The Step by Step Tutorials are meant to be viewed in order. They help walk a completely new Maptool user through the features of MapTool, starting with the most basic features and then advancing.
Starting MapTool: Downloading and starting MapTool. Yes an easy thing, but you may find the memory allocation options useful and those are also covered. A couple simple troubleshooting techniques are also, if you are having problems with MapTool.
Feature Location: Before jumping in and having all the fun with this new program, take a look here. It will probably save you some time. This tutorial covers where you can find various features, settings, and tools.
Resources: Building a large image library will help you a lot in MapTool. Here is where to start and how to add images to MapTool for use. Where to find written documentation for MapTool. Where to find game system specific frameworks for MapTool.
New Map: Getting that first map started. Setting the correct background. Zooming. Moving around the map. Adjusting the grid size, color, and alignment.
Layers: Layers is a basic concept that needs to be understood to make and manipulate maps in MapTool. Also, there are a couple layer specific rules that are helpful to know.
Images: Dragging images onto a map. Resizing. Rotation. Player visibility. Notes. MapTool makes images easy so it goes quickly.
Drawing Tools: The different types of drawing tools and examples of them in use.
Introduction to Tokens: Creating tokens with TokenTool. Circle, square, and topdown tokens. Moving them around. Facing. States and halos. Resizing. Portraits and character sheets. Some information needs updating.
Vision and Light part1: General vision settings. How vision and light interact. Fog of War.
Chat Window and Die Roller: How to communicate using the chat window and some of it’s basic commands. Also, the basics of how to roll dice in MapTool.
Introduction to Macros: Meant for those of you with absolutely no coding experience. First Watch the Chat Window and Die Roller tutorial. That tutorial combined with this one, should give you enough of a foundation to begin to automate certain aspects of your game. More in depth tutorials will be coming in the Beyond the Basics series.
Connecting Computers: Starting a server. Connecting to the server. Forcing players to the GM’s current view or map. Firewalls and Routers.
Entire Step by Step collection! In one big zip file. Double click on the files that end in .html to view the videos.
Wich kind of RP System is usable with maptool?
From the start MapTool has been designed to be system agnostic. For example, when you start a map you can have a square or hex grid. Or no grid. If you are looking for integrated rules and automation, the easiest way is to click on the “System Frameworks” link to the left. That will take you to the forum where users have used the macro language to create frameworks for many different game systems. You can also keep it simple and just use MapTool as a map and do basic dice rolling in the chat window.
Thanks, the tutorials were a great help. The one problem I could not figure out is getting the fog of war to go away when other players move their characters. I set it up to where they should be able to when i started the server. I also made sure that Snap was on, and when i am in player mode it works fine but i can not get it to work for my group. any help with this would be great. Thanks
If you have done the following,
Checked your vision setting and it is set to Day or Night.
Checked that there light sources(if set to Night).
Checked that the tokens have appropriate Vision type assigned to them.
Checked that tokens are PC’s and not NPC’s.
Then what comes to mind is that under Edit=>Preferences you have “Autoshow Fog” selected, but your players do not.
Does Control-I work for your players to manually reveal fog?
[...] everything you need to know to DM with MapTool just by watching a few free online tutorials. The video tutorials really are a great way to get up to speed on MapTool usage. I do wish there were similar tutorials [...]
[...] Documentation as you have noticed and I think that it is a little too difficult to use. The video tutorials can help with the learning curve a bit. I know what you mean though. The learning curve has [...]
Okay, in your vision and light tutorial, you set it to day time, so the players could see extremely far, unless there was a vision restriction line in the way, now when I set it to day time though, my players see exactly the same distance as if it were dark, but do not need a light source, and do not see light sources just beyond their field of vision. This is really annoying because my campaign takes place out side in open fields, and the players can’t see more then twenty feet in front of them, regardless of night or day. I do not want vision off either, Because then they see everything, and my players HATE fog of war.
If you could help me with this problem it would be great! love your tutorials, and I find them very helpful.
sorry if part of that was unclear, “…and do not see light sources just beyond their field of vision.” This pertains to when it’s “night”. I was just typing problems i had and didn’t proof read it before i posted it. sorry for the confusion. Still love your tutorials.
No confusion. I think I still understood what your problems were and what would fix it. And good news! The distance limitations in b70 are not permanent thing. They just slipped in while some bugs were being worked on. b70 is a development version. They are slated to be yanked out again in b72.
Good to hear the tutorials have been help!
I checked a couple things and this is what I found. I didn’t realize this immediately because I am still using build 63. I don’t plan on switching until they make v1.3 final. But when I opened b70 and looked around I saw that they changed the default Sight settings. Do the following.
Goto Edit=>Campaign Properties
Click on the “Sight” tab.
You will see all the various types of Vision listed there. It has always been that the only default Vision that had a distance limitation on it was “Normal Vision-Short Range”. Somewhere between b63 and the current b70 they put distance limitations on every type of Vision, even “Normal”, which everyone has by default. I don’t know the logic behind doing this, but that is the deal.
So, just delete the “distance=(number)” on “Normal” or whatever other Vision you are using and everyone will have vision at the maps vision limit. Which by default is 1000 units.
I suppose the reason for this might be to help older computers with cpu load when calculating vision. Many maps don’t need 1000 units of vision and less area of vision means less to calculate. Though their new limits do seem excessively small.
thanks!
Hi,
Great tutorials but I have a question.
Is there a tutorial that shows me how to add a framework to Maptools? I have had a look around and can’t find.
Thanks
Dom
I don’t have one at the moment. I am currently working on Light and Vision part 2(which is postponed due to the interface being tinkered with) and some Macro stuff. I suppose that is an important subject, but there are so many different ways to approach a framework, that most of the frameworks look totally different from one another. Both in visual look and mechanically. I suppose I should do some more thinking about how to tackle that one.
Usually some fairly good instructions on how to use a framework are given on the first page of the framework’s thread and if you post a question on the thread, someone usually responds.
ok thanks,
again they are great tutorials thanks
Soooo…. did I miss it or was a part 2 to Vision and light ever posted?
It was never done. Real life issues, I got stalled for a few months, blah blah blah. In any case I am making the script for it now. I am hoping in under a month, but I am learning not to make time frame promises with my current lack of time.
Understood, believe me. Part 1 is definatly my favorite on the site.
What textures and object sets do you use?
All of my images and textures are from the websites listed in the Image Library link to the left.
Thank you