The Flaxseed Pathfinder Lodge: Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Game Master Redelia

Thanks for the reminder, Redelia. I started to fill out the sign up sheet, before I realized it's aimed at students who wish to enroll in this summer's GM School.

If you still need mentors to take an interested group of GMs through the PbP process, please let me know.

^ I continue to heart Larry.

Hmm

The game master that owned the thread for our rotating group of GMs has left the group. Could the powers that be please instate me as the GM instead? The campaign is here.

Instructions for getting a campaign transferred to you are at the top of this page.

Instructions for getting a campaign transferred to you are at the top of this page.

Thanks! Will do.

Note that it can take a while before your request is handled, so have a bit of patience before you send out follow-up mails. I would give it a month before you send a reminder.

^ I continue to heart Larry.

Hmm

I too heart Larry he is an Awesome guy and a fantastic VC.

Let me start by saying: I don't want to start a fight, I am genuinely curious.

I have recently seen a few GMs who use Google Drawings instead of Google Slides. Personally, I use Slides for my games as it allows mobile users to interact with the map. So, I am curious.

For those who GM with Google Drawings for maps: Why did you make the decision to use that over Slides?

Again, not trying to be antagonistic. I just want to make sure I am using the best platform for my games.

The functionality of Drawings is a little better. Also less confusion with lots of slides, unless you need them for some reason.

That said, while I don't play on a mobile phone, I understand that a lot of folk do, so I moved over to using Slides rather than Drawings.

I'm not really familiar with slides, drawings is just what I'm used to. I wasn't really aware that slides allowed you to interact on mobile. How does that work, since you can't really click and drag with a touch interface?

You can do it, at least in the Slides app. You tap it to highlight, then tap again and hold to drag (at least that's what works for me on the rare occasion I'm playing via mobile). It's a little clunky, but it works.

I'm not sure how it is supposed to work, but I'm actually getting pretty good at resizing one corner of what I need to move to where I want to move the piece and then resizing the other corner so it goes back to it's original size.

If there is a better way to move things on a mobile device on slides, I'd be ecstatic to know it.

(response to Ninja) I'll have to give that another try Dennis, was never able to get anything to drag when I started figuring how to interact on a mobile device.

The functionality of Drawings is a little better. Also less confusion with lots of slides, unless you need them for some reason.

Funny, I find multiple slides less confusing, both as a player and a GM. I like having the player handouts on a slide, a slide for pictures of NPCs, etc. all in one place, rather than having to keep track of multiple links.

A little easier way to not drag edges and resizing is to zoom in on the map itself. Using two fingers, zoom in on your token. This makes it easier to move without accidentally grabbing one of the edges and resizing.

Ah excellent. With a lot of zooming and better technique I was able to hold and drag. Thanks!

OK, I'll have to give slides a try next game I run.

Ah, more functionality. That is good to know. I'll have to check it out if I know my players have plenty of computer access.

As others have said, the Google Slides app does allow players on mobile to move things around, which is convenient. (During a particularly crazy month, I GM'd a game almost entirely from mobile. Including setting up the maps!!)

+1 for Google slides.

I have also run games from a tent in the outback off my iphone and some dodgy mobile reception, and whilst it was not an ideal set up (you play the cards you get dealt!) I could at least keep things trucking along.

I ran my first few games with Drawings, then realized mobile worked on Slides and never looked back.

You folks are making a good case for slides and I think I will give it a try on my next run. I am just comfortable with drawings and like the way it works for me, but will give slides a try to give the mobile people an easier time. Never used slides before, hopefully as intuitive as drawings.

The things I don't like about slides is
1) You have too hunt for the current slide. Oddly enough many GMs do not position the current slide on the top. Or not so oddly as I expect it would be a pain to shuffle the images. But if they did, this complaint would not be here.
2) It's harder for me to zoom in and out and the slides usually start out as zoomed way too far out.
3) It takes longer to load, particularly if there are a lot of images to render. I prefer a link to the current map and just the current map, with the option to use other links to see previous maps.
4) It seems harder to see the whole map at one time at max resolution for the monitor. Must be my old eyes, but I like things to be nice and fat and fill up the screen. Which is why I never do PBP on my IPhone. I'd need a magnifying glass.

