The RPTools family of RPG software products includes five applications. Our goal is provide software that helps you enjoy interactive gaming with humans.
Many of us grew up playing various games. It might be Monopoly or Risk, maybe Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit, or perhaps a role-playing game like Dungeons and Dragons or Traveller. But as we got older our friends left the area and the games we played to socialize and entertain ourselves fell by the wayside as we got caught up in the rat race.
No more! We have software that will help you bring back those long-ago friendships and start having fun again! A quick overview of all five applications appears below, but the rest of the document is focused on the one you've just downloaded: MapTool.
#. MapTool - virtual tabletop gaming application
**MapTool** is an online, multiplayer, programmable, interactive, and
cross-platform application that allows collaborative gaming such as role-playing games, boardgames, card games, dice games, and much more.
It has been translated into many languages and new translations are
submitted by our users all the time. As of this writing the included languages are English (the primary one), Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, and Chinese.
#. TokenTool - digital gaming token creation tool
**TokenTool** is a simple graphical program for creating "tokens",
digital versions of miniatures that can be used with MapTool or any other virtual tabletop application, such as Roll20 and d20Pro.
#. CharacterTool - character management tool
**CharTool** is a character management tool. It will manage all
aspects of character creation and advancement for those game systems which have a template available. Seasoned users can create their own templates to add to the available game systems or create their own unique system.
#. InitiativeTool - initiative tracker (mostly for combat encounters)
**InitTool** will manage the turn-by-turn sequencing that many
game systems use. Characters can be created in CharTool and dragged into InitTool when needed.
#. DiceTool - feature-rich dice-rolling application
**DiceTool** is a (not so) simple dice rolling application. Users can
develop their own custom dice rolling functions and implement any dice rolling scheme they can think up! DiceTool comes preloaded with a variety of game systems already implemented.
One of our forum users, brad, has put together a series of a dozen or so short screencast videos. They are categorized first by who is most likely to use them, players or the game master. A second level of categorization involves functionality: what do you want to do? The videos are generally short, none are more than 8-9 minutes, and all are narrated so that each part of the graphical interface is explained. You can find them on the Tutorials page on our main web site.
We suggest you start on the FAQ page of our web site for basic questions. For more involved questions you may want to register on our forums where you can search for others who have experienced the problem (and likely find your solution) or start a new thread with your own question. (Please do search though, as it helps us keep the forums from having many repetitive threads on the same topic!)
If you choose to ask your question on our forum, please include the output generated when you use the Help > Gather System Info... option from the MapTool menu. There is information there that is important in helping us diagnose the problem you're having. (Some people like to redact portions of the output. Just be aware that we only include important parts and removing portions of it might mean you won't get your problem solved.)
All of the RPTools applications are programmed in Java and can be used on any platform supporting Java 6 or later, although we are rapidly moving towards requiring Java 8. Specifics on where to find Java for your platform are available at Oracle's website. We strongly recommend that you use 64-bit Java on 64-bit operating systems and 32-bit Java on 32-bit operating systems.
MapTool requires at least 256MB of memory for itself. This number is NOT the amount of physical memory in the machine, but is the amount of memory needed just by this application. Larger memory sizes will allow for larger, more intricate maps.
Because Java was initially developed for standalone applications, it requires that upper and lower memory limits be set when Java applications are executed. We have provided a graphical configuration tool to help with this called MapTool Launcher, or just MTL for short. A full description of how to choose memory settings is beyond the scope of this document, but you can find more information on our forums in the MapTool category.
#. Download the Application
You can visit the
Downloads page and download the ZIP file for your platform (Windows, OS X, or Linux). (Stay away from ones marked B. Those were released and then later found to have one or more issues that make them unsuitable for most users.)
#. Unpack the ZIP file somewhere on your computer
Do not try to run the application from inside the ZIP file
because it won't work!
When you extract the contents be sure to
extract full directory names. Some files stored in the archive are in subdirectories and the application won't work correctly unless that structure is preserved.
#. Execute the application
Once unpacked, you can navigate to that folder (a.k.a. "directory")
and double-click the MapTool Launcher file to start it. It has a filename extension of .jar (it's a Java archive).
The **MapTool Launcher** has its own documentation. Look in
the doc subdirectory for the HowTo guide.
The best place to find information on MapTool is our web site. Start at the Tutorial page and check out the screencasts created by one of our forum users. They are very helpful! Try out the things you see in the screencast while the video is playing and don't be afraid to pause the video or rewind it. The author moves at a pretty good clip because he knows you can pause!
You'll also find our forums to be an excellent place to ask questions and receive answers. We have a very large community of people willing to share their experiences on technical issues as well as big picture questions regarding how to use MapTool.
That's it! Thank you for joining us at RPTools and we hope you have a successful foray into the world of online virtual gaming!