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15.10 Dynamic Maps: Fog of War
15.0 World & Region Maps 15.10 Dynamic Maps: Fog of War
Fog of War is Game Master only. The entire panel, and every reveal region on the map, is restricted to Game Masters and Game Owners. Map Managers cannot switch fog on, cannot draw or edit reveals, and — importantly — see the fogged map exactly as a player does. If you have a helper building your maps, they will not be able to see what your fog is hiding.

Fog of War is the dynamic map's answer to legacy tile statuses. Instead of revealing cells, you cover the whole map in fog and then draw the shapes you want to open up — a river valley, a coastline, the reach of a road. The revealed area can follow the terrain, because it isn't tied to a grid.

Turning fog on
  1. Open the map and find the Fog of War switch at the bottom of the Map Tools card. (If the card is collapsed, expand it first.)
  2. Switch it on. The whole map is now covered, and three more controls appear.
  3. Click Edit Fog of War to start revealing.
Revealing an area

While fog editing is active, the map focuses on the fog: your pins and shapes are dimmed and locked so you cannot grab them by accident, and the drawing tools narrow to the ones that make sense.

Use Area to draw a region — anything you draw in fog edit mode becomes a revealed region, not a normal shape. Draw a shape around the part of the map your party has uncovered, and the fog clears over it. Use Reshape, Move, and Delete to adjust reveals as the campaign moves.

Click Edit Fog of War again to leave fog editing and get your normal tools back.

The two checkboxes
  • Show fog while editing — controls whether the fog is drawn while you are working on the map's normal features. Untick it to get the fog out of the way and see your whole map plainly while you place pins and shapes. It does not affect fog editing itself: while Edit Fog of War is active the fog is always shown, lightened, so you can see what you are cutting away.
  • Preview player vision — the important one. It redraws the map with full-strength fog and drops every pin and shape that sits in a fogged area, so you can see how much of the world you have actually opened up. Use it before every session.
Preview player vision shows you fog, not secrets. It hides what the fog hides — but a feature you marked Secret? standing on revealed ground still shows up in the preview, with its secret marker. Players would not see it. So the preview is the right tool for checking your fog coverage, and not a complete rehearsal of the player view. For secrets, rely on the marker: anything carrying the secret eye icon is hidden from players regardless of what the preview shows.
Fog is binary

Unlike legacy tiles, which have a "Discovered" middle tier, dynamic fog has two states: revealed, or fogged. There is no partial shading. If you want to represent "they've heard of it but haven't been", do it with a pin and its notes rather than with fog.

Fog hides your features, not just your picture. This is the part people are most often surprised by, and it is a good surprise. A pin sitting in a fogged region isn't just covered up — it is never sent to the player's browser at all. You can pin out your whole world in advance, switch fog on, and reveal it region by region. Your players cannot see ahead by any means, and you never have to remember to hide anything.
Fog is per map, and it is off by default. Switching fog on for your world map does nothing for your city map. If a map is meant to be hidden, check its own fog switch — and check it with Preview player vision, not by assumption.
15.0 World & Region Maps