I almost never have more than one slide in my maps. I usually don't create the slide for a map until my players arrive on that map, then I transfer their tokens, and then I delete the old map. I don't find that keeping the old maps around provides any useful information.

There's a painless way to direct players to the exact slide they need to see. Just open your slide show and select the slide you want. Copy its url and add a fresh link in your post, especially during encounters. The hyperlink takes everybody to the exact place you want their eyes.

It's an extra step, but takes no more than a few seconds. Not quite the 'fire-and-forget' simplicity of a single link to the first slide in your GM tagline, but I think it's worth it. I view it as a courtesy to my players, making their life that much simpler.

I keep the old maps around, in the event I offer the same scenario more than once. Since I don't make it necessary for the players to sort through them all to find the relevant one, the extra slides don't complicate things.

If one of my players is interested in GMing the same scenario, they've got the link to use whatever they like.

Thank you, Ewok, for the discussion-provoking question.

It's simple to reorder slides in Google Slides: click and drag, or on mobile press-and-hold and then drag. As long as the current slide is kept on top, I think it's fine to have multiple ones. I rather like being able to see everything I've accomplished during a mission laid out like a story.

I agree with the criticism about the zoom and scale though.

I absolutely hate slides. I find the layout confusing as a player, especially if I don't know what slide we are supposed to be on. I prefer to use drawings and have players ask me to move them.

It's not something I'd really considered before, but GM Lorenzo has a good point about direct-linking just the relevant slide in certain posts. It's a little more of a pain to do when I'm posting from mobile but I think I'll at least start trying to do this when I post via desktop from now on.

I've used both drawing and slides.

As others have said, I feel drawings functionality works better, especially with scenarios that have large maps. There is a separate ap you can download for drawings...but it seems more painful on a phone in my experience.

For me I find slides to work better in the long run. It just takes some practice. I also try to move the current map to slide 1 each time. I will say, when I'm stuck on my phone, slides has proven problematic to load when you have a large number of maps... (Looking at you solstice scar!).

Another thing I like about slides is having the maps for future runs of it. If I see someone new running a scenario I've already run, I tend to share the maps slide with them.

They both have their benefits and downfalls.

While I use slides, I tend to just use the one slide and change the map, which these days is a quick copy and paste from the PDF. That also saves on copying everyones icons over to the next slide as well.

Or a hint for GMs new to slides if you want to keep a pack of them: You can copy an existing slide, delete the background map and then put the new one in. If you want, you can always keep the current map as slide one for the links.

I tend to have a separate deck, labeled "GM Facing" where I prep the next map, then copy that slide into the "Player Facing" deck (which is the only one the players see). I always put the current map as the top slide, and have a link to the "Player Facing" deck at the top of the page and in my tagline. As Lorenzo pointed out, this makes repeating a scenario easy as I can just copy clean versions of the maps from the "GM Facing" deck into the new "Player Facing" deck.

.... Not quite the 'fire-and-forget' simplicity of a single link to the first slide in your GM tagline, but I think it's worth it. I view it as a courtesy to my players, making their life that much simpler.

But what about those people who like the challenge of scrolling up 40 posts to the top of the page to click on the functionally 6 pt font-size, non-bold, three-letter-word Map link there that you can't access (because it is not there) once you've started typing your one round novella? I'm pretty sure it's an Olympic sport of some sort (at least for those gamers attending the Olympics).

I'm not bitter or anything. ;)

I for one like engaging maps (click the links above, and take a look--in particular the slide 5's in both games. I'm sort of proud of them. They save me a thousand words each).

I for one like engaging maps (click the links above, and take a look--in particular the slide 5's in both games. I'm sort of proud of them. They save me a thousand words each).

I do note your maps are well executed :) Bravo!

I always have my map links refer to slide=1. The first slide is also always the one where I want my players attention.

I for one like engaging maps...

Those are engaging maps, some cool ideas there! I do a lot of linking to images I find online, but haven't thought to plug them into the map the way you do, even color-coding the borders of images to show where they are on the map.

One thing I like about Slides is that I can prep the whole map set, handouts, etc. for a given scenario in one sitting, when I've got time, and then I'm ready to keep the flow of things going as the players move along. I find it very easy to keep the relevant map as slide 1 (it only takes a second to move it) so the link goes where I want it. I just keep future maps on other pages covered, just as I do portions of the current map that the PC's haven't explored yet.

