Active Tiles Tips and Tricks - grimmash/tors_tomb_of_the_nine_gods GitHub Wiki
There's a lot of rooms in the Tomb and it is a lot of work to remember how they all work. It's even more work to make sure that it "displays correctly" to the players. Monk's Active Tiles is a fantastic module to help automate and simplify a lot of the work and add some "visual flamboyance". In the content below, I'll explain some ways you might use Active Tiles with this module. It takes some time to setup, but it will make your life easier when you run complex locations. - MasterHawk
2. Gallery of Tricksters
So, in this area I put some small lights (5 ft dim, 2.5 ft bright) in front of each statue and turned them all off. Then behind each statue, I put an invisible active tile that, when clicked by a GM, toggles the light. This allows you to easily replicate the "the oil basin matching the cube’s trickster god bursting into flame" just with a single click.
3. False Entrance
Once again, I like to use the numbered tiles as "click toggles" for the GM to activate things. This one does 4 things.
- It changes the wall/door representing the false door, toggling the "State" and setting the "Type" to Secret.
- It toggles the show/hide for the tile representing the false door, effectively closing the door.
- It toggles the show/hide for the tile representing the gas (smokeLite.webm), starting the trap.
- It starts the animation on the tile, showing it for everyone.
4A. First Puzzle Door
Once again, I use the numbered tile as a clickable trigger. All this one does is:
- It shows the lightning tile (electricity_RAY_01.webm).
- It starts the animation on the lightning tile.
- It "waits for 4 seconds".
- It hides the lightning tile.
4B. Second Puzzle Door
Now this one is really easy. I just have it pause the game, then toggle the show/hide of the pit trap. That's all.
5C. Floor Hatch
I have this setup so when I click the "5C" tile, it just toggles the show/hide for the grate being opened/closed.
6. Crystal Window
So, in this area I used the "6" tile as the GM clickable active tile. Upon being clicked it (1st) toggles the visibility of the "broken glass" tile, then (2nd) uses the Change Wall/Door to toggle the "State" and set "Type" to Secret. This way clicking the "6" tile will break/unbreak the glass and "open/close" the secret door. You can use this simple setup for MANY of the "stone block crushing" traps throughout the dungeon.
11. Gas Pocket
So, first off we have an active tile behind the door (fire_explosion_CIRCLE_02.webm) that triggers on a manual activation from any token. The actions this tile takes is simple, it plays its animation for everyone to see. We then make it so the secret door will trigger this tile when the door is opened. That's all there is to it.
13. Stone Skull
So, for this one I put some small tiles hidden where players can't see that would show/hide a small flame animation in each of the eyes and toggle the activation of a light source in the same location. This way clicking one tile turns on/off one eye (while also showing/hiding the flame) and another tile does the same to the second eye.
15. Wind Tunnel
For this one, I had multiple tiles toggling elements of the area. One tile would toggle the spinning fan, one would show and play the "wind animations", and another tile would reset it to the initial state.
16. Wongo's Tomb
In area 16, I put invisible tiles on each of the chests that would teleport any token within the area to the "locked inside the chests" area when manually activated. That's all and you don't even really need to do that unless you want to.
20. False Tomb
Okay, I did a lot more to this location than is probably needed. I have multiple active tiles hidden where players can't see. Sorry it's so dark in the images, I actually make my dungeons dark.
- Tile A: This one controls the ceiling block, toggling the show/hide of that tile and the secret door.
- Tile B: This tile opens/closes the coffin by showing/hiding a different tile.
- Tile C: This tile shows/hides the "sunlight".
- Tile D: This tile shows/hides the coffin itself.
- Tile E: This tile moves the "falsetomb_trap_wine_01_10x7.jpg" tile (Tile F) into the room and shows it.
- Tile F: This tile, when manually activated by the GM, cycles through the different rounds of wine filling the room.
- Tile G: This tile activates Tile F, moving to the next image to the next image.
- Tile H: This tile moves Tile F where the players can't see it and sets it back to it's initial image.
21. Zombie Door
I have two active tiles here for the GM to click. One will open/close the door toggle the visibility of the tile, the other will change the tile image to indicate if zombies are at the door or not.
35A. Stone Block
Similar to the stone block in the False Tomb, just make a toggle to raise/lower the stone block by toggling its visibility and toggling the open/close state of secret doors.
38. Revolving Room Trap
This really depends on how you set up your walls so instead I'm just going to give some tips to help with making this an active tile.
- You can toggle the state of secret walls/doors to create a sense of "dropping down" by having them open.
- You can toggle show/hide the 38B tile after players drop in.
- You can toggle a small ambient light that's shining up into area 38B.
39. Golem Pit
For this area, I got a little fancy with how I set stuff up, even though it's not needed. I have it where double clicking a rotating statue does the following:
- It shows a dialog to the GM only, asking if I want to rotate, with Yes Goto "yes" and No Goto "no"
- There is a landing for "yes"
- The tile is altered, setting "rotation" to "60"
- There is a landing for "no" that stops when reached in code
- The tile is altered, setting "rotation" to "0"
This gives you a popup dialog for you to have a statue rotate, then run it again to "spring back". Now, you could have it so it automatically returns back to 0 rotation after a set amount of time, but I wanted to account for the possibility of characters "not letting it rotate back".
