Roleplay-Centric Chat
August 31, 2008
In this post, I’m going to introduce you to EpicTable’s “Roleplay-Centric Chat” features. I call EpicTable’s text chat “roleplay centric” because it has features like an integrated dice roller, support for multiple personas, and many other features that tailor it to the roleplaying experience.
Read more
Tavern in Virtual Tabletop TrueVision
May 26, 2008
In this post, I’m going to introduce you to EpicTable’s TrueVision. TrueVision allows you to show your players only what their characters would see. It takes into account lighting, line-of-sight, and visual acuity (e.g., low-light vision, darkvision) or equipment (e.g., nightvision goggles). Read more
Main Screen (Map Centric)
May 23, 2008
This screenshot shows the main EpicTable screen. For map-based games, this is what you’ll often be looking at. The player characters, as well as an ettin they’re about to encounter, occupy the character bar near the top of the screen. The GM can drag these around into initiative order, or turn order, or whatever’s appropriate for your game. He can also drag them onto the map.
Center screen, you see the player tokens on the map. Naturally, these can be dragged around as well. The entire map is illuminated because we’re looking through the GM’s point of view. In a later screenshot, I’ll show you TrueVision in action— where each player only sees what his character would see.
Notice that you have your chat window at the right. (That’s dockable in case you don’t want it on the right.) Notice also the user-defined dice cups at the top. Often, you’ll roll dice right from your character sheet, but you have the option to use these ad-hoc dice cups.
Finally, it’s worth noting that because this is the GM’s view, there are some things available that wouldn’t be there for players; for instance, the ability to add images to the handout gallery and the buttons allowing him to create more maps. We’ll get deeper into some of these features in later posts.
Credits:
Map made using Dundjinni with textures and objects from the user art forum; notably, Cistacola’s cavern textures, Greytale’s arches (which became bridge rails), and Dragonwolf’s tile (north of the bridge). The tokens are courtesy of Fiery Dragon Productions. You can find links to all these on my Links page.
EpicTable QuickStart
May 21, 2008
EpicTable’s QuickStart page is the first thing that greets you when you launch EpicTable. As you can see in this screenshot, you’re shown a list of the games in which you’re participating. Icons to the left of each game name indicate whether you’re the GM 
or a player 
. Read more