions. I really appreciate any help and tips in general on how best to run things in a smooth organised awesome way!

If you have other questions or are curious about using OpenRPG e-mail me at miniman1974@gmail.com

 

[OnlineDM]

First, welcome to MapTool! I blog about my experience with MapTool for 4e, and I'm always happy to help out with questions.

1) How do you deal with campaign/encounter/NPC/Organisations etc notes, or jotting down ideas during the game etc.

I keep them outside of MapTool, usually in a Word document.

2) How do you give your players a handout during the game, an image of a city, dungeon, or object, or just a picture of an NPC that you don't want to make a token for? Do you have to send them via another method (eg email) or is there a feature that can handle that which I have also missed?

For overland maps, parchments, pictures of NPCs, etc., I simply drag the picture to the MapTool map window, usually in the Object layer. This involves making the directory where these pictures (usually JPGs or PNGs) are stored accessible to MapTool by using the File - Add Resource to Library function.

3)What if I want to give the players a handout that I expect them to use during the course of the game for reference, like a regional map, or an image of a puzzle that needs solving. This goes quite closely with question 2 but differing slightly by the fact that I want my players to have a way to pull it up quickly and refere back to it as need be. How do people deal with this? Again ... have I missed a feature?

I'll email the picture to my players in this case. I'll also frequently leave such items on the map window for several sessions if the players are continually coming back to them, such as an overland map.

4)This one is perhaps too system specific, but you never know ...

I use the framework DN Character Sheet (latest version). I chose this because I thought it was the most atttractive character sheet, which I felt was the most important feature for my players. Much of the other stuff we can manage manually like when we played at the table, I reckon. But from what I see there is no 'import monster stats' function which means monster statting is quite time consuming. Is it possible to include features from other frameworks? This is probably quite tricky isn't it? Is there a 'best combination'? Opinions on the three major frameworks? Rumble, Veggians? DN Character Sheet?

I'm not much help on this one, as part of the fun of MapTool for me has been making my own macros. I use my own framework, I guess. I don't use auto-importing, but statting up monsters doesn't take too long for me.

5) If I can't stat monsters quickly I want to create a resource where I can pull up tokens I have already statted up again. Is this possible? How do I tackle this or do I have to remember which map each token was left on and drag them onto the new map?

Right click on the token. Choose Save. This will create an .RPTOK file. Save it in a location that you've added to the resource library. Browse to that location and drag the monster's RPTOK file onto the map where you want it. Voila!

6)How do you jump from map to map quickly? Is there a fat way to get tokens (especially PC tokens) from one map to the other or is it copy paste?

I generally try to avoid this by putting everything that the PCs will be encountering soon on a single big map window, and then dragging their tokens to the new part of the window. Failing that, I do use copy and paste, yes. Other frameworks have "teleport pads" and such that can move tokens to different maps; I haven't messed with those yet.

 

[jbear]

Argh. Won't let me xp you (must spread ) Can someone reading this cover me please?

Thanks though, that's really helpful, answers a lot of my questions and solves several of them!

 

[Hussar]

Just stepping in for #6

6)How do you jump from map to map quickly? Is there a fat way to get tokens (especially PC tokens) from one map to the other or is it copy paste?

Lindsay's Token Tools Found here covers this. You get a nifty little teleport pad token that you copy and paste onto the next map and then run the macro. The players will get a link in the chat window that automatically moves their impersonated tokens to the teleport pad in the new window.

Works a charm. Just remember to set the teleport pad to "invisible to players" and you're good to go. It does have to stay in the token layer AFAIK.

Oh, and #4 I almost forgot:

Here is Travist's PDF Monster Parser for DN's framework Again, it works a charm. You either use the xml text from the online Monster builder, or just cut and paste from the offline one.

 

[IronWolf]

2) How do you give your players a handout during the game, an image of a city, dungeon, or object, or just a picture of an NPC that you don't want to make a token for? Do you have to send them via another method (eg email) or is there a feature that can handle that which I have also missed?

Handouts are usually handled in the framework I've used for my games. Looks like just the handout piece is available at the same place Hussar linked to though if you wanted to play with adding it:

Lindsay's Generic Tools (Whisper, Move Tokens, Handouts)

If I was running frequent MapTool games I would probably use the Handout option. For the one-offs that my group does when we can't all get together I tend to post up the image to my public folder in dropbox and then IM links during the game to the handout I want them to look at. A little less overhead.