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Split character perspectives

If you've played D&D long enough, you've probably encountered the player who'd rather go to the tavern and ask if there are any girls there than go with the rest of the group into a cave. What I'd like is for different characters to be on different screens at once. That is, if Bob's in the tavern while John's fighting the demon on the outskirts of town, I can drag a "John bookmark" (instead of the current character bookmark) to the "outskirts of town page" while "Bob's bookmark" is still in the tavern. Currently, the only way around this is to make a huge map, but that could get quite confusing if Bob and John are fighting monsters on separate sides on the town. So I'd like it if each player character had their own bookmark, but could still be moved as a group if needed. it be also nice to have a split fog of war. Sometimes only 1 character can see an enemy/ an imaginary friend~not all of them.
good idea.
Agreed.
I'm still new and not sure of all the features but perhaps some way to simulate a light source so the fog of war follows the token, maybe even some degree of fog for shadowy illumination.
That's a great idea dragon. Seems a bit complex, but really awesome if I could designate my torch tokens as light sources or define a "sight range aura" on my characters.
Dragonphire, the problem with lights lifting automatically the fog of war is that, then, you have to add features blocking light, to avoid lifting the fog of war on the other side of a wall, for exemple. Maptool has something like that, but I never used it, I found it simpler to lift or setup manually the fog of war. Having different bookmarks for different players on different maps (even copies of the same one) seems a more usable suggestion.
I'm sure it would be complex, as for barriers for light (or any effect for that matter), maybe there could be an Enable Shadows feature on tokens. I know it can be done manually but if i had 5 players and they split up in a dungeon maze, each with a torch, i would need to stop the game just to redraw the fog of war, not to mention that each player would not be able to take their turn until i reveal where they are going which would slow down turns. Regardless of how it's done, i think what both Jack and I are getting at for the Fog of War is a bit more utility than "See or Not See". The current reveal is a 4 sided selection, which isn't helpful for hex grids, for example.
The current reveal is a 4 sided selection, which isn't helpful for hex grids, for example. Good point.
I'm sure it would be complex, as for barriers for light (or any effect for that matter), maybe there could be an Enable Shadows feature on tokens. The only way I have seen to block the light has been to have the GM prepare the map by indicating (I mean tracing) beforehand all the features that block light and vision (in Maptool) and that has always seemed to me more pain than erasing manually the fog of war during play. Is that what you mean by Enabling Shadows or is it another feature you have in mind?
Announcement: they are doing dynamic lighting :D. win discussion~ now if they could do split bookmarks ^_^
Yes, and it looks pretty fluid. From the shape of the shadows, I suppose there shall be a vision blocking layer or something similar.
Just to answer your question, Patrick. For the enable shadows thing, what i was referring to did not involve tracing. A higher end example is with 3D programs. You can set an object in 3D space to cast a shadow. If on, light sources interact with it. If off, light ignores the object as if it wasn't there. The quality of the shadow is based on your render settings. I think for this purpose the Enable Shadow would be a "If enabled, enable fog of war on all occupied squares." then the complicated part would be having the software draw the line of effects from the light source to the tokens and project "shadows" which would be "enable fog of war in X squares from enabled token" based on type of light source and distance from it. The fog of war would only be managed by the light source in it's own radius so it would not have to bog down with calculations for anything beyond say 40'.
I don't really understand how it would work then. I follow you for the distance of illumination and the "cast shadow" style (that's also the look it has in the last Roll20 video), but tracing still needs to be done for the program to know which zone is a wall that casts a "shadow"? Or is there another way to do it? With cuts in a layer or something like that?