43. Veils of Fear
I went overboard for this location and I would not recommend that anyone do the same unless you really want to. Each of the curtain tiles starts in a "closed" position. To be specific:
- "curtain_row3_b.png" is located at X: 1602 Y: 2466
- "curtain_row2_b.png" is located at X: 1701 Y: 2467
- "curtain_row1_b.png" is located at X: 1800 Y: 2471
- "curtain_row3_a.png" is located at X: 1600 Y: 2700
- "curtain_row2_a.png" is located at X: 1700 Y: 2700
- "curtain_row1_a.png" is located at X: 1800 Y: 2700
I have the walls setup like the image below
I then have 6 clickable active tiles where the players can't see that each do the following (with the alter values changing depending on the curtain):
This results in "opening curtain by sliding it aside". The "open" position for each of the curtains is as follows.
- OPEN "curtain_row3_b.png" is located at X: 1602 Y: 2366
- OPEN "curtain_row2_b.png" is located at X: 1702 Y: 2367
- OPEN "curtain_row1_b.png" is located at X: 1800 Y: 2371 (this one is in the image above for reference)
- OPEN "curtain_row3_a.png" is located at X: 1600 Y: 2800
- OPEN "curtain_row2_a.png" is located at X: 1700 Y: 2800
- OPEN "curtain_row1_a.png" is located at X: 1800 Y: 2800
If you actually chose to put this much effort into this room, you have my respect for making 6 active tiles so you can literally do nothing more than move curtains aside.
45. Gargoyle Guardians
Here I have it setup so that manually activating a Gargoyle tile will place a Giant Four-Armed Gargoyle token at it's location. The "45" tile, when double clicked by the GM, will trigger all of the Gargoyle tiles. This way I can cover the scenario of only a few statues being activated or all at once.
47A. Fire Cell
I have two active tiles here. The first tile toggles the visibility of the lava tile along with a light to represent the lava.
The second tile simply toggles the candle light.
47B. Water Cell
Here I do something very sneaky. I basically make a tile (jDiSAUTMpQRUrxaM in the images below) disappear by hiding it's visibility and setting it's height to 1. I didn't want to move the water tile too far away, so it actually stays in place, but has its height set to 1 so I can clearly see the room when not using it.
The other tiles cycle the water image and turn off the candle light.
47D. Earth Cell
Here I use an active tile to toggle the visibility of the trap. That's all.
49A. Stone Slabs
Similar to other stone blocks, I just use the 49a tiles to toggle the Stone Slabs.
52. Throne Room
For this I simply have a tile that, when clicked by the GM, manually activates the "floor" tile, causing it to change to the next image.
54. Rolling Doom
For 54A, I have an active tile to toggle the visibility of the chest, activating when a GM clicks it.
For 54B, I have an active tile that hides the granite ball and moves it to it's starting position.
For 54C, I have two tiles. The acid pit tile triggers when a player enters, pausing the game, showing the tile, and setting elevation of tokens within to -10. The "54C" tile hides the tile.
Finally, I have this tile, which triggers on a double click from the GM, causing the granite ball to appear, move towards the acid pit, triggering the crushed chest and acid pit while moving.
55. Unkh's Tomb
This active tile is really long, but all it essentially does is teleport the triggering token (who touched the carving) into the maze, then opens each of the secret doors, creating a minotaur skeleton in the room after the door opens. It can also be used to reset the secret doors, closing them all.
58. Cog of Rot
Way off screen, I have an active tile that moves the "gas overlay tile" into this area and another that moves it back.
60. Cog of Blood
Here I use active tiles to cycle between the different images for the red crystals above the portcullis and to open/close the doors.
61. Control Room
There's actually a lot I have going on here, but it's really straightforward. I have an active tile to add slime, an active tile to remove slime, an active tile to open the iron wall, an active tile to close the iron wall, an active tile to open the crawlway (moves the new tile into the right location), and an active tile to hide the crawlway.
67. Hall of the Golden Mastodon
I used some extra assets to add a "fire animation" to the room, but you can easily rotate the mastodon with an active tile by adding the following setup to the mastodon tile and having it trigger by manual activation.
I additionally added tiles to help with summoning the devils. What they do is place the devils (hidden) inside the activating tile, then add tokens within that tile to combat.
I did this for each of the rounds just to make it run a little bit smoother.
77. Death God's Nursery
I added active tiles to toggle the visibility of each of the struts, tentacles, and the soulmonger itself. I also included a tile (in the image below) that I can use to make them all disappear at once and "crash the soulmonger into the lava". The remaining part of the tile (the reset option) just shows each of the tiles and moves the "lava crashed soulmonger" tile back where the PCs can't see it.
I also made myself an "Acererak's Revenge" active tile that asks me if the Atropal is dead. If it is dead, then the misty gate light turns on, Acererak is placed in the skull tile, Acererak is added to combat, Acererak is moved so the players can see him, and a very special image of his entrance is shown to the PCs before the experience a climatic showdown.
