Rite Publishing is talking with Jonathan Roberts today, about an upcoming and exciting patronage project The Breaking of Fostor Nagar (PFRPG) (Update: In production)that will being using the MapTool program from RP Tools. So, without further ado, one with the interview!
Thanks for talking with us today, Jonathan. I'm sure as excited to talk about this project as we are to ask about, so let's cut to the chase and drown our customers in information.
Are all adventure areas in the project going to be included entirely into the maptool version? In this case, I'm speaking of encounter area descriptions, encounter entity stats, cartography and the like.
All the encounter areas in the adventure will be included in maptool. Whenever you need to worry about position on a tactical scale, there will be a battle map. We will not provide battlemap scale maps for every non-combat encounter though. How often do you draw a battlemap for your players when they walk into a shop? In those cases, the adventure will use a larger scale map of the frozen city, so that the players know where they are.
As for the details of the areas - absolutely. The area descriptions, creature stats, trap details, lighting and hyper links to the relevant rules will be included for all of these areas. Equally the city map will have labels that can be made visible to players as the areas are explored, and include notes about the different locations. The idea is to place as much of the information within the maptool campaign as is useful. On the other hand, there will be some things that fit better in the pdf than in the maptool campaign. For example, we'll have a page or two in the pdf on the overall adventure structure and background, detailing the story arc. There's no real need to place that inside maptool, but of course if patrons feel otherwise then that will go in too.
Is there going to be a Pathfinder RPG character sheet for maptool that is integrated to use the proper variables in the adventure?
We will certainly store most of the important mechanical information about a character inside the campaign, but that's a little different from what you'd normally term a character sheet. Each character in maptool is represented by a token (basically a virtual mini). These tokens will have a basic set of properties (AC, CMD, CMB, Saves, Initiative, HP and so on) that can be filled in by players or the DM (monsters and NPCs will all be pre-statted of course). These will be interactive - so that when you take damage, you can click a button and it will update your token's Hp, and even place a marker that indicates if you are incapacited or dead. Players can see their current stats by mousing over their tokens. This will not be a complete reproduction of all the information on your character sheet. Character sheets in D&D have always been large and complicated affairs and there's information on your sheet that has no need to be included in maptool. We'll be focused on implementing the core elements that will speed up gameplay. And you can't doodle on a token, so we'll never completely replace the paper character sheet...
Are there going to be macros built into the adventure and character sheet that allows for some seamless DMing without alot of fore-work? (Such as die rolling macros, things that take CMB/CMD and such into account, interaction macros and so on)
Yes! Computers are great at rolling dice, so that will be built in. The adventure will come with macros that allow monsters to instantly roll complicated attacks (full attacking Marilith monk anyone?), allow players or the DM to apply damage or healing as well as taking advantage of maptool's built in functions such as initiative tracking and dynamic light and vision. Yes, there will be macros for combat maneuvers too, and template macros that players can customise for their characters. Patrons will get input on the degree of automation they want as well as walkthroughs on how to make the most of the automation in their games.
Are there going to be player handouts in the form of images, sounds, or dialogue that the DM can send to the players to help them understand an encounter area if one is provided in the print/pdf form of the adventure?
Handouts are a great part of tabletop play. Players always seem to fight over the piece of burnt paper the DM passes over the screen. We'll be making sure that works in the maptool adventure too. All of the interior art that you would expect in a pdf adventure will be included into the maptool adventure. When the PCs approach Forstor Nagar for the first time they will be able to see the nightscape of Forstor Nagar burning. When they meet important NPCs they will see their portrait when they mouseover their token. If they find a clue on the table, they'll be able to click it to see the text on the note. They can also collect these inside maptool and easily track the information and return to it whenever they need to.
Will fog of war be implemented?
Absolutely. Maptool has vision and light built into it. So players will see what their character sees. The elf with low light vision will see twice as far as the human, but will still have to rely on the dwarf in complete darkness. The encounter areas will have the lighting built in, and if the players have a torch then that's in there too. This also calculates line of sight and leaves explored areas visible, so players can see where they've been (but hides monsters that aren't in line of sight, so the DM can still run ambushes!).
Will there be a primer for people who are new to Maptool?
Yep. I'll be running a couple of example sessions with patrons to get them familiar with the program. I'll also answer questions on the Rite forums. I'll also be directing people to the excellent maptool video tutorials that do a great job of explaining how the program works (http://rptoolstutorials.net/). If a patron is confused or having trouble, we'll take the time to sort it out.
While I hate cliffhangers as much as the next person, I think we'll put things on hold right there until our installment next week. Thank you, Jonathan, for talking with us about the MapTool Patronage Project and thanks to those reading these interviews, as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment