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Friday, May 3, 2013

Friday's Question: Secret Doors

Friday!  What a wonderful word.  Work has been tearing me down this week and the reason for lack of posting.  But!  that is no excuse not to do a Friday Question.

I've been doodling a handful of maps recently.  One of the things I keep in mind is I rarely play at the table any longer.  Most of our games are on-line.  What is the difference?  Fog of war can be tricky in revealing sections.  The on-line programs handle it pretty well, but some have devastating quirks.

One of the big issues is secret doors.  You can't note a secret door with a big S.  Everyone will see it.  There were a few times when we all got a good laugh when a GM would do the reveal and we'd see the tail end of an S sticking out.  "I'm checking for secret doors by that S in the corner." 

Question all you brilliant folks is, how do you depict your secret door or just hidden stuff when using on-line maps?  I know many just do rough drawings and just sketch as the party goes, but I'm interested in when you have a pre-made map, what do you do to keep it secret from the prying eyeballs of the players?
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5 comments:

  1. mattMay 3, 2013 at 12:33 PM

    I brought this up what, last fall? I polled the net and I changed the way I draw secret doors specifically for this reason. You can see an example here:
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2h9gvbW5asM/UWeMlnir7GI/AAAAAAAA0pc/_XwDfgM6wtA/s1600/2013-04-10_08-29-45_317.jpg

    While not perfect, it allows a GM to fog of war an area without showing a huge S and giving away the doorway. It isnt perfect however, Sherlockian players would notice the GM has pushed the Fog directly up to the wall and that no hatching is available.

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  2. AnonymousMay 3, 2013 at 1:55 PM

    I just add it afterwards on the map I print out for myself. This assumes that I remember that the secret door is there.

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  3. Roger G-SMay 3, 2013 at 5:05 PM

    Most secret doors are only secret from one side, so ... Just draw the S on the other side of the door and not touching it.

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  4. Chris C.May 3, 2013 at 7:31 PM

    Since I make my own maps, I do one GM map and one player map. So the secret doors don't appear on the player map that gets posted unless the PCs actually find them.

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  5. Mark LangsdorfMay 4, 2013 at 8:05 AM

    I'm with Bard. It never occurred to me to use the same map for my DM notes and for my players.

    It helps that I use MapTools, which explicitly has a "hidden" layer that the GM can see but the players can't see. So stuff like room numbers, trap triggers, or the like can go on the hidden layer. I guess that would include secret doors if I were the kind to label one as a door with an S through it.

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