Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

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Severite
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Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

Unread post by Severite »

I was wondering if there are any VTT version of some of the classic Palladium Fantasy adventures, specifically of "The Place of Magic" in the first sourcebook.

I was looking around DriveThruRPG and Palladium Books shop and I am not really seeing anything
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Re: Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

Unread post by Veknironth »

Well, as far as I know Palladium has only gone so far as digitizing their books. They are way behind 5E and Pathfinder with the digital tools.

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Re: Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

Unread post by Kraynic »

I expect there is less incentive for the company to do better maps since it isn't a grid/hex based tactical combat game in the way D&D or Pathfinder... You are probably on your own to cobble something together. I know there are some web resources like Dungeon Scrawl to help build something. If you want something fancier, then you might check out building assets that you can assemble in an editor from someone like Gabriel Pickard.

I've never used Dungeon Scrawl, I just have seen the name before so it came to mind: https://dungeonscrawl.com/

I own a fair amount of Pickard's stuff purchased through the Roll20 Marketplace. It doesn't matter if you use the platform, everything that is simply art assets (not set up with dynamic lighting or whatever) are downloadable from the product page after purchase. https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/p ... el-pickard
Looks like all/most of his stuff is available on DriveThru RPG also: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub ... el-Pickard
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Re: Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

Unread post by Hotrod »

I've never used VTT. Can you provide some screenshots/examples?

I have toyed with making dungeon maps before, and if there's significant interest, I could put some together.
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Kraynic
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Re: Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

Unread post by Kraynic »

I think that maybe the main thing to remember is that image quality doesn't have to be as high if you are just viewing it on the screen. The default grid on Roll20 is 70px square at the normal 100% zoom. I think a lot of artists that make stuff for that medium make their images at double that density to make up for when you zoom in, though not all do (and if the image is good quality to begin with, it seems to be fine either way).

Other than that, the file size is best if it is below 5MB. Most VTT (that are totally web based at least) have a file size limit of what you can upload. For Roll20 that is 5MB for free accounts and 10MB for those that have a subscription. If that isn't enough for your image, you can cut it up along grid lines to keep the file size down and allow people to reassemble it once it is uploaded. Smaller files are also usually faster to load, since all this has to be transmitted and rendered to the client, along with any lighting calculations being done beyond the content of the map itself if fancy lighting is being used.

As far as the looks go... you know what they say about opinions... I know some people just use black and white maps for that old school graph paper gaming look. Some go for an 8-bit gaming look, while others go for a more "realistic" artistic style. In practice, you probably don't need to provide any room, trap, hidden door, or other markers, since there are a lot of those out there. Simply the map itself with the rooms, halls, and visible doors. Nothing should be marked that might possibly be hidden from players, and anything like that would be up to the GM to decide how they wish to handle those, what assets to use, etc.

Hopefully something out of that rambling is useful.
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Re: Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

Unread post by Glistam »

Severite wrote:I was wondering if there are any VTT version of some of the classic Palladium Fantasy adventures, specifically of "The Place of Magic" in the first sourcebook.

I was looking around DriveThruRPG and Palladium Books shop and I am not really seeing anything

No, there's nothing. Palladium started moving forward tryibg to get some content onto Fantasy Grounds, but I believe their focus is Rifts.
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Re: Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

Unread post by Hotrod »

There are some tricks I know for rapidly making a simple type of dungeon map so it looks pretty. Here's a very basic example of one type of Timiro underground fort. There's a pretty useful script that works well with GIMP 2.8 for converting a simple black-and-white map into the textured look you see in this one.

Beyond that, making dungeon/tactical maps is a question of having and incorporating a good library of textures and objects. I've experimented with this a few times, and I could probably throw something together for the Place of Magic. I took a look at doing so a couple of years back. It's a little tricky due to the combination of water, multiple elevations, and a variety of terrain/textures throughout, but it should be doable. Is the juice worth the squeeze? I'm not sure. I've got a map project I need to finish this month, but once I'm done, I might try something like this again.

I should also mention that there are a lot of dungeon map-making techniques and tools out there, and I've only made a few. If you want to try it yourself, check out the Cartographers Guild website and look in their tutorial forum.
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Re: Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

Unread post by BuzzardB »

If I had come a month earlier this may have been useful, but lets go for it anyway.

Here I whipped this up for you in Dungeondraft, used my best guesses as to where the doors where since the image is not great.

https://i.imgur.com/Hx9eS8o.jpg
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Re: Are there VTT style maps for Palladium adventures?

Unread post by socom242 »

I just started scanning the actual maps in the books and using them as the VTT maps for the adventures. I'm able to load them into Roll20 just fine and adjust just fine. A little work with MS Paint helps clean them up a bit and hide things like secret doors and such.

Here's a link

https://imgur.com/a/YLI6rt7
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