New to TTS and I have questions....

[Sstavix]

I have been considering using Tabletop Simulator instead of Roll20 for my Pathfinder 2nd Edition campaign. I think that having a 3d representation of the different dungeons and environments, as well as animated miniatures, might help with the immersion into the game. But tinkering around with TTS, I have a few questions about what I'm doing, and how to make it work.

1) I was hoping to be able to import a map and use that as a framework for dungeon or building walls. However, the imported map stretches to fit the dimensions of the tabletop - either the rectangle or the square - and at that point it obviously doesn't line up with the grid. Is there a way to prevent or work with this?

2) Is there a way to assign permissions to certain pieces to specific players? For example, I'd like to set it up so that the only people that can move a miniature would be the GM (usually black) and, say, the green player. The only thing I've found so far is a way to lock it or unlock it for every player.

I found a workshop mod for Pathfinder 2nd, and it looks impressive... but I'm still trying to figure out what everything does! For example, there are several boxes on the right side of the GM screen that don't really seem to do anything, and the documentation provided doesn't explain what they're there for, or what they do.

I'm sure that many of my questions have rather simple answers, but I'm still learning how to use the program, and these weren't covered in the tutorial. Thank you in advance for any advice you can give!

[Baryonyx]

1) You can import maps as boards or tiles, that way they retain their aspect ratio and you can scale them around as you see fit, then sink them into the table by locking them and using gizmo, or simply make the tile extremely flat, so you have no raised edge.

2) There is the "promote" option, which gives a promoted player all permissions short of a few that the host retains. So you can leave the permissions off and promote green, that should give you what you want.
But if you have players who can't keep their hands off of things and always mess around, you best get more mature players. I would feel patronized being treated like this.

If you link the particular mod, I could take a look and see if I can see what those boxes might be for. Otherwise, just delete them and see what happens, I guess!

[Sstavix]

Originally posted by Baryonyx:

1) You can import maps as boards or tiles, that way they retain their aspect ratio and you can scale them around as you see fit, then sink them into the table by locking them and using gizmo, or simply make the tile extremely flat, so you have no raised edge.

Ah, I get it... like laying down a playing mat on top of the table. That makes sense! But what do gizmos do? I've seen the item but haven't tinkered with it yet.

Originally posted by Baryonyx:

2) There is the "promote" option, which gives a promoted player all permissions short of a few that the host retains. So you can leave the permissions off and promote green, that should give you what you want.
But if you have players who can't keep their hands off of things and always mess around, you best get more mature players. I would feel patronized being treated like this.

Well, I'll be running the game for my wife, our kids and a couple of their friends. So I don't have much control over their maturity. But I was mainly thinking about it just to avoid confusion - like, for example, moving a character token that belongs to a different player. If it isn't an option, that's fine - I'll probably just leave the players' minis unlocked, then unlock the creature minis as they become relevant to the plot.

Originally posted by Baryonyx:

If you link the particular mod, I could take a look and see if I can see what those boxes might be for. Otherwise, just delete them and see what happens, I guess!

Here is the workshop item I have subscribed to: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1994250513 What do you think?

[Baryonyx]

The gizmo tool is the one on the left under the Text tool. It allows precise movement of objects and is most often used to move locked objects precisely, and beyond their normal collision (to make it look like a rock is embedded in the ground or a chair is floating in the air or things like that).

I think there is some script in the workshop that allows this kind of ownership setup, but it's not part of the main game. I'm sure your kids will be smart enough to figure out which token is theirs to move around.

Well as you can also see from the images, on the right side you have the creature cards and tokens, some sort of dice roll tool (I don't know pathfinder myself, so I don't know what is needed for that). Down below is a setup for skytools, which is a really neat script for loading in 3D maps. Search for it on the workshop and check it out in the main mod to see how it works.
And the very bottom right has a bundle effect board - just drop an asset bundle cube onto it and it will show all the available effects as an easily clickable button.
Asset bundles are special objects that can have sounds or particle effects attached to them, and there are several mods that offer these as cubes where the sounds or effects are saved. You would have to right click and select them that way normally, but with this board you can access them much easier.