You, sir, a Slide Fu Master! Great job, TWMIGM!

There's a painless way to direct players to the exact slide they need to see. Just open your slide show and select the slide you want. Copy its url and add a fresh link in your post, especially during encounters. The hyperlink takes everybody to the exact place you want their eyes.

I was gonna post the same thing. I haven't GMed much, but while I still have the slide 1 link in my header and at the top of the page (so it's accessible from any screen), I put a direct link to the current slide for all encounter posts as it jumps the PCs straight to the appropriate slide...

Great map pack WMIGM. I kind of get how to set it up now but I experienced something while sifting through the slide/maps. When I am running games in drawings, I usually zoom in 200% and use track pad to navigate the image. When I do that in slides, I kept tending to slide into the next slide unintentionally. Is there any way to prevent that?

Huh. I can’t even replicate that error!

I am a big fan of slides because I game entirely in mobile format and like having all the information together. Sometimes my slides are fancy (like Kobolds in Kaer Maga) because I am feeling artistic and having fun with Poblano’s slide template. Sometimes they’re dead simple because I want to put something together quick to cover a game. So long as they have the basics (a map that everyone can move upon) they’re great.

Hmm

Great map pack WMIGM. I kind of get how to set it up now but I experienced something while sifting through the slide/maps. When I am running games in drawings, I usually zoom in 200% and use track pad to navigate the image. When I do that in slides, I kept tending to slide into the next slide unintentionally. Is there any way to prevent that?

I believe you're just scrolling to the edge of the page, and past a little. Unfortunately, there is no way to turn that "feature" off. We just have to be careful around the edges.

Wicked Brew wrote:

Great map pack WMIGM. I kind of get how to set it up now but I experienced something while sifting through the slide/maps. When I am running games in drawings, I usually zoom in 200% and use track pad to navigate the image. When I do that in slides, I kept tending to slide into the next slide unintentionally. Is there any way to prevent that?

I believe you're just scrolling to the edge of the page, and past a little. Unfortunately, there is no way to turn that "feature" off. We just have to be careful around the edges.

That's exactly what I am doing. I have to admit that is going to annoy me unless I can get used to it. I run games almost exclusively from my ancient mac or a beat up chromebook, both use a track pad. I am going to give it a try regardless and hope I can get used to it.

If you're running on a Mac and you wand to scroll around on Slides without accidentally switching slides, just place your cursor over the bar on the far right side. Then you can use two fingers on the trackpad to scroll around without accidentally changing slides. You can also do the same on the bottom bar just under the slide you're working on. (Hopefully that was clear enough to be helpful. Haha.)

Hey, everyone, I have a happy announcement to make. I'd like to point everyone's attention to the list of five star GM's here.

Our wonderful Venture Captain Hmm has her fifth star! I know she has been working hard toward this as a specific goal for a while now, so it's time to celebrate!

Hey, everyone, I have a happy announcement to make. I'd like to point everyone's attention to the list of five star GM's here.

Our wonderful Venture Captain Hmm has her fifth star! I know she has been working hard toward this as a specific goal for a while now, so it's time to celebrate!

Whoo-hoo! Congratulations Hmm!

I can't imagine a better person getting that 5th star!

Hey, everyone, I have a happy announcement to make. I'd like to point everyone's attention to the list of five star GM's here.

Our wonderful Venture Captain Hmm has her fifth star! I know she has been working hard toward this as a specific goal for a while now, so it's time to celebrate!

That's amazing! Our wonderful, amazing, impressive, kind.... Venture Captain got her fifth star? Congratulation!

Woohoo, congrats Hmm! *throws confetti*

Oh, yay! I’m excited too! It seems like I’ve been working towards this for a long time! Thank you, guys!

Hmm

Grats Hmm!

It's not something I'd really considered before, but GM Lorenzo has a good point about direct-linking just the relevant slide in certain posts. It's a little more of a pain to do when I'm posting from mobile but I think I'll at least start trying to do this when I post via desktop from now on.

Even better would be to maintain a link to the current slide at the top of the page (using the campaign page) so the user does not have to search for the post with the current link.

Congratulations Hmm!

Congrats, Hmm, and to all you 5 starers. I can't imagine the effort it takes. Truly a labor of love.