D&D General Your Thoughts on LoS, Dynamic Lighting on VTTs

[Swarmkeeper]

The idea that the exploration map and the combat map are the same map is one of the weirdest things to me about modern D&D.

I also don't understand why VTTs put no effort into an exploration mode, with maps at a different scale.

Not trying to defend VTTs here, but in Roll20 there is an Explorer mode and you can make the grid scale whatever you like it to be. As the DM/GM, you can create different maps for combat and exploration if you really want to. I've seen people handle wilderness/travel exploration with a single "Party" token at a "zoomed out" scale.

 

[Scott Christian]

Since moving exclusively to VTTs for gaming in 2020 and the foreseeable future, I've been trying to provide a better experience online. For the past several months I've been using Line of Sight/Fog of War/Dynamic Lighting to reveal areas of the map to individual players only as their characters can see the areas.
This has had the effect of making it so players can't see what's going on in the adventure unless they're actually in the room. It's more realistic, but I feel like it might be causing the players to be disengaged in what's going on when their player isn't in a certain area when the rest of the party is.
I also feel like it is slowing down the game as each player inches forward to uncover a bit at a time.
Do you like dynamic lighting as a player on a VTT? As a GM do you use it?

I 100% agree. As cool and realistic as I think dynamic lighting is, it seems to have larger drawbacks. I have personally come to the idea that if I am going to make a dungeon, I make small sections. Such as, the hallway and the room I know there will be combat in. If combat moves outside of that area, or if the players are exploring other areas (maybe trapped or investigation style places), we do theater of the mind with a picture or two if available. No map. This, in my opinion, flows much more smoothly than dynamic lighting.
I cases where PCs are outside, like a jungle village, and a few PCs are in a hut, I just let everyone see inside the hut. They are going to hear the descriptions anyway.

 

[Retreater]

Not trying to defend VTTs here, but in Roll20 there is an Explorer mode and you can make the grid scale whatever you like it to be. As the DM/GM, you can create different maps for combat and exploration if you really want to. I've seen people handle wilderness/travel exploration with a single "Party" token at a "zoomed out" scale.

I do that for wilderness and city travel but haven't in dungeons. The scale of my dungeon (so far) hasn't been so massive as to map in something like 5 mile hexes.

 

[Nebulous]

Not trying to defend VTTs here, but in Roll20 there is an Explorer mode and you can make the grid scale whatever you like it to be. As the DM/GM, you can create different maps for combat and exploration if you really want to. I've seen people handle wilderness/travel exploration with a single "Party" token at a "zoomed out" scale.

That's what I do. I actually have a map of Zobeck I found on the Kobold Press site. It was already pretty hi-res, but I upscaled it some. Basically, I have the whole city at nearly (not quite) street level zoom. You could have a fight on there, and then wander down any alley or visit any shop. But it is more for exploration, not combat.

 

[Charlaquin]

Our few forays into this on Roll20 have been disastrous. The biggest issue was the necessity of the players to "crawl" by using their arrow keys, rather than picking up their mini. Might be more useful/interesting in combat, but in exploration it drove things crazy. Things were fine in long passages, but in caverns that twist and turn, it was moving a space at a time. The time put in by both the DM and players was not worth the minor benefit it provided.

You can “pick up” the mini by dragging and dropping it.

 

[Nebulous]

You can “pick up” the mini by dragging and dropping it.

Yes, just pick up the token and drag it. You don't need to use the arrow keys on the grid.

 

[embee]

I find that, when done right, the reveal packs a punch. I've had players who, frankly, just don't learn, to hilarious and entertaining effect.

"Oh look at that ruined tower. I'll just sneak up and peer in for half a second. Nope. Don't see anything there. All clear guys!!"

Which is when they discover the 13 zombies just milling about in the center of the tower because the player decided not to use his entire movement.

For that moment alone, it can be worth it.

