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Fair Warning We can not share campaign files or tokens with scenario images (maps, etc.) in them. The PFS scenarios do not fall under the community use document. So any sharing of them is prohibited under copy right law.
This does not mean that you can not use the images for personal use, just that they can not be shared/distributed without Paizo's permission.
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Lab_Rat is right, its a stupid rule, but what can you do. I think that the best that you can do without breaking said rule is to just have all the vision blocking drawn in and the stats entered into the tokens with no/generic pictures and then distribute that with instructions on how to extract the appropriate maps from the .pdf and restore them to the campaign. You still have to do a little work, but it should still save you some time.
The pictures are the problem, you can make a campaign file with all the stats and generic images and there should not be a problem with that. I'd love to be able to help more, but in this setting I can't.
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I am not aware of anyone sharing maptools files that are actually legal. Most people abandon the idea after they learn that complete files would be illegal.
I agree with Saint on the fact that you could put in almost everything into the file but the images and it would be legal for sharing. Maybe someone who has a personal copy can delete the images and then share it.
I wish that Paizo would come up with a solution for this. It would help out the online PFS community a lot. One of the roadblocks to GMing online is the effort required to build your own campaign files/tokens for each scenario.
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If there were a way to develop a quality application like MapTool, such that Paizo could control the publishing of "map and token packs" for scenarios for a fee (as Saint Meerkat points out above), I think that would be a big win for everyone involved.
The map packs could be kept in a proprietary format, streamed from a server controlled by Paizo, access controlled by the same process currently used to track downloads (with some tweaking, of course), and when the scenario is done, the map packs do not remain on the client machine in any format. Unfortunately, this does add a lot of network chatter/over-head to the solution, but it would grant Paizo control over these published packs.
As a programmer I know it is easy to dream up stuff like this and far, far harder to implement it. :-) I am just throwing it out there for consideration. Odds are it would be an iffy ROI too- it costs a lot to develop software and I don't know how much additional revenue it would generate for Paizo (if any).
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Why would the have to screw around with a weird streaming model when it would be far easier to partner with an existing VTT to offer the scenarios converted to the correct format. There is precedent for this already, seeing as HeroLab is "official" licensed software for PF.
Having Paizo create their own softwareand justmp through hoops to keep the maps from being resident on the consumer's computer makes no sense, especially when we are allowed to keep the .pdfs of the same scenarios on our hard drives.
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Agreed. That would be much easier on Paizo's end. Just pass all the headache to a separate entity and take in a licensing fee. However, that would also mean that official campaign files would never be seen on maptools. Since Paizo would be licensing the material, the VTT would have to have a pay structure to cover it's costs, etc. This won't happen with maptools. I think the most likely candidate for this model would be d20pro. They already use a pay model, have very streamlined software, and import data from herolab.
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MapTool currently supports networked token access. All you have to do is point it at a repo.
For my setup, I have ~ 50% of all PFS scenarios in MapTool with a private set of tokens generated using TokenLab ( a HeroLab -> MapTool token generator). All token images are created from Pathfinder art, (screenshot after the link) and with the HeroLab mashup you get a full set of macros (attacks, saves, skills, etc). It's sweet.
I don't think Paizo is interested in commercializing this sort of system (be it MapTool, d20Pro, FantasyGrounds, TTopRPG, etc - I don't think Vic has ever publicly commented in the forums on his opinion about this, but I could be wrong about that). The amount of redundant work happening in this space is annoying - I'd give an eyetooth to have access to EvilLincoln's legendary Rise of the Runelords MapTool campaign file - but it is probably something we're stuck with.
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If there is a built maptool campaign running on the host(ing) of the creator of the campaign, it doesn't matter who is granted GM rights, you're still not considered to be distributing the material in the campaign, right?
I'm 99% sure Paizo is cool with this one. I think I remember reading somewhere where a staff member explicitly said that this was ok to use non-CUP content in VTT on-line play, but I can't find the exact quote.
Further, such per-session server rental seems like a service which could be compensated... there may even be something profitable to this notion, Sozin...
It's a thought. Definitely get explicit permission from the Golem before
trying it :-)