Computers and Maps

[tcharleschapman]

While I was running Castle Scarwall from Curse of the Crimson Throne last year, I came upon the problem of Castle Scarwall being so HUGE I couldn't effectively make the castle a mystery to explore. The 10 foot squares made it unruly to manage on a drawn map made for encounters on 5 foot squares, but leaving it at 10 foot squares was still unmanageable just because that castle was so awesomely huge!

What I'm hoping to find is a free program that I can load a picture of a map on to and cover it in black (fog-of-war style) one room, hallway, or area at a time. Then, I can select that area and hit "Delete" and remove the fog-of-war.

I've heard I can do this with photoshop but I'm not that rich. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Sincerely,
Tom

[Marthian]

You might want to look at GIMP. It's a free alternative to Photoshop, and as far as I know, you can do something similar.

Roll20 (if you use it) also has a similar option, although you will probably have to make the map in there.

[chavamana]

MapTools is another free option.

[Adamantine Dragon]

tcharles, I've used GIMP and MapTools to do exactly what you are describing. I have a gaming table with a computer display built in so that I can update the map on the computer and display it on the table in real time.

GIMP is a "Photoshop-lite" free graphics editor, but clever use of layers can give you a very nice user experience for fog of war manipulation. But it's all manual and will require a lot of work on layers up front.

Maptools is nice because it will do line of sight fog of war calculations automatically, meaning as the PCs move around your dungeon the dungeon will automatically be revealed to them. The GM can have a separate screen simultaneously displayed without the fog of war.

However, Maptools requires a lot of time and effort and has a quirky user interface.

Maptools can also be used to game remotely. It's really an amazing RPG computer utility.

If you want to put in the time, either will do what you want.