May Challenge Voting

[RPMiller]

Superb! You're just very lucky his notepad didn't say....'Torq fails saving roll against law'.

ROFL

[Torq]

Superb! You're just very lucky his notepad didn't say....'Torq fails saving roll against law'.

I've failed that save far too many times to remember, it doesn't hurt anymore.

Correction to my earlier post: The Hound e-mailed to say that my prize picks are not dependent on what Dorpond chooses. Thats good news. I had it completely wrong. Guess I'll be going for the 4e gift set then.

Torq

[dorpond]

Man, thats a horrible coincidence. I sent my choices through to the Hound without seeing your Dorpond. Luckily I had a few alternatives.

Just so you know Torq, if a prize is selected from the list, it is not removed from the list. I confirmed that with The Hound. That being said, you too could get the 4th edition set. you may want to contact him quickly before he purchases.

Funny that you mentioned this. Before I even picked my prize, I contacted The Hounds and said something like "I want to make sure that if I pick the 4th edition set, Torq will also be able to select it". I knew you had your heart set on it . He simply wrote back that picking a prize does not take it off the list and it can be picked multiple times.

So that being said, you could have picked 2 PHB's for your friends if you wanted.

[edit] Oops.. I see you also spoke to The Hound and found out the same thing. [edit]

[ravells]

I've failed that save far too many times to remember, it doesn't hurt anymore.

Torq

Lol! Me too, my friend, me too.

[torstan]

Been away for a bit and have just finished catching up with recent events. Congratulations to Dorpond - see your fears were entirely unfounded!

This was a very interesting competition (and I have acquired a hoard of useful maps for future games) and I'm very grateful to The Hound for starting it off. Dormouse's points about VTTs are all valid. There's usually an interesting balance to be struck on any map between the fixed map and the movable items. I would say that all of these maps are usable in a VTT, it just depends on how precisely you want your VTT map to mimic the world. Many people are happy to have it more representational and therefore to live with closed doors that players just walk through. I have managed to use DM's maps from Dungeon (with the secret doors edited our in Gimp) as very successful VTT maps, so the lack of separate movable objects does not make a map unusable.

The compression lessons were very useful and I would like to thank all of those who gave advice on that aspect of image creation. That was far more useful than going through a dry discussion of compression in a book or on a website.

It's great to see a VTT forum as well! That really shows the level of interest this gained. An excellent challenge all round. My 4th place just tells me that I was never meant to play 4Ed

[dormouse]

There's usually an interesting balance to be struck on any map between the fixed map and the movable items ... Many people are happy to have it more representational and therefore to live with closed doors that players just walk through. I have managed to use DM's maps from Dungeon (with the secret doors edited our in Gimp) as very successful VTT maps, so the lack of separate movable objects does not make a map unusable.

True.
But ...
It very much limits the value that can be got out of a campaign on a VTT. I won't describe things the party ought to be noticing for themselves as they pass through the map. If the party passes a door they have already been through, they will need to remember how they left it - or miss a clue that something might have happened behind them. The same for items that are in different places. If they wish to close doors behind them, they will have to save for noise or causing a change in airflow that might be noticed (not that they will be told the results, or even that I will have rolled). Places they have been, but left behind, are not left visible on the map if they have moved out of sight. Getting out may be as hard (or harder) as getting in and they need to stay alert to anything that might have changed. It makes all the details of the map potentially important and increases the tension and atmosphere. And maximises the gain that can be got out of using a VTT instead of printed/drawn battlemaps.
So, from my personal point of view (acknowledging that other DMs may use VTTs differently), having these things fixed means that I would not use maps where I could not control the movable items/features in the VTT.
If playing on a table top with 'real' figures, I'm quite happy using salt cellars, pepper pots, beer mats etc to represent other things/monsters/people and use a lot of description for what they see. But it does make for a different type of game/communication/experience. When you have to describe things, the players know that you will have to have mentioned info you want to give them. Using images means that the info can be 'hidden' in other stuff and the players have to stay alert to keep up/stay alive.
Of course, what you do does all depend on your players.