 

[MNblockhead]

The idea that the exploration map and the combat map are the same map is one of the weirdest things to me about modern D&D.

I also don't understand why VTTs put no effort into an exploration mode, with maps at a different scale.

Not sure what you would be looking for. Pretty much any VTT can support this. After all, the game master sets the scale of the map, tokens, etc.

For large scale hex maps I would use manual fog of war with square/hex reveal (e.g. you click on the square/hex and it is revealed).

For outdoor battles where the scale may be at at a larger than 5' scale, but still meant for moving tokens around (10', 50', 100', etc.), its easy. I just set the grid accordingly and the tokens are all properly sized. While one could make the VTT grid at the same scale as the map grid, generally I keep the vtt grid at 5' and just size it so that the correct number of squares appear in the map squares. That way I can have larger scale outdoor encounters with line of sight and lighting working just as well as with a 5' grid dungeon crawl.

Personally, I've come to prefer non-gridded maps. For example, with Rappan Athuk, I bought the map pack, which comes with both gridded and non gridded versions of each map. With non-gridded, I just need to know the map scale, set up the VTT grid at the proper scale and I'm done. No need to waste time trying to allign the VTT grid to the map-image's grid. This is especially important because Rappan Athuk maps are not all consistently 5' scale. Many are at 10'. And FGG isn't great about being consistent with pixel settings for their gridded images, so I can't just memorize the pixel settings for one and apply to all.

 

[MNblockhead]

I agree. A well prepared map embedded with all the monsters, traps, treasures, props, etc. is all I need, although some work is required up front. I actually have Foundry but haven't dug into the system very far. Roll20 has taken all my time, and it works well, but I do want to try Foundry as it sounds better in many ways.

We had to cancel a game last week, so I went back to the Roll20 map and just kept tweaking things. Small stuff, but it adds to the experience. I like making the map look more realistic with 2D props added wherever I can.

I like Roll20 as a player. It has been a lifeline when I'm stuck working weeks or months abroad and dealing with the constant self-quarantine requirements from international travel. They have an excellent find-a-game function. But it just didn't work for me as a DM. I found it too fiddly. Also, I found that the large Rappan Athuk dungeon section maps, with walls fully traced, etc., would just lag and hang. Lastly, Roll20 just didn't provide enough storage at an affordable prices for the over 100 full-color maps I need for Rappan Athuk. Even with manual reveal, trying to put up a map on the fly was just not as convenient as Fantasy Grounds, Table Tools, or Foundry, where I can have all my maps preloaded and searchable within the VTT itself.

Foundry has provided the best prep experience in terms of line of sight, lighting, local ambient sound, etc.

The issues with Foundry are:

(1) Poor support for D&D 5e. For 5e you can't get all the official content, so you have to manually enter it or use a plugin to import from D&D Beyond. Getting the character sheets, items, etc. to work with automations, etc. is wonky. We use D&D Beyond for the character sheets, even though I can import them to Foundry with a plug in. Managing character sheets in Foundry just isn't competitive to Fantasy Grounds or Roll20.

(2) Mods can be too much of a good thing. One of the great aspects of Foundry is the community mods. You can add to the base programs functionality in some very cool ways. But it also means things breaking when a new version of the base program is released or a great mod by is no longer supported by the person who created it. Also mods can conflict with each other. If you love tweaking and don't mind the time it take to test and troubleshoot, you'll love it. But if you are more of the type that just wants to buy a game and play it, Foundry is not there yet.

 

[MNblockhead]

Not trying to defend VTTs here, but in Roll20 there is an Explorer mode and you can make the grid scale whatever you like it to be. As the DM/GM, you can create different maps for combat and exploration if you really want to. I've seen people handle wilderness/travel exploration with a single "Party" token at a "zoomed out" scale.

I didn't realize that. That's cool. Besides different scale and a party token vs. individual player tokens, what other features or QOL improvements does exploration mode offer in Roll20?