Not sure what other boxes you might mean. Did you get any error messages that something didn't load? If an object didn't load, it usually turns into a box or a sphere, those are the "default" states, so to say.

[Sstavix]

This is helpful so far, thank you!

Originally posted by Baryonyx:

Well as you can also see from the images, on the right side you have the creature cards and tokens,

These are the boxes I was talking about, yes. Not the smaller decks of cards next to them, but the boxes labeled "Equipment," "Classes," "Creatures" and so forth. When I hover over them I see the name of the object with an infinity symbol over it. Right-clicking brings up a menu, but it looks like pretty much any other menu for items, with "Save Object" "Color Tint" and so forth. At the top of that menu is a selection similar to what you'd find with a deck - "Reset, Search, Deal, Draw and Custom" - but none of those options appears to do anything.

Originally posted by Baryonyx:

And the very bottom right has a bundle effect board - just drop an asset bundle cube onto it and it will show all the available effects as an easily clickable button.
Asset bundles are special objects that can have sounds or particle effects attached to them, and there are several mods that offer these as cubes where the sounds or effects are saved. You would have to right click and select them that way normally, but with this board you can access them much easier.

I'm going to have to do some research into cubes and what they can do. This workshop item has cubes that can be used to help with the character sheets (which seems like a bit of a tedious process - the game master has to design the cube for each line of the character sheet, then pass it to the proper player), but I don't know enough about the function of cubes to determine what else they can do.

Originally posted by Baryonyx:

Not sure what other boxes you might mean. Did you get any error messages that something didn't load? If an object didn't load, it usually turns into a box or a sphere, those are the "default" states, so to say.

No error messages or blank objects loaded. Well, except for the cubes I can pull out of a bag (something else I need to figure out) but we discussed that above.

Additional question: Is there a way to take a closer look at any cards in your hand? I've noticed that you can have cards in your hands - both in this workshop item and in one of the games that came with TTS - but the text on them is too small for me to read. It might simply be a game setting I'm overlooking....

[Baryonyx]

Those creature card and token "boxes" are in fact bags. At least by function. The infinity symbol means that they are infinite bags, so they can't be depleted. You simply move the cursor over them, press and hold left mouse button and pull away from it. Just like you work with an actual bag in the game.

To help with looking at small things, you can either press and hold M (for magnification), which will show a zoomed circle in the area your cursor is at; or Alt, when you have your mouse over something, which will display that object in full on your screen. You can also further adjust that image with the scroll wheel then.

[Sstavix]

All right, I am getting it now.... Just tinkering around I was able to pull out the best kart from one of those boxes, then a card for a specific creature and put it on the table, so I could refer to it during an encounter. If I delete the card after the encounter can I pull it out of that book again? Or do I need to pull a fresh book out of the box?

I also was able to import a map onto a custom board, then resize it to fit on the table using those gizmos. I was also able to put a couple minis on the table and manipulate them, and learned the difference between the "hidden" and "fog of war" tools.

Another question - am I able to import a PDF to read from using TTS? Or will I have to use an external device to read the module text while my players make their way through the adventure?

[Baryonyx]

The original infinite "bag" never empties as I said. So if you pull a container out of it (A) and pull something out of that (B), then delete B, you would have to pull a new A container from the first "bag", from which you then pull another B. Unless A is also an infinite bag.
Normally, infinite bags can only have one item, but there are scripts which can replenish all items in a bag, essentially creating a multi-item infinite bag.

Yes, PDFs can be imported directly into the game. Check the custom objects section.

Also, in general, this page provides a lot of info about the basics of the game.
https://kb.tabletopsimulator.com/

[Sstavix]

Thank you for the help! It looks like there was an infinite bag inside an infinite bag (which according to D&D rules can lead to Very Bad Things... but this isn't D&D ).

If I have any additional questions that aren't readily answered by that site I'll ask here. This has been quite useful!